Iraq -- two years after invasion

Iraq, today, is a wreck. It is a living hell for its inhabitants. Tens of thousands of them, who by the way, did no harm to the United States, have been slaughtered by American forces. Entire cities have been flattened by American bombardment. Many thousands are being held as prisoners under appalling conditions in sinister places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. No one exactly knows the exact number of prisoners who have been tortured to death. While preaching incessantly freedom, democracy, rule of law and due process, the policy of "extraordinary rendition" has been applied by the Americans to kidnap and torture innocent civilians.

Most of Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed, including that of the petroleum industry. Unemployment is so high that people risk their lives to get any job that would give them a regular income. Food and water are scarce. Under the best of circumstances, electricity is available only for a few hours. The sewage system does not work. There is no security. Violent death for the Iraqis can come at any moment from the insurgents or American forces. Factionalism is rampant and a full-blown civil war is in the offing. This, in short, is the sorry state of affairs in Iraq, two years after Bush sent his tanks into Iraq. But has Bush achieved his much-publicised goal of destroying Iraq's WMD?

No, because they did not exist. Bush's own arms inspectors have failed to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This was confirmed in a report signed by Charles Duelfer, a US arms inspector, who acted as head of the Iraq Survey Group. It should be mentioned here that the UN weapons inspectors, who before the start of the invasion had found no WMD in Iraq, were completely discredited by the Bush administration and had been barred from entering Iraq since the start of the invasion. So much for Bush's principal rationale for invading Iraq. Now what about establishing democracy in Iraq?

I confess, I have been rather bemused by some pseudo-scholarly discussions in the Western media about how democratic the recently held Iraqi election has been and how it would advance the cause of freedom in Iraq and beyond. How can democracy be introduced at the point of a bayonet by an occupier? Actually this so-called election was very much like the one held in Vietnam under another American administration. They were organised not to give freedom to the people but "to further entrench the occupier's interests".

This was a "secret" election. Everything was a secret. According to the Washington Post, "almost none of the 7700 candidates for the National Assembly campaigned publicly or even announced their names". Only people, who knew who they were, were the Americans. All of them were vetted by the occupying power -- a fine example of how a free election should be conducted! So the voters did not know who the candidates were, what their programmes were and until the last minute where the polling stations were. There were no impartial international outside observers present to certify the veracity of the results. This election was a sham.

All the new instruments of governance including the electoral law and the election commission depended entirely on the occupying power and its hand-picked stooges. Is it not true that after all the talk of seeking collaboration from the United Nations in finding an interim government, at the last moment Lakhdar Brahimi, the special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, was completely side-tracked and the person appointed to the prime minister's position was no other than Iyad Allawi, a CIA-linked politician who had earned the friendship and trust of Bush's pro-consul Bremer? Brahmini, who spent weeks talking to many religious and political groups trying to find some sort of consensus on who should lead the interim government, was not even consulted when Bremer chose Allwai. In spite of all this, Bremer did not want to take any chances with the outcome of the election. He saw to it that whatever government that emerges out of this election will be circumscribed in its actions by the laws decreed by him before he left Baghdad, last year.

Now let us look at the election itself. Was it such a huge success as the American spin masters would like us to believe? Reading some of these self-congratulatory reports in the American press, one may even reach the conclusion that for the greater good of the Iraqis, it was perfectly legitimate for Bush to violate all international laws and invade their country.

Iraq has got a population of roughly 28 million people, of which approximately 60 per cent are Shiites and 35 per cent Sunnis (including Arabs and Kurds). Because of past British colonial policy the Sunni Arabs had until the invasion exercised power in Iraq. The Shiites were discriminated against and the Kurds were persecuted. Therefore, the Kurds, who have been allowed to set up autonomous regions in the North by the occupying power and who now nurture the hope of independence were the only ones who voted massively (80%) in this election. The Shiites, despite their being the majority group, have so far been marginalised. Now they see an opportunity to gain power. Although fiercely anti-American, they feel that the Americans are helping them in an indirect manner to come to power. Their leader Grand Ayatulla Sistani asked them to participate in the election with the assurance that once the new Shiite majority government is formed, it will insist on a clear timetable for the Americans to leave.

So, as far as hard facts are concerned, we know that of the total number of registered voters (14 million), 8.5 million people voted, which gives us a percentage of 60. But it does not take into account the total number of eligible voters, which according to most observers was 20 million. So the percentage of eligible voters who actually cast their votes was a little more than 42.

A further analysis will show that the real percentage of Arab voters was even smaller. Of the three million Kurdish eligible voters, 2.2 million went to the polls. If we deduct 2.2 million Kurdish voters from 8.5 million, the total number of Arab voters was approximately 6.3 million (most of whom were Shiites because the Sunnis boycotted the election), which was roughly 37 per cent of the total number of Arab eligible voters. If one deducts the number of people who cast their votes because they, one way or the other, depend on the huge American military and civilian apparatus in Iraq for their survival, the real number of Iraqis who freely exercised their votes was even less. However, I must mention that it is not my intention to underestimate the courage of the Shiite people, whatever their number was, who freely cast their votes against such odds, hoping that it would bring an early end to the occupation.

This also demonstrates the desperate situation of the Iraqis. They are prepared to grab any opportunity which might eventually give them back some semblance of normal life in the midst of all this chaos. So much for Bush's stated goals for the invasion. Let us be frank about it. I am inclined to agree with Joseph T Seigle and Morton H. Halperin, when they say, "The essential point is that establishing democracy was not the rationale for these military interventions. It has always been an after-the-fact justification for other priorities..."

The real reasons for starting this illegal and immoral war were first, to turn Iraq into a client state whose government would allow the establishment of permanent American military bases in Iraq to protect Israeli and American interests and second, to control Iraq's huge oil reserves. So the question is: How is Bush doing as far as these real goals are concerned?

At first glance, one may be tempted to conclude that he is doing quite well. A Shiite-Kurdish coalition government will most probably emerge out of this so-called election. Iraqi security forces (mainly Shiites) are being trained to do the fighting and dying for the Americans. Military bases are being built at a breakneck pace to house American forces, who from behind will be able to control not only the Iraqi government but also intervene in neighbouring countries to protect American and Israeli interests. Although at present the oil industry infrastructure is crumbling, American military physically controls the world's second largest oil reserves. But a closer look will reveal some flaws in this conclusion. Will the Sunnis give up their fight? Will there be a civil war? Will the Shiites allow Iraq to become a client state? Will they not try to repeal Bremer's decrees? Will they accept American bases on Iraqi soil? Will they accept American control of Iraqi oil reserves? How soon will they ask for an end of the occupation? Will the Turks accept the rise of Kurdish power on their borders with good grace? These are difficult questions to answer now with any degree of certainty. But two things look fairly certain, there will be no peace in Iraq in the foreseeable future and that the Americans will try to use this as an excuse to prolong their stay in Iraq as long as possible.