Highly ornate languageLatest expression of the U.S.administration political failure [Archives:2003/655/Opinion]

Mohammed Khidhr
After its apparently prompt failure in deceiving the Iraqi people about its real intentions and goals for invading and occupying their country, and in response to escalating and growing waves of rejection of the tragic situation in Iraq among Arab peoples, the U.S. administration is presently trying to apply some cosmetics to its face. It seems the American administration has given its instructions to its diplomatic missions abroad, particularly in the Arab and Islamic countries to start a counter- campaign in an attempt to dissipate Arabs' and Muslims' skepticism about the American administration neo-colonialist policy it has began in Iraq to gradually advance on other parts of the Arab region. Hence, came the activity of some American ambassadors in those countries by publishing articles or open letters explaining their policy in Iraq after the occupation. They are articles overflowing with the most beautiful phrases depicting the good and humane intentions of the United States, as it pretends to be the '' messenger of peace, democracy and freedom'' to the world of the 21st century.
In this context came the latest letter by the American ambassador to Yemen Mr Edmund Hull that has been published recently in almost in all Yemeni newspapers.
In the whole article of Mr. Hull he does not admit that his country's administration and that of Mr. Blair of Britain have sent their armies with sophisticated weapons to invade and occupy a country despite the refusal of the world community represented by the United Nations, all peoples of the world including the American and British peoples. The whole affair was an illegitimate act and a decision taken by two world big powers for goals and intentions quite contrary to what had been declared by the two administrations, while campaigning for their military campaign. The U.S. and Britain have launched an aggression on an independent sovereign state, member in the United Nations Organisation and not in a state of war with either of them. All justifications they had given were false and fabricated and time has proved that months after the occupation. The United States of America, which has become very proud and arrogant because of its military and economic might, has in its plans certain goals to achieve in certain parts of the world and therefore it is working for implementing them in an organized phased manner. For this reason it creates and fabricates causes and circumstances paving the way for that end. Instead of using its power as a sole world superpower for establishing peace and stability in the world, America is using it for aggressive neo-colonialist purposes by giving to its evil intentions such bright and attractive terms as freedom and democracy, thinking that peoples they are addressing are so naive to believe it.
American and British allies attacked Iraq in one of he most savage way using the most sophisticated lethal weapons against a country ravaged by more than a war and thirteen years of harshest sanctions ever implemented against any country in modern history of he world. For 21 days running the allied forces bombed Iraq from sea, air and land with all types of bombs, missiles weighing hundreds of tons of destructive explosions, not differentiating between military and civilian targets and even residential quarters. The war caused thousands of civilian casualties to the Iraqi people whom they came to ''liberate'' from its despotic regime. The regime was so weak that even the allies were shocked by the speed of its fall to their forces; nevertheless the allies boasted their victory as if defeating a formidable power. The speedy collapse of the regime in Iraq is a clear evidence of not possessing any sophisticated weapons, either defensive or offensive because otherwise it would have used them in defense of itself. The only plan in the minds of the American-British allies was those of the war and how to win it against Iraq. What to do immediately after that, they have not put in their minds. All previous indications suggested that the two invading governments had planned the war on Iraq for some years before beginning it.
The Anglo-American forces falsely claimed that they would hit only military targets and palaces of the regime and whatever targets falling under the military effort. But in practice they did not spare hospitals, schools, worshipping places, civilian communications and civilian residential houses. In their military campaign they destroyed everything and all civilian and economic and services infrastructure.
After the allies had full control of the country and removed the regime they turned to the people of Iraq whom they came to liberate.
Now what is happening in Iraq since April 9, the day the Saddam regime in Iraq has fallen? Since that first day large numbers of criminals and looters took to the streets from nowhere looting and burning and destroying government buildings and places and whatever came in their way, even museums and libraries, all of which the occupying armies left unguarded. All those crimes were being committed while the American and British soldiers stood watching them without uttering a single word for preventing those crimes. All what concerned them was their safety against any possible attack by anybody. International conventions stipulate that the occupying forces bear the responsibility of providing safety and security for the people of the occupied country and protection for its institutions and infrastructure. All that was violated by the Anglo-American occupying forces. Throughout all the months following the fall of the regime in Iraq, there are still no security, no stability, no basic services and no organized life in Iraq. The funny thing is that Mr. Hull thinks that Iraqis using their cars or leaving their homes for certain times as signs of feeling secure. Chaos would not have occurred had the coalition forces imposed their control on the streets and prevented criminals and looters from playing havoc throughout the country.
By dissolving most of the civilian institutions and leaving millions of employees in the streets, the coalition has created millions of enemies and angry people for their presence. The people and the employees in Iraq expected new and quick developments in their favour after the fall a regime under which they have suffered all kinds of tyranny and misery. The millions of civilian employees have suddenly found themselves unemployed and for more that two months without salaries and wages to spend on their families' living. ++++And by dissolving the Iraqi army and security forces without salaries and wages for some months the American and British occupying administration has created or rather forced most of those people to organize themselves and resist the occupation that did not fulfill its promises of liberation and salvage from the tyrannical former regime.
In the civilian and the military institutions only some senior officials and high-ranking military and security commanders could have been loyal to the former regime because they were the most beneficiary of its presence. As for the rest of employees and soldiers and officers they were in fact suffering from the regime's policies but had no power to resist it or change it. All the machinery in the civilian institutions were victims of the regime's suppression and were forced to keep silent and dared not oppose its policies for fear of physical liquidation or imprisonment. When the regime was removed by the Anglo-American forces they felt happy despite the killings and destruction of their country in the hope that those forces would quickly start restoring peace and normality to their life and could quickly and freely return to their institutions and reconstruct what had been destroyed. But what the occupation administration has so far done has killed their immediate inward joy of freedom despite at the hands of an occupation force. Dissolving the Iraqi army and police force in such a hasty action was a grave mistake committed by the coalition administration and was one of the major causes of these resistance acts and attacks on the Anglo-American troops in Iraq. The U.S. interim administration in Iraq should have and must in future have sought the advice of the Iraqis inside and not to depend on the Iraqis who have for many years abroad and do not fully know the real situation and happenings inside Iraq during the reign of the former leadership. The majority of them are even not known to the Iraqis inside who think they are part of the occupying force that attacked and destroyed their country in a most destructive bloody war. That is why most of the Iraqis are opposed to the nature of the formation of the council of rule recently set up by the American administration in Iraq. They do not see them as their actual representatives and have not suffered from the former regime's policies as much as they did. This is a very important point the coalition should put in mind while drawing their policies and plans for Iraq after the Saddam regime.
The other mistake the Americans and the British have committed in Iraq is related to the Baath party. The real Baathists have been out of the regime and the party for many years and some of them from the early years after the 1968 coup. When the Americans and the British launched the war on Iraq and toppled the regime there was not a Baath party in the full sense of the word. There was a Saddam Hussein version Baath party quite alien to the actual party, but working under the banner of the Baath. Since the seventies the regime began liquidating the founding Baath leaders and institute instead of them political opportunists and puppets to be doggedly loyal to him for narrow personal interests. Millions of Iraqis were forced to join the party organization and pretend to be so because as a student you could enter the college or university you want if you are not part of the party organization and showing loyalty to it, you cannot be promoted to higher civilian positions or higher military ranks without having the passport o being part of the ruling party organization. As is the case with the armed forces only some senior party officials, especially close relatives of head of the regime, were actually loyal to the regime, the remainder majority is not. To judge all of them as loyal to the former regime is really a serious mistake and would drive them to start an underground organisation detrimental to the political life in the country and could cause harmful conflicts. The Americans and the west in general are not well aware of the political culture whether in Iraq or the Arab region as a whole. When a tyrant regime rules a Mideast country under the banner of a certain political party, and when that political party is the only permitted political power there, the people's affairs and dealings are governed by showing loyalty to that party by that people event though the people do not believe in it or are really loyal to it. That has been the case for millions of Iraqis, civilians and military, who have been compelled to pretend to be supporting or joining the Bath party (or rather more accurately the Saddam Hussein version Baath party) in Iraq, especially since the seventies of last century.
The convening of a constitutional conference in Iraq as Mr Hull mentioned in his article was a move the American administration in Iraq has failed to form in the manner satisfactory to the Iraqi people. The combination of the council recently formed was meant by the Americans to be based on sectarian an ethnical basis to for a nucleus for future conflicts inside the Iraqi political spectrum. Furthermore, most of the inside political movements, if not all, have been rather excluded from that formation. This has led the inside political movements to oppose that formation and to hold a separate conference grouping around forty political parties and organisations to adopt a clear stand and to have their say about all that is happening in Iraq since the fall of Saddam's government on 9 April 2003. The beautifully and optimistically chosen words of the American ambassador to Yemen in his article is a typical example of the void American administration promises it makes just to cover up its failure in managing the affairs in Iraq after their success in its occupation. Nothing of the promises to the Iraqi people the U.S. administration has made before and after the war on Iraq has been so far fulfilled, except the military victory over the former regime and even this is still incomplete. The image in Iraq now can be depicted as has changed from organized tyranny to a chaotic foreign military occupation where all walks of life are abnormal.
The coalition forces, under directives by their administrations, should step up all measures for restoring normal life in Iraq in an organized program, because the longer this situation continues the worse the matters would develop against their soldiers and the longer the suffering of the Iraqi people continues.
——
[archive-e:655-v:13-y:2003-d:2003-07-31-p:opinion]