UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says Iraq is gripped by civil war and admits that Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has also labeled the conflict in Iraq a “civil war” and says in hindsight he regrets his eloquent advocacy of the invasion.
A memo penned by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and leaked to the New York Times suggests US forces in Iraq are “not working well enough or fast enough”.
In short, there is no good news coming out of Iraq. Thousands of civilians are dying each month. Thousands more are fleeing their homes or leaving the country. Mass graves are regularly being uncovered.
The discovery of bodies of men assassinated by militias still with their hands tied behind their backs is almost a weekly occurrence. Roadside bombs are going off all over the place. On Sunday, three car bombs killed more than 50 bystanders.
Tomorrow an advisory issued by the Iraq Study Group, dubbed the Baker-Hamilton report, is expected to call for some 70,000 US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by 2008 and for dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors Iran and Syria.
But the group’s recommendations have already been rejected out of hand by US President George W. Bush, who insists America won’t leave Iraq before the job is done. Does he even know what the job is any more?
Many commentators are accusing him of dwelling in cloud cuckoo land, unwilling or unable to see what is startlingly obvious to everyone else. Someone should hand him the dailies once in a while or persuade him to swap his televised ball games for the nightly news.
This is turning into a tragedy of epic proportions. More than 655,000 Iraqi civilians dead, according to the Lancet; more than 3,000 coalition soldiers returned home in body bags and all this carnage at a cost of more than $380 billion.
It’s got so bad that international reporters and camera crews can no longer step foot outside the fortified green zone without the risk of being abducted. The Shiite-led Iraqi government controls only the area within its walls and is thought to be riddled with sectarian bias.
Let’s look at the positives. But wait. There are no positives unless you still hold to the deliberately implanted fantasy that Iraq is a sovereign democracy or that it matters one jot in the great scheme of things whether Saddam Hussein is hanged.
Frankly it would be in the interests of coalition leaders if he weren’t since as the days go by his crimes are beginning to pale in comparison to their own. Better not to set a precedent.
Guilt should weigh heavily on the shoulders of America and its allies. First of all they subjected a thriving modern country, known for its educational standards and top-notch medical services, to 10 years of sanctions said to be responsible for the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children.
After starving and depriving the country for developing weapons of mass destruction it didn’t even possess, they then launched a horrendous pre-emptive war beginning with “Shock and Awe” and resulting in the ongoing “civil war”.
And what’s their excuse? Oops! We were given faulty intelligence. Sorry but for those of us who still remember the fake Niger Uranium documents and Britain’s dodgy dossiers, this won’t wash.
When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, Iraq has been violated, its very heart ripped out, for no good reason. What’s been done to Iraq is a grave sin against humankind and one that will go down as such in the annals of history.
One thing is sure. Those responsible for committing these crimes cannot be the ones to save Iraq. Their actions have caused hatreds so deep the very existence of their armies in the country fuels the flames of violence.
In the same way you would not ask someone who murdered your child to baby-sit your other offspring, so the feared and resented coalition cannot be perceived as a unifying force for good.
To avoid further insult to injury, the coalition should issue a timetable for the complete withdrawal of its troops and the dismantling of military bases. The time for the US and its allies trying to save face by quitting Iraq on a winning high is long gone.
Iraq is a failed venture and it cannot be spun any other way to the satisfaction of anyone on the planet, with the possible exception of faithful Fox News’ viewers, who appear to be missing a critical gene. A quick trip over to the website of Fox News — America’s favorite news channel — and what do you see? “Principal takes male student off campus to get haircut”. “Is Britney Spears a bad role model for our kids?” “Is being drunk ever an excuse for bad behavior?” Iraq doesn’t even feature on its home page.
The only people who can save Iraq are the Iraqis themselves. The Americans insist that pulling out their troops will lead to increased bloodshed.
I’m probably in the minority but I believe just the opposite will occur.
The coalition expected to be greeted with flowers and candies as they came in which didn’t manifest. I’m no clairvoyant but I’ll hazard this prediction. They’ll be pelted with flowers and candies when they finally march out. Only when the US and friends have departed can the Iraqis finally pick up the shards of their broken lives and begin to piece them together.
