Why Iraq Could Blow up in John McCain's Face
Patrick Cockburn, CounterPunch
War on Iraq: The "surge" in Iraq isn't working, but the PR for it has --
the
truth is that Iraq could return to a bloodbath at a moment's notice.
In Baghdad the Iraqi government is eager to give the impression that peace
is returning. "Not a single sectarian murder or displacement was re****ted
in
over a month," claimed Brigadier Qasim Ata, the spokesman for the security
plan for the capital. In the US, the Surge, the dispatch of 30,000 extra
American troops in the first half of 2007, is ****trayed as having turned
the
tide in Iraq. Democrats in Congress no longer call aggressively for a
withdrawal of American troops. The supposed military success in Iraq has
been brandished by Senator John McCain as vindication of his prowar
stance.
Seldom has the official Iraqi and American perception of what is happening
in Iraq felt so different from the reality. Cocooned behind the walls of
the
Green Zone, defended by everybody from US soldiers to Peruvian and Ugandan
mercenaries, the government of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki pumps out
alluring tales of life returning to normal that border on fantasy. For
instance, Brigadier Ata made his claim that there had been no sectarian
murders or expulsions in the capital over the previous month on February
15,
but two weeks earlier, on February 1, suicide bombers, whom the government
said were al-Qa'ida, had blown themselves up killing 99 people in two bird
markets in Baghdad, both situated in largely ****a districts.
So keen are the authorities to show that Sunni and ****a have stopped
killing
each other and overall violence is down that many deaths with an obvious
sectarian motive are no longer recorded. "I think the real figure for the
number of people being killed is about twice what the government says it
is," said one local politician. He had just sent the death certificates of
the victims of sectarian killers to the military authorities, who were
steadfastly refusing to admit that anybody had died at the time and place
that the bodies were discovered.
One day after Brigadier Ata claimed that there had been no sectarian
killings or abductions over the previous month, prime minister Maliki
himself went on a walk about in central Baghdad to demonstrate just how
safe
things have become. But it was the precautions taken by Maliki's
bodyguards
which were more revealing about the real state of security in the city.
Maliki's brief venture onto the streets and out of the Green Zone took
place
in the al-Mansur district of west Baghdad. This is an area of big houses
and
many embassies, but has been heavily fought over by Sunni and ****a in the
past year. "I was in Mansur on Saturday afternoon," an Iraqi friend told
me,
"when, at about 3.15pm, I noticed a strange movement in the street, which
was suddenly flooded by soldiers in green uniforms, led by generals and
colonels, who were checking parked cars and all the buildings." Minutes
later a large convoy of vehicles appeared, with three US army Humvees in
front and behind, and, in the middle, five black armoured four wheel
drives
They stopped in front of a famous ice cream shop called al-Ruwaad, but for
fifteen minutes nobody got out of the vehicles as soldiers searched all
the
shops nearby. When officials and their guards did begin to emerge Maliki
was
in the middle of them and began to walk around.
"Everybody was scared when they saw him because they thought his presence
might lead to an attack," re****ted my friend. "Some women began to run
away
and I thought it was too dangerous for me to stay. I heard that Maliki
gave
500,000 Iraqi dinars [200] each to a woman who said her husband had been
killed in a bomb explosion and a blind beggar." Maliki also bought two
suits
from a well-known shop called Mario Zengotti, which promptly shut down,
the
owner presumably calculating that Baghdad is full of people who might kill
him for selling clothes to the prime minister.
Baghdad is 'better' than it was, but the improvement is only in comparison
to the bloodbath of 2006 when 3,000 people were being killed every month.
People stay inside their own Sunni or ****a ghettoes. I drove one night
through west Baghdad at 8 pm, sitting in the back of a police car with a
second military vehicle full of heavily armed soldiers and police behind.
Though I was driving in the heart of the capital I saw only three civilian
cars during a three or four mile journey through a maze of military
checkpoints and fortifications. In ****a-dominated east Baghdad, where
there
has been less fighting, there are more shops open but few customers.
Overall
the city the city is still frozen in fear. The growth in the number of
checkpoints is not entirely good news because it has always been a
favorite
tactic of kidnappers and death squads to set up fake checkpoints to stop
and
identify potential victims. More reassuring is the knowledge that the
Mehdi
Army militiamen, the military wing of ****a clerics Muqtada al-Sadr's
movement, who killed so many Sunni at the height of the slaughter, are
still
abiding by a strictly-enforced six month ceasefire on the orders of their
leader. The killings have not stopped but there are less of them.
Much more;
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/79037/?page=entire
While America has been snoozing, Bush has been arming all sides in Iraq
and
the **** is gonna hit the fan. Al Sadr continued his cease-fire for
another
6 months, but that can be rescinded at any time.
This is the "elephant in the room" - the thing nobody wants to talk about.
But Patrick Cockburn, who knows what he's talking about, is absolutely
right
about this thing being very volatile.
And when it blows up, it will be a full-scale, all-out civil war and our
troops will be in the middle of it. The government in Baghdad is very
weak,
and the factions have not even come close to working out their
differences,
and that will come to a head, sooner rather than later, I presume. Perhaps
before the election and McCain can't stop it.
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