Patrick Cockburn on Baghdad
http://counterpunch.org/patrick01252007.html
January 25, 2007 Why Bush and Gen. Petraeus are Living in a Dream World What’s Really Going on in Baghdad
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running
into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian
clothes may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the
wrong religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night. This
is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair.
Black smoke was rising over the city centre yesterday as American and
Iraqi army troops tried to fight their way into the insurgent
district of Haifa Street only a mile north of the Green Zone, home to
the government and the US and British embassies. Helicopters flew
fast and low past tower blocks, hunting snipers, and armored vehicles
maneuvered in the streets below.
Many Iraqis who watched the State of the Union address shrugged it
off as an irrelevance. “An extra 16,000 US soldiers are not going to
be enough to restore order to Baghdad,” said Ismail, a Sunni who fled
his house in the west of the city, fearing he would be arrested and
tortured by the much-feared Shia police commandos.
It is extraordinary that, almost four years after US forces captured
Baghdad, they control so little of it. The outlook for Mr Bush’s
strategy of driving out insurgents from strongholds and preventing
them coming back does not look good.
On Monday, a helicopter belonging to the US security company
Blackwater was shot down as it flew over the Sunni neighbourhood of
al-Fadhil, close to the central markets of Baghdad. Some of the five
American crew members may have survived the crash but they were later
found with gunshot wounds to their heads, as if they had been
executed on the ground.
Baghdad has broken up into hostile townships, Sunni and Shia, where
strangers are treated with suspicion and shot if they cannot explain
what they are doing. In the militant Sunni district of al-Amariyah in
west Baghdad the Shia have been driven out and a resurgent Baath
party has taken over. One slogan in red paint on a wall reads:
“Saddam Hussein will live for ever, the symbol of the Arab nation.”
Another says: “Death to Muqtada [Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist
Shia cleric] and his army of fools.”
Restaurants in districts of Baghdad like the embassy quarter in al-
Mansur, where I once used to have lunch, are now far too dangerous to
visit. Any foreigner on the streets is likely to be kidnapped or
killed. In any case, most of the restaurants closed long ago.
It is difficult for Iraqis to avoid joining one side or the other in
the conflict. Many districts, such as al-Hurriya in west Baghdad,
have seen the minority - in this case the Sunni - driven out.
A Sunni friend called Adnan, living in the neighbouring district of
al-Adel, was visited by Sunni militiamen. They said: “You must help
us to protect you from the Shia in Hurriya by going on patrol with
us. Otherwise, we will give your house to somebody who will help us.”
He patrolled with the militiamen for several nights, clutching a
Kalashnikov, and then fled the area.
The fear in Baghdad is so intense that rumors of even bloodier
battles sweep through the city. Two weeks ago, many Sunni believed
that the Shia Mehdi Army was going to launch a final “battle of
Baghdad” aimed at killing or expelling the Sunni minority in the
capital. The Sunni insurgents stored weapons and ammunition in order
to make a last-ditch effort to defend their districts. In the event,
they believe the ultimate battle was postponed at the last minute. Mr
Bush insisted that the Iraqi government, with US military support,
“must stop the sectarian violence in the capital”. Quite how they are
going to do this is not clear. American reinforcements might limit
the ability of death squads to roam at will for a few months, but
this will not provide a long-term solution.
Mr Bush’s speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by
identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful
Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian. It is
the Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was
formed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab
world as a whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni
states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by
exaggerating the Iranian threat.
Iraqis also wonder what will happen in the rest of Iraq while the US
concentrates on trying to secure Baghdad. The degree of violence in
the countryside is often underestimated because it is less reported
than in the capital. In Baquba, the capital of Diyala province north-
east of Baghdad, US and Iraqi army commanders were lauding their
achievements at a press conference last weekend, claiming: “The
situation in Baquba is reassuring and under control but there are
some rumors circulated by bad people.” Within hours, Sunni insurgents
kidnapped the mayor and blew up his office.
The situation in the south of Iraq is no more reassuring. Five
American soldiers were killed in the Shia holy city of Karbala last
Saturday by gunmen wearing American and Iraqi uniforms, carrying
American weapons and driving vehicles used by US or Iraqi government
forces. A licence plate belonging to a car registered to Iraq’s
Minister of Trade was found on one of the vehicles used in the
attack. It is a measure of the chaos in Iraq today that US officials
do not know if their men were killed by Sunni or Shia guerrillas.
US commanders and the Mehdi Army seem to be edging away from all-out
confrontation in Baghdad. Neither the US nor Iraqi government has the
resources to eliminate the Shia militias. Even Kurdish units in the
capital have a high number of desertions. The Mehdi Army, if under
pressure in the capital, could probably take over much of southern Iraq.
Mr Bush’s supposedly new strategy is less of a strategy than a
collection of tactics unlikely to change dramatically the situation
on the ground. But if his systematic demonizing of Iran is a
precursor to air strikes or other military action against Iran, then
Iraqis will once more pay a heavy price.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of ‘The Occupation: War, resistance
and daily life in Iraq’, a finalist for the National Book Critics’
Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006.