Message on Iraqi oil: Invasion has backfired

Four years after the invasion of Iraq

Amit Baruah

The U.S. has all but lost the war in Iraq. Suicide bombings, sniper attacks, car blasts, and the downing of American helicopters have become commonplace. The worst sufferers are the ordinary Iraqis.

ON MARCH 20, 2003, when the United States and its "coalition of the willing" began the bombing of Baghdad, President George W. Bush was supremely confident that his "experiment" in Iraq would produce a West Asian order tailored to American requirements. Four years on, he is not so sure. The invasion has backfired on the United States and its President. The world is questioning American power as never before. The worst fears (and more) expressed by independent analysts in the run-up to the invasion have come true. Iraq is a mess with a civil war eating into the vitals of the once-vibrant society.

The U.S. has all but lost the war in Iraq, where the people are the victims. Suicide bombings, sniper attacks, car blasts, the occasional downing of an American helicopter, and recovery of bodies of those presumably killed in sectarian attacks, have become commonplace. That is Iraq for the outside world. As this piece was being written, the news came in that Taha Yassin Ramadan, deposed Vice-President of Iraq, was hanged in Baghdad in the early hours of Tuesday.

"The execution took place at 3:05 a.m. at a prison at an Iraqi army and police base, which had been the headquarters of Saddam’s military intelligence, in a predominantly Shiite district in northern Baghdad. Ramadan had been in U.S. custody but was handed over to the Iraqis about an hour before the hanging," the Associated Press reported from Baghdad. Mr. Ramadan’s trial, an independent United Nations’ legal expert said days before the execution, violated international human rights standards and principles. Leandro Despouy, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said the trial violated "in particular the right to be tried by an independent and impartial tribunal and the right to adequate defence," as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Clearly, it is the justice of the occupier. Whether or not Ramadan or Saddam Hussein was guilty of human rights abuses is not the issue here. The issue is that neither got the trial he deserved.

President Bush has squandered all the sympathy and understanding in the wake of 9/11 by the ill-advised and disastrous invasion of an independent and sovereign Iraq. Nor is the U.S. able to understand the dynamics of a society that has shown tremendous resilience in resisting American occupation, all its "power" notwithstanding. The late "surge" in Baghdad, promised by Mr. Bush and his new generals in charge of Iraq, is not going to bring in the "stability" the U.S. so desperately seeks before it can declare victory and pull out. It is probably true Al-Qaeda terrorists are active in the sectarian mayhem that has been let loose in Iraq. It is also probably true that Al-Qaeda has masterminded many attacks on American military personnel in Iraq.

But, it is also true that the principal message from the Iraqis is this: they want the Americans out of their country. Now. The Iraqi people cannot be blamed for what Al-Qaeda is doing. The Iraqis just want their country back. They also want their sovereignty and dignity back. But resisting occupation and fighting a nationalist war has been equated with terrorism. Whatever their differences, the Shias and the Sunnis are united on one issue: they want the Americans to leave. They view the occupation as the problem, not the solution.

A mirage

The promised reconstruction of Iraq has proved to be a mirage. Even the coalition media are full of reports that power supply to Baghdad has not been restored even four years after the occupation. In a recent piece written for the BBC’s website, senior journalist John Simpson stated that the "most common sound you hear in the streets today is the insistent racket of small private generators." An occupying force, which has failed to deliver a utility as common as power supply to the people (something the Iraqis enjoyed under the Saddam Hussein regime), can hardly be expected to bring peace, democracy, calm, and stability to a shattered nation.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates, about 1.9 million Iraqis are internally displaced while up to two million have taken refuge in neighbouring states, principally Syria and Jordan. "Many were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now. Egypt hosts an estimated Iraqi population of more than 100,000, and in 2006 Iraqis had become the leading nationality seeking asylum in Europe," UNHCR added.

According to the U.N. agency, by early 2007, internal displacement is "estimated to be continuing at a rate of up to 50,000 a month." Yet another indicator of the insecurities created by the Anglo-American alliance in Iraq. The handful of coalition-nation journalists who have tried to report the truth in Iraq have said it is almost impossible for presspersons to move around in the country. Either you move with the Americans or with the security personnel.

It is well known that the invasion of Iraq was also about oil. Writing in the International Herald Tribune of March 14, 2007, Antonia Juhasz, an oil industry analyst, said a new law to be passed by the "puppet regime" in Baghdad would leave the Iraqi National Oil Company with just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oilfields. "The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalised model closed to American oil companies except for limited [although highly lucrative] marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatised, that is fully open to all international oil companies," Ms. Juhasz argued.

"The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq’s current `instability’ by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country," the article added. Not only are the Iraqis being attacked and murdered in their own country, they are in grave danger of losing control of the one resource, which they possess in abundant measure — oil.

As far as Mr. Bush is concerned, some of the smugness that marked his approach to Iraq has vanished. The Americans are now in touch with Iran, a member of the "axis of evil." They are also talking to another member of Mr. Bush’s "axis of evil" — North Korea.

On May 1, 2003, Mr. Bush, standing behind a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished," proclaimed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."

On March 19, 2007, Mr. Bush had a slightly different take on Iraq when he remarked, "Prevailing in Iraq is not going to be easy." According to him, terrorists could emerge from the chaos with a "safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they had in Afghanistan, which they used to plan the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. For the safety of the American people, we cannot allow this to happen." What Mr. Bush is saying is American troops have to stay in Iraq so that it does not become another Afghanistan.

But the real question Mr. Bush has to answer is this: who is responsible for turning Iraq into Afghanistan over four years?

http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/21/sto...

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