Bloody Iraq & Its Future: Part I

By Alan Shapiro
 

• Iraq and the United States: The Road to War includes a capsule history of Iraq, a profile of Saddam Hussein, the weapons of mass destruction issue and the United Nations
• A Democratic Iraq? includes a capsule history of Iraq and discussion of the prospects for democracy in that country
• American Misconceptions about the War on Iraq covers Bush administration statements during the period before the war and public opinion polls
• American Treatment of Iraqi and Afghan Prisoners and American Treatment of Iraqi and Afghan Prisoners: Who Is to Blame? cover charges of abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere and determining responsibility

Iraq: What Is Going Right and What Is Going Wrong?

• Restoring and repairing the electric power grid, bridges, water systems, sewage systems, the Baghdad telephone system and providing new railroad track construction. Iraq now has more electric power capacity than it did before the war.
• Repairing and rehabilitating health clinics and hospitals and more than 2,400
• schools; providing desks, chairs, books and other furniture and supplies for schools.
• Vaccinating over 3 million children and 700,000 pregnant women; supplying doses of Vitamin A for more than 600,000 children and 1.5 million lactating mothers.
• Providing teacher, health educator, and administrator training.
• Restoring marshland devastated by Saddam Hussein in vengeance against the people who lived and worked there.
• Expanding tracts of land for farming, providing high-quality wheat seed to farmers, and vaccinating animals.
• Supporting the development of local and national Iraqi governing councils and preparations for national elections.
• Helping local groups to tackle a variety of community projects.

• Shiite Muslims, most of whom live in the south and make up about 60 percent of the country's population of 25,000,000
• Sunni Muslims, who live in the central area of Iraq and account for 20 percent of the population
• Kurds, mostly northerners, who also make up some 20 percent of Iraq's people

• Looting. After the American invasion, there were not enough soldiers to prevent widespread, uncontrolled Iraqi looting. Libraries, museums, theaters, and universities,were stripped of priceless books and archaeological treasures, computers, and furniture. Stockpiles of munitions were taken from weapons depots. And biological agents and radiological material was stolen from public health institutions. Now a rising insurgency has attracted fighters and terrorists to Iraq.
• Kidnappings and execution-style murders of Iraqis. Everyone from laundresses to interim government ministers associated with the American occupation have been kidnapped and executed. Insurgents regularly attack and kill American-trained Iraqi police and other security forces and are responsible for car bomb explosions at police stations and other security facilities. They also attack Shiite Muslim leaders and mosques in what appears to be an attempt to foment civil war with Sunni Muslims, many of them former supporters of Saddam Hussein.
• Danger for U.S. forces. On December 21,as soldiers were eating lunch at their military base in Mosul, a suicide bomber exploded a powerful bomb that ripped through their large tent. Twenty-two people were killed, including fourteen U.S. troops. Dozens of others were wounded. Road bomb explosions amid American truck and military convoys carrying supplies, soldiers, and Marines are frequent. For example, the 20-kilometer road between the Baghdad International Airport and the heavily fortified Green Zone is the most dangerous road in Iraq. (Included in the Green Zone are offices and housing for hundreds of American Embassy employees and the headquarters for the Iraqi provisional government.) This crucial road is so insecure that supplies and troops are being ferried, at high expense, by helicopters. If the U.S. cannot ensure security for its troops in their mess hall or on a road between the major Iraqi airport and its own headquarters, how can it ensure the safety of Iraqis at thousands of polling places on January 30?
• Difficulties training Iraqi forces. According to President Bush, the U.S. has had only "mixed" success in training Iraqi security forces. It was "unacceptable," he said, that some Iraqi units had fled when they faced insurgent fire, and "the whole command structure necessary to have a viable military is not in place." (12/20/04) While as of November 2004 the U.S. military had recruited and trained 114,000 Iraqis for security forces, they are "bottom level," in the view of Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, who had recently returned from a visit to Iraq (12/19/04). Targeting American-trained Iraqi security forces, insurgents have killed hundreds of police officers over the past year. Many Iraqi police officers now wear face masks while on duty because they are so frightened of retribution. (New York Times, 12/29/04)
• Poor decision-making. Paul Bremer, the former chief American administrator in Iraq, disbanded without pay the Iraqi army, creating a new army of 350,000 unemployed men ripe for the insurgency. He added to that insurgency by banning the hiring of members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, many of whom had joined the party only because it was virtually required in order to get a higher-level job. Economic and social planning was mostly placed in the hands of Americans hired more for their political loyalty than for their competence and knowledge of Iraq. Congressionally authorized spending for reconstruction has been slow and at times misdirected.
• Inadequate planning. The U.S. Pentagon was not prepared for the strong Iraqi insurgency. Insurgents have repeatedly dynamited pipelines intended for oil that was supposed to pay much of the cost of the occupation. They have sabotaged electrical power facilities, leaving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis without heat and light during cold winter days and fans or air conditioning during the torrid summers. Nor did the Pentagon planners prepare sufficiently for the equipment needs of U.S. troops, notably body armor and armored vehicles. As a result, American troops have been needlessly killed and wounded.
• Growing insurgency. While it is impossible to say how many insurgents there are in Iraq, it is clear that there are thousands. They attack daily, especially in the region extending from Baghdad in central Iraq to towns to the north and west. In December 2004, every day there were many dozens of attacks. For instance, Saturday, December 4, 2004, saw the following: