Lest they forget Iraq

Bush out, Obama in and Iraq forgotten. On March 20, the sixth anniversary of the US occupation of Iraq, which was once a sovereign nation, came and went but there was little media hype. Probably, Iraq is no longer an issue for the Americans, since President Barack Obama who won the race for the White House on his anti-war credentials, has vowed to withdraw US troops from the oil-rich country by August 2010. So they let the president do his job his own way. The Americans have more pressing problems to worry about. It’s the economy stupid.

But Obama does not appear to be intent on ending the US occupation of Iraq. He is seen to be continuing the George W. Bush agenda which envisaged a permanent US presence in Iraq even after the August 2010 deadline for combat troop withdrawal.

On the sixth anniversary of this gruesome invasion that warrants a special tribunal to try former US president George W. Bush and his European lapdogs for war crimes, the main question facing Iraq is: Will the Americans ever leave Iraq? According to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which the Bush administration and the puppet Iraqi government signed in December last year, the US presence in Iraq can go on as long as Washington wants it to, notwithstanding the 2011 deadline set out in the agreement. The agreement also calls for a withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities by June this year.

Giving a new twist to his promise to withdraw US troops within 16 months of coming to office, President Obama now says he will withdraw “combat forces” by August 2010 and the rest by December 2011. By making a distinction between combat troops and non-combat troops, Obama is simply falling in line with the Bush-neocon agenda. Under the Obama plan some 35,000-50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq till December 2011 — for 33 more months. But his plan does not guarantee a US-troops-free Iraq after December 2011.

It all depends on how the United States interprets Article 27 of SOFA. This article empowers the United States to “take appropriate measures, in the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq.”

Given the volatility of Iraq and neighbouring countries — with their myriad problems ranging from the Palestinian question to Iran’s nuclear programme — anything but peace is possible in West Asia. The US, if it wants, can interpret the political tension inside Iraq or outside it as a threat against Iraq and prolong its presence in Iraq.

Another tricky area in the Obama jargon and SOFA was the definition of “combat forces”. Usually every soldier in any army is battle trained. Therefore, the withdrawal of “combat forces” does not mean that Washington intends to keep some 35,000-50,000 members from the Salvation Army. All those American troops who will remain till December 2011 are soldiers, trained to kill and ready to be deployed at the shortest notice. The Obama team has names for these troops who will remain in Iraq after the August 2010 deadline: “Advisory and Assistance Brigade”. “Brigades Enhanced for Stability Operations” and “Training and Support Units”.

As the names themselves indicate, the soldiers will be available to assist the Iraqi government in its fight against insurgents or those who seek the ouster of US troops. In other words, the US military operations in Iraq will not cease even after the withdrawal of combat forces by August 2010.

About one thousand of these soldiers will be guarding the green zone, where the United States’ has built a 104-acre fortress, which is diplomatically called an embassy — a complex in downtown Baghdad which is second to Vatican City only by three acres. Other US troops will be manning bases outside Baghdad. But it is naïve to think they will be restricting their role only to providing training to Iraqi troops. There is little guarantee that these bases would not be used for hostile action against Iraq’s neighbours, especially Iran and Syria or as listening posts to spy on even friendly countries like Saudi Arabia.

Thus there is reason to believe that the US military presence in Iraq will be more or less permanent. Obama is steering the ship which George W. Bush and his neocon hawks launched. The objective of the voyage was not so much the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein. It was more about establishing permanent military bases in Iraq and West Asia and taking control of the oil resources of the region.

It is not for nothing that the United States has spent more than US$ 600 billion and lost more than 4200 troops in the past six years.

The invasion has enabled the United States set up permanent military facilities not only in Iraq but also in Kuwait and Qatar. Today, Iraq has become a puppet state, just like most of its Arab neighbours. The Nouri al-Maliki government enacts laws that allow US oil companies to gobble up Iraq’s national wealth. Maliki apparently does what his masters in Washington command. He has become so servile that he recently declared that, despite a June deadline for withdrawing US combat troops from Iraqi cities, none of them would be removed from any city in which there remained a potential for conflict. Won’t such statements be music to neocon ears?

So, in a way, Bush was right in exclaiming “Mission Accomplished” in May 2003. Now Obama is working towards the same objectives while misleading the American public and the rest of the world, telling them that he is withdrawing the troops. The only difference between Bush and Obama is that Bush’s approach was crude while Obama’s is subtle and wrapped in words of niceties. Didn’t someone say that the Republicans and the Democrats are two sides of the same coin?

It appears that Obama is continuing the neocolonialist project of the neocons, though the American public voted him into office in the belief that he would get the hell out of Iraq. Surely, those who voted for Obama must be a disappointed lot.

The ground realities also show that the war in Iraq is far from over. Though the intensity of violence has simmered down, the death toll keeps climbing. According to the Information Clearing House website which gives the news that CNN or Fox News would not give, as of yesterday 1,320,110 Iraqis have died since the beginning of the war which Bush started lying to the Americans that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links with those who masterminded the 9/11 attacks. The death toll read together with the number of Iraqis who have been displaced — 5 million — makes the catastrophe apocalyptic. Even to describe the devastation as a war crime is an understatement by any standards.

And there is no end to the killings or bombings. A recent survey the aid group Oxfam conducted among Iraqi women shows more than 55 percent had been victims of violence since 2003. Some 25 percent said they had no daily access to drinking water and a one third of those surveyed said that they had electricity only for three hours or less a day, while two thirds had electricity six hours or less. About 40 percent said that their children were not attending school.

If this is what Iraq is today, the question that arises is what the United States has been doing in Iraq for the past six years? The Bush administration touted its mission in Iraq as one of liberating the Iraqi people. Where is that liberation? If Iraqis are living without electricity and access to potable water, what reconstruction have the Americans carried out in Iraq? What has happened to the money the American taxpayers poured into Iraq and the Iraqi government’s oil income, part of which was used to pay US firms that supposedly rebuilt the country which the Americans destroyed? Of course, the war helped US companies like Halliburton and Bechtel — companies connected to Bush administration officials — fill their coffers.

Stuart Bowen, the inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, in a March 16 interview with the CBS said, “Thirty-two billion dollars later, we don’t know a whole lot about what’s happened to that money.” What more proof is required to say that the Iraq war was a capitalist agenda reeking of corruption?

With the United States struggling to extricate itself from the economic crisis that shows no signs of a let-up, the Obama administration is unlikely to swerve from the imperialistic course charted by the Bush administration. Iraq being the land with the world’s second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia is certainly any imperialist’s jewel in the crown.