Global Eye -- Die Laughing
By Chris Floyd
Friday, Aug. 29, 2003. Moscow Times

Here's a headline you don't see every day: "War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals."

 

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Where's the Apology? by Paul Krugman
Published on Friday, January 30, 2004 by the New York Times

George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.

Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified - under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less - because Saddam "did not let us in.")

So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush - and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.

True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people - including a majority of the British public, according to polls - regard that report as a whitewash.)

In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged - and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.

Let's look at three examples. First is the Valerie Plame affair. When someone in the administration revealed that Ms. Plame was an undercover C.I.A. operative, one probable purpose was to intimidate intelligence professionals. And whatever becomes of the Justice Department investigation, the White House has been notably uninterested in finding the culprit. ("We have let the earthmovers roll in over this one," a senior White House official told The Financial Times.)

Then there's the stonewalling about 9/11. First the administration tried, in defiance of all historical precedents, to prevent any independent inquiry. Then it tried to appoint Henry Kissinger, of all people, to head the investigative panel. Then it obstructed the commission, denying it access to crucial documents and testimony. Now, thanks to all the delays and impediments, the panel's head says it can't deliver its report by the original May 11 deadline - and the administration is trying to prevent a time extension.

Finally, an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general's office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence.

And the independence of the Pentagon's own inspector general's office is also in question. Last September, in a move that should have caused shock waves, the administration appointed L. Jean Lewis as the office's chief of staff. Ms. Lewis played a central role in the Whitewater witch hunt (seven years, $70 million, no evidence of Clinton wrongdoing); nobody could call her nonpartisan. So when Mr. Bush's defenders demand hard proof of profiteering in Iraq - as opposed to extensive circumstantial evidence - bear in mind that the administration has systematically undermined the power and independence of institutions that might have provided that proof.

And there are many more examples. These people politicize everything, from military planning to scientific assessments. If you're with them, you pay no penalty for being wrong. If you don't tell them what they want to hear, you're an enemy, and being right is no excuse.

Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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A model of rectitude -- that's us
By Molly Ivins; Monday, Dec 29, 2003

Well! I am certainly glad to see that we are telling off the French, Germans and Russians.
I couldn't agree more with the Bush administration that those treacherous, undependable countries should be punished for their past cooperation with Saddam Hussein by being shut out of the $18.6 billion in Iraqi reconstruction contracts. No contracts for quislings!
Someone's got to uphold standards of morality and purity, and who better than us? As the president so often reminds us, this is a fight between good and evil.
I was particularly pleased when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz took that sharp little dig at all three countries when he said that a prime consideration for who gets the contracts was "protection of the essential security interests of the United States."
And was there ever anything more inimical to our security than all those tons and tons of weapons of mass destruction we have found in Iraq? That'll teach those vodka-swilling Rooskies to think our security is not their affair. Way to go, Wolfie.
Of course, it was a little awkward that Wolfowitz gave the three Saddam-dealing nations that body slam just as former Secretary of State James Baker was setting out to ask them for money.
The beauty of our position is its moral clarity.
I was especially entranced to read about the moral case for stiffing these nations on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times in an article by Claudia Rosett, senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. It says on its Web site that the foundation is against terrorism, thus distinguishing it from all the foundations in favor of terrorism.
Rosett calls the three delinquent countries "the Axis of Avarice." Isn't that cute?
In all fairness, the senior fellow reminds us: "Remember, plenty of money flowed through Saddam Hussein's Iraq. … many countries took part in that frenzy of lending, including Japan as the No. 1 sovereign lender. Then came Russia, France and Germany and, yes, the United States as No. 5."
But surely you see the immense moral difference between being No. 5, as opposed to being 2, 3 or 4? All the difference in the world.
Rosett continues: "But in the 1990s, as the Iraqi dictator's depravities became increasingly evident to the rest of the world, that list narrowed." (Actually, his depravities had been evident to many of us as far back as the days when the Reagan administration was sending Saddam arms.)
The senior fellow continues: "Under the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, the despot got to tap his preferred business partners. … What began as a relief program for Iraqis suffering under sanctions turned into a multibillion dollar contracting business flowing through the shrouded books of the United Nations. By the end, the Russians were selling the Baathist elite luxury cars, the French were providing broadcasting equipment for the Information Ministry, and the Germans and Chinese worked on the phone system. … Old Europe's indignation over the [U.S.] list is a marvel of hypocrisy."
Speaking of marvels of hypocrisy, the U.N. books on who dealt with Iraq are not all that shrouded.
For example, one of the disgusting companies actually making profits from dealing with the despicable dictator in the 1990s -- long after his depravities had become evident to even the less-attentive sectors of the world -- was … well, golly, look at this … Halliburton.
Between 1997 and 2000, while Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the company sold $73 million worth of oilfield equipment and services to Saddam.
At least Halliburton was not selling luxury cars to the Baathist elite. The oilfield equipment company merely kept Saddam's oilfields pumping, the only thing that allowed the slimeball to stay in power.
Halliburton cleverly ran its business with Saddam through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser, to avoid the sanctions.
Unlike the Germans, the French and the Russians, Halliburton was not punished by the Bush administration for dealing with the dictator. Instead, it got the largest reconstruction contract given by this administration, with an estimated value between $5 billion and $15 billion. And the company got the contract without competitive bidding.
Halliburton has amply repaid the administration's faith. The Pentagon is now investigating the company on potentially $120 million in overcharges.
I think the French will particularly enjoy being lectured on their hypocrisy, preferably by Cheney himself. It's the kind of thing that sophisticated people especially appreciate.

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Iraq through the American looking glass
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
The IndependentDecember 26, 2003
 
Something very unpleasant is being let loose in Iraq. Just this week, a company commander in the US 1st Infantry Division in the north of the country admitted that, in order to elicit information about the guerrillas who are killing American troops, it was necessary to "instill fear" in the local villagers. An Iraqi interpreter working for the Americans had just taken an old lady from her home to frighten her daughters and grand-daughters into believing that she was being arrested.
 A battalion commander in the same area put the point even more baldly. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," he said. He was speaking from a village that his men had surrounded with barbed wire, upon which was a sign, stating: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot."
Try to explain that this treatment - and these words - offend the very basic humanity of the people whom the Americans claimed they came to "liberate" and you are met in Baghdad with the same explanation: that a very small "remnant" of "diehards" - loyal to the now-captured Saddam Hussein, etc, etc - have to be separated from the civilians whom they are "intimidating".
To point out that the intimidation is largely coming from the American occupation force - to the horror of the British in southern Iraq who fear, understandably, that Iraqi revenge will be visited upon them as it was on the Italians and the Spanish - is useless.
Instead, we are told that American troops are winning those famous hearts and minds with the spirit of Christmas. There was a grim example of this - and the inherent racism that pervades even reporting of such events - on the Associated Press wire agency just this week.
Describing how an American soldier in a Santa Claus hat was giving out stuffed animals to children, reporter Jason Keyser wrote that one 11-year- old child "looked puzzled, then smiled" as the soldier gave him a small, stuffed goat. Then the report continued: "Others in the crowd of mostly Muslims grabbed greedily at the box," adding the soldier's remark that: "They don't know how to handle generosity."
I don't doubt the soldier's wish to do good. But what is one to make of the "mostly Muslims" who "grabbed greedily" at the gifts? Or the soldier's insensitive remarks about generosity? Iraqi newspapers have been front--paging a Christmas card produced by US troops in Baghdad: "1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Wishes you a very Merry Christmas!" it says.
But the illustration is of Saddam Hussein in his scruffy beard just after his capture, with a Santa hat superimposed on top of his head. Funny enough for us, no doubt - I can't personally think of a better fall-guy for St Nicholas - but a clear insult to Sunni Arabs who, however much they may loathe the beast of Baghdad, will see in this card a deliberate attempt to humiliate Muslim Iraqis. It is for Iraqis to demean their ex-president - not their American occupiers.
It's almost as if the occupying powers want to look through Alice's looking glass. This week, we had the odd statement by British General Graeme Lamb that Saddam could be compared to the Emperor Caligula. Now the good general was probably relying on Suetonius's Twelve Caesars for his views on Caligula. But if anything, the Roman was a good deal more insane than Saddam and even more heedless of human life.
The crazy Uday Hussein, son of Saddam, might have been a more appropriate parallel. But what was all this supposed to achieve? A serious war crimes trial - preferably outside Iraq and far from the country's contaminated judiciary - is the way to define the nature of Saddam's repulsive regime.
All references to the ex-dictator as Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun or Caligula - like all suggestions that Tony Blair or George Bush are Winston Churchill - are infantile. And again, they will appear insulting to the Sunni Muslims of Iraq, the one community which the Americans should be desperate to placate, since it is the Sunnis who are primarily resisting the occupation.
But the looking-glass effect seems to have taken hold of US pro-consul Paul Bremer's entire authority. Like President George Bush, Bremer has now taken to repeating the absurdity that the greater the West's success in Iraq, the more frequent will be the attacks on American troops.
"I personally feel that we'll actually have more violence in the next six months," he said a couple of week ago, "and the violence will be precisely because of the fact that we're building momentum toward success." In other words, the better things become, the worse they're going to get. And the greater the violence, the better we're doing in Iraq.
I wouldn't worry about this nonsense so much if it wasn't mirrored on the ground in Iraq. Take the US claim - now regarded as an absurdity - that they killed "54 insurgents" in Samara a month ago. The truth is that they killed at least eight civilians and there's not a smidgen of evidence that they killed anyone else. But still they insist on sticking to the story of their great victory.
Last week, they pushed out a similar version of the same story. This time there were 11 dead "insurgents" in Samara. But when The Independent investigated, it could only find records of four dead civilians and a lot of wounded. None of the wounded - presumably "insurgents" if the Americans believe their own story - had been visited in hospital by US forces who might, if they didn't question them, at least have apologised.
An even more peculiar habit has now manifest itself among spokesmen for the occupation authorities. When a tank drove over a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City three weeks ago, they claimed this was a "traffic accident", as if driving an M1A1 Abrams tank over a car and a robed prelate is the kind of thing that can happen on any downtown street.
A few days later, after a truck-bomber crashed into a car and killed 17 civilians, the occupation lads churned out the same rubbish again. It was, they said, a "traffic accident" involving a petrol tanker. But there was no tanker attached to the lorry.
The first American troops on the scene found the grenades intended to detonate the bomb and the victims were all blasted to bits - not burned, as they would have been if the petrol tanker had simply caught fire. Those of us who reached the scene shortly after the slaughter could still smell the explosives. But it was a "traffic accident".
Only yesterday we had an equally bizarre event. Jets, C-130 aircraft mounted with chain guns, and heavy artillery were all reported to be striking "guerrilla bases" in Operation Iron Hammer south of Baghdad. But investigation proved that the targets were empty fields and that some of the heavy guns were firing blank rounds as part of an artillery maintenance routine.
So let's get this right. Insurgents are civilians. Truck bombs and tanks that crush civilians are traffic accidents. And the "liberated" civilians who live in villages surrounded by razor wire should endure "a heavy dose of fear and violence" to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Somewhere along the way, they will probably be told about democracy as well.

 

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We Caught The Wrong Guy
  By William Rivers Pitt
  t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 15 December 2003

  Saddam Hussein, former employee of the American federal government, was captured near a farmhouse in Tikrit in a raid performed by other employees of the American federal government. That sounds pretty deranged, right? Perhaps, but it is also accurate. The unifying thread binding together everyone assembled at that Tikrit farmhouse is the simple fact that all of them – the soldiers as well as Hussein – have received pay from the United States for services rendered.

  It is no small irony that Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad, the monster under your bed lo these last twelve years, was paid probably ten thousand times more during his time as an American employee than the soldiers who caught him on Saturday night. The boys in the Reagan White House were generous with your tax dollars, and Hussein was a recipient of their largesse for the better part of a decade.

  If this were a Tom Clancy movie, we would be watching the dramatic capture of Hussein somewhere in the last ten minutes of the tale. The bedraggled dictator would be put on public trial for his crimes, sentenced to several thousand concurrent life sentences, and dragged off to prison in chains.  The anti-American insurgents in Iraq, seeing the sudden futility of their fight to place Hussein back into power, would lay down their arms and melt back into the countryside. For dramatic effect, more than a few would be cornered by SEAL teams in black facepaint and discreetly shot in the back of the head. The President would speak with eloquence as the martial score swelled around him. Fade to black, roll credits, get off my plane.

  The real-world version is certainly not lacking in drama. The streets of Baghdad were thronged on Sunday with mobs of Iraqi people celebrating the final removal of a despot who had haunted their lives since 1979. Their joy was utterly unfettered. Images on CNN of Hussein, looking for all the world like a Muslim version of Charles Manson while getting checked for head lice by an American medic, were as surreal as anything one might ever see on a television.

  Unfortunately, the real-world script has a lot of pages left to be turned. Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, reached at his home on Sunday, said, “It’s great that they caught him. The man was a brutal dictator who committed terrible crimes against his people. But now we come to rest of story. We didn’t go to war to capture Saddam Hussein. We went to war to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons have not been found.” Ray McGovern, senior analyst and 27-year veteran of the CIA, echoed Ritter’s perspective on Sunday. “It’s wonderful that he was captured, because now we’ll find out where the weapons of mass destruction are,” said McGovern with tongue firmly planted in cheek. “We killed his sons before they could tell us.”

  Indeed, reality intrudes. The push for war before March was based upon Hussein’s possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 1,000,000 pounds of sarin gas, mustard gas, and VX nerve gas, along with 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, uranium from Niger to be used in nuclear bombs, and let us not forget the al Qaeda terrorists closely associated with Hussein who would take this stuff and use it against us on the main streets and back roads of the United States.

  When they found Hussein hiding in that dirt hole in the ground, none of this stuff was down there with him. The full force of the American military has been likewise unable to locate it anywhere else. There is no evidence of al al Qaeda agents working with Hussein, and Bush was forced some weeks ago to publicly acknowledge that Hussein had nothing to do with September 11. The Niger uranium story was debunked last summer.

  Conventional wisdom now holds that none of this stuff was there to begin with, and all the clear statements from virtually everyone in the Bush administration squatting on the public record describing the existence of this stuff looks now like what it was then: A lot of overblown rhetoric and outright lies, designed to terrify the American people into supporting an unnecessary go-it-alone war. Said war made a few Bush cronies rich beyond the dreams of avarice while allowing some hawks in the Defense Department to play at empire-building, something they have been craving for more than ten years.

  Of course, the rhetoric mutated as the weapons stubbornly refused to be found. By the time Bush did his little Mission Accomplished strut across the aircraft carrier, the occupation was about the removal of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of the Iraqi people. No longer were we informed on a daily basis of the "sinister nexus between Hussein and al Qaeda," as described by Colin Powell before the United Nations in February. No longer were we fed the insinuations that Hussein was involved in the attacks of September 11. Certainly, any and all mention of weapons of mass destruction ceased completely. We were, instead, embarking on some noble democratic experiment.

  The capture of Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad, feeds nicely into these newly-minted explanations. Mr. Bush and his people will use this as the propaganda coup it is, and to great effect. But a poet once said something about tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.

 "We are not fighting for Saddam," said an Iraqi named Kashid Ahmad Saleh in a New York Times report from a week ago. "We are fighting for freedom and because the Americans are Jews. The Governing Council is a bunch of looters and criminals and mercenaries. We cannot expect that stability in this country will ever come from them. The principle is based on religion and tribal loyalties," continued Saleh. "The religious principle is that we cannot accept to live with infidels. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him, said, `Hit the infidels wherever you find them.' We are also a tribal people. We cannot allow strangers to rule over us."

  Welcome to the new Iraq. The theme that the 455 Americans killed there, and the thousands of others who have been wounded, fell at the hands of pro-Hussein loyalists is now gone. The Bush administration celebrations over this capture will appear quite silly and premature when the dying continues. Whatever Hussein bitter-enders there are will be joined by Iraqi nationalists who will now see no good reason for American forces to remain. After all, the new rhetoric highlighted the removal of Hussein as the reason for this invasion, and that task has been completed. Yet American forces are not leaving, and will not leave. The killing of our troops will continue because of people like Kashid Ahmad Saleh. All Hussein’s capture did for Saleh was remove from the table the idea that he was fighting for the dictator. He is free now, and the war will begin in earnest.

  The dying will continue because America’s presence in Iraq is a wonderful opportunity for a man named Osama bin Laden, who was not captured on Saturday. Bin Laden, it has been reported, is thrilled by what is happening in Iraq, and plans to throw as much violence as he can muster at American forces there. The Bush administration spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this Iraq invasion, not one dime of which went towards the capture or death of the fellow who brought down the Towers a couple of years ago. For bin Laden and his devotees, Iraq is better than Disneyland.

  For all the pomp and circumstance that has surrounded the extraction of the former Iraqi dictator from a hole in the ground, the reality is that the United States is not one bit safer now that the man is in chains.

  There will be no trial for Hussein, at least nothing in public, because he might start shouting about the back pay he is owed from his days as an employee of the American government. Because another former employee of the American government named Osama is still alive and free, our troops are still in mortal danger in Iraq.

  Hussein was never a threat to the United States. His capture means nothing to the safety and security of the American people. The money we spent to put the bag on him might have gone towards capturing bin Laden, who is a threat, but that did not happen. We can be happy for the people of Iraq, because their Hussein problem is over. Here in America, our Hussein problem is just beginning. The other problem, that Osama fellow we should have been trying to capture this whole time, remains perched over our door like the raven.

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  William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books.

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Cluster bombs kill in Iraq, even after shooting ends
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY 12/10/03

When Jassim al-Qaisi saw the canisters the size of D batteries falling on his neighborhood just before 7 a.m. April 7, he laughed and asked himself: "Now what are the Americans throwing on our heads?" (Interactive graphic: How a cluster bomb works and more)

The strange objects were fired by U.S. artillery outside Baghdad as U.S. forces approached the Iraqi capital. In the span of a few minutes, they would kill four civilians in the al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad and send al-Qaisi's teenage son to the hospital with metal fragments in his foot.

The deadly objects were cluster bomblets, small explosives packed by the dozens or hundreds into bombs, rockets or artillery shells known as cluster weapons. When these weapons were fired on Baghdad on April 7, many of the bomblets failed to explode on impact. They were picked up or stumbled on by their victims.

The four who died in the al-Dora neighborhood that day lived a few blocks from al-Qaisi's house. Rashid Majid, 58, who was nearsighted, stepped on an unexploded bomblet around the corner from his home. The explosion ripped his legs off. As he lay bleeding in the street, another bomblet exploded a few yards away, instantly killing three young men, including two of Majid's sons — Arkan, 33, and Ghasan, 28. "My sons! My sons!" Majid called out. He died a few hours later.

The deaths occurred because the world's most modern military, one determined to minimize civilian casualties, went to war with stockpiles of weapons known to endanger civilians and its own soldiers. The weapons claimed victims in the initial explosions and continued to kill afterward, as Iraqis and U.S. forces accidentally detonated bomblets lying around like small land mines.

A four-month examination by USA TODAY of how cluster bombs were used in the Iraq war found dozens of deaths that were unintended but predictable. Although U.S. forces sought to limit what they call "collateral damage" in the Iraq campaign, they defied international criticism and used nearly 10,800 cluster weapons; their British allies used almost 2,200.

The bomblets packed inside these weapons wiped out Iraqi troop formations and silenced Iraqi artillery. They also killed civilians. These unintentional deaths added to the hostility that has complicated the U.S. occupation. One anti-war group calculates that cluster weapons killed as many as 372 Iraqi civilians. The numbers are impossible to verify: Iraqi hospital records are incomplete, and many Iraqi families buried their dead without reporting their deaths.

In the most comprehensive report on the use of cluster weapons in Iraq, USA TODAY visited Iraqi neighborhoods and interviewed dozens of Iraqi families, U.S. troops, teams clearing unexploded ordnance in Iraq, military analysts and humanitarian groups. The findings:

• The Pentagon presented a misleading picture during the war of the extent to which cluster weapons were being used and of the civilian casualties they were causing. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on April 25, six days before President Bush declared major combat operations over, that the United States had used 1,500 cluster weapons and caused one civilian casualty. It turns out he was referring only to cluster weapons dropped from the air, not those fired by U.S. ground forces.

In fact, the United States used 10,782 cluster weapons, according to the declassified executive summary of a report compiled by U.S. Central Command, which oversaw military operations in Iraq. Centcom sent the figures to the Joint Chiefs in response to queries from USA TODAY and others, but details of the report remain secret.

U.S. forces fired hundreds of cluster weapons into urban areas. These strikes, from late March to early April, killed dozens and possibly hundreds of Iraqi civilians. Forty civilians were killed in one neighborhood in Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, say residents and Saad Khazal al-Faluji, a surgeon at Hillah General Hospital who tracked casualties.

The attacks also left behind thousands of unexploded bomblets, known as duds, that continued to kill and injure Iraqi civilians weeks after the fighting stopped. U.S. officials say they sought to limit civilian casualties by trying to avoid using cluster munitions. But often alternative weapons were not available or would not have been as effective during the invasion.

• Unexploded U.S. cluster bomblets remain a threat to U.S. forces in Iraq. They have killed or injured at least eight U.S. troops.

• The U.S. Air Force, criticized for using cluster bombs that killed civilians during the wars in Vietnam, Kosovo and Afghanistan, has improved its cluster bombs. But U.S. ground forces relied on cluster munitions known to cause a high number of civilian casualties.

The Air Force, responding to the criticism, began working on safer cluster bombs in the mid-1990s and started using them in Afghanistan. But the Army started a program to install self-destruct fuses in existing cluster bomblets only after former Defense Secretary William Cohen called in January 2001 for dud rates of no more than 1% after 2005. The safer bomblets won't be available for at least two years. During the war in Iraq, U.S. ground forces dipped into stockpiles of more than 740 million cluster bomblets, all with a history of high dud rates.

Senior Army officials in Washington would not answer questions about the Army's use of cluster weapons in Iraq. Maj. Gary Tallman, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said such weapons are effective "against enemy troop formations and light-skinned vehicles" and are used only after "a deliberate decision-making process."

Why cluster bombs are deadly

Cluster bombs have been controversial since they killed thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian civilians during and after the Vietnam War. They have since been used by armies around the world, including Russian forces in Chechnya and Sudanese government troops fighting rebels in a long-running civil war. But their use in urban areas of Iraq has given new momentum to a movement to restrict the use of cluster bombs.

Last month, dozens of activist groups hoping to duplicate the success of the campaign to ban land mines formed a coalition aimed at getting a worldwide moratorium on cluster weapons. After seeing the toll the weapons took on Iraqi civilians and their own forces, even some U.S. soldiers have misgivings about using cluster weapons, at least in urban areas.

As the war in Iraq approached, humanitarian groups warned the Pentagon against using cluster weapons, especially in urban areas. New York-based Human Rights Watch predicted on March 18, a day before the war began with an airstrike in Baghdad: "The use of cluster munitions in Iraq will result in grave dangers to civilians and friendly combatants." Cluster weapons are especially dangerous to civilians because they spray wide areas with hundreds of bomblets. Most are unguided "dumb" weapons, so they can miss their target, and many of the bomblets don't explode immediately.

The U.S. military was aware of the threat cluster munitions posed and was determined to minimize them. Col. Lyle Cayce, an Army judge advocate general (JAG), led a team of 14 lawyers providing advice on the battlefield to the 3rd Infantry Division on the use of cluster munitions, as well as other weapons, during its 21-day, 450-mile drive north from Kuwait to Baghdad. The goal was to ensure that U.S. forces complied with international humanitarian law, enshrined in the Geneva Conventions. "No other army in the world does that," Cayce says. "We value the rule of law."

The Geneva Conventions hold that when choosing which targets to hit and which weapons to use, armies must make sure they do not "cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" and ensure that the harm to civilians does not outweigh the military advantages.

U.S. forces relied on sophisticated radar to pinpoint the sources of Iraqi fire, then cross-checked them against a computerized list of about 10,000 sensitive sites, such as mosques and schools. Cayce and the other lawyers looked at potential targets and advised U.S. commanders whether the military benefits of using specific weapons against those targets justified the risks to civilians.

Cayce gave advice 512 times during the war, usually in cases involving cluster munitions. Most involved sites outside populated areas. Cayce estimates he dealt with only 25 to 30 "controversial missions." For example: He approved a strike against an Iraqi artillery battery in a soccer field next to a mosque because it was firing on the 3rd Infantry Division's artillery headquarters.

The choices could be agonizing. He says he asked himself, "How many Americans do I have to let get killed before I take out that (Iraqi) weapons system?" Ten to 15 times, Cayce advised commanders against firing on a target; they never overruled him. Five times, in fact, they decided against using cluster munitions even after he gave them the go-ahead because they believed the risk to civilians was too great. "We didn't just shoot there willy-nilly," he says. "It was the enemy who was putting his civilians at risk. ... They put their artillery right in town. Now who's at fault there?"

Rather than call upon their artillery to hit a target with cluster munitions, U.S. ground forces preferred either to use other weapons, such as M-16 rifles or tank rounds, or to summon the Air Force to hit Iraqi targets from the sky with precision bombs. "Cluster munitions were the last choice, not the first," Cayce says.

But aircraft frequently were unavailable. Sometimes the weather was bad or sandstorms were swirling. Sometimes Air Force pilots insisted on seeing targets instead of relying on radar readouts. The cluster munitions, especially M26 rockets fired by a multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS), had greater range than other weapons and were more reliable in bad weather.

Commanders also thought an MLRS was better at returning fire and killing the enemy. "MLRS is ideal for counterfire," says Col. Ted Janosko, artillery commander for the Army's V Corps. In fighting on March 31 around Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, U.S. forces came under heavy artillery fire from the Iraqis. "We used (MLRS) rockets to fire back," Janosko says. "As soon as we started using rockets, guess what? We never heard from that unit again. I'm not going to say we killed them all ... but believe me, they did not fire again from that position."

The 3rd Infantry Division also used MLRS frequently. The rockets can go more than 20 miles, and they spray a wider area than other weapons. The 3rd Infantry fired 794 MLRS rockets during the Iraq war, according to an assessment by two high-ranking division artillery officers in the U.S. Army journal Field Artillery, published at Fort Sill, Okla.

As they raced north from Kuwait toward Baghdad in late March and early April, U.S. forces fired rockets and artillery shells loaded with bomblets into Iraqi troop and artillery positions in Hillah, in Baghdad and in other cities. U.S. aircraft sometimes dropped cluster bombs as well.

Just before U.S. forces' "thunder run" into Baghdad on April 7, the 3rd Infantry Division fired 24 MLRS cluster rockets into Iraqi positions at an important intersection in the capital. The damage assessment, recounted in the Field Artillery article: "There's nothing left but burning trucks and body parts."

Town hit hard by 'steel rain'

Residents, many of whom opposed Saddam Hussein and welcomed the U.S. decision to topple him, say there was no resistance in Nader, just Iraqi troops fleeing north through the area toward Baghdad. But U.S. radar reports showed Iraqi guns firing from Hillah, and anti-aircraft guns were located in a Nader-area schoolyard.

The cluster attack began mid-morning on March 31.

"I wish they'd shelled with regular artillery, not with those bloody cluster bombs," says retired civil servant Ali Selman al-Isawi, whose son, Wisam, 30, was killed that day. "Regular shells would hit only one spot, not every place just like a rain of death." Al-Isawi, 58, took six bodies to the morgue in his car.

When the bombing started, Abdul Jewad al-Timimi, 44, a disabled veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, decided to gather his wife and six children and clear out of Nader. He hoped to catch a taxi on a main road and get to his parents' house, 3 miles away.

It was the wrong decision. Exposed on open ground, al-Timimi and his family were caught in a storm of falling bomblets. "We had no place for shelter," he says. "We were an easy target for the cluster bombs. It was just like land mines exploding everywhere."

They stopped near a refuse-filled canal. "I heard only the explosion," al-Timimi says. "I caught two of the kids with my hand. But they were thrown backward, and I was thrown into the canal. My wife was thrown into a wall nearby. The baby was in her arms. The six children immediately were dead." Al-Timimi and his wife were injured.

The scenes from Nader that day, including footage of a baby torn in half, were so gruesome that Westerntelevision networks refused to air them. The dead child, 2 months old, was Jacob al-Timimi.

"My son," al-Timimi says. "I could not talk at that time. But I wished that the person who started this war, whether Iraqi or American, could be brought before me so I could kill him six times or kill six of those close to him. I still feel that way."

Iraq Body Count, an anti-war group that has been compiling a database of civilian casualties from media reports, attributes 200 to 372 Iraqi civilian deaths to cluster bombs and munitions. That doesn't include 78 to 201 civilians who died in fighting in and around Hillah; many of them were killed by cluster munitions, Iraq Body Count says, but it doesn't know how many.

Bitterness in Baghdad

In Baghdad neighborhoods such as al-Dora, al-Furat and al-Hurriyah, the evidence of cluster-munition attacks is obvious. Holes the size of golf balls still riddle dust-colored stone walls around homes. Metal gates are pinged and punctured. Windows are shattered. Shrapnel from cluster bomblets has ripped into rooftop water tanks and torn through walls.

Many Iraqis are bitter that their neighborhoods were chosen for attacks by U.S. cluster munitions. That anger has hurt efforts to convince Iraqis that U.S. troops came as liberators, not occupiers.

Baghdad was hit particularly hard in late March and early April. Cluster munitions landed in north Baghdad's al-Hurriyah neighborhood on April 8, apparently aimed at anti-aircraft batteries in a nearby park. "The whole street went black," recalls Mohammed Mustafa al-Bayati, 42, a sergeant in the Iraqi army. Al-Bayati's brother Maher, 33, was mentally disabled. He became disoriented by the explosions and smoke. Maher staggered into an intersection, where a bomblet got him. He died after 12 days in a hospital. Mohammed says he found 85 metal fragments in his brother's body. "I counted them one by one," he says. Their father died a week later. Mohammed believes he died of grief.

A few blocks away in al-Hurriyah, a submunition exploded in the courtyard of the home of Bashir Abdul al-Zaidi, 32 the same day. Shrapnel pierced his neck and abdomen. He crawled into the kitchen. Family members found him by following the trail of blood. He died on the way to a hospital.

Before the attack, al-Zaidi's older brother had a dream in which their dead father returned to remove a date palm tree from the garden. Asked why he was taking it, the father just said: "I need it." Now, the family understands the dream. "We realized it meant that someone was going to join their father in eternal life," says their mother, Telba Gutheb, 60. "It was Bashir."

The cluster-bomb attack left hundreds of duds in al-Furat, a poor, densely packed Baghdad neighborhood of narrow streets and low, sparsely furnished houses with modest gardens.

"This neighborhood became a no-man's land," says Sheik Abul Amir Hussein al-Amir, 40, a local political leader. "You couldn't take a car out unless someone walked ahead to lead you."

Ten days after the attack, Tareq al-Lami, 35, discovered several unexploded cluster bomblets inside his family's house in al-Furat. He carried them with a pile of trash to a vacant lot down the street. His relatives don't know exactly what happened. They heard an explosion and found him dead.

Children were particularly vulnerable. About a week after the cluster attack on Hillah, Mahmoud Medhi al-Jabouri, 15, was wandering the Nader neighborhood's trash-filled streets with his brother Salem, 13. Mahmoud either picked up a dud cluster bomblet or stumbled across one concealed by refuse. There was an explosion, and Mahmoud was killed. "The bomb tore away his face," says his father, Mehdi Tali al-Jabouri, 53. Salem spent three days in a hospital with leg injuries; he has recovered.

Duds continued to turn up in gardens, trees and fields months after the military campaign ended. Al-Furat resident Adel Khalil al-Taie, 35, found one on his roof when he went up to install a satellite dish in July. It was an irony he relished: The U.S. campaign to topple Saddam Hussein gave him the freedom to put up a previously forbidden satellite dish but left a deadly explosive on his roof.

Sa'ad al-Shawk, 51, lost his wheat harvest to cluster munitions. His family's field in Yusifiyah, which is south of Baghdad, is filled with unexploded cluster bomblets. A mine-clearance team that works for the U.S. State Department took a look at the field of waist-high stalks and decided it was too dangerous to clear.

Dangers for U.S. troops

The abundance of unexploded submunitions also left a dangerous mess for U.S. soldiers advancing into Baghdad.

Troops from the 101st Airborne found themselves in Baghdad's al-Jihad neighborhood in mid-April, contending with hundreds of unexploded M42 cluster bomblets. "There were M42s all around the houses," says Maj. Mike Getchell, 37, of Bridgewater, Mass., executive officer of the 101st Airborne's 3rd Brigade. During the three weeks the 101st troops patrolled al-Jihad, they destroyed an average of 100 M42s every day.

On April 19, Sgt. Troy Jenkins, 25, a 6-foot-7 paratrooper from Repton, Ala., was bringing up the rear of a patrol through the streets of al-Jihad. The streets were packed with people celebrating a festival. Suddenly, a little girl emerged from the crowd, carrying what turned out to be an M42 cluster bomblet. She tried to hand it to Jenkins. No one in the patrol knows exactly what happened next. But the bomblet went off, and the little girl, Jenkins and three other soldiers went down.

The little girl died after her family took her to a hospital. Jenkins was evacuated for medical treatment, first to Kuwait and then to Germany, where he died after losing his left leg. He left behind a wife and two sons, ages 4 and 2. The three other soldiers recovered.

Cluster munitions also may have claimed the life of Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez del Solar, 20. The Marine scout from Escondido, Calif., died March 27 after stepping on some type of unexploded ordnance while on reconnaissance patrol outside Baghdad. A Marine investigation concluded that the "origin of the ordnance is unknown and really impossible to determine," says First Lt. Eric Knapp, spokesman for the 1st Marine Division in Camp Pendleton, Calif.

But the dead Marine's father, Fernando Suarez del Solar, 47, has a different account. He says he was contacted by one of his son's friends, who said the Army dropped cluster weapons on March 26 and not all of the submunitions exploded.

"The next day, on the 27th, my son's company received the order for advance and my son was a scout, so he advanced ahead of the others without information that there were unexploded bombs. ... The scout is looking for the enemy, so his eyes are on the horizon, so he was not looking down toward the ground. And he stepped on a bomb."

Fernando Suarez, a former print shop worker who is now a full-time anti-war activist, is seeking an official explanation for his son's death. He has angry words for President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "They say that America has the best weapons and the best technology and the best army. Well, this is not the best technology when they drop bombs that don't explode, and then they don't tell their own military where the bombs are. The best army would make that information available."

Sgt. 1st Class Rick Johanningsmeier, 34, of Martinsville, Ind., was in the same Army unit as Sgt. Jenkins. He saw four more U.S. troops injured when a dud bomblet exploded near the Baghdad airport. "These things are wicked. They're evil," Johanningsmeier says.

In their Field Artillery article, Army Col. Thomas Torrance, who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division's artillery in Iraq, and Lt. Col. Noel Nicolle praise the MLRS cluster munitions, calling them "the munition of choice for killing tanks and personnel in the open." They also note the weapon's major drawback: the dud rate.

"The duds ... littered the battlefield and created a hazard to the local populace," they write. "We need to develop a bomblet for cannons and MLRS that self-destructs or re-engineer the round to significantly reduce the dud rate."

To reduce casualties from dud bomblets, the military tried to keep track of where it fired cluster munitions. U.S. military and State Department teams are working to clear unexploded bomblets in Iraq. The U.S. military also has tried to warn Iraqis about the dangers of unexploded submunitions. U.S. forces have addressed schools and town councils and put up educational posters.

Cayce, the Army lawyer, believes U.S. forces acted responsibly. Even so, he says: "Ethically and morally, we need to find alternatives to cluster weapons in cities."

Contributing: Valerie Alvord in Escondido, Calif.; Steven Komarow in Baghdad, Dave Moniz in Washington, D.C., and Mark Memmott

 

 

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U.S. Sees Evidence of Overcharging in Iraq Contract
by Douglas Jehl

Published on Friday, December 12, 2003 by the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 — A Pentagon investigation has found evidence that a subsidiary of the politically connected Halliburton Company overcharged the government by as much as $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq under huge no-bid reconstruction contracts, senior military officials said Thursday.

The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services that seemed to be inflated by $67 million, the officials said. The Pentagon rejected that proposal, they said.

The problems involving Halliburton, where Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive, were described in a preliminary report by auditors, the officials said. The Pentagon contracts were awarded without competitive bidding and have a potential value of $15.6 billion; recent estimates by the Army have put the current value of the Halliburton contracts at about $5 billion.

Halliburton denied overcharging and called the inquiry a "routine audit." Dave Lesar, the company's chairman, president and chief executive, said in an e-mail statement, "We welcome a thorough review of any and all of our government contracts."

Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's budget chief, said, "Contractor improprieties and/or contract mischarging on department contracts will neither be condoned nor allowed to continue."

Halliburton, which had more than $12.5 billion in revenues in 2002, has emerged as a symbol for many people who opposed the war in Iraq and who claimed that the interests of such companies with close political ties were given too much consideration by the administration.

Criticism intensified when Halliburton received the no-bid contract to provide billions of dollars in services in Iraq. Administration officials counter that few companies have the resources and expertise to carry out the work needed.

Military officials said the Pentagon was negotiating with K.B.R. over how to resolve the fuel charges. But Michael Thibault, deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, said in a telephone interview that a draft report by the agency had recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers seek reimbursement.

The officials said Halliburton did not appear to have profited from overcharging for fuel, but had instead paid a subcontractor too much for the gasoline in the first place.

Halliburton has also said that one reason it needed to charge a high price for fuel was that it must be delivered in a combat zone. Several K.B.R. workers have been killed or wounded in attacks by Iraqis.

Other questions, in a second contract with the Army, involved unacceptable delays by the subsidiary in providing cost estimates for dozens of projects already under way in Iraq, Mr. Thibault said. These violations, for work that includes the construction of food, housing and other facilities for the military, could involve inflated costs as well, he added.

A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Wendy Hall, said in an e-mail message that the inquiry was part of a "routine audit" and that it was "not the fact that K.B.R. has overcharged."

Mr. Lesar, the chief executive, said in his e-mail: "We will work with all government agencies to establish that our contracts are not only good for the United States, but also the company is the best and most qualified contractor to perform these difficult and dangerous tasks."

Mr. Thibault said that it would be "premature" to describe the auditor's conclusions as final, that the investigation was continuing and that the Halliburton subsidiary "deserves a chance to respond to our findings." He said auditors expected to issue a final report this month, but added that the preliminary findings involved overcharging that was "potentially very substantial."

The two Halliburton contracts are by far the largest awarded by the Pentagon in Iraq. Some Democrats have criticized the awarding of contracts to the Halliburton subsidiary, saying they might appear to be a political payoff to a company well connected with Republicans.

But administration and Halliburton officials have denied that politics played any role in the awards to K.B.R., whose work in Iraq involves a contract with the Army Corps of Engineers for repairing and restoring Iraq's oil industry. The initial value of the work was set at $7 billion. A second contract with the Army for logistical support has a maximum value of $8.6 billion, military officials said.

Mr. Thibault would not be specific about the basis on which the auditors have found evidence that the Halliburton subsidiary has overcharged for the fuel it is providing in Iraq under the oil contract.

But government documents show that the United States government is paying Halliburton an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who has been a leading Congressional critic of the contract, said the preliminary audit "confirms what we've known for months: Halliburton has been gouging taxpayers and the White House has been letting them get away with it."

"It is deplorable and we need to put an immediate end to it," Mr. Waxman said in a written statement. "There needs to be a top-to-bottom review of all the Iraqi contracts."

Defense Department and other government officials said a draft report of the audit agency's finding was sent to K.B.R. on Dec. 5 and included "harsh assessments" of the company's handling of its contract to import fuel from Kuwait.

Mr. Thibault said that Halliburton had promised a response by Dec. 17, and that the agency would issue a final report within a week after that. Once that report is complete, it will be turned over to the clients, including the Army Corps of Engineers, which contracted with K.B.R. in March for tens of millions of gallons of gasoline, benzene and other fuel.

The audit agency has also discussed with K.B.R. the delays in the pricing of elements of the logistics contract, military officials said. Among projects under way, the company has provided the government with cost estimates for just 12 orders, with 69 outstanding and overdue, the officials said. They said the delays raised the possibility that the company would eventually claim an unacceptably high cost for a project whose work was already largely completed.

The company's work for the military in Iraq has evolved from putting out oil field fires to overseeing rebuilding of Iraq's oil infrastructure and providing fuel. K.B.R. also provides support to American troops, including serving meals.

Mr. Cheney, the former chief executive, left Halliburton in 2000, after President Bush asked him to become his running mate.

The Army awarded the logistics contract to Halliburton in 2001, on a competitive basis, but its size has swelled since the Iraq war, with additional work awarded to Halliburton without competition. The second contract, for oil reconstruction projects, was formally awarded in March on a "sole source" basis, but the decision to give the project to Halliburton was made in late 2002 by senior administration officials who were part of a secret task force planning for postwar Iraq.

Don van Natta Jr. contributed reporting from London for this article.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

 

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Iraqi Resistance Looks Set to Intensify
By Lawrence Smallman in Baghdad, Aljazeera
Wednesday 22 October 2003,

Spin doctors are well aware it is easier to sell a simple lie than tell a complex, often uncomfortable, truth.

That is why the United States dismisses armed resistance to its occupation of Iraq as "terrorism - pure and simple".

Since the start of the US-led occupation of Iraq in April, Washington has been at pains to characterise attacks against its forces as the work of Saddam loyalists.

As recently as June, Paul Bremer, Iraq's occupation administrator, told a Congressional subcommittee the resistance was coming from remnants of the Baath party and the Republican Guard.

But since then he has changed his tune and this week he sounded his first note of alarm over the presence of Islamist groups.

Bremer admission

Starting in July, we saw them begin to regroup and come back in. Thereâ€s no question we have scores of Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida terrorists here. And we have problems, particularly at the Syrian border of people still coming into the country,â€� he said.

Iraqi analysts such as Salman al-Jumaili, doctor of political science at Baghdad University, agree.

Al-Jumali has studied the backgrounds of resistance fighters killed in combat.

You will find that the vast majority of them are Islamists - I mean Sunni and Shia Muslims - who are fighting for the sole purpose of pushing America out of Iraq," he told Aljazeera net.

The doctor estimates there are about 25 attacks every day, although only two or three usually make it onto the international news broadcasts.

Islamic and nationalist resistance

His analysis of Iraqi casualties and fatalities has led him to the conclusion that "Saddam loyalists" do not feature in any major resistance role at all.

It is more appropriate, he says, to describe resistance in Iraqas Islamic and nationalist in nature rather than Baathist.
"It is important to mention nationalist resistance - among the dead we have found Turkomans and Iraqi Christians as well as Muslims."
The US's failure to rehabilitate Saddam Hussein's army is at the root of the problem, he says.
America's great gift to the resistance movement was to disband the 350,000-man Iraqi Army.

Iraqi army

"Now you have well over a quarter of a million men who know how to use weapons sitting at home with no job and nothing to do - who are faced daily with Americans entering their homes, searching their properties and treating them as animals.

"So an ex-soldier or civilian who is religious can find a movement that supports his views, a man that wants to defend his country can join, a man who wants revenge for injustice can take part and of course even the man who simply needs money can join in - some groups can boast hundreds of members."

Although Iraqi Islamist fighters form the great majority of the resistance, no particular group predominates.

There are literally dozens of militias with no central planning or coordination, although there is some evidence to suggest a few Islamist groups have began to coalesce in recent weeks.

"There are many differences between the different groups, even between different Islamist resistance forces, but the unifying cause for the struggle is the American occupation."

Resistance growing

"If America does not leave, then I expect to see a huge wave of resistance approaching. The White House can deal with one death here, and two there, but very soon... much sooner than they think... it will be 10 dead soldiers here, and 20 there."

Qahtan al-Khafaji, a doctor of strategic studies at the college for political science, says the resistance is showing every sign of strengthening.

"Islamic resistance continues to grow among both the Shia and the Sunnis as it becomes clear that the US is not here to rebuild this country. It’s six months now, and nearly all feel the situation has got worse from all perspectives - particularly socially and economically."

"Look at the port of Um Qasr - it has become a private American company. It imports weapons and military equipment, not food or building materials.

"Look at Baghdad airport; it is used as a prison for the '55 most wanted' rather than being rebuilt to open up Iraq to the rest of the world.

'War on terror'

"Look at how the $87 billion passed by the US Senate only recently is going to be spent - $67 billion for fighting and $20 billion for reconstruction. Doesn't this say what the US is here for - to dig in, to remain - not to rebuild?"

On the other hand, Al-Khafaji believes the US administration needs a certain amount of resistance to justify the continued occupation.

"They have a global war on terror, as they call it. They can't pin down al-Qaida, but the longer they stay in Iraq, the more international jihadis they are sucking in from Iran, Saudi, Syria, Jordan, Yemen etc who may have links to international Islamist movements.

"This is what the Americans want - it is the only thing they can use to justify remaining in a country they occupied illegally.

"If there was no resistance, what excuse could the US use not to hand over control to the Iraqi people immediately?"

Al-Qaida phenomenon

Al-Khafaji is convinced Iraq is fast becoming the preferred destination for international organisations wanting a chance to fight the country that supports Israel and has occupied the whole of the Arab Gulf.

"Al-Qaida may still be a minority phenomenon in Iraq, but it is likely to become increasingly significant."

Meanwhile, Muthanna Harith al-Dari, a doctor of Islamic sciences at Baghdad University agrees with the prognosis.

Americans forces must leave, or they face being the architects of their own downfall, he says.

"US authorities must transfer power to Iraqis immediately. They should not hang around to ensure a puppet government is installed that will protect their interests. It is as simple as that."

Neo-colonialism

He accuses Washington of a thinly-veiled attempt to neo-colonise Iraq.

At the moment, it is all too obvious that the Americans are only attempting to secure places that are in their own immediate interests. Oil pipelines, certain embassies, the port and airports, ministries - they have not rebuilt anything as yet or provided a level of security that even begins to compare to pre-war Iraq.

"In Britain's Independent newspaper last week, one article pointed out that only five people died in violent crime in Iraq in March 2003. This month, 50 have died in Baghdad alone."

The sooner Iraqi police patrol Iraqi streets and Iraqi soldiers protect towns and borders, the quicker armed resistance will disappear, reckons al-Dari, since there would be nothing to resist.

"The US could end the fighting tomorrow by withdrawing its army and taking it back home. They came to destroy WMD and later they said to remove Saddam Hussein. One, it seems, was never here, the other won't be coming back. The task they gave themselves is finished."

Unless The White House Abandons Its Fantasies, Civil War Will Consume The Iraqi Nation 
Robert Fisk  08/30/03

In Iraq, they go for the jugular: two weeks ago, the UN's top man, yesterday one of the most influential Shia Muslim clerics. As they used to say in the Lebanese war, if enough people want you dead, you'll die.