The "C" Word

Well at last! Somebody has dared used the "C word" to Americans and an American newspaper has dared print it: Civil war won't end until troops leave Iraq [snip] Civil war is raging across central Iraq. Baghdad, a city whose population is almost the same as London, is splitting into hostile and heavily armed districts. Minorities, be they Sunni or Shiite, are being killed or forced to flee. People dare not even take their furniture in case this might alert their neighbors to their departure and lead to their deaths. Sunni no longer let the mostly Shiite police enter their districts. "If this isn't civil war," a senior Iraqi official said last weekend, "I don't know what is." It is at this moment that the new Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, arrived in London to see Prime Minister Tony Blair and to deny Iraq is sliding into civil war. He spoke confidently about disarming militias. He has now gone to the U.S. to see President Bush, and, if he follows the ignoble and cowardly tradition of Iraqi leaders visiting the U.S. over the past three years, will most likely repeat what he said in London. [snip] Iraqi leaders are not what they seem. They live in the Green Zone, the heavily fortified enclave guarded by U.S. troops, in the heart of Baghdad. Many never leave it except for extensive foreign travel. Eighteen months ago, an Iraqi magazine claimed to have discovered that at one point the entire cabinet was out of the country at the same time. The government remains reliant on the U.S. One former minister told me: "There is a culture of dependency. Part of the time the Americans treat us as a colony, part of the time as an independent country." Al-Maliki became prime minister only because the U.S. and Britain were determined to get rid of his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Al-Maliki is inexperienced, personally isolated without his own kitchen cabinet, guarded by U.S. guards and heavily reliant on shadowy U.S. advisers. The quasi-colonial nature of the Iraqi government may not be obvious to outsiders who see that it has been democratically elected. But its independence has always been a mirage. For instance, its own intelligence organization should be essential to a government fighting for its life against a violent insurgency. At first sight, Iraq might appear to have one under Maj.-Gen. Mohammed al-Shahwani, but it has no budget because it is funded directly by the CIA, to the tune of $110 million to $160 million a year and, not surprising, it is to the CIA that it first reports. Not surprising, Iraqis will need a lot of convincing that Al-Maliki is not one more U.S. pawn. In theory he should be in charge of a substantial army force. The number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police has grown from 169,000 in June 2005 to 264,000 this June. But the extra 105,000 armed men have not only made no difference to security in Iraq but that security has markedly deteriorated over the past year. The reason is that the armed forces put their allegiance to their own communities -- Kurd, Sunni or Shiite -- well before their loyalty to the state. Shiites do not believe they will be defended from a pogrom by Sunni units and the Sunni feel the same way about Shiite units. This is why the militias are growing in strength. [snip]. Not only is Al-Maliki's suggestion that the militiamen might be stood down untrue but also the trend is entirely the other way. The army and police are themselves becoming sectarian and ethnic militias. This makes absurd Bush's and Tony Blair's claim that at some stage the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces will be strong enough to stand alone. Al-Maliki's visit to Washington has more to do with the White House's domestic political agenda than with the dire reality of Iraq. The Bush administration wants to have live Iraqis say in the lead-up to mid-term elections in November that progress is being made in Iraq. A frustration of being a journalist in Iraq is that the lethal anarchy there cannot be reported without getting oneself killed in the process. Can anything be done to lead Iraqi out of this savage civil war even if it is now too late to stop it? Friction among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds was always likely after the fall of Saddam Hussein. But what has divided the communities most is their differing attitude to foreign occupation. Ending that is essential if this war is to be brought to an end. Patrick Cockburn writes for The Independent in Britain. All emphases added by me, please please pretty please go read the whole thing. markfromireland