Fr.havn d. 4. august 2004
IRAQ SET TO EXPLODE - ROBERT
FISK
+ hør hvad Ali hører fra
hans fødeland
Nedenstående artikel af den verdenskendte journalist Robert Fisk videresendes hermed
venligst til rådighed for de danske politiske ledere og administratorer til
videre overvejelse og foranstaltning.
Og specielt til flygtninge- og udviklingsministeren vil jeg
gerne henlede opmærksomheden på hvad en irakisk flygtning med sporadisk kontakt
til sin familie i Bagdad og hjemvendte flygtninge i Irak kan fortælle på http://www.arnehansen.net/radio/alialjebory-frh-irak040731.htm
Med venlig hilsen
Arne Hansen, Sønderjyllands Alle 35, 9900 Frederikshavn
On Tue, 3
Aug 2004 22:09:08 -0400, "Global Network" < globalnet@mindspring.com > wrote:
CAN'T BLAIR
SEE THAT THIS COUNTRY IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE? CAN'T BUSH?
By Robert
Fisk - The Independent (Britain)
Sunday,
August 1, 2004
The Prime
Minister has accused some journalists of almost wanting a
disaster to
happen in Iraq. Robert Fisk, who has spent the past five
weeks
reporting from the deteriorating and devastated country, says the
disaster
has already happened, over and over again.
The war is
a fraud. I'm not talking about the weapons of mass
destruction
that didn't exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and
al-Qa'ida
which didn't exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went
to war. I'm
talking about the new lies.
For just
as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that
did not
exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of
Iraq has
fallen outside the control of America's puppet government in
Baghdad but
we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US
troops
every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This
month's
death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - the
worst month
since the invasion ended. But we are not told.
The stage
management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident at
Saddam
Hussein's "trial". Not only did the US military censor the tapes
of the
event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11
other
defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe -
until he
reached the courtroom - that he was on his way to his
execution.
Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge
was there
to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam
ran his own
state security courts. No wonder he initially looked
"disorientated"
- CNN's helpful description - because, of course, he was
meant to
look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam
asked Judge
Juhi: "Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?" And swiftly,
as he
realised that this really was an initial court hearing - not a
preliminary
to his own hanging - he quickly adopted an attitude of
belligerence.
But don't
think we're going to learn much more about Saddam's future
court appearances.
Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster
Ahmad and
the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the
Iraqi press
two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future
court
hearings. And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic,
he'll want
to talk about the real intelligence and military connections
of his
regime - which were primarily with the United States.
Living in
Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous
experience.
I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in
Iraq.
Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out
police
vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has
been
abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in
Baghdad
watching Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he
is the hero
of a school debating competition; so much for the Butler
report.
Indeed,
watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is
like tuning
in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about
to implode?
Doesn't Bush realise this? The American-appointed
"government"
controls only parts of Baghdad - and even there its
ministers
and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba,
Samara,
Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside
government
authority. Iyad Allawi, the "Prime Minister", is little more
than mayor
of Baghdad. "Some journalists," Blair announces, "almost want
there to be
a disaster in Iraq." He doesn't get it. The disaster exists
now.
When
suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside
police
stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January?
Even the
National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections
has been
twice postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the
past five
weeks, I find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American
soldier I
have spoken to, not a single mercenary - be he American,
British or
South African - believes that there will be elections in
January.
All said that Iraq is deteriorating by the day. And most asked
why we
journalists weren't saying so.
But in
Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush telling his
Republican
supporters that Iraq is improving, that Iraqis support the
"coalition",
that they support their new US-manufactured government,
that the
"war on terror" is being won, that Americans are safer. Then I
go to an
internet site and watch two hooded men hacking off the head of
an American
in Riyadh, tearing at the vertebrae of an American in Iraq
with a
knife. Each day, the papers here list another construction
company
pulling out of the country. And I go down to visit the friendly,
tragically
sad staff of the Baghdad mortuary and there, each day, are
dozens of those
Iraqis we supposedly came to liberate, screaming and
weeping and
cursing as they carry their loved ones on their shoulders in
cheap
coffins.
I keep
re-reading Tony Blair's statement. "I remain convinced it was
right to go
to war. It was the most difficult decision of my life." And
I cannot
understand it. It may be a terrible decision to go to war. Even
Chamberlain
thought that; but he didn't find it a difficult decision -
because,
after the Nazi invasion of Poland, it was the right thing to
do. And
driving the streets of Baghdad now, watching the terrified
American
patrols, hearing yet another thunderous explosion shaking my
windows and
doors after dawn, I realise what all this means. Going to
war in
Iraq, invading Iraq last year, was the most difficult decision
Blair had
to take because he thought - correctly - that it might be the
wrong
decision. I will always remember his remark to British troops in
Basra, that
the sacrifice of British soldiers was not Hollywood but
"real
flesh and blood". Yes, it was real flesh and blood that was shed -
but for
weapons of mass destruction that weren't real at all.
"Deadly
force is authorised," it says on checkpoints all over Baghdad.
Authorised
by whom? There is no accountability. Repeatedly, on the great
highways
out of the city US soldiers shriek at motorists and open fire
at the
least suspicion. "We had some Navy Seals down at our checkpoint
the other
day," a 1st Cavalry sergeant says to me. "They asked if we
were having
any trouble. I said, yes, they've been shooting at us from a
house over
there. One of them asked: 'That house?' We said yes. So they
have these
three SUVs and a lot of weapons made of titanium and they
drive off
towards the house. And later they come back and say 'We've
taken care
of that'. And we didn't get shot at any more."
What does
this mean? The Americans are now bragging about their siege of
Najaf.
Lieutenant Colonel Garry Bishop of the 37th Armoured Division's
1st
Battalion believes it was an "ideal" battle (even though he failed
to kill or
capture Muqtada Sadr whose "Mehdi army" were fighting the US
forces). It
was "ideal", Bishop explained, because the Americans avoided
damaging
the holy shrines of the Imams Ali and Hussein. What are Iraqis
to make of
this? What if a Muslim army occupied Kent and bombarded
Canterbury
and then bragged that they hadn't damaged Canterbury
Cathedral?
Would we be grateful?
What,
indeed, are we to make of a war which is turned into a fantasy by
those who
started it? As foreign workers pour out of Iraq for fear of
their
lives, US Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a press conference
that
hostage-taking is having an "effect" on reconstruction. Effect! Oil
pipeline
explosions are now as regular as power cuts. In parts of
Baghdad
now, they have only four hours of electricity a day; the streets
swarm with
foreign mercenaries, guns poking from windows, shouting
abusively
at Iraqis who don't clear the way for them. This is the
"safer"
Iraq which Mr Blair was boasting of the other day. What world
does the
British Government exist in?
Take the
Saddam trial. The entire Arab press - including the Baghdad
papers -
prints the judge's name. Indeed, the same judge has given
interviews
about his charges of murder against Muqtada Sadr. He has
posed for
newspaper pictures. But when I mention his name in The
Independent,
I was solemnly censured by the British Government's
spokesman.
Salem Chalabi threatened to prosecute me. So let me get this
right. We
illegally invade Iraq. We kill up to 11,000 Iraqis. And Mr
Chalabi,
appointed by the Americans, says I'm guilty of "incitement to
murder".
That just about says it all.
Global
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