During the last few weeks I was unable to update this website. The last few weeks were very difficult, my son's condition is still the same and is creating a great deal of worry and frustration. My own health was only slightly better with hard to control blood pressure and maddening arthritis plus some other less disabling problems. The news from home were terrible and much worse than a few weeks earlier, all of these have contributed to a state of a very serious depression which has prevented me from updating the Blog. I was tempted to start writing again by a most fascinating letter from a very nice colleague from Oregon, she said amongst some very nice words about me "we in the USA have so few opportunities to find the truth about the tragedy we have caused in Iraq." This is absolutely true.
I have always insisted that writing about the current situation in Iraq should be done by people who are living in Iraq or are in touch with the realities of the situation the undercurrents and forces a lot of them very subtle and very hard to appreciate by people who are staying thousands of miles outside the country. The lack of touch in what’s going in Iraq is apparent in the shallowness and naivety of a great deal of what appears even on the front pages of some of the most influential international newspapers. I have been staying in Amman for almost two months now after which I feel almost totally disconnected from the events at home which in addition to the worries and difficulties I have been experiencing recently I was extremely reluctant to engage in writing anything which is related to the situation at home. I have on the other hand been inundated by many letters from very kind visitors to the Blog and from friends and colleagues like the one I have just quoted, which have encouraged me to resume this exercise. What has also helped me to write again were the few days I spent recently in Baghdad three weeks ago and the constant and very intelligent feedback I am getting about the situation at home from some of my friends and relatives who are still there.
What is extremely sad and very painful to mention, what I felt during those few days at home was a very clear evidence of the deterioration in the general situation which has affected all facets of life especially its three most important ingredients: The security situation, the status of the services and the provision of the essentials and thirdly the still limping attempts at building a new political structure for the much talked about new Iraq to replace the one which was dismantled with the toppling of Saddam.
The security situation is much worse, the armed opposition to the American occupation and to the new order which the Americans call an insurgency and they call themselves resistance and jihad is getting increasingly better organized, more widespread and much more lethal than few weeks ago. Call it what you like but I was frightfully appalled by its viciousness and the scope of damage it is inflicting and the terror it is creating, now I remember I was asked by another very dear colleague this time from Texas whether I have any views and opinions about this topic, I do, I have a very well thought about views on the ideologies the hidden agendas, the affiliations and methods of the various groups which constitute this armed opposition, what I would like to emphasize is that the security situation is becoming increasingly more complicated by the escalating tensions between the various religious and ethnic groups like the ones between the Shiites and the Sunnis and between the Shiites themselves. This is a very complicated topic; it certainly is worth a full letter so I am going to leave it now hoping that what I have just said is enough for the time being.
The services and the provision of the essentials like food and medicines included in the monthly rations which is absolutely vital to the majority of the population is in an appalling state, it is a joke and was much better even during the last days of Saddam. The electricity was reaching the people during the unusually hot month of July for one hour for every six hours. Now they are getting it 30 to 40 minutes for every six hours in spite of the hundreds of millions of dollars, which have been spent to repair the national electricity grid during the last two years. The situation as far as the other energy requirements like kerosene, gasoline and diesel are in even a worse shape and with winter approaching this problem is threatening to develop into a very serious crisis. What is even more worrying is what is actually happening at the political level and especially the efforts which are being spent for the writing of a draft of a permanent constitution for the country and here what is happening is much worse than the intrigues and haggling which preceded the formation of the current government.
Visitors to this website might remember that general elections were held in Iraq on January 30, 2005, which resulted in the formation of a General Assembly which was mandated to oversee the organization of an executive body composed of a Presidential Council and a Cabinet to tackle the day to day affairs of the country. The second part of he mandate was to select a committee from amongst its members and others from outside its ranks to write a draft for permanent constitution to the country. After great delays and hangings he first part was accomplished and a 75 members committee was selected which was composed of Kurdish and Shiite members of the assembly, these two components of the Iraqi population were he ones that have participated in the elections and won almost all 275 seats, the other major component of Iraqi society, the Sunnis have boycotted the elections and had no significant representation in the assembly so in an attempt to reconcile them 15 non-assembly Sunnis were added to the committee which started working on the draft around the end of June with the stipulation that it should finish its job not later than August 15, 2005, and to take its draft back to the assembly to put it on October 15, 2005 to the Iraqi people for approval in a referendum.
The committee was unable to finish its job by the deadline in spite of some very heavy pressure by the Americans in the person of its current ambassador. Three extensions were made and still no constitution, enter the American president, two days ago president Bush himself telephoned Mr. Abdul Aziz al-Hakeem the leader of the most important Shiite groups and we are told now that a draft of the constitution will be ready next Sunday. Five million copies of the new constitution will be prepared and distributed all over he country for the people to make their minds about it, in spite of this activity the whole process is still uncertain the Sunnis are refusing to play and are threatening to veto it which if they did the whole process will crumble with extremely unforeseen consequences and a very unpredictable fate to the country.
Najeeb Hanoudi
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Amman/Jordan
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