The Iraqi January 30, 2005 general elections were hailed by the Americans and their allies inside and outside this country as historical and very successful. Now, six months after the elections we have a National Assembly, a Presidential Council, a cabinet and a committee for drafting the permanent constitution. But we have no security, no essentials, no electricity or energy supplies and to chillingly cap the terrible mess we are in now, we have no drinkable water.
The January elections were conducted under the rules of the transitional law for the administration of a legal document which was formulated by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to guide it in administering the country after its occupation. The elections were held in spite of a great deal of opposition from one of three most important components of the Iraqi society, the Sunni Arabs who requested that they should be delayed for few months. The elections were meant to create a National Assembly which would be assigned two main functions, the election of a three members presidential council which in turn should nominate a Prime Minister who would have to assemble a cabinet and immediately start the urgent task of tackling the myriad of the country’s problems. The second main function of the assembly was to elect a committee from amongst its members and others from outside its ranks and people from outside its ranks of a committee to write a draft of a permanent constitution which has to finish its job by the middle of August, 2005 and then take it back to the assembly which in its turn should present it to the Iraqi people for approval early next October to pave the way for a new election at the end of the year which would create another assembly which would serve for four years.
The CPA was a coalition authority only by name, it was a totally an American organization and its director Paul Bremer was an ex-State Departement official from the antiterrorist unit who has been working recently in the Kissinger consultancy in New York. Bremer had no previous administrative experience, but he had full authority on all civilian aspects of occupied Iraq and a good deal of influence alas indirectly even on the military a job very much like Britain’s Viceroys in India when that country was a British colony all of that authority with the ease with which his country’s military were able to control the country made very arrogant and self assured and blinded him to the immensity and the difficulties which are inherently associated with governing Iraq. To add salt to injury, an increasingly tainting evidence is emerging about the CPA’s running of the financial affairs of occupied Iraq, there are at least 20 billion dollars of Iraqi money which has not been accounted for during the tenure of the CPA and which Mr. Bremer is refusing to explain. This is not my major concern now, what I am trying to explain is that the interim law was concerned primarily with the political problems, the reconstruction of the country and the rejuvenation of its moribund institutions and infrastructure and the promised help in improving the living conditions of the people were never seriously tackled.
Talking about the security situation last week was particularly murderous, there were about twenty trapped cars which exploded mostly in Baghdad, a dozen suicide bombers, rockets and other similarly destructive weapons. Thursday the 23rd was incredibly vicious, 3 trapped cars exploded in one of the most busy and crowded districts of Karada, two near Shiite mosques within few minutes of each other and the third near a hospital followed by the explosion of two grenades, three other bombed cars in other parts of Baghdad and other cities, the day’s toll was about three dead a many injured people. The week’s toll was more than a hundred dead. The most worrying aspect of all this seems to be the inability of the local authorities to do enough about the plethora of problems which I have been talking about in last week’s letter to this site. When the new government came into power recently the people were expecting some improvement in the situation, I myself suggested in an earlier letter that it was a good beginning but nothing good enough is happening, they seem to be involved more in the political machinations and maneuvering, there are some cabinet members outside the country leaving their jobs to even less experienced subordinates than themselves. The most dramatic example in this phenomenon is the recent tour of the Prime Minister, which has taken him outside the country for more than two weeks to Turkey, Kuwait, Brussels and finally Washington.
Talking about Brussels there was a meeting of 85 countries who gathered for there to solve the problems of reconstructing Iraq and its terrible security situation a job, which was in spite of its immensity and complexity given only one day which was a real charade. These meetings are no more than political theatre and shenanigans, nothing will come out of this meeting, nothing came out of the Madrid meeting, which was convened a year ago for the same purposes. Nothing went to the Afghanis from the Tokyo meeting which promised them 20 billions dollras, nothing went to the Palestinian authority from a similar meeting which was held recently in London, nothing will come to Iraq from the planned meeting which will convene in Amman/Jordan next week which will certainly be attended by a dozen or more high officials and ministers. These meetings are nothing but pranks and travesties they will never help the Iraqis or solve their country’s problems, most of Baghdad’s five million inhabitants had no drinkable water in the homes the last two weeks.
The American’s themselves are in a real quandary, they are not succeeding in ending the insurgency in fact it is developing into a very serious and an extremely well organized guerilla war, the word Vietnam is appearing increasingly more often, the Commander in Chief of the Central Command General Abizaid told the Armed Services Committee of the Senate a few days ago that the insurgents are not being defeated they are getting more effective and are waiting for more volunteers from North African countries in addition to the Jordanians, Yemenis, Syrians, Palestinians, and the others who are operating in Iraq now. The general was absolutely right, but amazingly enough he was contradicted by Vice President Chenny who said that the insurgency was in its last throes an incredible nonsense from the very experienced and highly positioned Mr. Chenny who is supposed to know what is going on exactly. The administration’s bruiser Mr. Rumsfield was for once more circumspect and cautious, when he was pressed by the committee to give a date for the withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq he was very vague and non-committal, all these contradictions and hesitations by the most senior members of the Bush administration reflects very clearly the effects of the pressures Bush and his colleagues are facing as a result of the failure of their policies in Iraq since its invasion.
The Americans are in a real quandary in Iraq, the administration has already paid a very high price in blood and treasure for its policies and is still doing so, but this cannot go on indefinitely there is already a very serious opposition to their adventure in Iraq from inside and outside the United States. On the other hand they just cannot leave in a hurry like the Clinton administration did in Somalia, America has major interests in the area, a hasty departure will make a it a laugh and leave a huge vacuum which will be filled by extremist and fanatic elements and turn the whole area into an inferno. America is in trouble; there is not a very easy solution to it, they need a miracle.
Dr. Najeeb Hanoudi
Baghdad, June 24, 2005
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