Patrick Cockburn: Iraq is a country no more. Like much else, that was not the plan

[laststeamtrain]

Patrick Cockburn: Iraq is a country no more. Like much else, that was not the plan

The death rate in Baghdad has fallen, but it is down to ethnic cleansing

Sunday, 16 March 2008

'It reminds me of Iraq under Saddam," a militant opponent of Saddam Hussein said angrily to me last week as he watched red-capped Iraqi soldiers close down part of central Baghdad so the convoy of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, might briefly venture into the city.

Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the US and the Iraqi governments claim that the country is becoming a less dangerous place, but the measures taken to protect Mr Maliki told a different story. Gun-waving soldiers first cleared all traffic from the streets. Then four black armoured cars, each with three machine-gunners on the roof, raced out of the Green Zone through a heavily fortified exit, followed by sand-coloured American Humvees and more armoured cars. Finally, in the middle of the speeding convoy, we saw six identical bullet-proof vehicles with black windows, one of which must have been carrying Mr Maliki.

The precautions were not excessive, since Baghdad remains the most dangerous city in the world. The Iraqi Prime Minister was only going to the headquarters of the Dawa party, to which he belongs and which are just half a mile outside the Green Zone, but his hundreds of security guards acted as if they were entering enemy territory.

Five years of occupation have destroyed Iraq as a country. Baghdad is today a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettoes divided by high concrete walls. Different districts even have different national flags. Sunni areas use the old Iraqi flag with the three stars of the Baath party, and the Shia wave a newer version, adopted by the Shia-Kurdish government. The Kurds have their own flag.

<more>

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-iraq-is-a-country-no-more-like-much-else-that-was-not-the-plan-796499.html

[Diclotican]

1. laststeamtrain

laststeamtrain

US/UK "own" Iraq now.. Either to the soldiers are leaving Iraq at free will, or after the iraqi have thrown the US/UK armed forces out of Iraq....

If you broke it, you own it, is a old saying.. Well US broke IRAQ, and now you are stuck with it for the foreseeable future.. Don't ask UN to clean it up, don't ask EU to clean it up, don't ask NATO to clean it ut.. This is something United States of America managed to screw up so reality, that it would take decades to try to clean it and fix it up...

You have _no_ sympathy from me on this issue. The current US Administration was giving the middle finger to Europe, to Asia, well to much of the world when it come to wage the war in Iraq.. And we was telling the administration to go slowly, and take it carefully before going to war?.. Do this administration never wanted to hear, or to try to get the slightest impression that the "old europe" was worth listing to?:. And now when the Iraqi case have going from bad to worse, the whole country are in ruins, and the old enemy between Sunni and Shia are there for all to se, then the administration are telling us to act and to help them out?

You OWN IRAQ to further notes. That is the bad news. And the rather worse news is that if US don't get their act together, and try to understand WHY Iraq have been that a ruin, US would be there for a LOT longer time than everyone here on DU, or other places would believe it possible..

And, you have all to remember one thing, if you thing the Vietnam was bad I am afraid US are into a surprise. US can not loose Iraq, as they was loosing Vietnam in 1975... Vietnam was in no way capable of hitting back on US, after maybe two or tree decades of war.. (it started in 1945) And the Vietnamese people have to rebuild the whole country from the ground up. If you loose Iraq, you have lost a generation, or maybe even the whole Middle East to the extremists.. And the only who have being "winning" in all this, is the same persons mr Bush wanted dead or alive in 2001....

US must some what managed to stabilized Iraq, and try their best to clean it up... To the point where the iraqi government on their own, can do the rest.. And I am afraid it will take a LONG time before THAT is happening...
And in the meantime, US are bleeding dry, by 12 billions a week.... How long can US afford that?

Dicloican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language