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Bremer
left Iraq like a thief in the night.
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That
went well then... an illegal invasion and occupation,
destruction of an entire society, murder, mayhem, chaos,
torture, the “disappearance” of many, and an administration,
backed by an army wielding the most shocking and awesome weapons
on earth, cowering in their “Dream Zone,” as the Iraqis have
renamed it, too terrified to even walk the streets for 15
months.
It
was inevitable that the much-vaunted handover to the
“sovereign” Iraqi government was a furtive,
hole-in-the-corner affair, brought forward by two days, in case
the “insurgents” had planned to mark the day with a
political human sacrifice or two.
Then,
like a thief in the night, America’s top “Terrorist Tzar,”
Viceroy Bremer—whose directives from his isolated squat in
Saddam’s foremost palace poured fuel on the fire of resistance
at every ill-conceived move—showed the heels of his ridiculous
desert boots and fled for Baghdad Airport, protected by a
phalanx of goons, in shades and heavy metal jackets. Bremer’s
boots trod neither Iraq’s extraordinary desert nor
Mesopotamia’s haunting archeological sites—Babylon; Qurna,
site of the Garden of Eden; the Roman city of Hatra; or even Ur,
believed to be Abraham’s birthplace, genesis of Islam, Judaism
and the Christianity the US Administration espouses and in the
name of which Bush launched his ill-fated “Crusade.”
“Iraq is no longer the home I would like to live in and I feel it no longer belongs to me.” |
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So
another chapter in the history of one of the most ancient lands
on earth, closed without pageant, buntings or even a state
dinner. Just a shoddy little ceremony from which the world and
the Iraqi people were excluded. A ceremony which handed over
minimal power to an executive about two thirds of which long
relinquished their Iraqi citizenship and hold largely British
and American passports, and whose prime minister is a
three-decade CIA and MI6 “asset,” and according to Robert
Fisk, “asset” to a further twelve governments. A man for all
seasons indeed. Ironically, having conceded to a hundred edicts
laid down by Bremer, edicts which effectively neutralize any
nascent power, and pleaded with the US Army to stay, the place
he does not look like being much of an “asset” to is Iraq.
Surreally,
Bremer, we are told, is off to take cookery lessons. They would
have been enhanced had he visited one of Baghdad’s spice
markets, the most famous and fragrant on earth, but he probably
was unaware of their existence. As for Prime Minister Allawi,
now clutching the poisoned chalice, the best he can do is keep
checking that his life insurance is fully paid up.
The
furtive nature of the handover—excluding the Iraqis by
announcing it in Ankara before Baghdad—is likely to haunt the
“government.” The Ottomans (Turkey) ruled Iraq for 400
bloody, repressive, unforgotten years, until less than a hundred
years ago. After thirteen years of UN sanctions, often
almost-daily bombings, a war and an invasion, pageantry,
occasion and an inclusion in the handover might have generated,
if not enthusiasm, a pragmatism, a “let’s wait and see.”
Iraqi pride, courage, nationalism and sense of history are
second to nothing. Gertrude Bell, a British archaeologist and
colonial official, expresses it vibrantly in an undated essay
from the 1930s:
No
less insistent on the imagination and no less brilliantly
coloured
are the later chapters of the history of Iraq. The echoing
name of Alexander haunts them, the jeweled splendour of the
Sassanian King of Kings... And last (to English ears not
least) the enterprise, the rigours, the courage.
Iraqis,
for the most, have endured worse deprivation than even under the
embargo: unaccountable slaughters; houses searched and trashed,
along with thefts by US troops; kidnappings; the horrors of Abu
Ghraib; the siege of Fallujah, Najav, home demolitions—as
Israeli methods in Palestine—throughout the country; mass
graves, courtesy of the USA; more torture at the hands of the
British...
What
might have been a small chink of uncertain light was
extinguished.
Iraqis
were excluded from their own history by what will certainly now
be seen as a cowardly, quisling government. It will also not be
lost on Iraqis that Iyad Allawi has said remarkably little in
condemnation of the torture of prisoners.
“Iraq
is no longer the home I would like to live in and I feel it no
longer belongs to me nor do I relate to it. It is like someone
who tried to have plastic surgery and the operation failed so
the result was distortion and ugliness! Sometimes I snap and
think it is only science fiction and it will all go away. In
spite of all that was said and alleged, I will always cherish
the memory of the great Iraq that was once upon a time ago,”
wrote a Baghdadi friend who withstood the wars, the embargo, but
has fled the “liberation.”
Iraqis
have one more immediate shock in store in the person of the new
US Ambassador, John Dimitri Negroponte, who, like Bremer, has
worked closely with Kissinger. As Ambassador to Honduras
(1981-1985), he supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air
base, which also became a CIA- and Argentinean-run detention
center where those held were, allegedly, routinely tortured. As
late as 2000, the remains of 195 corpses were found there.
Devices used in interrogation included shock and suffocation
devices.
Negroponte
was renowned for not letting human rights considerations get in
the way of a preferred outcome. Of his time in Honduras, he is
quoted as remarking, “with
the turmoil that [was there] it was perhaps not possible to do
that [support human rights].” Ironically, as in Iraq,
it was the US who engendered the turmoil.
Prior
to his last post as Ambassador to the UN, Negroponte was US
Ambassador to Mexico, where he resided in “the block-long,
fortified [US] Embassy” (Foreign
Policy in Focus). Human rights organizations in
the US and Central and South America are attempting to have his
position in Iraq nullified. In the meantime, it is hard to know
whether he will be more at home in the “Dream Zone” or Abu
Ghraib.
Is
there hope for Iraq as the parallels with Vietnam and American
colonial aspirations become starker? Australian journalist John
Pilger thinks so. He told IslamOnline.net, “Bremer’s
departure is in keeping with most colonial scuttles. The
Americans believed they and their stooge regime would triumph in
Vietnam, right to the bitter end and they were wrong. The
Bremer/Bush project is no different. A chasm of bloodshed and
failure awaits them. Perhaps only when American soldiers begin
to mutiny openly, as they did in Vietnam, will the game be
finally up. Unfortunately, that will not happen tomorrow, but it
will happen.”
Felicity
Arbuthnot is
a journalist and activist who has visited Iraq
on numerous occasions since the 1991Gulf War. She has written
and broadcast widely on Iraq,
her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was
also Senior Researcher for John
Pilger's award-winning documentary Paying
the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq.
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