Lingering "American smell" in Iraq

The war in Iraq has not diminished the threat of terrorism in the world

When the USA marine covered the face of Saddam’s statue, with the American flag, while helping the cheering Iraqi crowd to bring down Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, the Al Jazeera TV commentator said, hereafter everything in Iraq will have an "American smell". Nothing can be more close to the truth than this symbolic gesture and the comment that followed. As the phases of this "liberation of Iraq" emerge day by day, the true picture of the USA global policy, is becoming more and more clear. With the recent warnings levelled at Damascus and Teheran, one could not help feeling the "American smell" of the plans, that are being "cooked" behind closed doors in Washington. As a part of the orchestrated background preparation, it is now being said that the WMDs, that USA could not find in Iraq, have been shipped to Syria. Washington also warns Iran of the consequence if they harbour elements of the Saddam’s regime in Iraq. On the same tone Washington claims that they have been keeping a close eye on all the members of the countries, that they named as "axis of evil" , including Syria and Iran. It has been the style of the USA administration to throw "punches of accusations" and "warnings" at any country opposed to their policies. When challenged to prove the "accusations" USA fails to provide "convincing evidence". This is exactly what happened in the case of war in Iraq. In spite of the many false claims and rejected attempts USA gravely failed to make a convincing case against Iraq in the UNO security council. No amount of dossiers, hues and cries by Bush, Blair ,Powel and Rumsfeld managed to convince the world to justify the war against Iraq. Even after 22 days of war in Iraq, after many deaths and injured on both sides the USA still has failed to make their case.

Whether it is regarding the Iraq’s threat of WMDs, or Iraq’s alleged link to Al Qaida and Bin Laden , or Iraq’s direct threat to the USA, UK or Australia, the coalition has failed on all counts. The war in Iraq has not diminished the threat of terrorism in the world, on the contrary , this war has provided nourishment to terrorist breeding grounds. As the President of Egypt, Mubarak warned, the war in Iraq will create 100s of Bin Ladens.

Basking in the "glory" of the "easy win" against the 35 years old dictatorship in Iraq, the USA seems to be very keen on continuing their self imposed global mission of importing "liberation" into other countries of the region.

It is amazing to see how, any trick, lie and deception can go down very well, in a country like USA. In the most technologically and scientifically advanced country like USA, a hoax like John Edwards, continue to make millions of dollars by convincing millions of Americans that he has the ability to communicate with the dead. His well-orchestrated TV show "crossing over" has enjoyed good ratings in USA. One would wonder why the Pentagon did not hire him to communicate with "Chemical Ali" to retrieve important information about WMDs. Probably John Edwards does not understand Arabic. This amazing gullibility is quite evident in the political consciousness of the American Society as well. The American propaganda feeds and nourishes on this gullibility and too simplistic world outlook of the society. For most of the Americans there are only two ways of life – "the free American/ Western way or Anti American / evil way". "They hate us because we are free, rich and powerful and therefore we have to go and make everybody to follow us".

On a more serious note, one can be only amazed at the extent of misinformation and deception tat the USA administration would resorted to. In the events leading up to the long planned aggression against Iraq, the people like Colin Powell, degraded himself to incredible level of deceit. He assured the UNO security council that he has strong evidence to prove that Iraq has WMDs. mobile chemical weapon factories and others. Having waged the war in Iraq for the past 22 days, the coalition has not yet been able to produce an iota of evidence. It is only logical to think, that instead of suicide bombers, Iraq could easily resort to using WMDs ,if they had them. Specially when faced with the inevitable defeat and there was nothing left in Iraq for them, they could resort to the desperate last measures of using the WMDs to inflict maximum casualties to coalition forces.

The political analysts and the experts on USA policies in the region said all along that this war was not about WMDs , but about dominance and oil. It is obvious that the USA did not have any contingency or other plans for post Saddam Iraq, other than their years long plans for securing their influence on the oil rich areas of Iraq. They of course would not bother much about the regions like Baghdad and Basra. Their main concern has always been on the regime change to facilitate easy access to oil rich areas in the North and South of Iraq. If the areas of less importance could be just managed and controlled to avoid major disturbances then the USA would have achieved their immediate goal. From then onwards the task will be to maintain some sort of a controlled outburst of violence and trouble to justify long term presence of USA forces to safeguard long-term USA interests in Iraq.

Long before the first references were made in regard to the possible military action in Iraq and even before the first introduction of the resolution 1441, USA has been busy organising .financing and training Iraqi exiles in USA and Europe , in a camp in Hungary to form the so called FIF forces. The FIF training camp was fully funded by the CIA. Soon after the beginning of the war General Tommy Frank , arranged a FIF force of 1000 to be dropped in the Northern Iraq, with their leader Ahamad Chalebi. Ahamed Chalebi is an Iraqi , but has not been in Iraq since 1950s. He has spent sometime in Jordan where he was sentenced for financial frauds. Somehow he managed to escape and settle down in the USA and win the "heart and mind" of the CIA to get trained and emerge as the potential candidate for the future president of Iraq. Chalebi, although backed by the Pentagon, does not enjoy the support from Washington, personally from Bush as the preferred candidate to lead Iraq. Washington however does not mind him doing the very much needed "dirty work" at the moment.

The "American smell" has already started to influence the mass movement for a new Iraqi government. Chalebi has a new "competitor" retired general Garner who has been recently air lifted to the scene of this looming open power struggle. Famous for his pro – Israeli attitudes, General Garner is Bush’s most preferred candidate.

In spite of various levels of pressure and influence from people, "imported" to Iraq to play a role in this power conspiracy, Iraqi people has already expressed their views loud and clear. They are not going to accept plans and people imposed on them from outside.Judging from the depth and breadth of the ugly power battle one can get a feeling of the enormity of the problems ahead. The strange track record and reputation of some candidates will make them very "uncomfortable partners" in any "coalition government". Even if imposed by Pentagon or Washington any "proposed marriage" of "strange bedfellows" will be doomed to failure. It would be prudent to predict the likelihood of some political assassinations and "accidents" in the time to come.. All the ugly tricks of the game of power struggle, will soon be staged on open. Some strong candidates will have to "go" to make room for the ‘preferred ones". There are already strong signs of Iraq turning into a dangerous battle ground of various camps and brokers of power. The liberating forces themselves have started to unleash their own differences into the "theatre" of looming power struggle in post Saddam Iraq.

Iraqi people may have relied an outside force to free them from decades long clout of Saddam’s tyranny, but they do not want to take sides with the various camps imposed on them. Iraqi people have their own differences, many obstacles of their own to overcome and many wounds to heal themselves. They value and treasure their heritage, dignity and friendship and brotherhood in the region. One thing they do not need is the "outside, western power brokers" to have their say in the new democratic government in Iraq..

Mithra Fernando

Sydney