Resistance Day in Iraq

Information that Iraqi guerrillas are preparing a “resistance day” began to appear well in advance. In the opinion of observers, a number of attacks aimed against not only the occupation forces, but also the employees of international organizations working in Iraq were a prelude to even greater outburst of violence. This is another occasion to say that the situation in Iraq is still very unstable and unpredictable.

On October 31 the biggest clash since the end of wide-scale fights between Americans and Iraqis took place in Baghdad. The battle lasted for seven hours. As a result, 14 Iraqis were killed. Some sources say that one policeman was among them. The American top military sources claim that no US soldier was killed.

However the report of this battle seems somewhat strange. Clashes began after a crowd of Iraqis had pelted a military patrol with stones. Participants of the demonstration shouted anti-American slogans, some of them carried Saddam Hussein’s portraits. Americans responded with battering, which led to a prolonged battled. What kind of demonstration was that if it took aviation and tanks to break it up?

President George W. Bush repeated once again that there was no talk about the withdrawal of the American Army from Iraq, since that could rally the terrorists and increase threat to the United States. Bush is impossible to understand: “terrorists rally” not before, but after Saddam Hussein’s fall.

No matter what, Washington still counts on other countries to send their military contingents to Iraq as well. And it’s not about the NATO allies (for example, Turkey) alone. The Lebanese newspaper “Al Mustakbal” reports that the US makes a strong pressure on Syria so that it should also send its troops to Iraq. Lebanese journalists believe that this is done to induce other Arab countries to similar actions. However, Damascus so far refuses to listen to appeals coming from the other side of the Atlantic.

Vasily Bubnov