Al-Ahram - Egypt - ASSORTED ARTICLES - Chronicle of a disaster - Iraq

Al-Ahram – Egypt - ASSORTED ARTICLES - Chronicle of a disaster - Iraq

Issue 889 Front Page

Al-Ahram Weekly Online

20 - 26 March 2008
Issue No. 889
Special

Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Chronicle of a disaster

With the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Saad Abdel-Wahab looks at its covert beginnings and many dark moments

On 20 March 2003, explosions were heard in Baghdad. There is now evidence that various Special Forces and Special Operations troops crossed the border into Iraq well before the air war started to guide strike aircraft in air attacks. United States President George W Bush announced that he had ordered an "attack of opportunity" against targets in Iraq. When this word was given the troops on standby crossed the border into Iraq. These troops were led by the 4th bomb disposal unit which at the time had three RAF Regiment airmen from 15 squadron on a tour.

Before the invasion, many observers had expected a lengthy campaign of aerial bombing before any ground action, taking as examples the 1991 Arab Gulf War or the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. In practice, US plans envisioned simultaneous air and ground assaults to decapitate the Iraqi forces as fast as possible, attempting to bypass Iraqi military units and cities in most cases. The assumption was that superior mobility and coordination of US and UK forces would allow them to attack the heart of the Iraqi command structure and destroy it in a short time, and that this would minimise civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure. It was expected that the elimination of the leadership would lead to the collapse of the Iraqi forces and the government, and that much of the population would support the invaders once the government had been weakened. Occupation of cities and attacks on peripheral military units were viewed as undesirable distractions.

Following Turkey's decision to deny any official use of its territory, the US was forced to abandon a planned simultaneous attack from north and south, so the primary bases for the invasion were in Kuwait and other Arab Gulf nations. One result of this was that one of the divisions intended for the invasion was forced to relocate and was unable to take part in the invasion until well into the war. Many observers felt that the US devoted insufficient numbers of troops to the invasion, and that this (combined with the failure to occupy cities) put them at a major disadvantage in achieving security and order throughout the country when local support failed to meet expectations.

Initially, the US 1st Marine Division fought through the Rumaila oil fields, and moved north to Nasariyah -- a moderate-sized, Shia- dominated city with important strategic significance as a major road junction close to the nearby Talil Airfield. The US Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and bypassed the city to the west. On 23 March, US Marines and Special Forces units pressed the attack in and around Nasariyah. During the battle an Air Force A-10 was involved in a case of fratricide that resulted in the death of six marines. Because of Nasariyah's strategic position as a road junction, significant gridlock occurred as US forces moving north converged on the city's surrounding highways. With Nasariyah and Tallil Airfield secured, US forces gained an important logistical centre in southern Iraq, establishing FOB/EAF Jalibah, some 10 miles outside of Nasariyah through which additional troops and supplies were brought. The 101st Airborne Division continued their attack north behind the 3rd Infantry Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division began to consolidate in and around Tallil airfield for further operations. By 27-28 March, a severe sand storm slowed the US advance as the 3rd Infantry Division fought on the outskirts of Najaf and Kufa, with heavy fighting in and around the bridge next to the town of Kifl before moving north towards Karbala.

In the south, the British 7 Armoured Brigade fought their way into Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, on 6 April, coming under constant attack by regulars and fedayeen of Saddam, while the British Red Devils cleared the old quarter of the city that was inaccessible to vehicles. Entering Basra had only been achieved after two weeks of conflict, which included the biggest tank battle by British forces since World War II when the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks on 27 March. Elements of 1 (UK) Armoured Division began to advance north towards US positions around Al-Amarah on 9 April. Pre-existing electrical and water shortages continued throughout the conflict and looting began as Iraqi forces collapsed. While British forces began working with local Iraqi police to enforce order, Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers and Royal Engineers of the British Army rapidly set up and repaired dockyard facilities to allow humanitarian aid to arrive from ships arriving in the port city of Um Qasr.

After a rapid initial advance, the first major pause occurred near Karbala city. There, US Army elements met resistance from Iraqi troops defending cities and key bridges along the Euphrates River. These forces threatened to interdict supply routes as US forces moved north. By the end of March, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division augmented with a mechanised infantry battalion task force of the US 1st Armoured Division began diversionary assaults in and around the city of Samawah to divert Iraqi forces that may have otherwise threatened the extended rear of the US and UK's lead elements. Meanwhile, the US 101st Airborne Division supported by an armoured battalion task force of the 1st Armoured division and infantry elements of the US 1st Marine Division with US Marine and Army air support, attacked and secured the cities of Najaf and Karbala to prevent any Iraqi counterattacks from the east. These attacks effectively protected the eastern flank and rear of the 3rd Infantry Division, which allowed the western flank of the invasion to resupply and continue its advance north through the Karbala Gap and on towards Baghdad, where US Marine and British forces had already begun a preliminary assault on the outskirts of the city.

In the north, the 10th Special Forces Group (10th SFG) had the mission of aiding the Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, de facto rulers of Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, and employed them against the 13 Iraqi Divisions located near Kirkuk and Mosul. Turkey had officially prohibited any US troops from using their bases or airspace, so lead elements of the 10th SFG had to make a detour infiltration; their flight was supposed to take four hours but instead took 10. Hours after the first of such flights, Turkey did allow the use of its air space and the rest of the 10th SFG infiltrated in. The preliminary mission was to destroy the base of the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar Al-Islam, believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda. Concurrent and follow-on missions involved attacking and pinning down Iraqi forces in the north, thus preventing their deployment to the southern front and the main effort of the invasion.

On 26 March, the 173rd Airborne Brigade augmented the invasion's northern front by parachuting into northern Iraq onto Bashur Airfield, controlled at the time by elements of 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga. The fall of Kirkuk on 10 April to the 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga precipitated the 173rd's planned assault, preventing the unit's involvement in combat against Iraqi forces during the invasion. The successful invasion of Kirkuk came as a result of approximately two weeks of fighting that included the Battle of the Green Line (the unofficial border of the Kurdish autonomous zone) and the subsequent Battle of Kani Domlan Ridge (the ridge line running northwest to southeast of Kirkuk), the latter fought exclusively by 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG and Kurdish peshmerga against the Iraqi I Corps. The 173rd would eventually take responsibility for Kirkuk days later, becoming involved in the counterinsurgency fight and remaining there until redeploying a year later.

Three weeks into the invasion, US forces moved into Baghdad. Initial plans were for armoured units to surround the city and gradually move in, forcing Iraqi armour and ground units to cluster into a central pocket in the city, and then attack with air and artillery forces. This plan soon became unnecessary, as an initial engagement of armour units south of the city saw most of the Republican Guard's armour assets destroyed and much of the southern outskirts of the city occupied. On 5 April TF 1-64 Armour of the US Army executed a raid, later called the "Thunder Run", to test remaining Iraqi defences, with 29 tanks and 14 Bradley Armoured Fighting Vehicles rushing from a staging base to the Baghdad airport. They met heavy resistance, including many Al-Qaeda suicide attacks, but were successful in reaching the airport.Two days later another thunder run was launched by the US army into the palaces of Saddam Hussein, which they seized along with the government offices of central Baghdad. Within hours of the palace seizure, and television coverage of this spreading through Iraq, US forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on 9 April 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by US forces and the power of Saddam Hussein was declared ended. Much of Baghdad remained unsecured, however, and fighting continued within the city and its outskirts well into the period of occupation. Saddam had vanished, and his whereabouts were unknown. Many Iraqis celebrated the downfall of Saddam by vandalising the many portraits and statues of him together with other pieces of his personality cult.

One widely publicised event was the dramatic toppling of a large statue of Saddam in Baghdad's Firdos Square in central Baghdad. This attracted considerable media coverage at the time. What virtually the entire media ignored was that this was a staged PSYOPS event. As Staff Sergeant Brian Plesich reported in On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, "the Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down. Since we were right there, we chimed in with some loudspeaker support to let the Iraqis know what it was we were attempting to do. Somehow along the way, somebody had gotten the idea to put a group of Iraqi kids onto the wrecker that was to pull the statue down. While the wrecker was pulling the statue down, there were Iraqi children crawling all over it. Finally they brought the statue down."

The fall of Baghdad saw the outbreak of regional violence throughout the country, as Iraqi tribes and cities began to fight each other over old grudges. The Iraqi cities of Al-Kut and Nasariyah declared war upon each other immediately following the fall of Baghdad to establish dominance in the new country, and the US and its allies quickly found themselves embroiled in a potential civil war. US forces ordered the cities to cease hostilities immediately, and explained that Baghdad would remain the capital of the new Iraqi government. Nasariyah responded favourably and quickly backed down, however Al-Kut placed snipers on the main roadways into town, with orders that invading forces were not to enter the city. After several minor skirmishes, the snipers were removed, but tensions and violence between regional, city, tribal, and familial groups continued into the occupation period.

General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defence of Baghdad, rumours were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck wherein the US had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite or the Baath Party itself to stand down. In May 2003, General Franks retired, and confirmed in an interview with Defense Week that the US had paid Iraqi military leaders to defect. The extent of the defections and their effect on the war are unclear.

US troops promptly began searching for the key members of Saddam's government. These individuals were identified by a variety of means, most famously through sets of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.

On 22 July during a raid by the US 101st Airborne Division and men from Task Force 20, Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, and one of his grandsons were killed. Saddam was captured on 13 December by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121 during Operation Red Dawn in Al-Dour near Tikrit city.

In the north, Kurdish forces opposed to Saddam had already occupied for years an autonomous area. With the assistance of US Special Forces and air strikes, they were able to rout the Iraqi units near them and to occupy oil-rich Kirkuk on 10 April. US special forces had also been involved in the extreme south of Iraq, attempting to occupy key roads to Syria and air bases. In one case two armoured platoons were used to convince Iraqi leadership that an entire armoured battalion was entrenched in the west of Iraq. On 15 April, US forces took control of Tikrit, the last major outpost in central Iraq, with an attack led by the Marines' Task Force Tripoli. About a week later the Marines were relieved by the Army's 4th Infantry Division.

Looting took place in the days following the invasion. Similar looting occurred for two weeks following the 1989 US invasion of Panama. Looting in Iraq was left uncontrolled, however, by the decision of (American viceroy) Paul Bremer to de-Baathify Iraq's government and by his decision not to use Iraq's military to maintain order, though Bremer writes in My Year in Iraq that there was no military to disband. Peter Galbraith wrote in The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War, that he also found no active Iraqi military, but that Bremer "had never been there, did not speak Arabic, had no experience dealing with a country emerging from war, and had never been involved with nation- building."

The National Museum of Iraq was among the looted sites. The assertion that US forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Petroleum and Ministry of Interior is apparently true. According to US officials the "reality of the situation on the ground" was that hospitals, water plants, and ministries with vital intelligence needed security more than other sites. There were only enough US troops on the ground to guard a certain number of the many sites that ideally needed protection, and so, apparently, some "hard choices" were made. Also, it was reported that many trucks of Iraqi gold and $1.6 billion of bricks of US cash were seized by US forces.

The FBI was soon called into Iraq to track down the stolen items. It was found that the initial claims of looting of substantial portions of the collection were heavily exaggerated. Initial reports claimed a near-total looting of the museum, estimated at upward of 170,000 pieces. The most recent estimate places the number of looted pieces at around 15,000. Over 5,000 looted items have since been recovered. There has been speculation that some objects still missing were not taken by looters after the war, but were taken by Saddam or his entourage before or during the fighting. There have also been reports that early looters had keys to vaults that held rarer pieces, and some have speculated as to the premeditated systematic removal of key artifacts.

The National Museum of Iraq was only one of many museums and sites of cultural significance that were affected by the war. Many in the arts and antiquities communities briefed policymakers before the need to secure Iraqi museums. Despite the looting being lighter than initially feared, the cultural loss of items from ancient summer is significant.

More serious for the post-war state of Iraq was the looting of cached weaponry and ordnance which fuelled the subsequent insurgency. As many as 250,000 tonnes of explosives were unaccounted for by October 2004. Disputes within the US Defense Department led to delays in the post-invasion assessment and protection of Iraqi nuclear facilities. Tuwaitha, the Iraqi site most scrutinised by UN inspectors since 1991, was left unguarded and may have been looted.

Zainab Bahrani, professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, reported that a helicopter landing pad was constructed in the heart of the ancient city of Babylon, and "removed layers of archaeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops."

Bahrani also reported that in the summer of 2004, "the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters." Electrical power is scarce in post-war Iraq, Bahrani reported, and some fragile artifacts, including the Ottoman Archive, would not survive the loss of refrigeration.

The USS Abraham Lincoln returned to port carrying its Mission Accomplished banner. On 1 May, Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Bush's landing was criticised by opponents as an overly theatrical and expensive stunt. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished". The banner, made by White House staff and supplied by request of the US Navy, was criticised as premature, especially as sectarian violence and American casualties continued to increase since the official end of hostilities. The White House subsequently released a statement that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq and disputing the claim of theatrics. The speech itself noted: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."

Iraq was subsequently marked by violent conflict between US-led soldiers and forces described by the occupiers as insurgents. The ongoing resistance in Iraq was concentrated in, but not limited to, an area referred to by Western media and the occupying forces as the Sunni triangle and Baghdad. This resistance may be described as guerrilla warfare. The tactics in use include mortars, suicide bombers, roadside bombs, small arms fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and handheld anti-tank grenade-launchers (RPGs), as well as sabotage against the petroleum infrastructure. There are also accusations, questioned by some, about attacks on the power and water infrastructure. There is evidence that some of the resistance was organised, perhaps by the fedayeen of Saddam or Baath loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis angered by the occupation or foreign fighters.

Many experts now consider Iraq to have degenerated into civil war, although the Bush administration disputes the accuracy of the term. According to a 2006 study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, more than 601,000 Iraqis have died in the violence following the 2003 invasion.

While estimates of the number of casualties during the invasion in Iraq vary widely, the majority of deaths and injuries occurred after US President Bush declared the end of "major combat operations" on 1 May 2003. According to CNN, the US government reported that 139 American military personnel were killed before then, while more than 3,000 have been killed since. Estimates of civilian casualties are more variable than those for military personnel. According to Iraq Body Count, a group that relies on Western press reports to measure civilian casualties, approximately 7,500 civilians were killed during the invasion phase, while more than 60,000 civilians have been killed as of April 2007.

In November 2006 Iraq's Health Minister Ali Al-Shemari said that since the March 2003 invasion between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraqis have been killed. Al-Shemari based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals -- such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

The Lancet surveys of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, estimates much higher civilian casualties, but does not differentiate between the invasion phase (March- May 2003) and the occupation phase (post May 2003). The Lancet survey estimates that over 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the conflict, with the vast majority of these deaths occurring after May 2003.

A September 2007 estimate by ORB (Opinion Research Business), an independent British polling agency, suggests that the total Iraqi violent death toll due to the Iraq War since the US-led invasion is more than 1.2 million (1,220,580). Although higher than the 2006 Lancet estimate, these results, which were based on a survey of 1,499 adults in Iraq in August 2007, are approximately consistent with the figures that were published in the Lancet study.

Over 4.7 million Iraqis, more than 16 per cent of the Iraqi population, have lost their homes and become refugees since 2003. As of June 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighbouring countries, and 2.5 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month. Roughly 40 per cent of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the UN said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed and 250 kidnapped since the US invasion.

The UN reports that although Christians comprise less than five per cent of Iraq's population, they make up nearly 40 per cent of the refugees fleeing Iraq. More than 50 per cent of Iraqi Christians have already left the country. In the 16th century, Christians composed half the population of Iraq. In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians. But as the war has radicalised Islamic sensibilities, Christians' total numbers slumped to about 500,000, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad. Furthermore, the Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to ethnic cleansing by Islamic extremists. As many as 110,000 Iraqis could be targeted as collaborators because of their work for coalition forces.

The US invasion of Iraq was the most widely and closely reported war in military history. Television network coverage was largely pro-war and viewers were six times more likely to see a pro- war source than an anti-war one. The New York Times ran a number of articles describing Saddam's attempts to build weapons of mass destruction. The article "US says Hussein intensifies quest for A-bomb parts" would be discredited, leading the New York Times to issue a public statement admitting it was not as rigorous as it should have been.

At the start of the war in March, as many as 775 reporters and photographers were travelling as embedded journalists. These reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on. When asked why the military decided to embed journalists with the troops, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Long of the US Marine Corps replied, "Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment."

A September 2003 poll revealed that 70 per cent of Americans believed there was a link between Saddam and the attacks of 9/11. Eighty per cent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception about the invasion, compared to 23 per cent of PBS viewers. Ted Turner, founder of CNN, said that Rupert Murdoch was using Fox News to advocate an invasion. Critics have argued that this statistic is indicative of misleading coverage by the US media since viewers in other countries were less likely to have these misconceptions.

Opponents of military intervention in Iraq have attacked the decision to invade Iraq along a number of lines, including calling into question the evidence used to justify the war, arguing for continued diplomacy, challenging the war's legality, suggesting that the US had other more pressing security priorities, (i.e., Afghanistan and North Korea) and predicting that the war would destabilise the Middle East region. The breadth and depth of the criticism was particularly notable in comparison with the first Gulf War, which met with considerably less domestic and international opposition, although the geopolitical situation had evolved since the last decade.

One of the main questions in the lead-up to the war was whether the UN Security Council would authorise military intervention in Iraq. When it became increasingly clear that UN authorisation would require significant further weapons inspections, and that the US and Britain planned to invade Iraq regardless, many criticised their effort as unwise, immoral and illegal. Robin Cook, then the leader of the British House of Commons and a former foreign secretary, resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet in protest over Britain's decision to invade without the authorisation of a UN resolution. Cook said then: "In principle I believe it is wrong to embark on military action without broad international support. In practice I believe it is against Britain's interests to create a precedent for unilateral military action."

Criticisms about the evidence used to justify the war notwithstanding, many opponents of military intervention objected because a diplomatic solution would be preferable, and war should be reserved as a truly last resort. This position was exemplified by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who responded to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's 5 February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council by saying that, "given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections."

Besides arguing that Iraq was not the top strategic priority in the war on terror or in the Middle East, critics of the war also suggested that it could potentially destabilise the surrounding region. Prominent among such critics was Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to ex-president George H W Bush. In a Wall Street Journal editorial "Don't attack Saddam", Scowcroft wrote that, "possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region" where there could be "an explosion of outrage against us" that "could well destabilise Arab regimes" and "could even swell the ranks of the terrorists".

C a p t i o n : Clockwise from top: the aerial bombardment of Baghdad on 20 March 2003; men and boys gather under a giant mural of Saddam Hussein to watch the British 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment search a military compound in Al-Dayr north of Basra; Hans Blix; Mohamed E-Baradei; the notorious vice president of Iraq's ruling Revolution Command Council, Ezzat Ibrahim; and former British premier Tony Blair and US President George W Bush

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/889/sc1.htm






Balance sheet

* Over one million Iraqis have died.

A study published in January 2008 by Opinion Business Research (ORB), in collaboration with the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies, an independent Iraqi institution, estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed since 2003. The study confirms the assessment made by two previous studies conducted by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and published in the medical journal The Lancet. All studies consider the actions of occupation forces as the main cause of violent death in Iraq.

* The US Department of Defense confirms the deaths of 3,988 American soldiers to date, while 175 UK soldiers and 133 soldiers of other nationalities have also died. More than 1,001 contractors have been killed since 2003, and an estimated 8,019 members of the Iraqi Security Forces have also been killed.

* At least 15,000 Iraqis have disappeared since 2003, based on research done by local NGOs.

* Over 4.7 million Iraqis have been displaced or made refugees.

The US occupation has created the largest and fastest growing global refugee crisis in post-World War II history, inclusive of the Palestinian exodus. At least 2.5 million Iraqis have been internally displaced while 2.2 million more are refugees in neighbouring countries. The Iraqi Red Crescent Society reports that in October 2007 alone 368,479 Iraqis were uprooted from their homes inside Iraq, while an estimated 60,000 Iraqis flee the country to neighbouring states on a monthly basis.

* 50,000 Iraqi refugees have been forced into prostitution.

* 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed since 2003, most of which were assassinated.

* At least 345 Iraqi academics have been assassinated since 2003.

* At least 210 Iraqi lawyers and judges have been killed since 2003.

* At least 282 Iraqi journalists have been killed since 2003.

* Since the US invasion, 43 per cent of Iraqis live in abject poverty on less than $1 a day; 60-70 per cent of the workforce is unemployed.

* More than six million Iraqis are in need of urgent humanitarian aid, while four million are in urgent need of food aid.

* Child malnutrition has increased exponentially: half of Iraq's children under five are now malnourished.

* Child mortality has increased 150 per cent since 2003.

* Seventy per cent of the population is denied adequate access to drinking water while 80 per cent lack basic sanitation.

* Of Iraq's 180 large hospitals, 90 per cent lack essential supplies.

* More than 800,000 schoolchildren have stopped attending primary school and only half who complete primary school continue their education. More than 220,000 refugee children in neighbouring countries are denied the right to education.

* All public services in Iraq have collapsed. Already in 2006, 40 per cent of Iraq's skilled personnel had left the country.

* The war is costing $720 million per day, or $500,000 per minute.

* Attacks by the Iraqi resistance on US forces run to more than 5,500 per month.

source: The B Russell s Tribunal, www.brusselstribunal.org

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Resisting the invasion

The following is a review of the resistance and armed groups in Iraq:

First, the main Sunni resistance groups that primarily target the US occupation:

1. The Iraqi National Islamic Resistance (the 1920 Revolution Brigades) : It emerged for the first time on 16 July 2003. Its declared aim is to liberate Iraqi territory from foreign military and political occupation and to establish a liberated and independent Iraqi state on Islamic bases. It launches armed attacks against the US forces. The attacks primarily are concentrated in the area west of Baghdad, in the regions of Abu Ghraib, Khan Dari and Falluja. It has other activities in the governorates of Ninwi, Diyali, and Al-Anbar. The group usually takes into consideration the opinions of a number of Sunni authorities in Iraq.

The group's statements, in which it claims responsibility for its operations against the US occupation, are usually distributed at the gates of the mosques after the Friday prayers.

The most prominent operations of the group during that period were the shooting down of a helicopter in the Abu Ghraib region by the Al-Zubayr Bin Al-Awwam Brigade on 1 August 2004, and the shooting down of a Chinook helicopter in the Al-Nuaymiyah region, near Falluja, by the Martyr Nur Al-Din Brigade on 9 August 2004.

Hamas Iraq is a Sunni militia group which broke off from the 1920 Revolution Brigade in March 2007. The group has claimed to have released videos of its attack on US troops.

2. The National Front for the Liberation of Iraq : The front includes 10 resistance groups. It was formed days after the occupation of Iraq in April 2003. It consists of nationalists and Islamists. Its activities are concentrated in Irbil and Kirkuk in northern Iraq; in Falluja, Samaraa, and Tikrit in central Iraq, and in Basra and Babil governorates in the south, in addition to Diyali governorate in the east and is much weaker than the 1920 Revolution Brigades.

3. The Iraqi Resistance Islamic Front (JAMI) : The front is the newest Sunni resistance group to fight the US occupation. It includes a number of small resistance factions that formed a coalition. Its political and jihad programme is based on the illegality of the occupation. Its activities against the occupation forces are concentrated in the two governorates of Ninwi and Diyali. It announced its existence for the first time on 30 May 2004.

In its statements, JAMI warns against Jewish-Zionist conspiracies in Iraq. According to statements issued by the front, JAMI's military wing, the Salah-Al-Din and Sayf-Allah Al-Maslul Brigades, has carried out dozens of operations against the US occupation forces. The most prominent of these operations were in Ninwi Governorate. These operations included the shelling of the occupation command headquarters and the semi-daily shelling of the Mosul airport. Furthermore, JAMI targets the members of US intelligence and kills them in the Al-Faysaliyah area in Mosul and also in the Governorate of Diyali.

4. Other factions : There are other factions that claim responsibility for limited military operations against the US forces. However, some of these factions have joined larger brigades that are more active and more experienced in fighting. These factions include:

Hamzah Faction : A Sunni group that appeared for the first time on 10 October 2003 in Falluja and called for the release of a local sheikh known as Sheikh Jamal Nidal, who was arrested by the US forces.

Iraqi Liberation Army : The first appearance of this group was on 15 July 2003. It warned foreign countries against sending troops to Iraq and pledged to attack those troops if they were sent.

Awakening and Holy War : A group of Arab Sunni mujahideen active in Falluja. It filmed an operation on videotape and sent the tape to Iranian television on 7 July 2003. On the tape the group said that Saddam Hussein and the United States were two sides of the same coin. The group said that it carried out operations against the US occupation in Falluja and other cities.

The White Banners : A group of local Arab Sunni mujahideen active in the Sunni triangle and probably in other areas. Originally, they were opposed to Saddam Hussein, and in alliance with the Muslim Youths and Mohamed's Army. The group criticised the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad. So far, there is no information about their operations.

Al-Haqq Army : There is not much information about this group, which consists of Arab Sunni Muslims, it has some nationalistic tendencies, and it is not loyal to Saddam Hussein.

5. Baathist factions : These factions are loyal to the Baath Party and the previous regime. They do not constitute a significant proportion of the actual resistance in Iraq. Their activities are more or less restricted to financing resistance operations. The factions that still exist secretly in the Iraqi arena include:

Al-Awdah (The Return) : This faction is concentrated in northern Iraq -- Samaraa, Tikrit, Al-Dur, and Mosul. It consists of members of the former intelligence apparatus.

Saddam's Fedayeen : The faction was formed by the Saddam Hussein regime before the US invasion. Now, it is rumoured that many of its members have abandoned their loyalty to Saddam and have joined Islamic and national groups on the side of the 11 September Revolutionary Group and The Serpent's Head Movement.

Second, Shia resistance against the occupation:

Al-Sadr group : The Mahdi Army is considered the only militia experiment to emerge after the occupation. In July 2003, Shia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr announced the formation of the Mahdi Army, but not as a force directed against the occupation. Within a short period, Al-Sadr gathered between 10,000 and 15,000 well-trained youths, the majority of whom were from the poor of the Al-Sadr City, Al-Shulah and the southern cities.

Recent events include the closure of Al-Sadr's Al-Hawzah newspaper in March 2004; the arrest of Al-Sadr assistant Mustafa Al-Yaqubi against a background of suspicions about his involvement in the killing of Imam Abdul-Majid Al-Khui, and finally the writ to arrest Muqtada Al-Sadr in April on charges of assassinating Al-Khui inside the Al-Haydari Mosque in Najaf on 10 April 2003. They put the Mahdi Army in confrontation with the occupation forces in Baghdad and the southern governorates.

The greatest confrontation between this militia and the occupation forces erupted in Najaf in August 2004. The confrontation continued for nearly three weeks, and it ended with the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the two sides. Observers believe these confrontations bestowed upon the Al-Sadr tendency the mark of an armed resistance to the occupation.

Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib Jihadi Brigades : This Shia group appeared for the first time on 12 October 2003. It vowed to kill the soldiers of any country sending its troops to support the coalition forces, and threatened to transfer the battleground to the territories of such countries if they were to send troops. The group also threatened to assassinate all members of the Interim Governing Council and any Iraqi cooperating with the coalition forces. The group also announced that Najaf and Karbala were the battlegrounds in which it would target the US forces.

Third: Factions that adopt abductions and killing:

In addition to the groups resisting occupation, other armed groups have emerged and resorted to operations of abducting and killing foreigners both to terrorise the enemy and as a political pressure card to achieve their specific demands. This was what happened when Philippine President Gloria Macapagol Arroyo decided to withdraw the Philippine forces acting under US command in Iraq after the abduction of her compatriot Angelo del Cruz on 7 July 2004 and his release at a later time.

The most prominent of these groups are:

Assadullah Brigades : The group said in a statement, number 50, "the mujahid is entitled to capture any infidel that enters Iraq, whether he works for a construction company or in any other job, because he could be a warrior, and the mujahid has the right to kill him or take him as a prisoner."

The activities of this group are concentrated in Baghdad and its suburbs. The group detained the third most senior diplomat at the Egyptian Embassy to Iraq, Mohamed Mamdouh Hilmi Qotb, in July 2004 in response to statements by Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, who announced that Egypt was prepared to offer its security expertise to the interim Iraqi government. The diplomat was released after nearly a week.

Islamic Retaliation Movement : It abducted the US Marine of Lebanese origin, Wasif Ali Hassun, on 19 July 2004, and then released him.

Islamic Anger Brigades : This group abducted 15 Lebanese in June 2004 and then released them, with the exception of Hussein Ulayan, an employee of a communications company, whom it killed.

Khaled Ibn Al-Walid Brigades and Iraq's Martyrs Brigades : They are believed to be the ones who abducted Italian journalist Enzo Bladoni in August 2004 and killed him.

The Black Banners Group : A battalion of the Secret Islamic Army. The group abducted three Indians, two Kenyans, and an Egyptian working for a Kuwaiti company operating in Iraq. The aim was to compel the company to stop its activities in Iraq. The hostages were later released.

The Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Group and The Al-Tawhid wa Al-Jihad Group are both headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

The Islamic Army in Iraq : A secret organisation that adopts the ideology of Al-Qaeda. The organisation abducted Iranian Consul Feredion Jahani and two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot.

Ansar Al-Sunna Movement : The movement abducted 12 Nepalese on 23 August 2004 and killed them.

The last four groups are clearly intellectually close to the beliefs and thinking of Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

The first case of videotaped beheading was that of US national Nicholas Berg in May 2004. The Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi group claimed responsibility. After that, the Al-Tawhid wa Al-Jihad Group killed South Korean Kim Il, who was working for a Korean company providing the US Army with military installations. Following that, the abducting of hostages escalated in Iraq. Some of the hostages were killed, and others were released. The total number of hostages killed so far is: two Italians, two US nationals, two Pakistanis, one Egyptian, one Turk, one Lebanese, one Bulgarian, one South Korean and 12 Nepalese.

This is not the final word on the resistance, which keeps changing every day, with new groups forming, others lapsing and dividing into smaller groups.

Based on a report by Global Policy Forum

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Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/889/sc3.htm






Milestones:

2002

September : US President George W Bush tells sceptical world leaders at a UN General Assembly session to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq or stand aside as the US acts. In the same month British Prime Minister Tony Blair publishes a dossier on Iraq's military capability.

November : UN weapons inspectors return to Iraq backed by a UN resolution which threatens serious consequences if Iraq is in "material breach" of its terms.

March : Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix reports that Iraq has accelerated its cooperation but says inspectors need more time to verify Iraq's compliance.

2003

17 March : UK's ambassador to the UN says the diplomatic process on Iraq has ended; arms inspectors evacuate; US President George W Bush gives Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war.

20 March : American missiles hit targets in Baghdad, marking the start of a US-led campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. In the following days US and British ground troops enter Iraq from the south.

9 April : US forces advance into central Baghdad. Saddam Hussein's grip on the city is broken. In the following days Kurdish fighters and US forces take control of the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. There is looting in Baghdad and elsewhere.

April : US lists 55 most-wanted members of the former regime in the form of a deck of cards. Former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz is taken into custody.

May : UN Security Council backs US-led administration in Iraq and lifts economic sanctions. US administrator abolishes Baath Party and institutions of former regime.

July : US-appointed Governing Council meets for the first time. Commander of US forces says his troops face low-intensity guerrilla-style war. Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay killed in gun battle in Mosul.

August : Deadly bomb attacks on Jordanian Embassy and UN headquarters in Baghdad. Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid, or Chemical Ali, captured. Car bomb in Najaf kills 125 including Shia leader Ayatollah Mohamed Baqir Al-Hakim.

14 December : Saddam Hussein captured in Tikrit.

2004

February : More than 100 killed in Irbil in suicide attacks on offices of main Kurdish factions.

March : Suicide bombers attack Shia pilgrims in Karbala and Baghdad, killing 140 people.

April-May : Shia militias loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr take on coalition forces.

Hundreds are reported killed in fighting during the month-long US military siege of the Sunni Muslim city of Falluja.

June : US hands sovereignty to interim government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Saddam Hussein transferred to Iraqi legal custody.

August : Fighting in Najaf between US forces and Shia militia of radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr.

November : Major US-led offensive against insurgents in Falluja.

2005

30 January : An estimated eight million people vote in elections for a Transitional National Assembly. The Shia United Iraqi Alliance wins a majority of assembly seats. Kurdish parties come second.

28 February : At least 114 people are killed by a massive car bomb in Hilla, south of Baghdad. It is the worst single such incident since the US-led invasion.

April : Amid escalating violence, parliament selects Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president. Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shia, is named as prime minister.

May onwards : Surge in car bombings, bomb explosions and shootings: Iraqi ministries put the civilian death toll for May at 672, up from 364 in April.

June : Massoud Barzani is sworn in as regional president of Iraqi Kurdistan.

July : Study compiled by the non-governmental Iraq Body Count organisation estimates that nearly 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the 2003 US-led invasion.

August : Draft constitution is endorsed by Shia and Kurdish negotiators, but not by Sunni representatives.

More than 1,000 people are killed during a stampede at a Shia ceremony in Baghdad.

September : 182 people are killed in attacks in Baghdad, including a car bomb attack on a group of workers in a mainly-Shia district.

October : Saddam Hussein goes on trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

Voters approve a new constitution, which aims to create an Islamic federal democracy.

15 December : Iraqis vote for the first, full-term government and parliament since the US-led invasion.

2006

20 January : Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance emerges as the winner of December's parliamentary elections, but fails to gain an absolute majority.

February onwards : A bomb attack on an important Shia shrine in Samaraa unleashes a wave of sectarian violence in which hundreds of people are killed.

22 April : Newly re-elected President Talabani asks Shia compromise candidate Jawad Al-Maliki to form a new government. The move ends four months of political deadlock.

May and June : An average of more than 100 civilians per day are killed in violence in Iraq, the UN says.

7 June : Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is killed in an air strike.

September : A much-anticipated ceremony to transfer operational command from US-led forces to Iraq's new army is postponed.

November : Saddam Hussein is found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.

Iraq and Syria restore diplomatic relations after nearly a quarter century.

More than 200 die in car bombings in the mostly Shia area of Sadr City in Baghdad. An indefinite curfew is imposed after what is considered the worst attack on the capital since the US-led invasion of 2003.

December : Iraq Study Group report making recommendations to President Bush on future policy in Iraq describes the situation as grave and deteriorating. It warns of the prospect of a slide towards chaos, triggering the collapse of the government and a humanitarian catastrophe.

30 December : Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging.

2007

January : US President Bush announces a new Iraq strategy; thousands more US troops will be dispatched to shore up security in Baghdad.

Barzan Ibrahim (Saddam Hussein's half-brother) and Awad Hamed Al-Bandar, former head of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging.

UN says more than 34,000 civilians were killed in violence during 2006; the figure surpasses official Iraqi estimates threefold.

February : Bomb in Baghdad's Sadriya market kills more than 130 people. It is the worst single bombing since 2003.

March : Insurgents detonate three trucks with toxic chlorine gas in Falluja and Ramadi, injuring hundreds.

Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan is executed on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion.

12 April : Bomb blast rocks parliament, killing an MP.

18 April : Bombings in Baghdad kill nearly 200 people in the worst day of violence since a US- led security drive began in the capital in February.

May : Leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Ayoub Al-Masri is reported killed.

July : President Bush says only limited military and political progress in Iraq following his decision to reinforce US troops levels there.

August : The main Sunni Arab political bloc in Iraq, the Iraqi Accordance Front, withdraws from the cabinet, plunging the government into crisis.

Truck and car bombs hit two villages of Yazidi Kurds, killing at least 250 people -- the deadliest attack since 2003.

Kurdish and Shia leaders form an alliance to support Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's government but fail to bring in Sunni leaders.

September : Controversy over private security contractors after Blackwater security guards allegedly fire at civilians, killing 17.

October : Turkish parliament gives the go-ahead for military operations in Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. Turkey comes under international pressure to avoid an invasion.

The number of violent civilian and military deaths continues to drop, as does the frequency of rocket attacks.

Karbala, the mainly Shia province, becomes the 18th province to be transferred to local control.

December : Turkey launches an air raid on fighters from the Kurdish PKK movement inside Iraq.

Britain hands over security of Basra province to Iraqi forces, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.

2008

January : Parliament passes legislation allowing former officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to return to public life.

February : Suicide bombings at pet markets in Baghdad kill more than 50 people in the deadliest attacks in the capital in months.

Turkish forces mount a ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

March : Unprecedented two-day visit by Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Iraq.

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Messages to the people

On 20 March 2003, at 5.30am, the American army and its allies bombarded Baghdad. The war on Iraq had officially started. Blood and ink would flow in abundance. Five years later, with that war still ongoing, we, as writers, are sending a message to the people. We appeal to each and every one of you, to make you think.



In February 2003, more than a million protesters gathered both in Rome and London, two of the thousands of mass demonstrations worldwide against the impending war



The bottom line

The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act.

The occupation of Iraq remains a criminal act.

The British government under Blair and the United States administration are war criminals.

It's as simple as that.

Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize in literature 2005

Our duty: unity and solidarity

The future of peace, justice, democracy, progress and human civilisation depends on the unity in struggle of the oppressed and aggressed in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, on the Arab and international solidarity with them, and on their victory. Their enemy is the same: Imperialism and Zionism and their local allies.

Our duty is to incite them into unity. Our duty is to be in solidarity with all of them. The horrors of the five years of American occupation of Iraq remind us of this every day.

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, French-Iraqi political analyst

Their only prize

Now we know the exact costs of war and occupation. It has cost the United States and its allies $3 trillion to kill 1.2 million Iraqis, wound a million more and drive 2.2 million Iraqis out of their country as refugees. The human cost of this war would, if some other country were doing it, be labelled genocide. The leaders who went to war would be tried as war criminals, but this is the war of "Western civilisation" against Islamo-Barbarians, Islamo-fascists and all the other names given to the new enemy. Abusing, defaming and killing Muslims is now calmly accepted in Euro-American culture. The people who do this have institutionalised the judeocide of World War II as the only universal crime. As long as you denounce that crime, you can commit your own crimes today. This is the world we live in. This is the world of double standards. Why the surprise when those under fire refuse to accept these standards. A modest proposal: perhaps the Nobel Prize Committee should institute a new award -- the Nobel Prize for War Crimes.

Tariq Ali, historian, novelist and filmmaker

My statement

The United States hasn't won a war where anyone fights back since 1945.

How long will it take for the rest of the world to prevail upon the consciousness of the US public to force their deranged leaders to withdraw from the bloodbath they have initiated?

Saul Landau, Author, journalist, poet and activist

In Sum

In the middle of the 19th century, the murder of China deserved to be called The Opium War. Victoria, the drug trafficking queen, forced dope on the country in the name of the freedom to trade.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the murder of Iraq deserved to be called The Oil War. George W Bush, more pipeline than president, crushed the country in the name of the freedom to lie.

Eduardo Galeano,Uruguayan writer and historian

First genocide of the 21st century

The American ongoing crime of invading and occupying Iraq since 2003 is the most notorious and comprehensive political and military aggression in modern history, mocking all the moral codes of humanity and international law. While all the world, including the American administration itself, was completely aware that all the pretexts for invading Iraq (weapons of mass destruction, links to terrorism, or for liberation) were false, and in spite of the fact that the international community opposed that aggression and protested against it, the Bush administration ignored everything and everybody and invaded one of the oldest civilisations of the world. Iraq, 6000 years of history, the cradle of civilisations, where the first letter was written, the first law was set, the first university was built, the first money was created, the first irrigation system was established, the first poetry was written ...

What the occupation authorities and their Iraqi agents did during the last five years of controlling Iraq, and what they are still doing now, is flagrantly criminal. Iraq has been subject to systematic destruction. The state was dismantled, institutions were abolished, the educational, health, economic, security and infrastructure systems were broken; even the cultural and social fabrics were torn apart. So far 1.2 million Iraqi civilians have been killed, more than 4.7 million are refugees outside Iraq or displaced inside (1.5 million of them are children), two million orphans and more widows made, and hundreds of thousands detained, exposed to the worst kinds of torture and humiliation (including 10,000 women) and without any kind of legal procedures...

According to the UN, eight million Iraqis are in need of emergency assistance. Seventy per cent of Iraqis are without access to safe supplies of drinking water. Electricity supply is beneath pre-invasion levels (in many areas electricity simply does not exist). Forty-three per cent of the population lives on less than half a dollar per day. Living standards in Iraq are getting worse despite contracts of over $20 billion being paid to companies to rebuild Iraq; they were swallowed by governmental corruption. Iraq is now third on the list of the most corrupted states in the world. Even the so-called Iraqi government admits that unemployment is between 60 and 70 per cent. Child malnutrition has increased from 19 per cent during the 1990s "economic sanctions period", before the invasion, to 28 per cent today.

But worst than all these hardships is the dark future that is awaiting Iraq. The old colonial divide and rule strategy is fully responsible for all sectarian divisions. The longer the occupying armies remain, the greater the chances of the country breaking up. The occupation created official security bodies out of sectarian militias, giving them the authority to kill or to support and help those who kill, kidnap and displace on sectarian bases. On the other hand, there are 180,000 mercenaries (apart from 170,000 official American troops) who are committing different kinds of killings, assassinations and explosions in civilian areas in order to instigate and augment sectarian conflict.

The American administration is working with its Iraqi agents in the so-called Iraqi government to sign a long-term treaty that will control Iraq politically, economically (including petroleum) and militarily for decades to come. This treaty is illegal as it is signed by two illegal parties: the occupying power, which by international humanitarian law has no right to sign any such agreement, and the so-called Iraqi government which was created under and by the occupation.

The only way to stop all these crimes, to hold American and other criminals responsible, and to start the real rebuilding of Iraq is to support the Iraqi people in its resistance to the occupation, to mobilise the world community against the occupation, and to end the world's silence and indifference to the first genocide of the 21st century.

Eman Khammas, Iraqi journalist, activist and now refugee

Permanent planetary emergency

After 9/11 the US invaded Afghanistan. But at the moment they could close in on Bin Laden, they withdrew. Why? Instead, they started an illegal invasion of Iraq, which was a catastrophe foretold. Why?

The neo-con ideology still provides a key to the answer. The book Present Dangers spelled it out. After the Cold War, America needed a new, big enemy, for having no enemy is bad for both politics and the military industrial complex. As soon as it was established in 1996, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) -- with Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz as co-signatories -- asked the president in several letters for a war against Iraq.

In 2000, the PNAC published its report Rebuilding America's Defences, in which it asked for a major increase in military spending to "fight and decisively win multiple simultaneous major theatre wars". They also said that the unresolved conflict with Saddam Hussein provided an alibi for a permanent military presence in the Gulf. They were well aware that the revolution in military affairs they wished for was unlikely without, "some catalysing catastrophic event, like a new Pearl Harbour" (it is still on their website). So 9/11 was a godsend. The Bush government took up this new neo-con vision and declared the "war on terror".

With the strategy of allowing Osama and the Taliban in Afghanistan regain ground, and spreading Al-Qaeda to Iraq and angering the entire region and radicalising factions of Islam everywhere, they got what they needed: the ideal, big, if not monstrous, post-Cold War enemy. On the way they fulfilled the hidden agenda of Israel to get rid of Iraq, and by privatising warfare they gave a huge push to the development of a new military and paramilitary industry (what Naomi Klein has called the "disaster capitalism complex"). They destroyed the Iraqi state, seized its assets and its petroleum, got permanent bases and built the biggest embassy ever.

So as far as I can see, the neo-con agenda was realised, almost all according to plan. That it cost more than 1.2 million Iraqi lives and 4.7 million refugees and an entire population maimed, under-fed or traumatised (which makes it the biggest manmade disaster on the planet at this moment): too bad. Of course, there are conflicting opinions and interests; public opinion has turned against the war and the situation on the ground is called "messy", but as long as permanent war is assured, all is well.

All is well for the thinktanks that concocted the project for a new century of American dominance, or "pre-eminence" as they call it, by unleashing and then fighting "the present dangers": the ubiquitous terrorist as both enemy within and enemy without; the best enemy there is, for it gives you both the right to declare war and a state of emergency (from the Patriot Act to Guantanamo and beyond, up to antiterrorism laws in Europe). For that is what this war on terror is and remains: a consciously created planetary state of emergency. The war in Iraq is part of that plan for permanent war and permanent emergency.

Lieven De Cauter, philosopher, initiator of the B Russell s Tribunal, Belgium

On estimates

More than four million refugees.

At a rough estimation.

Four million, rough.

How rough, would you say?

Hilde Keteleer, poet, translator, critic

Let us support the people of Iraq

The fifth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq is also an anniversary of resistance by a National Liberation Movement of indigenous Iraqis against a foreign and oppressive occupation and its collaborators.

Brave Iraqis who are fighting with all necessary means to dislodge the United States, its allies and its collaborators from their occupation of Iraq are members of a National Liberation Movement. They may be referred to in English, although they have adopted no formal name, as the "Iraqi Liberation Movement", or ILM.

The ILM consists of all Iraqis who are struggling by peaceful or violent means to remove the occupying powers from the territory of the sovereign state of Iraq. The ILM is entitled to use all necessary means to end the occupation. It is so entitled because it represents the legitimate authority and will of the people of Iraq.

The recognition of national liberation movements is not new. National liberation movements are recognised as the consequence of the right of self-determination. This right is guaranteed in the very first common articles of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; two of the most widely ratified human rights instruments in the world.

The UN Charter also refers to the right to self-determination in its first article. Article 73 of the charter then defines self- determination as "self-government" taking "due account of the political aspirations of the peoples" and assisting "them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of development." Although this was intended to apply primarily to peoples under colonialism, it must be read in conjunction with Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the charter, which protects people from the illegal use of force.

The expression of self-determination in the context of colonialism was also expressed in UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 -- the Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples -- as well as Resolution 1541(XV) adopted a few days later. These resolutions recognised the right of self-determination as a right of peoples who are subject to colonial rule to decide on their own form of government. A slightly more general recognition can be found in the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. As this latter document indicates, it is also part of customary international law, something confirmed by the UN Resolution 2625 adopted by consensus on 24 October 1970.

A National Liberation Movement is, renowned international jurist Ian Brownlie tells us, entitled to "conclude binding international agreements"; to the "rights and obligations set by the generally recognised principles of international humanitarian law"; and "to participate in the proceedings of the United Nations as observers". It is also entitled to the respect and support of every state and individual in the international community.

By providing whatever support is within one's abilities, each one of us contribute to liberating the Iraqi people. We may suffer consequences for our support of the brave Iraqis fighting against the most deadly killing machine American lives and money can buy, but whatever domestic laws say, such supporters -- governments or individuals -- are acting in accordance with international law. Something that the occupiers of Iraq have failed to do and our suffering is much less than that of Iraqis who gallantly face an army too cowardly to respect basic international law.

Let us remember with courage this fifth anniversary of this struggle to end the occupation of Iraq as the anniversary of the "first Iraqi Intifada" against the injustice brought upon Iraqis by foreign and oppressive occupiers and their collaborators. Let us support the people of Iraq.

Curtis F J Doebbler, international human rights lawyer

The US is weak

The United States is the weakest entity on earth. It proves it in its violence. It is a system that produces cadavers and voluntary and involuntary executioners: 3.2 million Iraqis dead since 1990 and 300 million Americans rendered complicit -- directly or by way to the so-called development surrounding them -- with the international crime of genocide. It is a system that simply couldn't function were truth suddenly substituted for lies.

How long will its façade continue when none among us is certain of escaping its prisons? Will it take a further $1 trillion to realise that Baghdad will never be subjugated? How long will the American people remain ignorant of the fact that in Iraq the United States faces the force of a social unity that has been a geopolitical reality for 5,000 years?

To future historians, the United States will command none of the respect it likes to think it has. Co-existence practically does not exist in US dictionaries. And its war on terror is just a name for killing or repressing everyone who at a gut level rejects servitude. It even creates phantoms to keep the whole masquerade going. And in their name it kills it own people as well as others.

In Iraq there is one reality: a defeated occupation and its collaborators, and the Iraqi people. We must support the Iraqi people in its resistance to occupation, for to do anything else leaves us siding with genocide. The latter we should prosecute.

Ian Douglas, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq

Just get out!

In January 2003, just weeks before our illegal invasion, Nelson Mandela made the following statement: "... All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. Why [is the US] not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from [its] ally Israel? ... What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Well, as the banner on the aircraft carrier read, Mission Accomplished ... for the holocaust of ethnic cleansing in Palestine has extended to Iraq, COMPLIMENTS of our illegal and brutal occupation.

Were there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? NO!

Were there ties between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda? NO!

Did the Iraqi people ever pose a threat to us? NO!

Have Sunnis and Shias been killing each other for thousands of years? NO!

How do we know our "leaders" are lying to us? Their lips are moving. In Iraq, as in Latin America in the 1980s, the bloodshed began when American CIA-operations were set in motion.

In reality, while there are over 2.2 million Iraqi refugees living mainly in Syria and Jordan, there is NO mass bloodshed and torture in these neighbouring countries. The genocide just happens to be occurring inside Iraq, where the American CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and the most powerful military in the world are running operations. It's simple: invasion and occupation are illegal, and there must be one consistent standard for justice and the law.

No timetables -- just IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL.

No conditions -- just IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL.

No more stoplossing soldiers -- just IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL.

Iraq needs only one thing from America -- just IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL.

Worldwide, we the peacemakers are the majority. Whatever obstacles we encounter in the struggle, they are nothing compared to what the Iraqi people are facing everyday. We are here. We have to push forward. And we cannot stop until our government's crimes do.

Dahlia Wasfi, Global Exchange -- Iraq/USA

Nine hundred and thirty five lies

Nine hundred and thirty five lies. Two groups that keep track of the media counted them. The Bush gang lied 935 times between 11 September 2001 and 19 March 2003, to justify the invasion of Iraq. Bush lied 259 times. The biggest lie was that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction". A close second was that Saddam Hussein worked with Al-Qaeda. Why is the number of lies important? There were 935 opportunities to question the liars. The 935 lies are proof that the entire US ruling class is responsible for the conspiracy to wage war on Iraq.

The millions who marched against the war knew these were lies. You did not have to be Einstein. Nor Lenin. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz led the war conspiracy. But the entire ruling class and its institutions colluded. The Pentagon went along willingly. The State Department presented the false statements to the United Nations. Congress voted the funds.

No major corporate media questioned or challenged these lies. The influential New York Times and the Washington Post supported the war drive. Nor did the media allow war opponents to expose the lies.

In January and February 2003, mass mobilisations tried to stop the war. No major ruling class politicians or business figures participated in these protests. Not Kennedy, not Brzezinski, not Soros. The vast majority of the super-rich ruling class wanted the profits and plunder from a quick US victory in Iraq. The military-industrial complex bid for contracts. The strategists wanted US control of the world's energy sources. If they saw any dangers, they kept quiet.

But they made a big mistake. They were blinded by greed. Five years later, there is no "quick victory". There is much suffering by Iraqis, yes. But the occupation is a debacle for US imperialism. They made the same mistake Hitler made invading the Soviet Union in 1940, and that Washington made sending its army to Vietnam in 1967. The US rulers underestimated the Iraqis' willingness to sacrifice and fight rather than submit.

Now the liars are exposed. We must thank the heroic Iraqi resistance for exposing them. And we must dedicate ourselves to fight. Fight to end the occupation of Iraq. Fight to depose the entire ruling class that made this war.

John Catalinotto, International Action Centre

These and other statements were gathered by the B Russell s Tribunal www.brusselstribunal.org in cooperation with the Passa Porta House of Literature, Belgium.

C a p t i o n : In February 2003, more than a million protesters gathered both in Rome and London, two of the thousands of mass demonstrations worldwide against the impending war

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/889/sc5.htm