Rohan Pearce
On September 9, the US military launched vicious air strikes against two Iraqi cities, Fallujah and Tall Afar, killing more than 40 people and wounding more than 100. These assaults were part of the US occupation forces' effort to seize back control of massive areas of Iraq from which US troops have been driven out of by Iraqi resistance fighters.
The attack on Fallujah was followed up by more US air strikes on September 13. The Pentagon claimed it was conducting "precision strikes" launched on the basis of "intelligence sources". A statement released by the US Central Command claimed: "Based on analysis of these reports, Iraqi Security Forces and multi-national forces effectively and accurately targeted these terrorists while protecting the lives of innocent civilians."
According to Associated Press reports, the US targeted the Fallujah's Shurta residential neighbourhood. Doctors at the Fallujah General Hospital told reporters that the September 13 air assault, which was supported by US artillery fire, destroyed an ambulance, killing its driver and paramedic, along with five patients who were in the vehicle.
The attempt to retake Fallujah from Iraqis came as the Pentagon brass finally acknowledged their defeat by the city's armed residents at the end of April, when the besieging US marines agreed to a compromise that saw control of the city of 250,000 residents handed over to the Fallujah Protective Army. The FPA — referred to be US officials as the "Fallujah Brigade" — was led by former Iraqi Army General Jassim Saleh, and it proceeded to incorporate many of the city's anti-US defenders into its ranks.
The September 12 Washington Post reported that US Marine Corps General James Conway said the decision to try to retake Fallujah from resistance fighters was a mistake because it "certainly increased the level of animosity that existed". However, Conway also criticised the decision to break off the assault midway through — "Once you commit, you stay committed".
Instead of supporting a crackdown on resistance fighters as demanded by US officials, soldiers wearing FPA uniforms — which were the uniforms of the old Iraqi Army, not those provided by the US — had attacked US troops stationed at checkpoints on Fallujah's outskirts.
US marine commanders have since announced that they have "disbanded" the "Fallujah Brigade", i.e., they have given up trying to pretend that the FPA is part of Washington's puppet Iraqi Security Forces.
Tall Afar
Washington's September 9 bombing of Tall Afar, a city in Iraq's north-west Ninawa province, was ostensibly against "foreign fighters" who the White House claims are infiltrating Iraq via the city, which is close to Syria's eastern border.
Most of Tall Afar's 250,000 inhabitants are Shiite members of the Turkish-speaking Turkmen ethnic minority. If the resistance fighters are indigenous to the city, it would be the first significant outbreak of armed anti-occupation resistance by one of Iraq's ethnic minorities.
On September 10, Agence France Presse reported that a statement released by the Turkish foreign ministry "deplored that the US-led operations had caused 50,000 Turkmen to leave their homes in the town", adding credence to the probability that the US was fighting Iraqi, not foreign, guerrillas.
"The United States must immediately put a stop to this shedding of blood", Ankara demanded, threatening to end cooperation with the US occupation.
After the US military recaptured Tell Afar on September 12, using 2000 soldiers backed by air strikes carried out by F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers, there was no evidence that there were any non-Iraqi fighters in the city, other than the US troops themselves.
US soldiers began conducting house searches and mass arrests of military-age male Iraqis. They also blocked some 50,000-100,000 residents who had fled the assault on Tall Afar from returning to their homes. US Army Captain Nathan Terra told the September 14 Washington Post that this had been done because "there's basically a power vacuum right now" in the city. The US military intends to install a new, pro-US mayor and city administration.
AFP reported on September 14 that inside "the city, houses were scarred by bullet holes, electricity and water were cut, four schools damaged, cars burnt, dozens of shops shuttered and the smell of rotten corpses wafted through the street. The Al Mahdi mosque in western Tall Afar was riddled with bullet holes."
The Post reported that the US "actions in Tall Afar are part of a larger strategy to reestablish control over restive areas of Iraq before elections scheduled for January. US officials say that strong local authority and security are crucial for successful elections."
January elections
For the US, however, success in Iraq is not defined by the election of a truly representative Iraqi government. Washington's aim is to present a facade of democracy to quell US public unease at the occupation's setbacks and to impose on Iraqis a government that will be completely subordinate to Washington's wishes.
If the US is to stick to the January date it has set for holding Iraqi elections, it needs to subdue armed resistance to its occupation and eliminate any alternative political force to its puppet Interim Government of Iraq (IGI).
A May poll conducted for the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) found that 61% of Iraqis either "somewhat opposed" or "strongly opposed" IGI Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the former Baathist secret police assassin who went onto the CIA's payroll in the early 1990s.
By contrast, 67% of Iraqis surveyed either somewhat supported or strongly supported anti-occupation Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, a level of support approaching the 70% enjoyed by Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, who is considered by US officials to be a "moderate" (i.e., while critical of the occupation, he opposes armed resistance to it).
If Washington is unable to eliminate or significantly weaken Sadr's Mahdi Army and the other resistance forces, then it may well decide to cancel Iraq's elections. This, however, would be likely to result in an increase in active support for the armed resistance and increasing pressure on the pro-occupation forces who still retain a degree of independence from Washington — Sistani for example — to take a stronger stand against the US occupation.
The US attempt in August to "capture or kill" Sadr after the Mahdi Army occupied the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf failed miserably, ending in a cease-fire agreement that left Sadr's forces intact. After Sistani intervened in the conflict, Sadr agreed to withdraw his forces from the city, however they remain armed and US attempts to patrol Sadr City, the huge Shiite slum in Baghdad from which Sadr draws many of his fighters, have met with fierce resistance.
According to a September 3 Christian Science Monitor report: "Military depleted by the Najaf standoff and yet politically energized by growing disenchantment among Shiites, the Mahdi Army has in many ways turned into a potent political force that cannot by easily defeated without substantial military cost."
US caught in bind
Washington is caught in a bind — either it crushes the resistance before January and holds an illegitimate election or it cancels the election and retains the IGI as the Iraqi face of the occupation. Either way, opposition to the presence of foreign troops in Iraq is unlikely to lessen.
To improve its re-election chances the Bush administration is anxious to see a drop in the US casualty rate in Iraq in the lead up to the November 2 US presidential election. As a result, the Pentagon appears to be relying more on air strikes to break resistance to the occupation in cities that US troops have been driven from by Iraqi rebels. This, however, exacts a political toll on the occupation regime, making it more difficult to sustain the idea that a truly representative government will emerge from any Iraqi elections.
Already, three attempts to set up puppet government bodies by Washington have failed to gain Iraqi public support. The advisory Iraqi Governing Council, set up in June 2003, soon had as little credibility as the CPA. The IGI, fronted by the highly unpopular Allawi, has been the second attempt. The third, the National Assembly, was set up in August to rubber-stamp the IGI's "decisions".
The September 12 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that "most Iraqis ignore the National Assembly, or have little knowledge of it... The local press relegates the National Assembly's proceedings to a few paragraphs on the bottom of inside pages, well below reports of fresh clashes between US-led military forces and insurgents in Fallujah, Ramadi, Najaf, Sadr City and Mosul."
The report clearly illustrated Washington's failure to create a credible Iraqi puppet government: "Iraq's political predicament struck Rahim Abdul Wahid a few days ago when a group of sharply dressed men, some speaking Arabic with accents worn down by years living in the West, came to his carpet shop to purchase some rugs. 'Excuse me, but who are you?' asked Wahid, a former schoolteacher who follows the news closely.
"They introduced themselves proudly as his political representatives, new members of the Iraqi government vowing to serve Wahid and the Iraqi people. 'I had no idea who these people were,' he said. 'I never voted for any of them. I had never heard of them. These characters have no connection to me whatsoever.'"
In fact, despite the unreliability of polls conducted in an occupied country, particularly given the use of torture and the arrest without trial of Iraqis suspected of opposing the occupation, most polls show support for a democratic Iraq. However, these same polls also show widespread opposition to the presence of foreign troops and disdain for Washington's Iraqi quislings.
Ahlam Adnan al Jabbari, a law professor at Mustansiriyah University, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "This National Assembly is a very, very, modest step, if at all, toward democracy. Iraqis will never accept this as democratic."
From Green Left Weekly, September 22, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.