Doug Lorimer
As Iraqi resistance fighters fought running gunbattles in the streets of central Baghdad, on July 7 the US-appointed Interim Government of Iraq (IGI) announced a set of security laws that will override the country's interim constitution.
According to a July 7 report by the US Knight Ridders Newspapers (KRN), Iraqi National Guard soldiers said the gunbattles began when they were attacked by resistance fighters who "outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered" them, forcing the ING patrol to call in US troops and helicopter gunships.
The ING soldiers, KRN reported, said they "recognised some of the fighters from the neighborhood, undermining interim government officials' constant assertions that such attacks are the work of foreign terrorists".
Wissam Hadi, one of the ING soldiers whose patrol was attacked by the guerrillas, said: "I could recognise them. They are doing that for revenge, because many of their families had been arrested by the Americans."
While the gunbattles were raging only a few kilometres away, IGI justice minister Malek al Hassan held a press conference in Baghdad's heavily fortified "international zone". He said that the national security law provides for the imposition — in defined areas — of curfews, home searches and mass arrests. It also empowers the IGI to order the opening of people's private mail and eavesdropping of telephone conversations, and ban political groups, street protests and public meetings.
All of these martial-law powers were previously held by the US-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority, which was formally dissolved on June 28. The CPA has now been transformed into the US embassy, with the CPA officials who previously directed Iraqi government ministries being renamed "technical advisers" and "consultants".
Reuters reported that announcement of the "national safety law" "had been delayed several times as the government, which formally took over from the US-led occupation on June 28, ironed out the details and consulted with US officials".
KRN reported that "Iraqi government officials, standing before Iraqi flags in a room once used by briefers from the now-disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority, insisted [July 7] that Iraqi soldiers and policemen would enforce the law.
"Yet Iraq's fledgling government can scarcely protect its own ministers, many of whom work behind US machine-gun turrets. Much of Iraq's under-trained, ill-equipped army refused to fight in April when sent into the restive city of Fallujah. Iraqi police officers surrendered or ran away by the thousands when confronted by Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army."
Thus the attempt to suppress Iraqi patriots' armed insurgency against the US-imposed IGI will continue be borne by US occupation troops. The June 29 New York Times reported that the "Pentagon had hoped to reduce its troop levels in Iraq to about 105,000 this spring, but because of increasingly effective and deadly resistance the level has risen to about 140,000. Military officials have said they may need to stay at that level for at least another year or two".
Since the invasion of Iraq 16 months ago, US troops have regularly cordoned off areas, searched houses, conducted mass arrests and detained Iraqis incommunicado for weeks. Without the slightest pretense of observing "due process", the US military has carried out repeated air strikes since June 19 on residential neighbourhoods in Fallujah, killing at least 60 unarmed residents.
The city of 250,000 residents located only 50km west of Baghdad has been controlled by its residents since they drove out the US occupation troops in February. After a three-week siege in April, US marine commanders entered into a truce with an insurgent army commanded by former Iraqi army officers.
The July 6 New York Times reported that "American and Iraqi officials say that a decision in April to pull back American forces from Fallujah inadvertently created a safe haven for terrorists and insurgents there. But officials are reluctant to send American troops back into the city for fear of touching off another uprising... Former members of the Baath Party are using the city as a base to regroup, and recently held a meeting to plot a strategy to return to power, the Iraqi officials said."
In the latest US attack on Fallujah, carried out on July 6, US warplanes dropped two tonnes of bombs on a house. Associated Press reported that after the US attack, local residents "gathered at the pit where the house had been and pulled out clothes, including a young child's shirt, from the rubble". Aljazeera reported that "hospital sources in the town said at least 12 people were killed and five more wounded, listing women and children as among the victims".
US military officials have claimed that all of the buildings in Fallujah that its warplanes have bombed since June 19 have been "safehouses" used by "foreign terrorists" led by Jordanian-born Palestinian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
While US officials and the IGI claim that most of the insurgent attacks in Iraq are being carried out by Zarqawi's network of "foreign terrorists", figures released on July 7 suggest the role of foreign Arab fighters in the Iraqi resistance movement hasa been greatly exaggerated. US officials stated that only 90 of the 5750 "security detainees" held by the US military are foreigners, half of those from Syria.
US President George Bush imposed sanctions on Syria on May 11, accusing Damascus of failing to close its borders to Arabs entering Iraq to fight the US occupation forces. The Syrian government has repeatedly denounced the illegal US occupation of Iraq.
At the July 7 Baghdad press conference, Hassan suggested that the IGI would be willing to suspend for three years the murder warrant seeking the arrest of al Sadr. The murder warrant — alleging that Sadr was responsible for the killing of a pro-US cleric several months earlier — was revealed by CPA head Paul Bremer in early April after Sadr's Madhi Army militia had launched an uprising in Sadr City, Baghdad's huge Shiite slum, and in several Shiite holy cities in south-central Iraq.
Since Sadr launched his armed rebellion against the US occupiers, public opinion polls conducted for the CPA have shown that his popularity among Iraqis had soared.
Hassan's suggestion that the murder warrant against Sadr might be dropped was the second overture made by the IGI to Sadr. On July 3, a similar overture was made by Georges Sada, a spokesperson for Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi.
On June 12, Sadr had issued a statement saying he was willing to enter a dialogue with the interim government if it worked for the ending of the US military presence in Iraq. However, on July 4 Sadr issued a statement from his office in Najaf, pledging to continue resisting "oppression and occupation" and calling the IGI "illegitimate".
"We pledge to the Iraqi people and the world to continue resisting oppression and occupation to our last drop of blood", Sadr said. "Resistance is a legitimate right and not a crime to be punished."
From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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