Independent UK

Iraq on the brink of anarchy

By Robert Fisk in Fallujah

06 April 2004

Not content with surrounding the largest Sunni city west of Baghdad
with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, US
forces used Apache helicopters to attack the Shia Muslim slums of
Shoula yesterday, sent dozens of their main battle tanks into the
hovels of Sadr City and then slapped an arrest warrant on the Shia
cleric Muqtada Sadr ? who must dearly have wanted the United States
to do just that.

Gun battles in Sadr City overnight had cost the lives of up to 40
Iraqis and at least eight Americans, but in the sewage-damp streets
yesterday, they were handing out letters, allegedly written by the
Sunni townspeople of Fallujah, newly surrounded by 1,200 marines. "We
support you, our brothers, in your struggle," the letters said. If
they are authentic, it should be enough to make the US proconsul,
Paul Bremer, wonder if he can ever extricate Washington from Iraq.
The British took three years to turn both the Sunnis and the Shias
into their enemies in 1920. The Americans are achieving it in just
under a year.

Anarchy has been a condition of our occupation from the very first
days when we let the looters and arsonists destroy Iraq's
infrastructure and history. But that lawlessness is now coming back
to haunt us. Anarchy is what we are now being plunged into in Iraq,
among a people with whom we share no common language, no common
religion and no common culture.

Officially, Mr Bremer and his president are standing tall, claiming
they will not "tolerate" violence and those who oppose democracy, but
occupation officials ? in anticipation of a far more violent
insurrection ? have been privately discussing the legalities of
martial law. And although Mr Bremer and President George Bush are
publicly insisting that the notional "handover" of Iraq's
"sovereignty" will still take place on 30 June, legal experts
attached to the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council have also
been considering a delay of further months. Many Iraqis are now
asking if the Americans want disaster in Iraq. Surely not, but
yesterday's violence told its own story of blundering military
operations and political provocations that will undoubtedly add to
the support for the charmless and provocative Shia cleric whom Mr
Bremer now wants to lock up ? allegedly for plotting the murder of a
pro-Western Shia cleric, Abdul-Majid el-Khoi. Sadr was surrounded by
his militiamen yesterday, in a mosque in Kufa from where he issues
regular denunciations of the occupation.

Dan Senor, a spokesman for the occupying power, would not tell anyone
exactly what the evidence against Sadr was ? even though it has
supposedly existed since an Iraqi judge issued the warrant some
months ago.

The US military response to the atrocities committed against four
American mercenaries in Fallujah last week has been to surround the
entire city and to announce the cutting off of the neighbouring
international highway link between Baghdad, Amman and Damascus ? thus
bringing to a halt almost all economic trade between Iraq and its two
western neighbours.

What good this will do "new" Iraq is anyone's guess. Vast concrete
walls have been lowered across the road and military vehicles have
been used to chase away civilians trying to bypass them. A prolonged
series of Israeli-style house raids are now apparently planned for
the people of Fallujah to seek out the gunmen who first attacked the
four Americans. The corpses were stripped, mutilated and hanged.

The helicopter attacks in Shoula ? by ghastly coincidence the very
same Shoula suburb in which civilians were slaughtered by an American
aircraft during last year's invasion ? looked like a copy of every
Israeli raid on the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, Iraqis are well aware
that the US military asked for ? and received ? Israel's "rules of
engagement" from Ariel Sharon's government.

America's losses over the past 48 hours ? at least 12 soldiers killed
and many wounded ? come nowhere near the number of Iraqi victims over
the same period.

US forces in Sadr City believe they were fighting up to 500 militia
men from Sadr's black-uniformed Army of Mehdi early yesterday. Even
so, using Apache helicopters in a heavily populated district to hunt
for gunmen raises new questions about the rules to which occupation
troops are supposed to adhere.

The British fared less badly in Basra, Iraq's second city, where they
avoided violence with militiamen who had taken over the town hall and
wounded no one in a brief gun battle. Spanish troops were again
involved in shooting with militiamen in Najaf. The grim truth,
however, is that the occupying powers are now facing insurrection of
various strengths in almost every big city in Iraq.

Yet they are still not confronting that truth. For the past nine
nights, for example, the main US base close to Baghdad airport ? and
the area around the terminals ? has come under mortar fire.

But the occupying powers have kept this secret. "Things are getting
very bad and they're going to get worse," a special forces officer
said close to the airport yesterday. "But no one is saying that ?
either because they don't know or because they don't want you to
know."

As for Sadr, he will, no doubt, try to surround himself with squads
of gunmen and supporters in the hope that the Americans will not dare
to shoot their way in to him.

Or he will go underground and we'll have another "enemy of democracy"
to bestialise in the approach to the American elections. Or ? much
more serious perhaps ? his capture may unleash far more violence from
his supporters.

And all this because Mr Bremer decided to ban Sadr's trashy
10,000-circulation weekly newspaper for "inciting violence."

The Mehdi army

By Anne Penketh

"WE HAVE one single goal, which is to remove the occupiers from the
country." That is the stated goal of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr and his several thousand armed supporters.

But beyond Mr Sadr's broad strategic goal, details of his political
programme remain unclear. Accused by the Americans of attempting to
replace the legitimate authorities, he has repeatedly said that he
does not seek political power, but wants an "honest and responsible"
government.

He also insists that he will not resort to force, and has stopped
short of a call for a holy war against the invaders. But thousands of
people have answered his call to join a militia that would help rid
the county of the hated Americans. They call themselves the Mehdi
Army - named after the prophet Mehdi, the "awaited one" who Shias
believe will return one day as a messiah.

Mr Sadr had faded from the forefront of Shia politics since October,
while the spotlight focused on the leading moderate cleric Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani and his objections to US transition policies.

But the Mehdi Army has said for months it is ready to challenge the
Americans if the order comes, and their reappearance has highlighted
the deep splits within Iraq's Shia majority.

Farooq Tariq
general secretary
Labour Party Pakistan
40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6301685
Mobile: 92 300 8411945

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