The New Saddam
McLeans magazine, Canada’s better answer to Time, has a great article How George became the new
Patrick Graham, a seasoned reporter who has spent several years in Iraq since Bush’s began, recently returned to Iraq after a three year absence and reports on how things really are. Unfettered by not being embedded with the US Army and with many contacts in different camps he portrays as no American based reporter would dare to, stripping away the hologram that the Pentagon and the White House have foisted on the, until recently, unsuspecting American public.
In the past few years, though, many in the insurgency had become disillusioned with the direction of the anti-occupation fight—and concerned over the future of Arab Sunnis in Iraq. In Anbar, the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, initially a partner in the Sunni insurgency, had alienated many by trying to overthrow traditional tribal and power structures to impose an alien interpretation of Islam, a Salafist fundamentalism that had few adherents before the arrival of the Americans. In Baghdad, the militias supporting the Shia-dominated central government—in effect a sectarian regime—were cleansing Arab Sunni neighbourhoods. Now, Anbari Sunnis view the government as deeply infiltrated by their traditional enemy, Shia Iran. So with few allies left in Iraq, they began allying themselves with their former enemies, the U.S. Army—which also seems to be running out of friends.
This “Anbar Awakening” has been a slow process, beginning long before the recent U.S. “surge” that increased the number of American troops in Iraq by 30,000, to 180,000. But it is still a shaky union, a desperate marriage of convenience based on shared enemies: Iran, and the Sunnis’ former-friend-turned-foe al-Qaeda. Many of America’s new allies are former insurgents and Saddam Hussein loyalists (Saddam was a Sunni) who only a short while ago were routinely called terrorists, “anti-Iraqi fighters,” and “Baathist dead-enders.” They are suspicious of one another and strongly anti-American, although willing to work, for the moment, with the U.S.
Then there’s the government
The level of corruption in the ministries is astonishing, but according to U.S. government reports they are often “untouchable” because the prime minister’s office protects allies from investigation. The Ministry of Finance is run by Bayan Jabr, the former minister of the interior who hired thousands of Shia militiamen as police and set up death squads and torture prisons. His successor had to fire 10,000 employees, and today various factions fight for control of each floor of the Interior Ministry building.
At least US$10 billion has been embezzled, according to Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, which is itself underfunded (12 of its members have been murdered). After a U.S. report surfaced detailing how the prime minister blocked the commission’s investigations of corrupt officials, Maliki accused the head of the commission of corruption and threatened him with arrest. Luckily the man was already out of the country. Corruption in the Oil Ministry—Iraq’s nationalized energy sector is its only real source of revenue—has resulted in shortages that have only increased the long lineups for gasoline in a country brimming with oil. Senior Iraqi army officers complain that when they organize raids on Shia militias, they are stopped on orders from the prime minister’s office. Iraq was a disaster under Saddam, but it has turned into Nigeria.
Ya, that’s right – Bush’s dear friend Maliki blocking the Iraqi army from going after the militias that are killing American troops. Gee sort of reminds you of Cheney and Saddam doesn’t it, getting into bed with the enemy.
Gob read the whole article, it’s damned good and you sure won’t get this perspective from the MSM south of the 49th.
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