- Remember all those "intelligence sources" who
promised that Iraqis would be cheering as the U.S. and U.K. armies rolled
into Basra or Nasiriyah or any major town in southern Iraq? Apparently,
in day 7 of the invasion of Iraq, these intelligence sources and their
data are proving to be fallible.
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- Unfortunately, the North American public is not told
who the intelligence sources are. No, they aren't CIA, NSA, or the FBI.
They aren't MI-5 or the SAS. They aren't even spies working in Iraq.
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- They are members of the Iraqi National Congress, an Iraqi
opposition group made up of millionaires and businessmen, former Baathist
henchmen, and generals who aided Saddam in his formative years but felt
threatened by him and defected. Most of the INC's ruling hierarchy is comprised
of people who have not set foot in Iraq in more than 30 years. Some, have
never set foot in Iraq. And yet they claim to be experts.
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- Many members of the INC have personal vendettas against
Saddam himself; former aides or accomplices who would believe they should
be in his place. The INC has long believed that they can never wrestle
control from Saddam (because no one in Iraq much cares for them and considers
them charlatans) and must rely on outside help - the U.S. Consequently,
the INC launched a massive public relations gambit to convince the U.S.
that it should intervene in Iraq.
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- (Earlier in March, the CIA admitted that an invaluable
document linking Niger with Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium had been
forged - a claim initially made by IAEA head Mohammed Al Baradei. The CIA
said that the document had been forged by a third party. Guess who? No,
not Israel. The INC.)
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- They met with members of the neo-conservative lobby (Paul
Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, etc) and gave them exactly the
type of information everyone was waiting to hear. "Enter Iraq with
a formidable army, and the people will greet you with open arms and cheers."
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- No one stopped to question whether the INC was really
telling the truth or whether 13 years of sanctions, which have crippled
Iraqi society, may have played a role in slightly altering this view.
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- So, with a valiant cheer letting loose the bastard dogs
of war, the U.S. administration took the INC advice, sold the U.S. public
on the idea and ignored the advice of most of the senior military brass
warning that an invasion would not be a cake-walk.
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- Iraq scoffed at the notion of Iraqis embracing the invading
armies and promised hell instead.
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- That may yet prove true.
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- In the first few hours of the war, Iraqis in Baghdad
hinted to this writer that some would welcome U.S. forces. However, the
night of "shock and awe" changed all that. Iraqi sources inside
Iraq are now saying the bombing campaigns shocked the Iraqis to the spectre
of annihilation as poorly equipped hospitals began to quickly fill up with
civilian casualties and fatalities.
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- Iraqi doctors were awed by the lack of medicine and proper
facilities to treat the wounded as U.N. sanctions have crippled the Iraqi
health care system.
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- U.S. media, largely CNN, dedicated nearly 0.5 percent
of their airtime to the civilian toll in Iraq. Instead, they showed us
interviews with "Iraqis" living in the U.S. who were cheering
the war. I recently asked a prominent Iraqi exile what he thought of the
statements made by these Iraqis. He advised me to look at how long they
have been outside Iraq and reminded me that bombs weren't falling on them.
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- Furthermore, what do you expect an Iraqi in the U.S.
to say after hearing that the FBI was inviting some 11,000 U.S. based Iraqis
to 'voluntary' interviews (MSNBC reports that the FBI has already interviewed
5,000 Iraqis in the U.S.) and that some Iraqis have been held for visa
violations? As an Iraqi living in the U.S., a country about to invade your
former country and sustain casualties, would you dare to say you oppose
the war? Would you dare to say what you really felt in the post-9/11 frame
of mind towards Muslims and Arabs?
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- No. You will tell them exactly what you know they want
to hear, just like the INC, because you would fear for your future status
in the U.S.
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- Another bit of misinformation that circulated is that
once coalition forces 'liberate' southern Iraq, they would find the local
populace taking arms up and fighting Saddam's loyalists forces. This couldn't
be further from the truth. After their defeat in Kuwait in 1991, Saddam's
forces launched a bloody campaign against what they termed "Iraqi
traitors and insurgents" in the south of Iraq. Any Iraqi rebel forces
that survived that onslaught either fled to Saudi Arabia and ultimately
for other destinations, or to Iran. In Iran, most were given sanctuary
and some joined armed Iraqi forces there. One such force is the Badr Brigade,
which is currently in the north of Iraq and vowing to fight Saddam loyalists
in their own private war.
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- Other survivors of the 1991 backlash flooded the U.K.
and the U.S. where they have been ever since. So who remains to 'rise up'?
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- The people of Basra, say the INC.
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- Let me get this straight: the same people of Basra that
were denied clean water facilities because the U.S. barred Iraq from importing
vital water filtration systems for the past 13 years? The same Basra where
the effects of depleted uranium used by coalition forces in the last Gulf
war have been documented by dozens of investigative medical organizations
as causing cancer, disease, and other deformities? The same Basra where
typhoid and cholera have become rampant because of the U.S.-supported U.N.
sanctions? The same Basra where U.S. and U.K. fighter jets have struck
in the past 12 years of the no-fly zone and inflicted heavy civilian casualties?
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- Or is it the Basra where civilian casualties number in
the hundreds in this current war? The same Basra where an Iraqi father
carried the limp body of his daughter, her right foot, barely identifiable,
shattered and barely attached by a piece of dangling flesh (picture published
in Globe and Mail - March 24, 2003)? That Basra?
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- Or is it the Basra where the local Iraqis have been without
water and electricity for the past three days and are facing a humanitarian
crisis?
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- Iraqis want a regime change? Yes, possibly, but the better
question is, do they want it imposed from the outside with set rules and
regulations dictated terms? Then the picture gets a bit hazy.
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- Tell the Iraqis that it is the U.S., the country they
have been led to believe is the cause of all their travesty and suffering,
that is coming to liberate them, and the picture becomes even more blurry.
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- The millionaires of the INC didn't care to provide the
coalition with the real picture of events and conditions in Iraq. They
wanted a war at all costs.
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- Today, the U.K. military forces near Basra have reported
that the city is witnessing a civil uprising. Within hours, an Al Jazeera
reporter reporting from the heart of Basra refuted these claims. So did
Iraqi TV.
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- At press time, Iraqi TV and all telecommunications facilities
in Baghdad were targeted and knocked off the air.
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- Firas Al-Atraqchi can be contacted at: <mailto:firas6544@rogers.com>firas6544@rogers.com
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