- "We are in for many more years of turmoil and misery
in the Middle East, where one of the main problems is, to put it as plainly
as possible, American power." - Edward Said, July 20, 2003
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- For the Bush administration, the imminent vote in Iraq
poses two problems ñ and one rather flimsy possible tactical victory.
First the problems: What if the vote is a failure? In other words, what
if the polling is marked by low turnout in Sunni and mixed areas, mass
fraud, and a spate of bloody car bombings, along with more abductions and
political assassinations, all ending with millions of Sunni Iraqis and
millions of others worldwide viewing the vote as illegitimate?
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- In the four central provinces, where 40 percent of Iraq's
population lives, it's almost certain the elections will be a violent spectacle
serving to highlight the misery and chaos ñ that is, "the freedom"
ñ of occupied Iraq.
-
- The second problem is of an opposite nature: What if
the elections "work"? What if the Iraqi majority, the long-oppressed,
not very pro-American Shiites, wins in a fair vote? This would present
President George W. Bush with an example of Samuel Huntington's charmingly
named "democracy paradox." In other words, democracy, America's
purported goal for the world, comes back to bite Uncle Sam in the ass.
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- That's what could happen if the two-thirds majority Shiites
create a government dominated by politicians of the Dawa Party and the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Both of these forces
follow the Grand Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani, and once in power they would
likely have a fundamentalist religious agenda, anti-American attitudes,
and close links to Iran. (Though, to be fair, Iraqi Shiism is very different
from the brand of political Islam that runs Iran.) Whatever the case, a
Shiite-dominated, Iranian-leaning Iraq is not part of the Bush crew's plan
for Planet America.
-
- Remember: The Shiite majority has been demanding elections
from the earliest moments of the U.S. occupation. The Shiites argued that
the records of the Saddam Hussein-era food-rationing system (which still
continues) could have been used almost immediately as the basis for voter
rolls, because all Iraqis rich and poor were listed in these records. It
was the U.S. proconsul, Paul Bremmer, who endlessly prevaricated, claiming
a census was needed, or more studies, or a subcensus, etc., etc.
-
- Last January there were mass street mobilizations by
al-Sistani followers demanding a vote and threatening mass disobedience
if it wasn't delivered. As the Sunni-dominated insurgency picked up steam
and the U.S. political and military crisis deepened, U.S. strategy shifted.
U.S. officials embraced elections; they had to, if for no other reason
than to buy time and divide Iraqis along the Shiite-Sunni line. Under United
Nations brokerage, the occupiers agreed to a vote no later than the end
of January 2005.
-
- Now the United States seeks to use the elections to rebrand
its war ñ once about weapons of mass destruction ñ as a mission
of mercy. At the same time, it will seek to control the Shiites, corrupt
their leaders and present itself as the only solution to, or bulwark against,
a Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq.
-
- Internationally, the elections could offer the possible
tactical victory of legitimizing the occupation, casting it as worthy of
U.N. and European support. But that won't work for long, if at all. The
Sunni-led insurgency of hybrid Baathist and Salafi fundamentalists will
continue to wreak havoc on the occupation. There will be no Pax Americana.
In fact, chances are that after the elections the United States will face
renewed pressure to leave Iraq, and that this will come from both the newly
legitimized institutional forces of Shiite power and the well-organized
and utterly tenacious Sunni insurgency.
-
- IF IRAQ'S SOCIAL geography were reduced to political
antipodes, one pole would be the fortified and manicured Green Zone, the
huge U.S.-occupied palace and office complex originally built by Hussein.
The other pole would be the fetid, baking east Baghdad slum of Sadr City,
also known as al-Thawra (the Revolution).
-
- More than a year into the occupation, entering the Green
Zone is still like consuming a 1,000-milligram tablet of denial washed
down with fresh-squeezed orange juice. The air conditioning here is superb;
everyone looks happy.
-
- David Bourne is working on his laptop at the Iraqi Business
Center, a near empty, glass-walled subsection of the Convention Center.
Bourne, wearing a crisp, medium blue oxford shirt and dark slacks, exudes
Ivy League confidence. His mission here is to do good and to do well at
the same time.
-
- "When we get the business center running, local
subcontractors will be able to network and learn about bidding," he
explains, as if the occupation weren't already 14 months old. "A lot
of the reconstruction hasn't begun yet, and the center will facilitate
capacity building with local firms."
-
- He pauses and then adds with considered honesty, "A
lot of Iraqis think it's just about who you know. But government-funded
work requires competitive bidding, transparency, quality control, all that."
-
- He won't comment on how Halliburton and Bechtel got their
huge slices of the $18.5 billion reconstruction pie. But that's already
a matter of public record. Bechtel got the first installment of its no-bid
billion-dollar contract in April 2003, after secretive dealings with the
U.S. Agency for International Development.
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- On the other side of the glass wall, a uniformed janitor
pushes a Zamboni-like buffer across a shining expanse of floor. Iraq seems
a thousand miles away.
-
- Now unplug from the Matrix: the temperature suddenly
soars to a brutal 115 degrees Fahrenheit; the air reeks of sewage; hot,
furnace-like gusts blow grit into your eyes. An urbanized plain of misery
and squalor opens before you, hyperviolent Sadr City. Sewer city
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- The wide boulevards, laid down in the late 1950s by the
optimistic planners of the Qasim regime, are now flooded for blocks at
a stretch with ankle-deep pools of green, algae-rich sewage. Heaps of garbage
smolder on the medians and in empty lots. Pirated electrical wires crisscross
dense side streets of mud-brick homes. Small flocks of mangy goats and
sheep, shepherded by women in flowing black abayas, forage in the trash.
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- The lumpen Shiites who live here are derided by Baghdad's
more urbane Sunnis as sharugees ñ an insulting term meaning "easterners"
but connoting ignorance and filth. Like the n-word among some African Americans,
sharugee has been defiantly appropriated by streetwise young Shiites for
their own use.
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- The sewage problem in Sadr City is not merely unsightly:
it is a major health threat. As the head of the local public works department,
or Baladia, explains, the sewers here were never very effective, but the
constant backup and nauseating overflow are new problems.
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- First there was bomb damage. Then, as Baghdad's garbage
trucks were looted or destroyed, trash clogged the sewers. Most of the
trucks needed to clear the lines were also looted. The last four were recently
commandeered by U.S. contractors for use elsewhere.
-
- Bechtel has the $1.8 billion contract to rebuild Iraq's
water, sewage, and electrical systems. Electrical-grid and water-system
work are also being done by Washington Group International. Local engineers
say the firm has done next to nothing.
-
- At Sadr City's al-Jawadir Hospital, the halls are crowded
with worried-looking men and women. An emaciated man with greenish skin
is wheeled by on a gurney. Here one clearly sees the social impact of the
sewer problem and the general chaos of which it is a subset.
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- The hospital director, Dr. Qasim al-Nuwesri, explains
that the hospital serves at least a million and a half people and sees
3,000 patients a day but lacks adequate medicine and medical equipment,
clean water, and security. "We have to get clean water shipped in,"
he says. "A German NGO delivers it in a tanker truck."
-
- Typhoid is rampant, he adds, and an outbreak of hepatitis
E is gathering momentum, with 40 new cases a week.
-
- "The coalition promises money and supplies, but
there is never enough. I am forced to reuse needles and deny people anesthesia.
We do only serious emergency surgeries."
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- Upstairs in one of the wards, I meet a 25-year-old internist
named Ali Kadhem. Like many Iraqi doctors, he speaks English. His face
is open and boyishly innocent, and he possesses an understated yet intense
charisma. When he talks, the other doctors and orderlies watch and listen.
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- Kadhem says gunmen frequently enter the hospital demanding
special treatment for relatives. Two weeks ago an addict pulled a pistol
on him and stole morphine. One doctor was shot by thieves right in front
of the hospital. He says that since April, U.S. troops have raided the
wards on three occasions, looking for wounded fighters from the Mahdi Army,
followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "They interrogated the
wounded and searched in a very rough way and tore down religious posters."
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- Several wounded Mahdi men, as well as civilians, have
fled the hospital in fear of the raids. "I know that some of these
people died because they hid in their homes and we could not treat them,"
Kadhem says. "We could have saved them. The cause of all these problems
is the Americans. We need for them to go." A measure of order
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- The Mahdi uprisings in Karbala and Najaf, provoked in
large part by U.S. assaults, alienated large sections of the mainstream
Shiite community, particularly the merchant class, which depends on pilgrim
traffic to the holy cities. But spend a day or two in al-Thawra and it's
not hard to understand why people follow al-Sadr. He's a junior religious
scholar, unlike his father, who was an ayatollah, but al-Sadr's leadership
is primarily political, and his following is mainly Shiite but religiously
diverse. His power is rooted in his willingness to oppose the occupation
openly, just as his martyred father opposed Hussein.
-
- More practically, he is followed because the branches
of his organization deliver a small measure of order and stability to a
few parts of Baghdad and cities farther south.
-
- In front of the hospital, a man named Uda Mohame explains
the logic: "Everyone cooperates with the Jeshi Mahdi [Mahdi Army].
There are no police here, no government. The Mahdi direct traffic, they
fix things, they do all the work."
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- At an office on one of al-Thawra's main streets, I try
to meet al-Sadr's local representative, a 29-year-old sheikh named Hassan
Edhary, but he's on the run. The 1st Cav wants him, dead or alive. His
two predecessors are already in Abu Ghraib. A few weeks ago U.S. tanks
blew up his office. Reconstruction started the next day at dawn.
-
- "Little boys cleaned the bricks while the men rebuilt,"
a local man named Samir explains.
-
- Now the walled compound, draped in black banners mourning
the dead and topped with big fluttering green and black flags, looks as
good as new.
-
- The men here are all Mahdi, but they're unarmed by day.
There can be no formal interviews without the sheikh's permission. For
the better part of a week, I return again and again looking for Sheikh
Edhary, but he's still on the lam.
-
- As I'm leaving the office after one more failed attempt,
a young Mahdi man says to me, "Look, the Americans attack us. That
is why we fight. We have a right to respond." Vietnam Street
-
- It's late afternoon, and we're on another trip to Sadr
City. Dahr Jamail (see sidebar) and I and a translator named Samir roll
out determined to find the Mahdi in action. They're out here somewhere
ñ we've already seen a U.S. patrol of two tanks and three armored
Humvees.
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- On one of the slum's main thoroughfares, al-Radhewi Street,
are several walls marked with a message in English. Big block letters read,
"VIETNAM STREET." Farther on, a wall bears a crudely painted
mural depicting a modified version of an infamous Abu Ghraib torture photo.
It is the prisoner in the hood and cloak standing on a box, arms outstretched,
electrical wires dangling from his limbs. Next to him in the mural is the
Statue of Liberty, but in place of her torch she holds the lever of an
electrical switch connected to the wires.
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- Below is scrawled "THE FREEDOM FORM GEORGE BOSH."
We snap photos and move on.
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- Then, before we find them, the Mahdi Army finds us. Two
men in a sedan are suddenly next to us. "Pull over!" Now they're
at our car doors, hands on the pistols in their waistbands. "Who are
you? What are you doing here? Why are you photographing things?"
-
- "Sahafee canadee, sahafee canadee!" I show
them my counterfeit Canadian press pass. Our translator is talking fast,
explaining that we're anti-occupation, that we're trying to show the truth.
He's naming his family, naming sheikhs, naming al-Sadr men who are old
friends. The undercover Mahdi guys fire back questions and suggest that
we get out of the car. We show them the digital photos of the graffiti
and offer to erase all the shots, but we ignore their request to get out.
More fast Arabic.
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- Finally the Mahdi begin to relax. "This is called
Vietnam Street because this is where we kill Americans," one of them
says. "We are in a war with them. That is why we stopped you. You
understand? We have to protect our people." The man in charge adjusts
his pistol one more time, looks around, then says, "You can go."
Progress in the rubble
-
- Finally Sheik Edhary surfaces. Perhaps this has something
to do with the Americans' new offer to allow al-Sadr's organization to
participate in electoral politics. (The al-Sadr people are still quite
cagey about what they will do on that front.) Edhary grants an interview,
but mostly we just sit and watch him in action, our hacker pal Hussein
quietly translating the conversations around us.
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- Edhary wears a white turban and flowing robes. His beard
is full but short, like al-Sadr's. He is dark, intense, and very handsome.
I can't help thinking that Edhary looks like a cinematically improved version
of al-Sadr, who is stooped, pudgy, and frowning.
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- A stream of supplicants files through Edhary's little
office, asking for advice, money, and letters. One lives in a camp for
internally displaced people, and his shelter has no roof. Can the organization
help? Edhary says, "I don't have enough people to go investigate your
claim. But if you can find a religious sheikh in your area to write a letter
on your behalf, then come back."
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- A young doctor explains that a group of medical workers
has some money and wants to open a free or low-cost pharmacy to serve the
people. Can the office contribute some money? The sheikh leans close and
plays with his string of black prayer beads as the young man talks. Finally,
he tells the doctor that Hussein can help the clinic with its computers.
Hussein and the doctor exchange numbers.
-
- Then come a few high-tension cell phone calls. Some sweaty
Mahdi fighters rush in. They've just busted looters with four stolen trucks
full of sugar. It turns out the trucks belong to a European NGO, not the
government or some rich company. The sheikh wants the vehicles and sugar
returned, via the police, to the NGO.
-
- "We have the trucks in storage. Can we turn them
over tomorrow?" asks the rotund Mahdi man in charge of the bust. He's
wearing a dirty football jersey. "I am your servant. I have given
my whole life to the religion, but I really cannot do this tonight."
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- Someone else bends over and whispers to the sheikh. Edhary
looks worried. There's more whispering. Edhary leans away from the men
at his desk and snaps taut a section of his black prayer beads, then counts
the little glass balls. He is "asking God" for advice. An even
bead count means yes; odd means no.
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- "No! No! Absolutely not." The sheikh bounces
up from the desk, his black outer robe slipping from one shoulder. He's
addressing the sweaty man. "The trucks must be returned tonight. If
the trucks do not move now, we will be blamed. Either you do it now or
just go and don't do it at all. I will find someone else." The sheikh
is electric with stress but at the same time dignified.
-
- "I am your servant. As you wish," the Mahdi
guy says, but he looks pissed as he and his posse sweep out to deal with
the trucks.
-
- If there's anything like "progress" in Iraq,
it takes place here, under the radar, in the rubble of occupation. Al-Sadr's
followers, despite many faults, including thuggishness and misogyny, are
central to creating what order there is in this ravaged ghetto.
-
- On the last Friday before the handover of official authority
to the interim Iraqi government, I go back to Vietnam Street with Dave
Enders for a mass prayer. This time the Jeshi Mahdi are out in full force,
armed with pistols and AK-47s. Line after line of them are politely and
efficiently searching a crowd of more than 10,000 people who have come
to lay their prayer mats in the street, worship, and hear a political sermon.
The Mahdi search us several times, and we are ushered to the front, walking
shoeless across the solid field of prayer mats; some are mere towels, others
are colorful, intricately patterned carpets. "I bet this is the first
pair of Brooks Brothers socks that's ever touched down on Vietnam Street,"
Enders quips, pointing to his feet.
-
- The sermon, by an al-Sadr sheikh named Ous al-Khafji,
attacks the occupation but asks the people to remain calm. The Mahdi have
declared a cease-fire.
-
- Under a blazing sun, with squads of men and boys spraying
rose water on the congregants, the crowd chants, "Ya Allah, ya Ali,
ya Hussein," meaning "with Allah," etc., then "Muqtada!
Muqtada! Muqtada!" At the end the worshipers all shake hands, then
disperse.
-
- Later I'm granted an interview with some Mahdi fighters.
They make sure I can't see where we're headed as we drive deep into the
side streets of Sadr City. Our interview takes place in an abandoned shop;
there are three fighters, two of whom were jailed and tortured under Saddam
Hussein.
-
- They repeat the party line about wanting peace but add,
"If the Americans arrest people, we will strike."
-
- One of them moves a tarp and reveals a huge 155-millimeter
artillery shell and a long spool of wire. "If they attack, we have
this rat poison for the American rats," the fighter says, pointing
to the bomb. "But, God willing, we will not be forced to use it."
-
- It's time for me to go.
-
- Clearly sovereignty remains fragmented, localized, ephemeral
ñ and mostly imaginary. Neither Iraqis nor the Americans have control.
The new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, threatens to declare martial law.
How he might impose martial law and how it would differ from the current
methods of the occupation are difficult to envision. In the new Iraq, only
chaos is truly sovereign.
-
- - Christian Parenti is the author of The Freedom: Shadows
and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, from which this piece is excerpted.
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- http://www.sfbg.com/
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