- Dahr Jamail Interviewed by Don Nash/Unknown News
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- *Q.* What does Iraq actually look like two and a half
years after the U.S. invasion?
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- DAHR - Most of Iraq is a disaster and in a state of
complete chaos.
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- The security situation is more accurately described as
a brutal, guerrilla war which spiraled out of control over a year ago.
Attacks on US forces even now average over 70 per day, and are expected
to increase in coming months.
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- The myth that the US military has control over any portion
of Iraq is just that-a myth. Even the heavily fortified "Green Zone"
is mortared on a regular basis. If one wishes to fly in or out of Baghdad
International Airport, get ready for a spiral descent/take off... as this
has been necessary for also over a year due to the inability of the military
to safeguard the area around the airport. Like in Vietnam, planes will
be shot down if they don't use the spiral method of taking off/landing.
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- The infrastructure is in shambles. For most of the western
companies who were awarded the no-bid cost-plus contracts in Iraq, it's
their dream contract -- guaranteed profits with no oversight. Companies
like Bechtel have been paid out in full for their initial contract worth
$680 million and awarded contracts totaling over $3.8 Billion, despite
the fact that many of their projects in their initial contract were not
even begun.
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- Meanwhile, Iraqis suffer and die from waterborne diseases,
child malnutrition is worse than during the sanctions, and there is over
70% unemployment.
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- *Q.* How do the Iraqi people feel overall about the U.S.
occupation?
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- DAHR - According to *a recent poll* http://www.unknownnews.org/0510281023Iraquispolled.html
commissioned by the British military, 82% of Iraqis want all occupation
forces removed from their country, less than 1% feel occupation forces
have improved security, and 45% openly admitted to feeling that attacks
against US forces are justified. This is quite similar to what I've seen
during my 8 months in Iraq as well, aside from the fact that I found a
larger percentage (greater than 45%) of Iraqis in support of the Iraqi
resistance.
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- *Q.* Is there anyway to know how many Iraqis are being
held in detention by the U.S.?
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- DAHR - No. But there is now a huge number of missing
persons in Iraq (over 100,000 according to two Iraq NGOs [non-government
organizations] I know of), many of which are feared to be detained by the
US. One NGO, Doctors for Iraq Society, estimates that there are 60,000
Iraqis in US military detention facilities in Iraq.
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- *Q.* What really happened in Fallujah and Ramadi?
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- DAHR - During the November, 2004 siege of Fallujah,
60% of the city was completely destroyed. Most of the rest of it had moderate
to severe damage done as well. Iraqi NGO's and medical workers in and around
Fallujah estimate over 4000 dead, mostly civilians. To this day, over 50,000
residents of Fallujah remain displaced.
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- The US military used cluster bombs, depleted uranium
munitions, and white phosphorous (a new form of napalm) during the siege,
and appear to have used forms of chemical weapons as well.
-
- I have described Fallujah as a modern day Guernica, and
prefer to call it a massacre rather than a siege. Fallujah is the model
of Bush Administration foreign policy. There has been next to no reconstruction
completed inside the city, as was promised by occupation authorities.
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- *Q.* Are there other towns in Iraq destroyed by the
U.S. military that we haven't heard about?
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- DAHR - Many in the US may not have heard that Al-Qa'im,
Kerabla, Najaf (from during the Muqtada al-Sadr intifadas), Haditha, Hit
and parts of Baquba, Baghdad, Ramadi and Samarra have suffered large scale
destruction by US military operations.
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- *Q.* - Is Iraq already in civil war?
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- DAHR - Yes, state-sponsored civil war. The US-backed
puppet Iraqi government is using the Badr Army (Shia) and the Kurdish Peshmerga
militia to battle a primarily Sunni resistance. Most ordinary Iraqis loath
the idea of civil war, but fear the possibility of it occurring as the
U.S.-backed tactic of divide and conquer moves forward in occupied Iraq.
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- *Q.* - How do the Iraqi people feel about the American
people?
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- DAHR - Fortunately, most are quick to differentiate
between the US government and American people. But unfortunately, in places
like Fallujah, Haditha and Al-Qa'im where US operations have caused so
much death and destruction, that distinction is being blurred and lost.
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- *Q.* Is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi alive?
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- DAHR - Personally, I don't believe he is alive. I researched
this heavily when I was last in Jordan, by visiting the city where Zarqawi
is from (al-Zarqa), and after interviewing many of his neighbors and old
friends found that most of them believe he was killed in Tora Bora, Afghanistan
during the US bombing campaign which followed the events of 9/11.
-
- Any claim that he is a leader of the Iraq resistance
or leading a terror group in Iraq is, I believe, US state propaganda.
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- *Q.* Do the Iraqi people have any hope for a future?
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- DAHR - Not much nowadays. Most who can afford it are
leaving Iraq. Those who have little choice but to stay in Iraq can look
forward to continued and increasing violence, no reconstruction, a fundamentalist
state and an endless US occupation which was failed before it even began.
-
- *Q.* Are the American people obligated to help the Iraqi
people? And what could be done?
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- DAHR - The American people are completely obliged to
help the Iraqi people because it is the fault of the American people that
the Bush cabal was allowed to invade Iraq. Any US citizen who is not doing
everything in their power to end this illegal and immoral occupation as
quickly as possible is complicit with the war crimes being committed in
Iraq on a daily basis.
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- © by the author.
- Thank you, Dahr Jamail.
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- http://www.unknownnews.org/
-
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-
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