>Can't Blair see that this country is about to explode? Can't Bush?
>
>By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
>
>The Independent on Sunday (UK) - August 1, 2004
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=546763
>
>The war is a fraud. I'm not talking about the weapons
>of mass destruction that didn't exist. Nor the links
>between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida which didn't exist.
>Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I'm
>talking about the new lies.
>
>For just as, before the war, our governments warned us
>of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us
>the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen
>outside the control of America's puppet government in
>Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are
>made against US troops every month. But unless an
>American dies, we are not told. This month's death toll
>of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - the
>worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not
>told.
>
>The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was
>all too evident at Saddam Hussein's "trial." Not only
>did the US military censor the tapes of the event. Not
>only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11
>other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein
>to believe - until he reached the courtroom - that he
>was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he
>entered the room he believed that the judge was there
>to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way
>Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he
>initially looked "disorientated" - CNNs helpful
>description - because, of course, he was meant to look
>that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam
>asked Judge Juhi: "Are you a lawyer? ..Is this a
>trial?" And swiftly, as he realised that this really
>was an initial court hearing - not a preliminary to his
>own hanging - he quickly adopted an attitude of
>belligerence.
>
>But don't think were going to learn much more about
>Saddam's future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the
>brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man
>entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the
>Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be
>excluded from future court hearings. And I can see why.
>Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he'll want to talk
>about the real intelligence and military connections of
>his regime - which were primarily with the United
>States.
>
>Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well
>as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway
>8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered
>there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles
>and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has
>been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in
>my room in Baghdad watching Tony Blair, grinning in the
>House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school
>debating competition; so much for the Butler report.
>
>Indeed, watching any Western television station in
>Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars.
>Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode?
>Doesn't Bush realise this? The American-appointed
>"government" controls only parts of Baghdad - and even
>there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed
>and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya,
>Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government
>authority. Iyad Allawi, the "Prime Minister," is little
>more than mayor of Baghdad. "Some journalists," Blair
>announces, "almost want there to be a disaster in
>Iraq." He doesn't get it. The disaster exists now.
>
>When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of
>recruits outside police stations, how on earth can
>anyone hold an election next January? Even the National
>Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections
>has been twice postponed. And looking back through my
>notebooks over the past five weeks, I find that not a
>single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have
>spoken to, not a single mercenary - be he American,
>British or South African - believes that there will be
>elections in January. All said that Iraq is
>deteriorating by the day. And most asked why we
>journalists weren't saying so.
>
>But in Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush
>telling his Republican supporters that Iraq is
>improving, that Iraqis support the "coalition," that
>they support their new US-manufactured government, that
>the "war on terror" is being won, that Americans are
>safer. Then I go to an internet site and watch two
>hooded men hacking off the head of an American in
>Riyadh, tearing at the vertebrae of an American in Iraq
>with a knife. Each day, the papers here list another
>construction company pulling out of the country. And I
>go down to visit the friendly, tragically sad staff of
>the Baghdad mortuary and there, each day, are dozens of
>those Iraqis we supposedly came to liberate, screaming
>and weeping and cursing as they carry their loved ones
>on their shoulders in cheap coffins.
>
>I keep re-reading Tony Blair's statement. "I remain
>convinced it was right to go to war. It was the most
>difficult decision of my life." And I cannot understand
>it. It may be a terrible decision to go to war. Even
>Chamberlain thought that; but he didn't find it a
>difficult decision - because, after the Nazi invasion
>of Poland, it was the right thing to do. And driving
>the streets of Baghdad now, watching the terrified
>American patrols, hearing yet another thunderous
>explosion shaking my windows and doors after dawn, I
>realise what all this means. Going to war in Iraq,
>invading Iraq last year, was the most difficult
>decision Blair had to take because he thought -
>correctly - that it might be the wrong decision. I will
>always remember his remark to British troops in Basra,
>that the sacrifice of British soldiers was not
>Hollywood but "real flesh and blood." Yes, it was real
>flesh and blood that was shed - but for weapons of mass
>destruction that weren't real at all.
>
>"Deadly force is authorised," it says on checkpoints
>all over Baghdad. Authorised by whom? There is no
>accountability. Repeatedly, on the great highways out
>of the city US soldiers shriek at motorists and open
>fire at the least suspicion. "We had some Navy Seals
>down at our checkpoint the other day," a 1st Cavalry
>sergeant says to me. "They asked if we were having any
>trouble. I said, yes, they've been shooting at us from
>a house over there. One of them asked: That house? We
>said yes. So they have these three SUVs and a lot of
>weapons made of titanium and they drive off towards the
>house. And later they come back and say 'We've taken
>care of that.' And we didn't get shot at any more."
>
>What does this mean? The Americans are now bragging
>about their siege of Najaf. Lieutenant Colonel Garry
>Bishop of the 37th Armoured Divisions 1st Battalion
>believes it was an "ideal" battle (even though he
>failed to kill or capture Muqtada Sadr whose "Mehdi
>army" were fighting the US forces). It was "ideal,"
>Bishop explained, because the Americans avoided
>damaging the holy shrines of the Imams Ali and Hussein.
>What are Iraqis to make of this? What if a Muslim army
>occupied Kent and bombarded Canterbury and then bragged
>that they hadnt damaged Canterbury Cathedral? Would we
>be grateful?
>
>What, indeed, are we to make of a war which is turned
>into a fantasy by those who started it? As foreign
>workers pour out of Iraq for fear of their lives, US
>Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a press
>conference that hostage-taking is having an "effect" on
>reconstruction. Effect! Oil pipeline explosions are now
>as regular as power cuts. In parts of Baghdad now, they
>have only four hours of electricity a day; the streets
>swarm with foreign mercenaries, guns poking from
>windows, shouting abusively at Iraqis who don't clear
>the way for them. This is the "safer" Iraq which Mr
>Blair was boasting of the other day. What world does
>the British Government exist in?
>
>Take the Saddam trial. The entire Arab press -
>including the Baghdad papers - prints the judge's name.
>Indeed, the same judge has given interviews about
>his charges of murder against Muqtada Sadr. He has
>posed for newspaper pictures. But when I mention his
>name in The Independent, I was solemnly censured by the
>British Government's spokesman. Salem Chalabi
>threatened to prosecute me. So let me get this right.
>We illegally invade Iraq. We kill up to 11,000 Iraqis.
>And Mr Chalabi, appointed by the Americans, says I'm
>guilty of "incitement to murder." That just about says
>it all.