In this transcription of his speech to Stop the War's National Steering Committee meeting, Iraqi exile Sabah Jawad exposes the reality behind Obama's announcement that the US is withdrawing from Iraq.
By Sabah Jawad
Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation
18 September 2010
The embedded journalists that took part in the invasion of 2003 recorded what the occupation wanted them to see and report. Remember the promises that accompanied the invasion:
The Iraqis were going to be free from a savage dictator and this country was going to be transformed into a beacon of democracy, respect for human rights and progress.
Contrast that with the situation now when we see some of the military troops withdrawing from Iraq in the middle of the night, two weeks before schedule, not accompanied by journalists or any kind of press proclamation that actually they did a good job in Iraq.
They could not justify the war and all the things that accompanied the invasion of Iraq, and which are going to be with the Iraqi people for such a long time. A few days ago Kofi Annan said in a statement that the war against Iraq was unnecessary, and had set the country back two decades.
How many decades will we actually need to rebuild Iraq after the last American soldiers leave? It is very easy to destroy things but it is very difficult to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure and society, and heal all the divisions created.
Iraqi people
It will take the Iraqi people many decades to do this, even if we have full control of our resources, oil revenues and the economy and so on. This is not actually happening because all these things are withering away. They are controlled and managed by the Americans, and there is looting on a massive scale taking place in Iraq, and inflicting great damage on Iraq through corruption, through the American influence on our economy and society.
They say that American combat troops have withdrawn from Iraq but what we’ve seen in the past week alone, in the past 4 days for example, is that the Americans undertook an operation in Fallujah where they went in and killed nine innocent civilians. They say it is entirely up to Iraqi troops and police to conduct these operations, and that their role is simply to advise and train Iraqi forces, but we have seen repeatedly that since the security agreement was signed the American army are taking an active role, fighting and attacking people, including civilians.
We consider the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq to be a victory for the Iraqi people, because from day one the Iraqi people did not believe in American promises. They did not trust American imperialism because American imperialism has a long and chequered history of intervention in the Middle East, and it is always against the wishes of our people, against the wishes of the Palestinian people, against the wishes of the Iranian people, the Lebanese and so on. You hardly see any people in the Middle East who do not have a complaint about Western involvement, Western complicity in supporting Arab rulers, supporting Middle Eastern fascist regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein.
Saddam Hussein spent 35 years slaughtering the Iraqi people and for 25 years of this 35 year rule he was supported by the United States, by Britain, by other Western governments and unfortunately some Middle Eastern governments as well. So based on our history and analysis, and seeing their conduct in the Middle East, we did not believe the United States to be our saviour.
Privatise everything
The 50,000 American troops left in Iraq represent the continuing occupation of our country. The occupation of Iraq is continuing and it will remain there for the foreseeable future. They are planning to privatise everything: The Americans love privatisation and the globalization process. they are preparing to bring in more than a 100,000 mercenaries to do the jobs vacated by the departed American troops, needed somewhere else, in Afghanistan and perhaps for future attacks on other countries in the Middle East, including Iran.
In Iraq they are activating a so-called Strategic Agreement, so that some of the troops will be withdrawn from Iraq, and Iraq will be changed to suit the interests of the United States and the privatisation process. This will effect all aspects of life in Iraq whether it’s the economy, society, education and so on.
According to this agreement all social activities in Iraq will in the future be conducted according to the wishes of multinational companies, with the idea of privatisation omnipresent. Iraqi students will be sent to study in the United States, there will be cultural exchanges, and so on. Imperialism will take a new form rather than being starkly military, based on military occupation.
They want to privatise every aspect of social life in Iraq, whether it’s the national health service, education, student exchanges, cultural activities and so on.
We can now see what has been created in Iraq, because as a result of it, six months after the elections that took place last March, Iraqi parties participating in the political process are still unable even to agree on a Prime Minister. For the past six months they’ve been fighting and threatening each-other.
We’ve seen a new parliament elected in March where the 335 members of parliament, the most highly paid MPs in the entire world, have only had one meeting lasting 20 minutes in the past 6 months, and this was actually only to declare that they are going to leave this session open indefinitely until the political parties and blocks reach an agreement on who is going to be Prime Minister!
Torture
According to recent reports Amnesty International says that Iraqi prisons are full of detainees who have not been put on trial and are subjected to harsh treatment and torture. They put the figure at 30,000. Other people in Iraq say it’s actually much more and when I came back from Iraq last time I was there - about 6 months ago - I reported that it’s a well known fact that for example that there are torture chambers in the north of Baghdad, and Amnesty International is actually confirming that these tortures are taking place.
Since they transferred the prisons authority from the Americans’ control to the Iraqis’ control, the abuse of prisoners is continuing. The Americans used to do it themselves, as we know from Abu Ghraib. Now the Iraqis are doing it, the government is doing it and the police are doing it.
Yesterday an American human rights organization reported that there is a secret order from government to stop all peaceful demonstrations in Iraq, and that came about as a result of people marching in the streets of Basra and in the southern cities against the lack of electricity, and the neglect by the government of basic commodities for everyone like water and electricity. So the government is instructing the police and the army to stop all forms of protest, even peaceful protest.
We also know that trade union organizations, especially in the public sector, are being subjected to a lot of harassment. In fact three leaders of public sector unions are facing trial, and there are terror laws being used against those who have exposed plans by the government and multinational oil companies to privatise Iraqi industries. These people have been accused of exposing state secrets to the press and they are being put on trial.
Trade unions
The union of electricity workers has been banned, its belongings confiscated, and its offices shut down. The government is operating under a law first introduced under the Saddam regime. It and the Americans are using this law to suppress the trade union movement in Iraq. So you can see from this that institutions in Iraq are not functioning: The government and parliament are not even able to unite to put in place basic services and structures, and this is a dangerous situation which could lead to an explosion and the collapse of the whole political process.
In fact failure to reach an agreement on the new government could cause the army to intervene in Iraq, i.e. there is the possibility of a coup d’etat by the army, because the political set-up is not working, and the Americans have not been capable of producing even a basic structure for activities of state to take place and to stop corruption.
I am sure that if the army was in better shape and not infiltrated by all the militias and pro-Saddamist elements and so on, the Americans would probably resort to such a solution, rather than continuing to pretend that the political process and democracy are working in Iraq. They would support the army to establish a dictatorship, and probably proclaim that actually democracy does not work in Iraq because its people are backward, as they are saying for other parts of the world.
This is the overall picture in Iraq. The Iraqi people scored a notable victory when the American armed forces withdrew most of their troops, but the struggle will go until the last American soldier leaves Iraq. I am optimistic for the future.
