The US-British Military Occupation of Iraq

Could this ever be called "Liberation"?

Even as the Western media has unleashed a barrage of propaganda to suggest that the US and British military presence and takeover of Iraq is to "liberate" the Iraqi people, events on the ground suggest a completely different story.

On Apr 29 and Apr 30, two days in a row, US troops shot and killed dozens of Iraqi civilians protesting in Fallujah. Fifteen-year-old Ahmed al-Essawi, who was shot in his arm and leg, said:

"All of us were trying to run away. They shot at us directly. There were no warning shots, and I heard no announcements on the loudspeakers." (New Zealand News)

Earlier, US troops had shot into a crowd of thousands in Mosul in Northern Iraq, who were heckling a US-appointed Governor Al-Jabouri when he told them that they had to cooperate with the Americans. The idea seemed, repugnant to them. (News story by Steven Gilliard)

In another shooting incident in Mosul, Mozafar Ahmad, a 14-year-old who suffered wounds in one arm and above one knee, said he was hit while on a bus passing the governor's office:

"I saw Americans standing on the street and on the roof shooting. Seven others in the bus were also injured," he said.

Amal Mahmoud, a 40-year-old taxi driver, said he saw US troops shoot at people:

"There were people inside the central bank, which is next door to the governor's office. They had been looting money for several days. Police were standing outside the bank and fired shots in the air to disperse the looters. The Americans started firing at the people in front of the governor's office, rather than at the looters," he said. (Times of India)

A 14-year-old Iraqi boy Ali Salim was killed by a British soldier in Basra.
A friend of the youth, who said he had seen the shooting, said Ali was joking and talking with a soldier guarding the barracks when the soldier opened fire without provocation.

"They are killing us and no one’s talking about it,” Zahra Yassin said at a city hospital with her wounded son. “We want Saddam back. At least there was security.” (Arab News)

In Tikrit, residents celebrating Saddam-Hussein's birthday were shot at. In Diwaniyah, at least two people were shot in riots which followed an attempt by marines to impose a leader. (BBC News, Apr 19)

Contrary to what the mainstream media has been suggesting, protests have dogged the US military ever since they began taking control of Iraq's cities. Numerous protests have taken place in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. Tens of thousands have protested in Nassiriya. In Najaf, a pro-US cleric was assassinated. An American officer said demonstrators in Al-Kut had spat on US troops. Residents of Al-Kut, and the Southern port city of Umm-Qasr have been throwing stones at the US military. (From Reports in the Dawn, the Scotsman, and Mark Baker in Australia's The Age)

“They are guarding oil facilities, but have not done anything as yet to restore essential services like power and water, " alleged Ali Zuhai, protesting in Baghdad.

Another of the protestors said that the “Americans were interested only in oil.”

Far from feeling liberated, many residents of Baghdad find themselves in a state of siege. "We haven’t tasted freedom yet,” insisted a resident in downtown Baghdad. "All that we have tasted so far is fear and uncertainty.”

"We can't go where we want, move freely where we want," said Omar Faisal, a medical student. "I have been searched and questioned as if I were the foreigner here." (Times of India)

In Basra, and in Baghdad many have begun to eye the foreign troops more as villains than “liberators. “The last few days have been worse than all my days under Saddam,” insisted Ahmed al-Khatib, an elderly resident.

Many Iraqis are especially furious at the wanton looting that has destroyed Iraq's precious infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. “You call this freedom? It is plain and simple disorder and mayhem,” lamented Tareq Aziz, a Baghdad resident.

University professor Shakir Aziz said: “I saw for myself how the US troops goaded Iraqis to loot and burn the University of Technology”

The dean of Basra university, Abdul Jabar al-Khalifa was gripped with rage as he surveyed the charred remains of what once used to be his office. “Is this freedom of Iraq or the freedom of thieves,” he questioned. (Reported by Al-Jazeera)

Issan Adnan, 48, a historian, was nearly in tears with frustration over the ruin of his hometown. "America came in with weapons. They didn't come with gifts. They came with weapons to kill us", he said.

Emad Ghassem, said that America had actually made Iraq lawless. He said America had opened the banks to the thieves: "Thieves are stealing from the bank at night. All our money we earned in the last 12 years, America is stealing", he said. (Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services, Apr 14)

Iraqi men have been routinely asked to strip in public by American soldiers. A Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet published a picture of American soldiers escorting naked Iraqi men through a park in Baghdad. Such treatment of prisoners is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions that require occupying powers to treat prisoners with dignity, and protect the civilian infrastructure of the occupied nation.

Most shocking is how Iraq's precious cultural wealth was allowed to be looted in another egregious violation of the Geneva Conventions. In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, US scholars had repeatedly urged the Defence Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters. "I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected," said Dr Gibson from the University of Chicago.

Surveying the damage at the looted Iraqi national museum, deputy director Nabhal Amin wept: 'They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity dating back thousands of years ... They were worth billions of dollars.' She blamed US troops for failing to heed appeals from her staff to protect the museum from looters. Museums in Basra and at other major sites were also looted. The cultural heritage of Iraq, the home of ancient Mesopotamia, encompasses the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Sassanids and Muslims, to name only the best-known civilisations. (Sunday Herald, New Zealand News, Washington Post)

Professor Dietl from the Jawaharlal Nehru University said the loot was spread over four days, from April 10 to 14 and masterminded in connivance with the US-led coalition forces. "Within three days after the plunder started, the artefacts began surfacing in Zurich, London and New York. All one has to do to buy these items is to register with these auction sites and priceless history can be purchased for a pittance," she lamented.

Terming it "an attempt to obliterate history of one of the world’s oldest civilisations", Indian historians have deplored the United States and some European Nations for using war to wipe out the past. "Dealers conceal antiquities and they are subsequently smuggled. Years later, they surface in other continents. Today, it is Iraq. Tomorrow, any other third world country could be subjected to this treatment," said former Director General of Archaelogical Survey of India M C Joshi. (UNI)

It is little wonder that US troops have come under fire almost daily from Iraqi snipers. On May 8, a sniper shot dead a U.S. soldier in southeast Baghdad. Another U.S. soldier was killed on a bridge south of Baghdad. This followed a May 7 news report of gunmen having fired at US troops in five separate attacks in three days. In Falluja, grenades were thrown at a US post wounding seven troops. US military police were fired upon near Nassiriya. A marine patrol near the town of As Samawah also came under fire. On Apr 27, four US soldiers were wounded when ambushed in downtown Baghdad. (Reuters, Times of India, Associated Press)

Contrary to how Iraq's former Baath Party leader was constantly demonized in the Western Press (and also in sections of the Indian media) Saddam Hussein still has some loyal fans in Iraq. "We love Saddam Hussein very much," says Arwa, 23, who was a senior in chemical engineering at Baghdad University before it was trashed by looters. "He gave opportunities to Iraqi women. Now every dream is broken. We don't want the American army walking in our streets. We prefer death," says Arwa, "We must take them out of here, over our dead bodies." (Times of India)

And finally, this touching refrain from a young Iraqi student: "I'm your wounded friend Haider Hamza ... not physically wounded but emotionally wounded: to see my people dying and my country being destroyed; to see my country falling down with a broken heart into an unknown future and destiny."

Having first-hand experience of British colonial rule, the vast majority of the people of the Indian sub-continent naturally have deep sympathy for the people of Iraq. The challenge for them will be to ensure that their respective governments resist US and British pressure to provide any sort of diplomatic recognition to their illegal presence in Iraq.

Several progressive groups have called for an economic and cultural boycott of US and British products. Such measures should attract the support of all the people in the world who wish to see an end to such blatant and willful violations of the sovereignty of a defenseless nation.