Iraq: A country drenched in blood

From the article, Iraq: A country drenched in blood (March 20, 2007), by Patrick Cockburn in Khanaqin, Diyala Province. Cockburn has proved to be one of the most reliable journalists writing from Iraq.

"A difficulty in explaining Iraq to the outside world is that since 2003 the US and British governments have produced a series of spurious turning points. There was the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003, the supposed hand back of sovereignty in June 2004, the two elections and the new constitution in 2005 and -- recently -- the military 'surge' into Baghdad. In all cases the benefits of these events were invented or exaggerated.

"After Sunni fundamentalists blew up the golden-domed Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra in February last year, central Iraq was torn apart by sectarian fighting. Baghdad broke up into a dozen hostile cities, Sunni and Shia, which fired mortars at each other. Government ministries, if controlled by different communities, fought each other. The Shia-controlled Interior Ministry kidnapped 150 people from the Sunni-held Higher Education Ministry and killed many of them.

"For a brief moment last November, after the mid-term elections in the US and the Baker-Hamilton report, it seemed that the US was going to be start negotiations with its myriad enemies in around Iraq. But in the event President Bush refused to admit failure. Some 21,500 troop reinforcements are being sent to Baghdad and Anbar province to the west. So far there is little sign that the 'surge' will really change the course of the war.

"Diyala, its once-prosperous villages now becoming heavily armed Sunni or Shia fortresses, is a symbol of the failure of the occupation that began four years ago. From an early moment it was evident that only the Kurds in Iraq fully supported the US and British presence.

"The invasion four years ago failed. It overthrew Saddam but did nothing more. It destabilised the Middle East. It tore apart Iraq. It was meant to show the world that the US was the world's only superpower that could do what it wanted. In fact it demonstrated that the US was weaker than the world supposed. The longer the US refuses to admit failure the longer the war will go on."

Tagged: iraq, uk, usa, war+on+terror, disinformation, disinfo