An Iraqi Report from Iraq Jude Wanniski May 29, 2003

Memo: To Website Fans, Browsers, Clients
From Jude Wanniski
Re An Unfiltered Dispatch

In recent years I have developed contacts in Iraq with the Freedom Party, which is home grown, not created by the Pentagon intellectuals who want to install a U.S. puppet state. I’ve been persuaded that my contacts have been genuinely anti-Saddam, but also emphatically anti-war. What I am presenting here is a report from the Party’s headquarters in Iraq, translated for me by its co-ordinator in London. Because I cannot vouch for the detail of the report, I only recommend it to you as a fairly credible account of what is going on now and what we can expect in the future, everything else being equal:

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In less than 24 hours, the American occupiers of Iraq lost 4 of their soldiers in an event that looks like an attack by Iraqi resistance, in addition to 7 others dead and a helicopter in Al-Falloja couple of days ago, at a time Washington thought that things looked under control.

The operation of the Iraqi resistance was shocking to the Americans, who were a bit relaxed in the last few weeks to such an extent that they have even given most of the security operations to the newly formed Iraqi police.

In the past few weeks, it seems that the Americans were only busy controlling the Iraqi oil through the recent Security Council resolution; as such they thought that the Iraqis had accepted their presence as occupier, which looks to be for a long time.

The American command relied on the Iraqis joy of the fall of Saddam’s regime and the Ba’ath Party, and consequently they’re dealing with the lack of day-to-day essentials like electricity, fuel, water, salaries and other daily sufferings that occupy the mind of every Iraqi.

The recent developments proved that the American bet was a big mistake, and so was relying on the Iraqis to accept the occupation. This was also proved recently when a large number of heads of tribes in the middle Euphrates area (where the 1920 resistance against the British occupation started, and ended in 96,000 deaths), where more than 5 million inhabitants are loyal to their heads of tribes, have called the Americans to leave Iraq or will face the consequences.

Al-Falloja was a good example for the self-rule by Iraqis, who have established a local council and started running the city much better than any other city in Iraq supported and organised by the Americans. The people of Al-Falloja were also very successful in having all the services of the city back to almost normal condition. This will eventually set an example for all other parts of Iraq, where the Americans failed to do anything so far. Despite the success made by Al-Falloja people, they have now woken up from their dreams of the fall of Saddam’s regime to what looks like now that they are facing a daily unpleasant scene, that is the patrol of the city by the American troops.

Furthermore, the salaries (US$20) paid to some Iraqis are not enough under the complete fall of the economy and the extreme high rise in the prices of all consumables. Not to mention the collapse of the ration program that was working very well during Saddam’s regime. The Iraqis now are very much aware that the presence of the Americans is not for their liberation as they claimed to be, but for their occupation, and their presence seems to be nothing but to ensure the flow of the Iraqi oil.

Another mistake made by the American administrator of Iraq, is the dismantling of the Iraqi Army as well as everything related to the ministry of information and the interior ministry, leaving more than a million Iraqis without any source of income. Army personnel demonstrated against this decree and threatened a revolt and resistance against the occupier, particularly when there are more than 10 million weapons in the hands of those people. One should imagine the hell facing the American troops in Iraq.

The American administrator of Iraq said that those Army personnel would find other comfortable kinds of jobs in the private sector. This is an idea implying a great ignorance of the situation in Iraq and particularly the circumstances surrounding those army personnel. The private sector in Iraq almost does not exist, and in fact it never existed in the past 30 years. In order to develop a private sector in post-Saddam era, billions of US$ will be needed for new investments, and for over 10 years’ time. One is wondering, will those soldiers be able to wait that long to find jobs? Besides, what kind of work can an army officer or a soldier do in the private sector?

What about the millions of unemployed young people thrown into the market by a large number of Iraqi universities where no private or public sectors will occupy them?

The Americans are acting haphazardly in Iraq which will definitely lead to “National awakeness” that will eventually lead to a long run exhaustion that will make Vietnam look like a nice and pleasant journey. The American admin took some measures, all of which fall into one category, that is assemblage of the majority of Iraqis in the resistance ditch. This, above all, destroyed the trust given to them by some of their allies who thought that the Americans were coming as liberator and not as occupier.

The American measures can be categorised as:

1. The American admin shocked all of its allies when it admitted that their troops are actually serving as occupier and not liberator, took all the responsibilities toward those who under its occupation, according to international law. The admin even went into the Security Council and got a resolution that will allow the US and the international community to lift the sanction imposed on Iraq and to put its hands on Iraq’s oil.

2. The American admin abandon all its previous plans to create a national assembly or an interim government from those Iraqis whom the admin brought to Iraq, and as such all hopes of calling for a democratic election and converting Iraq into a democratic example for the whole region was faded.

3. Another big mistake by the American admin was the dismantling of the Ba’ath party and all its establishments’ seniors or juniors, and preventing them from any political role in present and future Iraq. This means that dismantling a very large technocratic power in the fields of health, rebuilding of Iraq and the oil industry.

4. The announcement by Ramsfeld that the US will not allow the formation of an Islamic government in Iraq similar to that in Iran means that he laid the first brick against the Shiite.

Officers and soldiers of Saddam’s army will be converted into resistant fronts opening their arms widely to welcome those Shiite.

We don’t know now which of the political parties will be supporting these ignorant measures taken by the American administrator. Even Chalabi has now joined the common Iraqis when the American administrator disarmed his people and threw them away from the luxurious hunting club they were occupying when they came to Baghdad, and we heard him loudly saying that the Americans laughed at us and cheated us. We also saw him on satellite TV channels asking for the creation of a committee defending the sovereignty of Iraq and its people.

If the American admin does not trust Chalabi, Barazani, Talabani and the others who served the admin and provided the CIA with all kinds of cover-ups politically and otherwise, then whom will those people trust?

Liberation of Iraq has actually just started yesterday from Al-Falloja, and tomorrow it will be from Karbala and Al-Najaf. It is the beginning of the fall of the American soldiers and their helicopters. What we have learnt from the CNN and Al-Jazeera in the past few days was just the beginning, and God knows what was the real truth of the number of casualties.

The future is dark for the American soldiers in Iraq, and also for the surrounding countries, particularly Kuwait. The Iraqis are sure now that a fall of American soldiers in Iraq caused a state of depression to the Kuwaitis. This depression could be more painful to them with the escalation of the resistance and the increase in the number of casualties among the American soldiers in Iraq. The Iraqis think now that the honeymoon in Kuwait and other American-supported countries will soon be over.

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[This morning I received a follow-up report from my Freedom Party source in London: “After I sent you my message and report, the news came with another attack on the US forces in "Haditha", where a helicopter was shot down and 4 US soldiers we killed plus other unconfirmed casualties. These news were confirmed by some satellite TV stations, amongst them was Al-Jazzera. In addition, a US Colonel and few other US soldiers were also killed in the governorate of "Dialah", which is located to the eastern part of Iraq, close to the boarder with Iran.”]