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| Nieuwe Oorlog 2004 / Ander Nieuws week 13 |
The Guardian
March 16-18, 2004In February 2003 we interviewed a selection of people with links to Iraq -anti-war protesters, Middle East experts, Iraqi refugees and politicians - to find out their views on the coming war. In May 2003 we talked to them again about the aftermath of the conflict. Now, a year on from the attacks on Iraq, we interviewed them for a third time to find out their hopes and fears for a post-Saddam Iraq. We will be publishing a selection of interviews every day this week in the run-up to the anniversary of the start of the conflict on Saturday, including Noam Chomsky, George Galloway, former weapons inspector Tim Trevan and former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Hans von Sponeck.
Andrew Burgin, second-hand bookseller, anti-war campaigner and Stop the War volunteer
March 18, 2004
Interview by Gwladys FouchéThe Stop the War campaign has scaled down since last year, but I undoubtedly want to carry on. Of all the campaigns I have been involved with, this is the most important one, because its outcome will determine what sort of world my children will live in. Will they live in a world in which problems are resolved through war, or will they live in a place in which we try to make things better? It is unacceptable to bomb a country with cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and say that you do it in the name of democracy.
The focus of our campaign is now twofold. First, we are concentrating on the behaviour of our government in the run-up to the war. We now know from people like Paul O'Neill, the former US treasury secretary, that the decision to attack was taken a long time ago, before September 11. And affairs such as the Katharine Gun case have asked questions about the way the British government behaved at the time. Why did it become embroiled in this war?
The other aspect we are focusing on is the present situation in Iraq. Over 15,000 civilians have died, there are high levels of unemployment, basic services have been destroyed, and now terrible suicide bombings are taking place. The west has a responsibility to give reparations for the damage that was done, not just during the conflict, but for the ten years of sanctions. And from a political point of view, the people of Iraq have to be able to govern themselves, hold elections when they want, and be allowed to control their own security.
I am deeply cynical about the British and American governments. This war was fought under false pretences, because no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Even if they were found now, the fact is they were never available during the war. Also, we were told that we had to attack Iraq in order to defeat terrorism. In fact, the war has created much more terrorist activity.
The only argument for them to fall back on was that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator who murdered thousands of his own people. Of course this is correct, but the problem with that argument is that he did it largely during the period when he had the support of the west.
When politicians say they want to improve the lives of the people of Iraq, I think it is rubbish. The only considerations that matter for them are their own strategic interests.
Hans von Sponeck, Former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq
March 18, 2004
Interview by Mark TranThe new element that exists is the almost daily emotional trauma caused by the illegal war. Every fibre of society is bound to be affected by the chaos and turmoil in Iraq, to a lesser extent in rural areas, to a greater extent in Baghdad, Basra and other big cities. No one is spared.
There are islands of improvement, parts of Basra where water supply is better and parts of Baghdad where the electricity works better. There is some improvement in hospitals, but everything is affected by security considerations. Access to services assumes security. If that is not guaranteed, people don't have that access. In a mother and child hospital in Basra, for example, there is less access to medicines than under the sanctions.
As for the argument that the war was justified because life will improve for Iraqis, a year is a long time. During that period, life for the average Iraqi has been a rollercoaster. Some are employed, some have lost their jobs, for others it's the status quo. I would venture to say, based on phone conversations with Iraqis, that the overall picture is worse now despite what President Bush says about bringing freedom to Iraq. I'm sure it's not the freedom the Iraqi people had in mind.
Many people are dead who would have been alive, many are psychologically damaged, the UN has been weakened, when it was on the path for a peaceful solution. I can't agree with the reasoning that maybe in five years time, Iraq will be stable, that it will have a constitution and elections and that what happened will have justified that. I can't accept this at all, it runs counter to any legally-minded, human rights-minded person.
As for the argument that war was the only way to remove Saddam Hussein, no human being lasts for ever. Saddam was very weakened. I have spoken to officials from his former regime who said at the end other senior officials, including Tariq Aziz (Saddam's foreign minister) and General Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali), were running the country in the last 12 months. Saddam Hussein was not the Saddam Hussein described to us as a danger to the US and Europe. That was absolute nonsense.
Yes Iraqis suffered under this man, but people in Iraq are not suffering any less in their daily life now, what order there was - even under a dictator - is gone. Whatever we see now is no fundamental improvement.
Yes he was a dictator, but the US, the UK and the west contributed to creating this monster. We wanted him as a business partner, an ally against Iran. We condoned his use of weapons of mass destruction against Kurds in the interest of other objectives. If we preach democracy, yet cooperate with feudal dictatorships, we are contributing forcefully to the kind of situation we saw develop in Iraq.
Emma Sangster, volunteer, Voices in the Wilderness UK
March 17, 2004
It seems both unbelievable but also totally predictable that Iraq is in the mess it is today. A year after the start of the invasion and so much of what so many predicted has come to pass. Countless people and families have been damaged and still the country is in chaos.
And how has this country and the US benefited - certainly the soldiers on the ground will be having a rough time for some time to come. Really, I see the only people to have benefited from waging such a war and occupying a country to be the corporations involved, some of whom have provided the weapons for destruction as well as the tools for reconstruction. A clever game to be in.
I'm reading all kinds of different reports from Iraq and know people who have gone there recently, many of whom are exiles returning after a long time. I can't say I feel at all hopeful for the country right now. Apart from the day-to-day tragedies, hardship and injustice for so many (lack of basic services even a year later, detention without charge on a huge scale, large and small acts of violence and attacks by occupying troops) there seem to be many long-term concerns. There are reports of increasing sickness: the coalition forces used depleted uranium in Iraq and the long-term health impact of this is unknown.
I am particularly concerned about the situation for women in Iraq. Not only are they facing enormous day-to-day difficulties such as increased sexual violence and honour killings, which has kept many effectively imprisoned in their homes, but their equal status is under threat. It seems that the new constitution does not guarantee the equality they won back in 1959. In January the Governing Council tried to pass an order that would give a religious jurisdiction over family and marriage matters. The long-term picture looks bleak for Iraqi women.
I think there is also a significant concern about the long-term economic future of Iraq. Some of the first things the Coalition Provisional Authority turned their attention to were measures to restructure the economy for the benefit of foreign investors.
Iraqi companies have largely been passed over when contracts have been issued, despite their ability to do such work better and at a fraction of the cost. It's been one long string of stories about corruption, cronyism and large sums of money going to waste as massive contracts were handed out to George Bush's friends, and it looks like privatisation of Iraq's public sectors is inevitable. Looking elsewhere in the world, I can only think that this will lead to even more unemployment and poverty for Iraqis. This is exactly why a real democratic process is needed - so that the Iraqi population themselves can determine their own future.
The level of death and destruction is devastating. Well over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives so far (nobody knows how many Iraqi soldiers) and people are being killed every day. On top of this, many, many thousands have been injured, maimed for life, or lost their loved ones, their livelihoods. The CPA won't recognise their claims for compensation, just paying out the odd $500 to keep people quiet. This is perfectly symbolic of the lack of value the West have attached to the lives of Iraqi people for so long.
To be honest, I don't think the issue of whether WMD is found in Iraq is significant - its just part of the game of politics that allows for terrible acts to be committed by "our" governments, with the slightest of justifications. How many missiles loaded with chemical weapons would have to be found to justify the invasion and deaths of at least 10,000 Iraqi civilians?
Noam Chomsky, MIT professor, writer and activist
March 16, 2004
Interview by Matthew TempestThere's a lot of focus on the American death toll but personally I think that's partly propaganda exaggeration. Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll - although they don't like it, they're willing to accept it - if they think it's a just cause.
There's never been anything like the so-called Vietnam Syndrome: it's mostly a fabrication. And in this case too if they thought it was a just cause, the 500 or so deaths would be mourned, but not considered a dominant reason for not continuing. No, the problem is the justice of the cause.
Right after the war, by April, polls demonstrated pretty clearly that Americans thought the United Nations, not the United States, ought to have prime responsibility for reconstruction, political and economic, in the post-war period. There's little support for the government's efforts to maintain what amounts to a powerful, permanent, military and diplomatic presence in Iraq.
In fact, it is little discussed, probably for that reason. Not very many people are aware of the fact that the US is planning to construct what will be the world's largest embassy in Iraq, with maybe 3,000 people. The military plans to maintain permanent bases and a substantial US military presence as long as they want it. The facts are reported, but marginally. Most people don't know about it. The orders to open the Iraqi economy up to foreign takeover are again known to people who pay close attention, but not to the general population.
The general population offers little support for the long-term effort to ensure that Iraq remains a client state with only nominal sovereignty and a base for other US actions in the region. Those commitments have only a very shallow popular support and that's more of a reason for the objections, the uneasiness about policy, than the number of casualties.
The trial [of Saddam Hussein] ought to be under some kind of international auspices that have some degree of credibility, so not something which is obviously victor's justice, which, no matter how much of a monster one is, doesn't carry credibility.
So first of all there's a matter of form, but also there's a matter of content. The trial should bring to the bar of justice his associates, those who gave decisive and substantial support for him right through his worst atrocities, long after the war with Iran. Again in 1991 when he crushed the rebellions viciously - the rebellions that might well have overthrown him. All of those people should be brought to justice. They're not all equally culpable but they were all critically involved - that includes European countries right through the 80s, including Russia and France, Germany and others, it includes, crucially, the United States and Britain all the way through, including 1991.
They should also bring to justice those who were responsible for the murderous sanction regime which surely led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and devastated the society so completely that they could not carry out what has happened elsewhere, where the US and Britain supported comparable monsters - namely, they were overthrown from within.
It seems not unlikely that the same might have happened in Iraq had the society not been devastated and had people not been compelled by the sanctions to rely on the tyrant for mere survival. Actually there's even more evidence of that coming out today as it's been revealed in the Kay investigation and others how fragile the hold on power was at the end.
So anyone who contributed to Saddam Hussein's atrocities to whatever they degree they did, they're culpable as well and in some fashion an honest trial should deal with that.
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