Five Years - the Iraq War
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.
We knew what was true. We overthrew a dictator. We knew that demolishing Saddam Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be quite easy. But everything else was proven wrong.
There were no weapons of mass destruction. As for the alleged link between Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida, there is no link. The Pentagon acknowledged that fact after reviewing more than 600,000 captured Iraqi documents.
Is Iraq safer five years later?
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, still needs a massive convoy to travel from the Green Zone to the headquarters of the Dawa party, a half-mile away. First you get soldiers clearing the traffic from the streets. Then you get four black armoured cars, each with three machine-gunners on the roof, followed by sand-colored American Humvees, and more armoured cars. Finally, you would see six identical bullet-proof vehicles with black windows, one of which must have been carrying Mr. Maliki.
President Bush stated that crime and violence is decreasing. It is probably because journalists are being told not to mention the continuing violence. For one Independent UK reporter, he saw a television cameraman being beaten by police when he attempted to take pictures of a bombing near his hotel. As for the fall in the death rate, perhaps one fact that was overlooked is that ethnic cleansing between the Shia and Sunni has done its bloody work, and there is really no more mixed areas left in Baghdad. Besides, if you look at this capital city, it is now a collection of Sunni and Shia neighborhoods divided by high concrete walls.
There is now an 80,000 strong Sunni militia, paid for and allied to the US but hostile to the Iraqi government. That is the assistance Bush is talking about.
Remember all that talk about American military might. The invasion ended in less than a month because most of the Iraqi army would not fight. Even the elite Republican Guard units went home. Of course, you would find burnt-out Iraqi tanks littered around the streets of Baghdad, giving the impression of heavy fighting, but almost all had been abandoned by their crews before they were hit. Whoever was left was easily outmatched by America's military. Iraqi's former military was quite different back in 1991.
We are still pretty much stuck in a quagmire. The American and British, and other remaining allies that are left are the ones preventing the Iraqi Sunni and Shia from killing each other. Plus, how can you really solve the political problems where the Shia religious parties who are linked to Iran continued to win elections, just like that did in two elections back in 2005? It would seem the U.S. would support democracy only if Iraq acts as a buffer against Iran.
Let us also not forget history. It would seem Bush and his neocons are walking down the same steps the British Government did back in the early 20th century. They did not know that three after Britain captured Baghdad in 1917 it was fighting a ferocious tribal revolt along the valley of the Euphrates. We should know that the United States is not in the business of occupying other countries. We should also know that the Iraqi people are not Germans or Japanese in 1945.
Bush and probably McCain still want to keep our troops there until Iraq becomes a stable and secure country. The question is how long? Could it be that the Iraqi people are just tired of being occupied by a foreign power? Could it be that by being there, we are giving al-Qa'ida to use us as an excuse to keep up the insurgency?
We still got Afghanistan to worry about, and perhaps Pakistan, then of course Iran. Plus add in a resurging Russia.
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