Basic services vs. foreign wars

by Michael Jansen

After last weekend's spate of devastating attacks on key Iraqi election officials and the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, which killed 69 Iraqis, US President George W. Bush finally admitted that things were not going well in Iraq. Furthermore, he said that the current level of US troop deployment - 138,000 plus - would have to continue till the end of 2005 and that thereafter, the US must remain deeply involved in Iraq.

Then came Tuesday's strike on a US base in Mosul, which killed at least 22 US troops and half a dozen Iraqi security personnel. This terrible event demonstrated that the war in Iraq is far from over, a fact which has been admitted by some members of the Bush administration but not yet by Bush himself.

On that very day, during his first visit to Baghdad, British Premier Tony Blair spoke of foreign troops remaining for another ten years, revealing that, in the long-run, Iraq is destined to become a quasi-permanent protectorate of the United States and its British ally. The longer they stay on the fewer will be other governments prepared to field troops, reducing the international legitimacy of Bush's Iraq enterprise.

This is why Bush and his minions insist that the parliamentary election, scheduled for Jan. 30, must go forward. Without this popular consultation - however problematical - Washington has no legal standing in Iraq on which to build its protectorate.

The Bush administration is counting on the United Iraqi Alliance, a collection of 23 Shiite parties, to win enough seats in the temporary parliament--constituent assembly to dominate this body and to exert heavy influence on the process of drafting a constitution. In the view of the administration, the post-election period is payback time. The alliance, headed by parties formed in exile who own their return and prominence to the US, is expected to toe Washington's line. The alliance will probably do the US bidding for some time, but cannot be expected to carry on in the long term because several of the alliance's major constituent parties have an agenda the US cannot accept.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Dawa, and Islamic Dawa, the dominant members in the alliance, want Iraq to become a clerically-run Shiite Islamic state. While they currently deny this, these parties are likely to be operating under the Shiite doctrine of "taqiya", or deception, temporarily adopting a US-imposed secular model of the new Iraqi state while, at the same time, preparing the way for a clerical coup. This is a fundamental reason why the Iraqi Sunni Islamist and secular nationalist resistance have taken up arms against the US and its Iraqi allies and why insurgents can be expected to step up their attacks on US and Iraqi interim government targets over the next month.

Rising violence makes it all the more difficult to hold elections. While US intelligence agency officials argue the war against the resistance had not been lost and the parliamentary poll could still be held, CIA Director Porter Goss personally warned Bush that US and Iraqi government forces have not been able to halt the intimidation of voters and candidates or attacks on election officials. Furthermore, he said the US and its allies have not been able to create and exploit divisions amongst secular and religious resistance groups with the aim of undermining the insurgency. Instead, factions with contradictory political objectives are mounting joint operations.

Voters have had no assurances that they will be able to cast their ballots in safety. Iraq's 115,000-strong police and National Guard cannot ensure security at the country's polling stations. Of the 60 per cent who report for duty, many hide their faces behind masks and do not tell family and friends that they are employed in the security forces. By contrast, insurgents, who are better armed and organised than Iraq's security forces, carry out daylight raids without concealing their identities and melt back into the populace.

Last week, Lt. General Lance Smith, the deputy commander of US forces in the Middle East, said that the Iraqi resistance was growing more effective in using roadside bombs to disrupt US military operations and the flow of supplies to US troops. He said "the enemy is very smart" and adapts to fit changing circumstances.

US forces, attached to massive supply and logistics "tails", cannot match the Iraqi guerrillas as far as flexibility, mobility and invention are concerned. But Washington has no option other than increasing its boots-on-the-ground in response to escalating resistance activity. This is putting great strain on both the war tolerance of the US public and the public purse.

In the run-up to the parliamentary poll, 56 per cent of US citizens say that the war in Iraq is not worth fighting and 57 per cent say that Bush is not handling the situation well. Opposition is likely to rise. The US has 148,000 troops in Iraq, up from 138,000, and another 2,000 are expected to arrive soon. The additional deployment, providing armour for patrol vehicles and developing fresh tactics to keep up with those of the insurgents is expected to increase the costs of the ongoing war of attrition by $80 billion, or 25 per cent, during fiscal 2005. This sum is on top of an additional $25 billion which has been appropriated to finish off 2004.

According to Professor Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the cost of the war through the end of this year will be $128 billion, excluding the replacement of equipment and the call-up of additional troops. Cordesman said that by the end of 2005, expenditure could reach $212-232 billion. By the end of 2007, the figure could be $316 billion. Meanwhile, public funding for healthcare and education in the US is falling while the social security pension system - on which millions of retired people depend - is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Bush has yet to learn that ordinary citizens prefer basic services and a respectable old age to guns, Humvees, tanks and unending foreign wars.

This article was published in the Thursday, December 23, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.