Remembering the day Saddam fell

By Mayada Al Askari

Between the one year spent in Iraq by US ambassador Paul Bremmer and the current Iraqi government, Iraqis have been taken on a death roller coaster over the past eight years.

I cannot begin to describe the high hopes we Iraqis had as we witnessed the toppling of the relic – as Iraqis call all former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain’s statues across Iraq.

No matter how Saddam’s days are described, nothing compares to the dark reality we lived. It was an unending nightmare, paved with blood, tears, fear and hardship; it was an indescribable inferno.

That is why, when the US invasion started, the people and most of the Iraqi army could not wait for Saddam to be taken out, and April 9, 2003, was a glorious day.

However, the joy and exuberant feelings were soon to fall apart.

Ammar Al Waili, an Iraqi from the Marshes who had fought the dictatorship for years, and eventually left the country in the 1990s returned to Iraq after the downfall of Saddam’s regime to bury his two brothers after they were found in one of Saddam’s 375 mass graves.

Ammar, like all Iraqis had high hopes for a wonderful future in Iraq, where the country with its wealth and oil resources would soon become a second Dubai or Hong Kong. However, something went very wrong.

Jay Garner a retired US Army Lieutenant General was selected to lead the post-war reconstruction efforts in Iraq, along with three deputies. His mission was to use the Iraqi army as a tool to reconstruct the country that was virtually falling apart after 13 years of excruciating UN sanctions. The army had reconstructed the country from scratch in 1991, and had the capabilities to re-do the impossible again.

But that never happened. Two or three months after his appointment, General Garner was soon replaced by Ambassador Paul Bremer to head the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

Reading through Bremmer’s memoirs on Iraq, titled “My Year in Iraq” another title came to my mind. The book should have been called “My Misjudgments in Iraq”.

A major resolution which helped in launching the insurgency in Iraq was Bremmer’s decision to dismantle the Iraqi Army.

General David H. Petraeus, Commander of the Nato International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), who was the commander of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), at the time in Iraq, upon hearing the news of the army’s dismantling was heard to say: Mark this day as the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency.

Sure enough, one bad turn led to the killing and displacement of almost one million Iraqis.

In my opinion, former President George W Bush should have sought the advice of General Petraeus from day one in Iraq because the man has deep insights and knowledge. It is truly a pity that the US administration had to wait until 2007 to hand over Iraq’s responsibility and Army command to the one person who saved the day for both the US and the Iraqi people.

Sadly, Iraq today is no better than it was eight years ago.

According to Unicef reports, in many urban areas, children are employed in merchant shops, as ticket collectors on buses, and are found washing cars, shining shoes, and cleaning litter from the streets. Children work as vendors of cigarettes, gum, candy, food, soft drinks, pornographic videos, fruit, fuel, used clothes, and junk.

Children also dig through rubbish, drive donkey carts and work in brick factories in Iraq. Since the war, the number of street children in some areas of Baghdad has been increasing. Poverty has forced families to make their children seek food in waste dumps, turning them into beggars. Children toiling to earn a living has become a commonplace scene on the streets of Iraq. Under these tragic conditions, kids have been subjected to murder, kidnapping, and rape, in addition to being exploited in acts of terrorism. Thousands who turn into street children become addicts of drugs and are then smuggled for sexual slavery.

The whole political democratic process is a shambles as well.

Regulatory authorities, the central bank and other vital bodies in Iraq, which are supposed to hold Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki and his government accountable for their deeds, are all under Al Maliki today, which seems very odd in a democracy which has come after 35 years of blood, sweat and tears

Miserably, on February 25 there were approximately 49 demonstrations throughout Iraq involving more than 27,000 Iraqis. Most of the demonstrations in the new found democracy in Iraq were peaceful but a few turned violent and use of force by the Iraqi Security Forces led to the loss of life, and these are the exact words of General Lloyd James Austin III, US Commanding General of US Forces in Iraq.

Reports coming out insistently from human rights NGOs point to the existence of secret prisons run by the Prime Minister’s office. And although the government says the reports are false, Iraqis emerging half dead from these prisons tell an entirely different story which makes one wonder about the validity of the whole government’s structure.

Is the stalemate in Iraq today, along with the sorry government performance, the corruption and robbery on every conceivable level, what were we looking forward to after decades of misery during Saddam’s police State?

The US decided to invade Iraq well before 2003, and as a result, we saw the end of Saddam and his regime, but the US opened the door to political groups and politicians who have been acting in the strangest manner regarding the well being of Iraq and its people.

It is as though these groups were and are still set to destroy the country once and for all.

With no electricity, no decent schools, no water, no services, and the loss of $71 billion dollars (this is the number stated both by Iraq’s Commission of Integrity Judge Al Ugaili, and Osama Al Nujaifi, the House Speaker from Iraq’s last year’s budget), one has to wonder about the credibility of the people ruling Iraq today.

The invasion of Iraq was supposed to take only a few months, Bush was also quick in declaring the mission to be accomplished with the best of intentions. However, that did not happen.

Eight years after the invasion, thousands of US troops are still in the country, while their mission may not be accomplished until much later.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has visited Iraq several times since 2006. Today he is in Iraq once again to urge Al Maliki to fill key cabinet vacancies and shore up a wobbly coalition government formed almost a year after the elections.

Fears in Iraq today are strong that if the US withdraws all its troops, the government will fall; hence, it is most likely that the Iraqi government will ask the Americans to extend their stay which will lead to a real disaster.

The Sadrists under Moqtada Al Sadr will revolt and Iraq will return to square one, where streets will be deserted after 12 noon.

Sectarian strife, bombings and the shadow of a civil war will be lurking around the corner.

It is high time Nouri Al Maliki starts acting as a responsible figure and not as a dictator, the government has to start performing properly and stealing has to stop completely before the ship sinks.

Al Maliki will also face a very tough time convincing the Sadrists to hold their peace as US troops presence is extended for a while.

Without these troops, Iraq will cease to exist as a united federal country.

Courtesy: Gulf News