WORLD AFFAIRS

Looking for an escape route

JOHN CHERIAN

As resistance to the United States-led occupation intensifies and allies and friends slowly desert the beleaguered U.S. forces, the Bush administration appears to be desperate to extricate itself from Iraq without further damage.

IN the last two weeks of the month of Ramadan, insurgents struck almost at will against United States targets in Iraq. On November 22, an Airbus 300 operated by an international courier company made an emergency landing at the Baghdad international airport after it was hit by a missile. All civilian flights to Baghdad were cancelled after the incident. The anti-U.S. insurgency has now spread to the northern part of the country. On November 23, in Mosul, two U.S. soldiers were lynched by a civilian mob and their bodies dragged on the streets. A day later, a big explosion occurred near a U.S. military convoy near the city. On the same day, an oil pipeline was set on fire near the city of Kirkuk. The oil sector in Iraq has been virtually rendered non-functional by continuing acts of sabotage by insurgent forces. On November 15, two Apache helicopters crashed in Mosul killing 17 U.S. soldiers. It was the incident that involved the loss of the largest number of American lives since the U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq.

AP PHOTO

On the outskirts of Kirkuk, a U.S. soldier stands amid the rubble of a building destroyed in an air strike by the occupation forces.

There are indications that the Iraqis have formed a broad front to drive out the occupation forces. Iraqi Communist Party activists have once again been drawn into the liberation struggle despite the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Interim Council having a representative of one of the factions in the party. The U.S. media have reported that the radical Shiite group Hezbollah is active in Iraq but has so far refrained from action. In the 1980s, a Hezbollah suicide bomber drove a truck into a building in Beirut, Lebanon, occupied by U.S. forces, killing more than 200 U.S. soldiers. The U.S. military abandoned Lebanon soon after the incident.

Senior U.S. officials, who have been quoted in a report brought out by the Iraq specialist Anthony Cordesman of the influential U.S. think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, have said that the U.S. military has no long-term future in Iraq. Cordesman has accused the George W. Bush administration of preparing the ground for defeat in Iraq by "underplaying the risks, issuing provocative and jingoistic speeches, and minimising the real-world costs and risks". He emphasised that the U.S. would not get sufficient intelligence "up to the point where it will stop all attacks". The report has concluded that attacks on U.S citizens by Iraqis will continue "until the day the U.S. leaves Iraq". The report also observed that the suicide bombings in Iraq had been carried out largely by foreigners but added that "95 per cent of the threat comes from Saddam loyalists". Major-General Charles Swannack, the commanding general of the U.S. Army division that patrols Iraq's western borders, told the media in late November that his troops had encountered only a handful of foreign fighters trying to sneak into Iraq. "I want to underscore that most of the attacks on our forces were by former regime loyalists and other Iraqis, not foreign forces," said Swannack. Even the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has become suspect in the eyes of the U.S. The PUK has for long been financed by the U.S. when it was allowed to control part of the autonomous Iraqi enclave in the north. Its offices in Mosul were raided by U.S. troops on suspicion that they harboured Iraqi insurgents.

ATTACKS on U.S. troops and Iraqi security personnel working under the occupation forces increased dramatically in the month of November. Until recently, Mosul was described by the U.S. authorities as a "model" Iraqi town. In the fourth week of November, four senior Iraqi officials appointed by the occupation forces were killed by the resistance forces. Among those killed was the police chief of Latifiyah, a town 35 km from Baghdad.

The U.S. Army commanders have responded in a heavy-handed way, especially in areas in the so-called "Sunni triangle" in central Iraq where their forces have been targeted. The latest U.S. operation, code-named "Iron Hammer", was launched soon after the downing of two Black Hawk helicopters in the third week of November. Tikrit, former Iraq President Saddam Hussein's home town, has been singled out for special treatment. According to reports from Iraq, it is the civilian populace that is bearing the brunt of the U.S. military offensive. Operation Iron Hammer is described by the Pentagon as a "new get-tough" strategy of going after the insurgents "before they strike". The strategy involves using F-16s to drop 500 lb bombs on civilian areas and using heavy artillery in Baghdad. Towns are being sealed off and orchards bulldozed. The situation is becoming eerily similar to that prevailing in Israel-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

President George W. Bush.

The U.S. media reported that in the past six months, senior U.S. Army and defence officials had been to Israel to learn first-hand about Israel's notorious counter-insurgency tactics. The tips given by the Israeli authorities to their U.S. counter-parts include attacking civilian areas with laser-guided bombs and carrying out "targeted assassinations". U.S. soldiers had reportedly undergone intensive training in simulated urban guerrilla warfare in Israel. A mock Arab township was put up in Israel for the purpose. Israeli military bases are also being used intensely for training by U.S. helicopter pilots. U.S. Under-Secretary of Defence Stephen Gambone recently told the media that the two countries had similar problems and hence "tend to share information as best as they can". Gambone said that there was no formal dialogue between the two close allies on Iraq, but admitted that they were working together. The tactics increasingly adopted by the U.S. forces in Iraq - the levelling of houses used by suspected insurgents, increased use of air power and the use of unmanned aircraft for surveillance - are strikingly similar to those used by the Israelis in the occupied territories.

ALTHOUGH the Bush administration has announced plans to reduce the size of the U.S. forces deployed in Iraq to around 100,000 from the present strength of 130,000, the Pentagon has indicated that it visualised the deployment of troops until 2006 despite the promise of turning over control to an Iraqi civilian administration by mid-2004.

The troubles on the diplomatic front are further indicators of the difficulties that lie ahead for the Bush administration. According to most observers, the Bush administration has never been so isolated in the international arena as it is now. The administration's sudden reversal of its policy on Iraq has found few takers among the major players in the United Nations Security Council. After two years of condescension vis-a-vis the U.N., the Bush administration is now thinking of getting a new resolution passed at the U.N. giving the world body control over the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq. Earlier in the year, the U.S. President had rejected the idea immediately after the government in Baghdad was ousted. The international community is unlikely to allow the Bush administration to extricate itself painlessly from Iraq, leaving behind the gargantuan humanitarian and political problems it created.

The suicide attacks by the Iraqi resistance on the Italian military base on November 12 have sealed the chances of any more foreign troops coming to the rescue of the beleaguered U.S. forces in Iraq. Within 24 hours of the attack, the Japanese government announced the postponement of the plans to send Japanese peacekeepers to Iraq. South Korea has also indicated its unwillingness to send in any more troops. A few hundred South Korean para-medics are currently deployed in Iraq. There have been growing demands in Italy, Poland and other countries for the speedy withdrawal of their troops deployed in Iraq. The attacks on the offices of the U.N. and some humanitarian agencies have led to the almost total withdrawal of foreign aid workers from the country.

Meanwhile, many commentators in West Asia and elsewhere are talking about the inevitability of a U.S. military defeat in Iraq. They have interpreted the U.S. promise to advance the elections in Iraq to mid-2004 as a signal that it has already given up militarily. Observers feel that any civilian government propped up by the U.S. will not enjoy the confidence of the Iraqi people and is bound to suffer the fate of the puppet regime in Vietnam left behind by the U.S. in the early 1970s. Saddam Hussein, in his latest speech broadcast on an Arab television channel, called for the elimination of "those who are installed by foreign armies". He said that they were like stray "barking dogs" following a "passing caravan".

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