Anas Altikriti on new Iraq govt
Mr Spoon | 25.05.2006 13:40
Anas Altikriti, Iraqi exile from Saddam Hussein's regime, congratulates Bush & Blair on a unique achievement - bringing more strife and division to Iraq than Saddam could ever dream of:
A house divided
Anas Altikriti
May 22, 2006 06:10 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anas_altikriti/2006/05/a_government_built_upon_sectar.html
The expected and usual words of welcome echoed around the corridors of the White House and 10 Downing Street after Iraq's new government was approved.
One cannot really blame Tony Blair or George Bush for allowing themselves a deep sigh of relief upon hearing the news: things haven't been going their way lately. Both have seen their national popularity ratings plummet to unprecedented depths, and the thorn of Iraq just will not go away.
Three years on from going it alone in invading Iraq, winning the war and getting rid of the brutal Saddam Hussein, they must both be bewildered about the dismal treatment they have been dealt by their people, sections of the media and many of their party colleagues.
Considering that some even spoke of Downing Street's anticipation of a special parade for the victorious prime minister along Pall Mall and Whitehall in the summer of 2003, the predicament he finds himself in today, amid a series of party and government scandals, policy failures and revelations of all sorts, is nothing short of a remarkable contrast.
But before he and Mr Bush settle in for the night with a warm feeling of contentment over political developments in Iraq, there is another pooper they must reckon with as catastrophe engulfs the country they claim they went to liberate and the nation they went to free.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, endorsed by the Iraqi parliament yesterday, is firmly structured along sectarian lines, a feature Iraqis were hoping was a mere temporary measure in the aftermath of the chaotic fall of the Ba'athist regime and the even more chaotic occupation that followed. Only the most naive would deny that the names that form the new 37-member cabinet (still awaiting the addition of two ministers, for interior and defence), are carefully selected according to whom they represent and which party they belong to.
Yet this is no mean feat. Difficult as it was to get the names together, it is even more difficult for the Iraqi people to stomach seeing a government divided along sectarian lines, an achievement even the brutal Ba'athists never delivered.
While lazy politicians and journalists will parrot claims that Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath government represented the minority Sunni Arabs and marginalised the Shia and the Kurds, reality, figures and facts will all testify that Iraq was constantly governed by cabinets full of figures from all sections of Iraqi society, Sunni and Shia, Muslim and Christian, Arab and Kurd.
In fact, of the 55 people depicted in the Iraqi "deck of cards" gimmick the US forces produced, most were actually Shia and one was a Christian. Someone who was not among the 55 but who was probably as well known to the westerners as Saddam Hussein himself was the former information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, aka Comical Ali, a Shia Arab.
Ask any Iraqi and they will tell you truthfully that it never was an issue. It wasn't: almost every single Iraqi family contains Sunni, Shia and Kurdish members. This writer, a Sunni Arab with very little detailed knowledge of the extended family he has inside Iraq, can name a brother-in law who is a Kurd and an uncle who is Shia. Most, if not all, Iraqi families, clans and tribes enjoy the same characteristic.
However, since the war in March 2003 and the occupation that followed, this has become an issue. The reasons are simple. The US and British governments needed to play the human rights card when it became apparent that the weapons of mass destruction were not going to materialise and it was insufficient to say the regime was a brutal dictatorship that tormented its people for more than three decades.
They needed to go many steps further and make it as though Saddam Hussein had represented or acted in the best interest of Sunni Arabs alone and brutalised all others. The statement that a minority is terrorising a majority into submission - another claim brandished with no evidence - has an incredible effect on the audience. But this was not just a blatant lie; it was a despicable ploy that has resulted in the rise of corrupt politicians who made the most of those claims as well as the sectarian killings that Iraq has been witnessing for the past two years, which have claimed the lives of thousands of people.
Once again, ask any Iraqi and they will tell you Saddam represented no one: he brutalised and terrorised everyone. Among his victims were Sunnis and Shia as well as Arabs, Kurds, Turkmans and others; those who carried out the crimes on his behalf were also Sunnis and Shia as well as Arabs, Kurds and others.
Yet what Iraqis have to put up with is the prospect that a government formed along sectarian and ethnic lines may signal the first real step towards the break-up of their country along the same divides.
They also must accept that because sect and ethnicity are insurmountable factors in today's Iraqi politics, they have no way of questioning why Bayan Jabr Soulagh, for instance, the former interior minister who remains accused of establishing dozens of secret torture chambers, dungeons and prison cells, the most infamous of which was found in the cellars of his own ministry headquarters in November last year, can be appointed minister of finance in Maliki's new government.
Soulagh is also accused of giving carte blanche to death squads to roam the streets of Baghdad, abduct civilians, torture them using the most unimaginably brutal methods and then dump their bodies in sewers and garbage disposals, all with impunity.
It is truly amazing what Bush and Blair have managed to achieve in Iraq. Not only have they managed to contribute to a climate in which human rights can be violated in far worse ways than they were under Saddam's Ba'athist regime, they have actually driven Iraqis, all Iraqis, into openly stating that life was much better under Saddam, something that this writer, like most Iraqis, never, ever imagined possible only a few years ago.
And now they have welcomed a government that cements the breakage of Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines. All Iraqis hope their new government will succeed in bringing security, peace and stability - but they will not be holding their breath. That sigh of relief from Bush and Blair was premature.
Anas Altikriti
May 22, 2006 06:10 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anas_altikriti/2006/05/a_government_built_upon_sectar.html The expected and usual words of welcome echoed around the corridors of the White House and 10 Downing Street after Iraq's new government was approved.
One cannot really blame Tony Blair or George Bush for allowing themselves a deep sigh of relief upon hearing the news: things haven't been going their way lately. Both have seen their national popularity ratings plummet to unprecedented depths, and the thorn of Iraq just will not go away.
Three years on from going it alone in invading Iraq, winning the war and getting rid of the brutal Saddam Hussein, they must both be bewildered about the dismal treatment they have been dealt by their people, sections of the media and many of their party colleagues.
Considering that some even spoke of Downing Street's anticipation of a special parade for the victorious prime minister along Pall Mall and Whitehall in the summer of 2003, the predicament he finds himself in today, amid a series of party and government scandals, policy failures and revelations of all sorts, is nothing short of a remarkable contrast.
But before he and Mr Bush settle in for the night with a warm feeling of contentment over political developments in Iraq, there is another pooper they must reckon with as catastrophe engulfs the country they claim they went to liberate and the nation they went to free.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, endorsed by the Iraqi parliament yesterday, is firmly structured along sectarian lines, a feature Iraqis were hoping was a mere temporary measure in the aftermath of the chaotic fall of the Ba'athist regime and the even more chaotic occupation that followed. Only the most naive would deny that the names that form the new 37-member cabinet (still awaiting the addition of two ministers, for interior and defence), are carefully selected according to whom they represent and which party they belong to.
Yet this is no mean feat. Difficult as it was to get the names together, it is even more difficult for the Iraqi people to stomach seeing a government divided along sectarian lines, an achievement even the brutal Ba'athists never delivered.
While lazy politicians and journalists will parrot claims that Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath government represented the minority Sunni Arabs and marginalised the Shia and the Kurds, reality, figures and facts will all testify that Iraq was constantly governed by cabinets full of figures from all sections of Iraqi society, Sunni and Shia, Muslim and Christian, Arab and Kurd.
In fact, of the 55 people depicted in the Iraqi "deck of cards" gimmick the US forces produced, most were actually Shia and one was a Christian. Someone who was not among the 55 but who was probably as well known to the westerners as Saddam Hussein himself was the former information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, aka Comical Ali, a Shia Arab.
Ask any Iraqi and they will tell you truthfully that it never was an issue. It wasn't: almost every single Iraqi family contains Sunni, Shia and Kurdish members. This writer, a Sunni Arab with very little detailed knowledge of the extended family he has inside Iraq, can name a brother-in law who is a Kurd and an uncle who is Shia. Most, if not all, Iraqi families, clans and tribes enjoy the same characteristic.
However, since the war in March 2003 and the occupation that followed, this has become an issue. The reasons are simple. The US and British governments needed to play the human rights card when it became apparent that the weapons of mass destruction were not going to materialise and it was insufficient to say the regime was a brutal dictatorship that tormented its people for more than three decades.
They needed to go many steps further and make it as though Saddam Hussein had represented or acted in the best interest of Sunni Arabs alone and brutalised all others. The statement that a minority is terrorising a majority into submission - another claim brandished with no evidence - has an incredible effect on the audience. But this was not just a blatant lie; it was a despicable ploy that has resulted in the rise of corrupt politicians who made the most of those claims as well as the sectarian killings that Iraq has been witnessing for the past two years, which have claimed the lives of thousands of people.
Once again, ask any Iraqi and they will tell you Saddam represented no one: he brutalised and terrorised everyone. Among his victims were Sunnis and Shia as well as Arabs, Kurds, Turkmans and others; those who carried out the crimes on his behalf were also Sunnis and Shia as well as Arabs, Kurds and others.
Yet what Iraqis have to put up with is the prospect that a government formed along sectarian and ethnic lines may signal the first real step towards the break-up of their country along the same divides.
They also must accept that because sect and ethnicity are insurmountable factors in today's Iraqi politics, they have no way of questioning why Bayan Jabr Soulagh, for instance, the former interior minister who remains accused of establishing dozens of secret torture chambers, dungeons and prison cells, the most infamous of which was found in the cellars of his own ministry headquarters in November last year, can be appointed minister of finance in Maliki's new government.
Soulagh is also accused of giving carte blanche to death squads to roam the streets of Baghdad, abduct civilians, torture them using the most unimaginably brutal methods and then dump their bodies in sewers and garbage disposals, all with impunity.
It is truly amazing what Bush and Blair have managed to achieve in Iraq. Not only have they managed to contribute to a climate in which human rights can be violated in far worse ways than they were under Saddam's Ba'athist regime, they have actually driven Iraqis, all Iraqis, into openly stating that life was much better under Saddam, something that this writer, like most Iraqis, never, ever imagined possible only a few years ago.
And now they have welcomed a government that cements the breakage of Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines. All Iraqis hope their new government will succeed in bringing security, peace and stability - but they will not be holding their breath. That sigh of relief from Bush and Blair was premature.
Mr Spoon
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