Iraq: New year off to rocky start for would-be colonizers

The U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has been plagued by financial and torture scandals, as well as determined resistance, since the outset. If recent events are any indication, U.S. and British imperial forces have a long road ahead if they intend to stay in the country.

Basra’s provincial governor, Mohammad Walli, announced at the end of January a suspension of cooperation with British security forces until the British release five Iraqi police they have kept in custody. Walli has promised to use “all available means” to secure their release. British troops initially detained a total of 14 Iraqi police officers, but nine have been released.

These Iraqi authorities have been part of the political framework set up by the occupation. Yet even they can’t afford being seen by the people as complete puppets or as covering up for atrocities committed by the occupying forces.

The tensions in Basra first broke into the open on Sept. 19, when British armored vehicles backed up by helicopter gunships broke down the wall of a prison to extract two British commandos who had been detained by the Iraqi police. The Iraqis said the two had been armed and wearing Arab clothing when they were caught attempting to plant a bomb. At that time, there had been several mysterious bombings in the area that could have been intended to stir up antagonisms between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Large, angry crowds gathered when the British assaulted the prison. Several civilians were killed by the occupying troops. Now these tensions have broken out again.

The U.S. Army is in the middle of another scandal. It has been seizing and holding captive the wives of alleged insurgents in an attempt to use them as leverage and force their husbands to surrender.

An unnamed civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described the detainment of a 28-year-old mother of three. “During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target’s surrender.” (Associated Press, Jan. 27) TF refers to a special operations task force established to manage “sensitive” targets.

U.S. forces recently released five Iraqi women detainees. The release of all female captives has been a primary demand of the resistance, and anger is high in Iraq over this U.S. tactic. Recently, the Vengeance Brigades detained U.S. journalist Jill Carroll who writes for the Christian Science Monitor. The resistance group has asked for the release of all female Iraqi prisoners as a condition for Carroll’s release.

While most U.S. officials have denied any direct connection between resistance demands and the release of the five Iraqi women, Iraqi Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal said major efforts were in progress to free Carroll.

Detaining noncombatant family members of individuals suspected of engaging in armed resistance shows the imperial forces’ frustration and inability to subdue the Iraqi people. So far, more than 2,338 U.S. and British soldiers have died trying to enforce neocolonial domination of Iraq while deaths on the Iraqi side, civilians and combatants, are believed to be over 100,000.

U.S. forces are over-extended. Gen. George Casey, U.S. commander in Iraq, said on Jan. 26 that U.S forces “are stretched ... and I don’t think there’s any question of that.”

President George W. Bush has brushed off claims of an overextended military and recently threatened an indefinite occupation of Iraq. He recently compared the U.S. troops deployed in Iraq to the tens of thousands still in South Korea, more than 50 years after the Korean War ended in an armistice. He didn’t mention the huge movement that has grown up in South Korea demanding the U.S. leave.

Bush has yet to come to terms with the level of resistance to U.S. political and military policies in the Middle East. His administration has employed a Vietnam-era “destroy the village to save it” mentality in relation to Iraqi military operations—seen most starkly in the bomb-devastated town of Falluja. But Washington’s trail of war crimes against the Iraqi people has earned it international condemnation and only stiffened the resolve of the resistance to reclaim true sovereignty.