Global Policy Forum

By Patrick Cockburn*

A smear of dark blood on the dusty pavement marked the spot where a U.S. soldier was shot dead with a bullet in the neck and another wound in the arm close to Dohra power station in south Baghdad. When I asked the dozen Iraqis who had witnessed the shooting what they thought about the killing, they all said they approved of it.

"We think they deserved it," was the chilling comment of a man who gave his name as Mohammed Abbas. "We admire the bravery of those who attacked them." Another bystander said enthusiastically: "We will celebrate by cooking a chicken. God willing there will be more actions like this."

U.S. soldiers in Baghdad are not popular. Iraqis wonder why, with 55,000 U.S. soldiers in and around the capital, armed looters and thieves still prowl the streets. Last week, as the temperature soared to well over 100 degrees Farenheit, refrigerators and air-conditioning did not work because in many districts there were only one or two hours of electricity a day.

Above all, Baghdad is alive with frightening rumors because the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the lumbering name of the U.S. occupation administration, has somehow failed to get radio and television carrying credible information back on the air. One rumor, almost universally believed in Baghdad, is that gangs working for Kuwaitis are kidnapping Iraqi girls and taking them off to servitude in Kuwait; 40 kidnapped girls were said to have been discovered in a house in Mansur district, though nobody knows what street it was in.

Because the failings of the occupation are so grotesque, it is easy to forget that whatever else happens Iraqis certainly do not want the return of Saddam Hussein. Amid the torrent of rumors there are true and terrible stories of cruelty, such as one about a father and his two sons who were compelled by Saddam's security men to execute a third son or see their entire family slaughtered.

The success or failure of the U.S. occupation is still on a knife edge. With the capture of Baghdad on April 9, the United States won an easy military victory but it has been unable to turn this into a political victory in the following 10 weeks. It might still do so but it faces many obstacles.

So far there have been only sporadic attacks by gunmen armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The blowing up of oil and gas pipelines in western Iraq may presage something more, but there is no coordinated guerrilla warfare.

Armed resistance is confined to the Sunni Muslim heartlands in Baghdad and central Iraq. It was the Sunni Muslims under the Ottomans, Britain, the monarchy and Saddam who dominated civil and military government. It is their community that is most severely affected by the war.

There have been no attacks in Kurdistan, where people are euphoric at the outcome of the war. They have regained Kirkuk and lands lost during 40 years of ethnic cleansing. They need the United States to prevent Turkish intervention.

Most important, there has been almost no resistance to the United States in parts of Iraq dominated by the Shiah Muslims, who make up at least 55 percent of the population. They hope that their moment has come after centuries of oppression. They are likely to win any genuinely free elections.

At the weekend I saw a small demonstration of Shia outside the Mansour hotel in Baghdad marching on the CPA headquarters housed inside Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. The leader of the protest was Sheikh Ahmad Zirjawi Baghdadi, a Shia cleric in turban and dark robes, looking very much like Hollywood's idea of an Islamic fanatic foaming with anti-U.S. rhetoric.

In fact, he said: "We are not asking for American troops to withdraw but for free elections." This is the real problem for the United States. It promised democracy for Iraq but it is frightened of the Shia representatives winning. It is trying to delay elections until it thinks people acceptable to Washington will get elected.

This may be a long time coming. In Najaf, the religious capital of the Shia south, the United States has even managed to appoint a fervently Sunni governor (this is a bit like occupying the Vatican and appointing a fanatical Protestant). Fresh elections in the city have been cancelled by the U.S. military authorities.

One of the bizarre aspects of the situation in Iraq is that what aging grand ayatollahs decide in their modest houses in the dusty back alleys of Najaf will directly affect the next U.S. presidential election. If they called for passive resistance or a jihad, though the latter is not likely, they could quickly rub the gilt off President Bush's military victory.

Even if the United States allows, prior to an Iraqi national election, a genuinely representative Iraqi political council with real power, it will be dealing with people it does not like. But if it does not do so, it will have increasing difficulties in ruling Iraq by military force alone.

In either case the White House is discovering that the occupation of Iraq, one of the most complex societies on earth, which appeared to be a sure election winner in the United States a few weeks ago, has added some dangerously unpredictable wild cards to U.S. politics.

About the Author: Patrick Cockburn is a columnist for The Independent in Great Britain and co-author with Andrew Cockburn of "Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession."

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.