Rohan Pearce
"The smell of burnt flesh filled the air and blood smeared the deserted streets of Najaf's Old City after heavy US air strikes on Shiite militia positions around Iraq's revered Imam Ali shrine", reported Agence France-Presse on August 25.
This situation in Najaf has made it clear that "post-handover" Iraq is still a US-occupied country. The Pentagon's attempts to re-label the resistance as "anti-Iraqi forces" from "Saddam loyalists" can't disguise the reality of Shiite and Sunni Iraqis rising up against the US all over the country.
The US response — using AC-130 gunships, Apache attack helicopters and 500-pound-bomb-bearing fighter jets — has done irreparable damage to the image of its puppet government, the Interim Government of Iraq (IGI). This is particularly true of its assault on the resistance forces in the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.
As Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation put it on August 20, "Whatever is the outcome of the US assault on the holy city of Najaf, their aggression cannot hide the fact that the US is losing control of large areas in Iraq; it is an act of desperation. The unity of the Iraqi people against occupation and their determination to achieve independence and democracy is strengthened."
Balancing act
The battle in Najaf has been the focus of the struggle between the occupation regime and the Iraqi resistance since the start of the current uprising in early August. The US and the IGI have been eager to resolve the standoff there as quickly as possible, but in a way which minimises damage to the IGI's credibility and avoids the risk of provoking a more widespread rebellion that a wholesale massacre would invoke.
Washington's biggest nightmare, however, remains Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army coming out of the Najaf confrontation intact. This would be regarded by the Iraqi population as another Sadr-led victory over the occupation regime, even if it was a product of compromise and negotiations.
While many Shiites still follow revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, who has been willing to cooperate with the occupation (while maintaining distance from the US), and some consider Sadr too rash, the rebellion has increased Sadr's political standing, including among Sunnis.
For example, an August 22 article by the Los Angeles Times' Alissa Rubin reported that the Baghdad suburb of "Sadr city seemed more supportive of Sadr on Saturday than it did before the US sweep [of the suburb] and the Najaf standoff ... much of the cleric's appeal to poor Shiites has been his willingness to stand up to the Americans."
Given this, Washington and its handpicked Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi have done their utmost to prevent a peaceful outcome to the Najaf siege, instead remaining intent on destroying Sadr.
Sistani factor
Sistani may be a complicating factor. At the start of the siege, he was in London for heart surgery. After his August 25 return, he called for a mass protest in Najaf. According to an August 26 New York Times article, the protest was to end the fighting and make the US troops withdraw and Mahdi Army fighters to leave their base in the shrine.
The NY Times reported: "With Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia suffering from the bombardment, the announcement by Ayatollah Sistani suggested that he was seizing an opportune moment, gambling that his return could disperse what appeared to be an increasingly confused and demoralized group of insurgents and signal to Iraq's majority Shiites that he could save the shrine from damage or destruction.
"Both the interim Iraqi government and the American commanders, whose troops have been advancing steadily on the shrine but at great political cost, welcomed the announcement, seeing in it a possible way out of the bloodshed and the political predicament."
The article noted that "People close to the ayatollah have said he loathes Mr. Sadr and is concerned about his growing power among Iraq's dispossessed. Consequently, associates of the ayatollah say, he has not publicly objected to the American assault on Mr. Sadr's forces, even at risk of damaging the shrine."
Sistani's authority is such that the US, the IGI and Sadr are unlikely to risk directly confronting him. His actions present a quandary for the US, however, since it makes it more likely that the Mahdi Army will survive. Already there are reports that only a small number of resistance fighters remain in the Imam Ali shrine and members of the Mahdi Army have regrouped at Kufa.
On August 26, supporters of Sistani and Sadr marching from Kufa to Najaf were injured and some 20 killed in a massacre apparently carried out by members of the Iraqi National Guard.
Iraq-wide uprising
Although most of the reports in the corporate media have concentrated on the fighting in Najaf, armed resistance to the occupation forces remains spread throughout much of the country.
Reuters reported on August 13 that thousands of Iraqis protested in front of the Green Zone, the area in Baghdad protected by US forces that houses the US embassy and the Iraqi government. According to the report, some Iraqi police officers took part, putting posters of Sadr on the windows of their vehicles.
The report added: "In one of the biggest protests, enraged Iraqis in the southern town of Diwaniya swarmed over the local office of Allawi's political party, while thousands also protested in Kufa, Samawa and the Sunni-dominated town of Falluja." In Fallujah some 3000 protesters marched to the town's centre chanting, "Long live Sadr! Fallujah stands by Najaf against America!"
Armed attacks on occupation forces have occurred throughout Iraq. For example:
* An August 25 KRN report revealed that US soldiers "have stopped patrolling large swaths of western Iraq's Anbar province". "After losing dozens of men to a 'voiceless, faceless mass of people' with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing Americans, the US military had to re-evaluate the situation in and around Ramadi, the provincial capital, said Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the Army's 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the area. 'They cannot militarily overwhelm us, but we cannot deliver a knockout blow, either,' he said."
* In the southern city of Kut, 150 kilometres west of Najaf, a US-led assault, including airstrikes, killed more than 70 people. Reuters reported: "Al-Kut hospital director Khadir Fadal Arar said that at least 18 houses were destroyed and added that many of the dead are women and children." The airstrikes were focused on neighbourhoods controlled by the Mahdi Army.
* On August 24, British solders in the Shiite city of Basra clashed with 500 armed supporters of Sadr. The same day US fighters bombed Fallujah. The Pentagon claimed: "This action was taken in full coordination with representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the Office of the Prime Minister, and was designed to continue eroding support for foreign terrorists and destroying their ability to carry out terror attacks against security forces and the people of Iraq."
* On August 14, the US claimed they killed 50 resistance fighters near Samarra, a Sunni town in Iraq's north. According to Reuters, US fighter jets dropped 500-pound bombs during the assault.
* On August 13, supporters of Sadr fought US troops in Hilla, a southern Iraqi town.
Despite the efforts to use the Iraqi National Guard and the Iraqi police force to provide cover to US attacks on the resistance, it's clear that it is the US military trying to crush any potential political alternative to the occupation.
Erosion of Iraqi forces
The impact of Washington's counterinsurgency efforts has been a steady erosion of the US-created Iraqi armed forces. According to an August 22 report by Knight Ridder Newspapers, the attempt to deploy Iraqi National Guard soldiers to Najaf has led to the greatest number of desertions since the unsuccessful US-led attempt to reoccupy the Sunni town of Fallujah in April.
"They have fears of fighting their own people", Captain Saeed Majeed explained to KRN. "Every soldier is different in this type of situation. Some of our guys couldn't cope, they just couldn't continue. And if they ordered us to go to Najaf, I'm sure there are lots who wouldn't go."
This is similar to the large-scale desertion the puppet Iraqi security forces suffered during the April anti-occupation uprising. Up to 12,000 ICDC soldiers didn't show up for duty between April 2 and 16. The "staffing decrease" during that period as a percentage of total ICDC troops in different regions was about 30% in north-eastern Baghdad, 49% in Baghdad and the surrounding area, 30% in southern Iraq and 82% in western Iraq, including Fallujah. An August 16 press release by US Central Command cited the fact that half of the Iraqi National Guards assigned to a US-led operation in Baghdad showed up for work, as a success.
The problem for the occupation is graphically illustrated by Rubin's August 22 report from Baghdad. Rubin reported that the "US military has launched what it calls one of its largest initiatives yet in the neighbourhood where Sadr has his biggest base of support", Baghdad's Sadr City. "Despite a five-day onslaught by U.S. troops intent on clearing the poor Baghdad neighbourhood of supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, late Saturday they were still visible, they were still armed, and they were singing."
Rubins reported that while only a small percentage of the residents of Sadr City were members of the Mahdi Army, there was "wide community support for the fighters' activities even among people who are not followers of [Sadr]". "When people buy food, they buy a bag for their families and a bag for the Mahdi", one resident told the reporter. "The Americans are trying to scare off the Mahdi Army, but this is the Shiite resistance, and it is all over Iraq now", another said.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, September 1, 2004.
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