U.S. occupation spreads Iraq turmoil

To 90 percent of Iraqis, the cause of widespread killings, the failure of the new puppet government, the lack of gas and electricity and the general chaos is clear: it’s the U.S. occupation.

But on a whirlwind tour of the northern Kurdish area and the fortified “Green Zone” of Baghdad on May 15, U.S. Secre tary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to find a scape goat: Syria. According to Rice, Syria has failed to stop border crossings of U.S. opponents.

“We’re going to go back and look again at what the neighbors can do—particularly the Syrians—to stop support for these foreign terrorists who we believe are gathering on Syrian soil and coming across,” Rice told reporters as she left Iraq. She traveled with a full escort of military helicopters, getting in and out of the country as quickly as possible.

While her statement has to be taken seriously as a U.S. threat to the Damascus government, it does nothing to dispel the collapse of U.S. plans to rule a stable and exploitable Iraq. The crisis for imperialism is not foreign fighters but Iraqis who refuse to submit to foreign imperialist rule.

On May 16, Moqtada al-Sadr, a religious and political leader of a large number of poor members of the Shiite community, came out publicly for the first time since last August to demand that the U.S. leave Iraq. Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army had staged an insurrection in Najaf and in parts of Baghdad in April 2004.

He called upon the “Iraqi government, religious movements and political factions to work hard to kick out the occupier. I want the immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces.

“The occupier is trying to make up a sectarian war between the Sunnis and Shiites,” al-Sadr said. “It is not acceptable to direct to the Sunnis the allegations of ugly acts committed by the occupier against the Shiites.”

Truck drivers blame the U.S.

Many other Iraqis also blame the occupation forces.

Independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who spent months in Iraq but is reporting now from Amman, Jordan, says he has been told by Iraqi friends that it would be unwise to enter Iraq at this time. He reports the comments of Iraqi truck drivers from many Iraqi cities—central and south, Sunni and Shiite alike—in a May 15 article. (www.DahrJamailIraq.com)

“All of our problems are due to the Americans,” says Ahmed, a driver attemp ting to deliver goods to Ramadi. “The soldiers have surrounded the city for so long, there is one entry way in and all of the people of the city are suffering. The Americans brought all of these problems with them.”

Regarding the possibility of battles between the different religious sects, a Shiite driver from the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad says, “The occupiers are creating these problems between the Shia and Sunni, but they will not divide us! All occupations only mean destruction and suffering!” Jamail notes that the rest of the drivers nod in agreement.

The drivers’ reaction is an important sign. A major argument of the U.S. government in defending their occupation of Iraq is that civil war between Sunni and Shiite communities would be unleashed if the occupation ended.

The drivers were also angry about the U.S. military destruction of al-Qaim and the killing of women and children during the assault on this town near the Syrian border.

Rice and the Pentagon command have tried to present the assault on al-Qaim as a battle of U.S. troops against “foreign terrorists.” The Baghdad command claimed the offensive killed “125 insurgents.”

An official from the local hospital reported 15 bodies at the hospital and word that the resistance had removed 28 bodies from the battles. That means 43 Iraqi deaths, including non-combatants.

While the U.S. has denied it, resistance reports, some of them verified by civilians, state that two U.S. helicopters were shot down during the assault on al-Qaim.

Falluja and al-Qaim

According to Jamail’s May 14 report, the battle was a smaller version of the all-out U.S. assault on Falluja last November. At that time U.S. troops destroyed two-thirds of a city of 350,000 people, killing thousands and driving out most of the population.

The Committee against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq from the Spanish State (CEOSI) reports that it is using $2,000 left over from a collection for medical materials for Falluja to supply the General Hospital of the city of Hadiza, near al-Qaim. All the hospital’s equipment had been wiped out by the U.S. assault. CEOSI had answered an appeal from the Association of Moslem Scholars.

In April, CEOSI sponsored a nine-day visit to Iraq. Solidarity activists interviewed Iraqis in key positions about the situation for the population and met representatives of parts of the resistance. CEOSI’s reports include a detailed description of current conditions in Falluja and an interview with a former officer of the Iraq Army, now a resistance organizer. Like al-Sadr, this officer also blamed the U.S. occupation for fomenting battles between Sunni and Shiite communities.

Spanish-language reports from the CEOSI visit can be found at www. nodo50. org/iraq/, as well as some in English.

The Iraqi puppet government, elected in a Jan. 30 U.S.-organized vote, finally took office April 28. Since then over 450 people have died in actions attributed to those who oppose the U.S. occupation.