By Robert Fisk - 17 June 2004

They came as liberators but were met by fierce resistance outside Baghdad. Humiliating treatment of prisoners and heavy-handed action in Najaf and Fallujah further alienated the local population. A planned handover of power proved unworkable. Britain’s 1917 occupation of Iraq holds uncanny parallels with today - and if we want to know what will happen there next, we need only turn to our history books…

On the eve of our “handover” of “full sovereignty” to Iraq, this is a story of tragedy and folly and of dark foreboding. It is about the past-made-present, and our ability to copy blindly and to the very letter the lies and follies of our ancestors. It is about that admonition of antiquity: that if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. For Iraq 1917, read Iraq 2003. For Iraq 1920, read Iraq 2004 or 2005.

Yes, we are preparing to give “full sovereignty” to Iraq. That’s also what the British falsely claimed more than 80 years ago. Come, then, and confront the looking glass of history, and see what America and Britain will do in the next 12 terrible months in Iraq.

Our story begins in March 1917 as 22-year-old Private 11072 Charles Dickens of the Cheshire Regiment peels a poster off a wall in the newly captured city of Baghdad. It is a turning point in his life. He has survived the hopeless Gallipoli campaign, attacking the Ottoman empire only 150 miles from its capital, Constantinople. He has then marched the length of Mesopotamia, fighting the Turks yet again for possession of the ancient caliphate, and enduring the grim battle for Baghdad. The British invasion army of 600,000 soldiers was led by Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude, and the sheet of paper that caught Private Dickens’s attention was Maude’s official “Proclamation” to the people of Baghdad, printed in English and Arabic.

By Kathy Kelly
June 10, 2004

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said the Pekin Federal Prison Camp (FPC) administrator, commenting about overcrowding. “We have about 40 more transports in the pipeline.” To alleviate overcrowding, the administrator asked 12 women to voluntarily relocate to Victorville, CA, where an FPC is being enlarged to handle more prisoners.

Only women facing three or more years of imprisonment are eligible.

Yesterday, three Hispanic women stuffed belongings they’re allowed to take with them into white net laundry bags, gave final goodbye hugs to friends here, and headed out to California where they will help build a larger prison.

Most of the dozen women who volunteered for relocation to Victorville, CA did so because it will place them closer to their children. “I just hope I can see my kids,” said Ana, a young mother whose children live in Arizona. “It’s been too expensive for them to come here. I really needs to see my kids. I think about them all the time, and it’s so hard to cope with being away so long. That’s why I’m out on the track running so much. I just try to run and pray.”

Shortly after I arrived here, Ana supplied me with used but quite usable gym shoes, a tote bag, and sweatpants. Several other women recalled her kindness and joined me in hoping she’ll be similarly welcomed in Victorville.