by Phyllis Bennis

Institute for Policy Studies

• The millions of Iraqis who came out for the elections were voting their hopes for an end to violence and occupation, and a better life; their hopes are not likely to be met.
• George Bush will be the major victor in this election, using it to claim legitimacy for his occupation of Iraq . This election does not mean that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is legitimate - democracy cannot be imposed at the point of a gun.
• The election, held under military occupation and not meeting international criteria, including those of the Carter Center , remains illegitimate; legitimacy is not determined by the number of people voting.
• Even the expected victory of Shi’a-led political parties is not likely to result in the new assembly calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
• U.S. domination of Iraq ’s economic, political and social life will continue through the military occupation and the continuing control of money, the legal system, and political patronage.
• The U.S. has a long history of using elections held under conditions of war and occupation to legitimize its illegal wars - the January 2005 elections in Iraq mirror the 1967 election held in South Viet Nam , also held to give credibility to Washington’s puppet government.

The individual Iraqis who came out to vote clearly were very brave and eager to reclaim control of their country. They were voting for their hopes, for secure streets so children can go to school, for electricity and clean water, for jobs, and mostly for an end to the U.S. occupation. The elections, however, are unlikely to achieve any of those goals; the violence is likely to continue, perhaps even increase. The U.S. occupation is STILL the problem, not the solution, in Iraq , and only bringing the U.S. troops home, not imposing elections under continuing occupation, will lead to an end of violence.

Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver
Institute for Policy Studies

“There is an old military doctrine called the First Rule of Holes: If you find yourself stuck in one, stop digging.”

–the late Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, US Navy (Ret.)

Those who advocate “staying the course” or “internationalizing the war” are too busy digging deeper. A real solution to the Iraq War must start with ending the U.S. occupation. Then, and only then, we can talk about internationalizing the peace.

But this raises serious questions. How should the occupation end and the peace be internationalized? Even if the war is wrong, will it make things worse if the U.S. pulls out? Having invaded and occupied Iraq, what are our responsibilities to the Iraqi people? How can the chances for civil war be minimized? Bennis and Leaver offer steps that follow progressive principles while offering realistic steps to help put the U.S. back on the side of the rule of law, and gives the people of Iraq the best chance of rebuilding their devastated country and moving towards peace, justice and security.

The U.S. in Iraq : Two Years of War

The Iraq War has, like the Vietnam War of a generation ago, sorely divided the people of the United States. The invasion, occupation and continuing war have brought about the death of over 1,300 young women and men serving in the U.S. military. Over 10,000 have been seriously injured. Thousands are returning home with grievous mental and emotional damage. Civil rights, particularly those of Arab immigrants and Arab-Americans, have been shredded. The $151 billion in U.S. tax dollars spent on the war, not to mention the $100 billion more Congress will soon be asked to allocate, has wrought havoc on the economy and dramatically escalated the deficit.

Iraqis have suffered far more. Their country has been shattered by military assaults, and continues to languish under a violent occupation and brutal war. Cities such as Fallujah have been virtually destroyed by U.S. military forces claiming to “liberate” the now-deserted city of 300,000. The ruin of Fallujah, and so much of Iraq, by U.S. forces recalls the words of the great writer Tacitus, who followed Rome’s legionnaires as they laid waste to the empire’s far-flung cities. “The Romans brought devastation,” he wrote, “and they called it peace.”

100,000 Iraqis Dead
380 tons of deadly explosives looted on the U.S. watch
Israel escalates new attacks against Gaza refugee camps
$70 billion in Congressional pipeline for next phase of war

by Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies

As the election count-down goes into its final days, new evidence has come to the fore of just how high is the actual cost of the Iraq war and the administration’s disastrous Middle East policy.

According to a new report by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, Iraq has suffered a rise in the civilian death rate from 5% to 7.9% annually in the last 18 months. As a result, there have been 100,000 “excess deaths” of civilians in Iraq since the U.S. invasion began. Much of the rise in the death rate was due to violence, and the researchers cite U.S. air strikes on towns and cities as responsible for many of the deaths. Les Roberts, one of the report’s authors, told Reuters that, “the use of air power in areas with lots of civilians appears to be killing a lot of women and children. … What we have evidence of is the use of air power in populated urban areas and the bad consequences of it.”

The report is significant for several reasons. First, the credibility of Johns Hopkins and of The Lancet is virtually unchallengeable. The effort by Human Rights Watch to undermine the report’s veracity was limited to claims that the sample (988 households containing 7,868 people in 33 neighborhoods) was too small and that HRW investigation showed that the ground war, not bombing, caused more of the deaths. No one disputes that tens of thousands have died. Second, the report documents more than six times earlier estimates (from Iraq Body Count and others) of 16,000 civilian deaths. The report found that Iraqi civilians’ risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher than before the war. Third, the report is the first to take into account the continuing consequences of the years of U.S.-imposed UN economic sanctions that are still devastating Iraqis.

Saddam Hussein Lite Takes Command
by Phyllis Bennis; July 20, 2004

While U.S. media attention has decreased significantly in the weeks since the June 28 so-called “hand-over of sovereignty,” the U.S. occupation remains very much in place, and the level of violence in Iraq has remained constant. Although U.S. casualties remain high (36 GIs dead as of July 17, compared to 42 for all of June) resistance forces have shifted much of their attacks to Iraqi military and police institutions. Assassinations are on the rise, with Iraqi “interim government” ministers and police officials the primary targets of shootings and car-bombs. However, particularly with car-bombs, indiscriminate casualties are escalating, with increased deaths and injuries to many Iraqi civilians, including children, with no connection to the interim Iraqi government or to the U.S. occupation.

The election-driven U.S. goal of “Iraqization” of the casualties is well underway, helping to divert public opinion from the continuing crisis on the ground in Iraq, the huge numbers of Iraqi casualties, and the diminishing levels of international support. The “coalition,” always more symbolically than militarily significant, is largely unraveling. The impact is felt more at the political than military level, with the Bush administration’s claim that it is “leading an international coalition” in Iraq increasingly indefensible.

BUSH’S FIVE STEPS IN A SPEECH: FIVE STEPS TO LOSE A WAR AND THE UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION ON THE TABLE

by Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies
24 May 2004

The U.S. is losing the war in Iraq. The Bush administration has lost the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds; four out of five Iraqis hold a negative view of the U.S. occupation authority and U.S. troops. The U.S. has, with the expose of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, lost whatever shreds of moral authority it once claimed in Iraq, the Arab world, or the international community. And at home, President Bush is losing support faster than ever before; a majority of Americans believe the war was not worth the price, and 64% of Americans believe the president does not have a clear plan for Iraq.

Bush’s new “five-step plan” to “help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom” is not new, does not lay out serious steps to resolve the Iraq crisis, and will not bring about anything resembling democracy or freedom. Instead, it is a recipe for continuing U.S. occupation, continuing deaths of hundreds of U.S. and coalition troops and thousands of Iraqis, and continuing destruction in Iraq.

Step One: Hand over something
Whatever it is that the U.S. plans to “hand over” to the not-yet-appointed appointed interim Iraqi government on June 30, it will certainly not be sovereignty. Iraq will not be sovereign as long as 135,000 U.S. and tens of thousands of “coalition” troops remain in the country under U.S. command and unaccountable to the Iraqi government.