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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

The west has given Saddam the role he always longed for
(Said Aburish, The Guardian, March 24, 2003)
According to Opec, Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves in the world. The scramble for Iraq's oil has already begun. American oil companies have been negotiating concessions with the Iraqi opposition in exile for months. The British are staking a claim based on their original pre-nationalisation control of the Iraqi Petroleum Company. The French believe that the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 gave them the rights to the oil-rich north of Iraq. Russia's claim is based on an agreement signed by Saddam Hussein. . . . The Iraqi opposition in exile is so divided even the Americans have stopped thinking of them as Saddam's replacement. To a US career diplomat who dealt with them for years, "they reek of corruption and talk nonsense". The Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella organisation that speaks on behalf of more than 80 political groupings, is unknown to the people of Iraq. . . . The deep divisions in the Arab world and the average Arab's bitterness towards its leaders means there is no way to express the pervasive anti-American feeling on street level except through Islamic fundamentalism. To many, Saddam was the best of a bad lot, the only secular counterweight to the Islamists. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and even Turkey are threatened by the Islamist tide gripping their countries. Fearful of alienating their people further, none of the leaders of these countries is now likely to obey the west as in the past. . . . Saddam's problems with America began after he triumphed over Khomeini, in 1989. The US had provided him with considerable logistical and financial support. But it dropped him the moment the war was over. . . . In essence Saddam achieved all the traditional ambitions of Iraq. He succeeded in nationalising the country's oil industry, managed to unify the country (albeit through police state methods) and stabilised relations with all of its covetous neighbours. In the process, for the first time he created an Iraqi identity. . . . The mayhem on the way will help Saddam realise his dream. While he didn't intend to become the leading martyr of our time, he has always been preoccupied with his place in modern Arab history. By allowing him to drag them into a regional war that recalls every bit of humiliation the Arabs have ever suffered at the hands of Britain and the US, George Bush and Tony Blair have elevated his status. Saddam's ambitious view of himself and how the Arab people are likely to regard him have suddenly become one and the same.

posted by Lorenzo 11:36 AM