[posted online on February 8, 2008]
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dahr Jamail has spent more time reporting from
Iraq than almost any other US journalist. His new book, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded
Journalist in Occupied Iraq, is a chronicle of his experiences
there. He recently sat down with Nation correspondent Jeremy
Scahill to talk about the supposed "success" of Bush's troop surge, what
would happen if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton wins the White House and
why he believes an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is the only way to
peace. Here's an edited transcript of that interview.
Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have indicated that US troops
are not going to be withdrawn in any significant manner in the first
term of a presidency. What do you think would happen if the US did
withdraw immediately from Iraq?
We have a specific example of what would likely happen throughout Iraq
if the US were to withdraw completely. When the Brits recently pulled
out of their last base in Basra City late last year, The
Independent reported that according to the British military, violent
attacks dropped 90 percent. I think that goes to show that the Brits
down in Basra, like the Americans in central and northern Iraq, have
been the primary cause of the violence and the instability.
And I think it's easy to see that when the US does pull
out completely, we would have a dramatic de-escalation in violence.
We would have increased stability and it would be the first logical
step for Iraqis to form their own government. This time, it would
actually have popular support, unlike the current government, where less
than 1 percent of Iraqis polled even support it or even find it
legitimate at all.
Now, obviously, we have a situation in Iraq right now that's
very different from the era of Saddam Hussein: many pockets of power,
various leaders who have their own armed factions, and a much more
significant Iranian influence. How do you see that playing out in the
absence of US troops? What do you think would happen among those various
groups that are vying for power, and have a significant volume of
weapons?
One of the key reasons Iran has the influence it does in Iraq right now
is because the US itself appointed Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. We
have to remember that he was in no way, shape or form democratically
elected. After the January 30, 2005, elections, one of the first tasks of
the government was to choose its own prime minister. It chose Ibrahim
Al-Jaafari. And then when he wasn't toeing the US-UK line enough, Condoleezza Rice and
her UK counterpart, Jack Straw, flew to Baghdad. And right before they
left from their trip, Jaafari was out, Maliki was in.
Maliki, head of the Dawa party, was in exile in Tehran for numerous
years, and is basically a political figurehead of the Supreme Islamic
Iraqi Council (SIIC), whose armed wing, the Badr Organization, has
staunch Iranian support. It was basically formed in Iran and came into
Iraq on the heels of the invasion forces. So I think, again, with [Maliki] out, and with other
Iranian puppets in the government out, we would have more nationalist Iraqis who
would certainly be able to start making moves toward reconciliation.
Who do you see emerging in a post-occupation Iraq if the
US did leave? What are the major political forces in the country that
could unify Iraq under one national flag?
It's difficult to say at this point, but there are some political
figures who do have popular support. There's a Shia cleric, Sheikh Jawad
al-Khalasi, who has mass popular support. He's renowned for being able
to bridge differences between Sunni and Shia political groups right now.
There's Dr. Wamid Omar Nadhmi, a Sunni, who also has that same effect.
He's relatively nonsectarian, compared to everyone else on the scene
right now. They have started to form a shadow--I wouldn't say
government, but certainly political organization--that is a coalition of
many different groups. There's Al-Khalasi, there's Dr. Wamid Omar
Nadhmi, there's Kurds, there's Christians, there's Turkomen, there's
numerous groups represented in this political structure that they have
right now. It's based primarily out of Syria, and sometimes they have
meetings in Jordan, but this type of political structure would be able
to come in and, I think, begin to fill what vacuum would be created.
You've spent a lot of time in Al-Anbar province and in
Sunni areas of Iraq. And we've seen the United States and the
commanders declare Anbar province a "victory." We've also seen some
Sunni puppet figures who have allied themselves with the United States
assassinated in recent months, most prominently Abu Risha. What happened
in Al-Anbar province?
What's happening in Al-Anbar province today is akin to what the
US did in Fallujah, when they were repelled out of the city during the
April '04 siege. They essentially saved face by ceasing patrols and
buying off the militants in the city. They put them on the
payroll--mujahedeen basically started donning Iraqi police uniforms and
Iraqi
civil defense corps uniforms--and took over control of security of the
city. When I interviewed them in May, they said this was
the most peace they'd had in the city since before the invasion had ever
taken place. They were quite happy with it, most people in the city were
quite happy with that situation.
But essentially, the US plan ended up backfiring. Because they had to go
back in the city in November, they didn't want it to remain the only
liberated city in the country. That fighting was far more violent and
took so many more deaths, on both sides of the conflict, than even the
April siege did. And so we have now a macro version of that same policy
in Al-Anbar, where various tribal sheikhs who are willing to collaborate
have stepped up. They're taking millions and millions of dollars of US
taxpayer money. They're basically being bought off to not fight against
the Americans, while simultaneously the Americans, for the moment in
Al-Anbar, are sticking closer to their bases, and relying more on
airpower than ground troops if any fighting breaks out.
And so right now, that's why Al-Anbar is notably more quiet. But it's a
ticking time bomb. Because this is a policy where even US soldiers on
the ground right now in Al-Anbar are expressing concerns. They know all
too well that they're now working with these people who, three days ago
or three weeks ago, they were actually fighting. And some of these
people are still lobbing mortars into their bases at night.
So we have tensions. We have the US military trying to ID all these
people, so that when things become violent again, they'll know who these
people are and where to go get them, while simultaneously, these same
fighters are, of course, gathering very, very valuable intelligence by
being able to work with the Americans and go around with them.
You've spent about eight months in Iraq unembedded. A lot of your
time was spent with ordinary Iraqis, documenting the suffering, the
deaths, the civilian injuries. You've also spent time in other countries
talking to Iraqi refugees. One of the things that's lost in the
mainstream coverage is the extent of the death that's happened in Iraq.
In fact, there was an AP-Ipsos poll not too long ago that found that a
majority of Americans believed that fewer than 10,000 Iraqis had died
since the start of the invasion. Give a sense of the scope of the death
that has taken place in Iraq.
This is a good example of why the media coverage is still so horribly
skewed. Even though a lot of people tend to think, "Well, the media is
coming around a little bit, that it is showing that the occupation is
not going well, and that there's suffering." But really, contrast what
you may see in some of the larger media outlets with some of these
figures from the ground in Iraq.
We look at, for example, how many people have died, based on figures
primarily produced by The Lancet report in
October '06, which showed 655,000 Iraqis had been killed, or 2.5 percent
of the total population of the country.
Another group, called Just
Foreign Policy, has taken those figures and extrapolated from them
based on more recent media reports, because that first survey, that
Lancet survey, the legwork was carried out in July 2005. And so
from that time until this time, with new data, it's now estimated by the
group Just Foreign Policy that over 1,100,000 Iraqis have been killed.
In addition to that, we can estimate that, very conservatively, another
3 million are wounded. According to the UN these figures are too low as well; I've been told this by a UN
spokesperson myself when I was in Syria last summer.
Current figures: 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis in their own
country, another 2.5 million refugees outside of the country. In
addition to that, another 4 million Iraqis are in dire need of emergency
assistance, according to an Oxfam International report released last
July. When we take into account the fact that Iraq's total population
has fallen from 27 million, when the invasion was launched, to now
roughly 23 million, when we add all those figures up, that means over
half the total population of the entire country are either refugees--in
or out of their country--wounded, in dire need of emergency aid, or
dead.
In addition to that, we have the infrastructure, where on every
measurable level, it's worse now than it was after nearly thirty years
of Saddam Hussein's reign, and twelve years of genocidal sanctions. Even
oil exports have not for one day been at or above pre-war levels--and
this is where Iraq gets 90 percent of its income. Electricity: the
average home has anywhere from zero hours of electricity per day to
maybe six or seven hours on a really good day. Unemployment: it's
between 60 or 70 percent, vacillating right now. During the sanctions,
it was roughly 33 percent, which is about what it was here during the
Great Depression. So 60 to 70 percent unemployment, on top of that, 70
percent inflation. We have 45 percent of Iraqis living in abject poverty
on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of Iraqis don't even have
access to safe drinking water. So that gives you an idea of the
magnitude of how horrific the suffering really has become. According to
Refugees International, it's the fastest-growing refugee crisis on the
planet.
You haven't been to Iraq for a number of months, but you are
regularly in touch with Iraqis on the ground. In fact, a lot of the
articles that you do you co-author with Iraqi colleagues still on the
ground. Many of the journalists who do go to Iraq are trapped in the
Green Zone-- or what an Iraqi friend of mine calls the Green Zoo. And
so, in a way, you may be in a better position to analyze what's
happening there, because of your
regular contact with unembedded Iraqi journalists. Give us a couple of
examples of news that's not making it out of Iraq.
I was recently working on a story about Fallujah because one of my Iraqi
colleagues lives there. And again, contrast this with what maybe you've
been hearing about Fallujah. In fact, it's even been held up by various
Bush Administration officials over the last several months as a model
city. Look, it's calmer, things are better now, the plan is working, the
surge is working. Well in Fallujah, according to my friend who lives
there, the security measures
that were imposed around the city by the US military during the November
'04 siege--the biometric data, the retina scans, the fingerprinting, the
mandatory, bar-coded IDs for everyone trying to go in and out of the
city. That remains, that has not changed at all. In addition to that,
businesspeople estimate that there's approximately 80 percent
unemployment in the city. There are entire
neighborhoods that still do not have electricity or running water since
the November '04 siege. There's still tens of thousands of refugees from
the city from the April '04 siege, not even talking about November.
There's been a vehicle ban, to one degree or another, imposed on the
city since May. So how do you live in a city of 350,000 people,
when the majority of the time, you can't even drive a vehicle. Most
people are either walking or literally using horse-drawn or donkey-drawn
carts. And he quoted a man as saying, relatively recently, that yes, it
is quieter in Fallujah today, but it's the same quiet as a dead body is
quiet. That there's no normal life, that the hospital there doesn't get
medicines and things that it needs, because of the corruption of the
Ministry of Health in Baghdad, and the bias that's there. And just to
give you an idea. That's life in Fallujah today, where there's literally
no normal life.
And that's in a city that the US is holding up as a victory?
Exactly.
I know your expertise is not necessarily US domestic politics, but
like all of us, you're following the presidential campaign. Do you see
any marked difference for Iraqis in the event of a Hillary Clinton
presidency or a Barack Obama presidency?
I don't. They've both already officially taken the idea of total
unconditional withdrawal of all occupation forces out of Iraq off the
table, until after their first term, if one of them is elected. So it's
off the table already until 2013, even before one of them would come
into power, if that is going to happen. In reality, they in no way are
reflecting the will of the troops on the ground in
Iraq, or the majority of Americans now who are opposed to the
occupation. And certainly not respecting the will of the Iraqi people,
where the most conservative polls I've found have shown that 85 percent,
at a minimum now, of the total population of Iraq are completely opposed
to the occupation and want it to end, right now.
Iraqis are willing to take the risk of what might happen if that
much-discussed "power vacuum" is created. And the reality is that the
only real first step to a solution in Iraq is full, immediate,
unconditional withdrawal, while simultaneously re-funding all the
reconstruction projects and turning them over to Iraqi concerns. So this
idea of, "You break it, you buy it." Well, there's no buying happening.
There's nothing being done by Western contractors on the
ground to improve the basic life necessities of any Iraqi in that
country right now.
And the other factor is, which candidate is talking about compensation
for the Iraqi people? Every Iraqi person who's suffered from this
situation deserves full compensation from this government. Because this
is the government that perpetrated the war and continues on in this