Robert Fisk On Sovereignty, Martial Law, Continuing Violence in New Iraq

[enough]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/16/1442227

Horrifying interview about the state of things in Iraq now. (Fisk still in Iraq.)


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ROBERT FISK: Well, one thing that is happening on the ground is that the reporting of Iraq has reached a point where hardly any journalists leave Baghdad and some of them don't even leave their hotels. One of the reasons why the Bush administration is getting away with so much at the moment is that the degree of anarchy, the sheer size of the area of Iraq outside government or American control is being hidden from ordinary people. For example, in the town of Baquba, there are now hundreds of armed men. In Ramadi and Fallujah, they're virtually people's republics in which even the Americans cannot move freely. We do not realize, though we should, the degree to which the country of Iraq is outside the control of the new American-established government of Ayad Allawi. You know, we promised the people here democracy and we're giving them now martial law, telephone tapping, mail opening, special raids on houses, forget about habeas corpus. The big problem at the moment is that the degree of violence across the country is not getting across. For example, when 10 people were killed and 33 wounded by a suicide bomber in the center of Baghdad, it went around the world as headlines. When 10 people were killed and 33 wounded in Kirkuk, we didn't hear about it. And this is a major problem. We now find ourselves restricted by the danger. Now I'm still able to move around Baghdad and I can still travel outside Baghdad. But only with days of preparation. And so what we're doing, in effect, is that we're being circumscribed in our movements, which, of course, seeks the authorities because we can't report dozens of deaths going on elsewhere in the country. And at the same time, the insurgency continues. Allawi who, of course, was as C.I.A. Operative and is now the interim, quote Prime Minister, unquote, made a statement in the last 24 hours saying it's going to get worse. So, we're still back in the same old Alice in Wonderland world. Everything is getting better, democracy is coming and everything is getting worse.

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[enough]

1. With sorrow, I also have to recommend to you

Another Fisk article from yesterday which goes into more detail on one of the events described in the interview posted above.

http://www.counterpunch.com/fisk07162004.html

July 16, 2004

Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe

Now It's Coffin Bombs in Baghdad

By ROBERT FISK
The Independent

A few hours before Lord Butler of Brockwell was attesting to the "good faith" of Tony Blair over the invasion of Iraq, Sabr Karim paid the price for working for "new Iraq".

The father of seven and a senior auditor in Iraq's new Industry Ministry--his job was to scrutinise the lucrative contracts given to businessmen to rebuild the country--arrived home in the Saadiyeh suburb of Baghdad with his family's breakfast of milk, cream and bread from a local grocery store. That's when two men in a pick-up coolly fired two bullets into his stomach and two into his head. His children found him lying on the pavement, one leg still in his car.

In Iraq, the funeral tent is traditionally pitched in the street outside the victim's home, but when I went to pay my respects yesterday it was blocked in by cars to prevent suicide bombers driving a vehicle into the tent--and not without reason. For when Sabr Karim's brother and son-in-law went to the family's mosque to collect a coffin for the dead man, someone had left a bomb inside. Another day in the life --and death--of "new Iraq".

much more>

[LibertyorDeath]

2. Thank you for this.

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