Insight: Despite ‘good news’, Iraq is not okay

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http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/commentary/commentaryother.asp?file=decembercommentary672007.xml

IN RECENT MONTHS we have been inundated by media reports bringing good news from Iraq, with countless testiminials to the great improvement in security enjoyed by the country in general and the Baghdad area in particular. This progress is attributed solely to the judicious ‘surge’ of US military presence, and the astute tactics enacted by occupation forces in a place that once personified despair and violence. Indeed, reports repeatedly point to the figure indicating that violence in Iraq has dwindled by 60 per cent in the last three months.

BBC reporter in Iraq, Jim Muir, is one of the leading enthusiasts of the apparent miracle. In his report, ‘Is Iraq Getting Better?’ he indulges in over-generalised estimations which just happen to be shared by the US military.

“Over the past three months, there has been a sharp and sustained drop in all forms of violence. The figures for dead and wounded, military and civilian, have also greatly improved...People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes. Everybody agrees that things are much better.”

Elsewhere, Muir goes further in discussing the role played by Sunni militias in bringing peace to Baghdad. He quotes a militiaman as saying, “At the beginning, people saw it as an occupation which had to be resisted. But then they saw that the Americans were working in the interests of the people.”

The BBC represents only a mild example in this charade, which is instilled mostly by the Bush administration and its allies in the military and in the mainstream media. It is mind-boggling how the latter could accept the so-called transformation from chaos to semi-order without any real questioning.

Meanwhile there are a few sources of information regarding the violence resulting from the US invasion of Iraq. One of these is the US military itself, which keeps track of and publishes information pertinent to the violence only when it’s relevant to attacks on US installations and personnel. Confirming or denying these reports in their entirety is unattainable by any independent source. Considering the politicised nature of the US military public relation strategies, such reports should hardly attest to what is indeed unfolding in Iraq.

Another source of information is the Iraq government and army. It’s no secret that those at the helm of both of these institutions are working under the command of the US military. Spokesmen for the Iraqi government coordinate their statements – with a few exceptions – to confirm those made by the latter.