[News] Robert Fisk: The Handover: Restoration of Iraqi sovereignty - or Alice in Wonderland?

[News at freedomarchives.org]

The Handover: Restoration of Iraqi sovereignty - or Alice in Wonderland?


By Robert Fisk






29 June 2004



<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp



So in the end, America's enemies set the date. The handover of "full 
sovereignty" was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence 
officer who is now "Prime Minister" of Iraq could avoid another bloody 
offensive by America's enemies. What is supposed to be the most important 
date in Iraq's modern history was changed – like a birthday party – because 
it might rain on Wednesday.



Pitiful is the word that comes to mind. Here we were, handing "full 
sovereignty" to the people of Iraq – "full", of course, providing we forget 
the 160,000 foreign soldiers whom the Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has 
apparently asked to stay in Iraq, "full" providing we forget the 3,000 US 
diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the 
world – without even telling the Iraqi people that we had changed the date.



Few, save of course for the Iraqis, understood the cruellest paradox of the 
event. For it was the new Iraqi Foreign Minister – should we not put his 
title, too, into quotation marks? – who chose to leak the "bringing 
forward" of sovereignty in Iraq at the Nato summit in Turkey. Thus was this 
new and unprecedented date in modern Iraqi history announced not in Baghdad 
but in the capital of the former Ottoman empire which once ruled Iraq. 
Alice in Wonderland could not have improved on this. The looking-glass 
reflects all the way from Baghdad to Washington. In its savage irony Ibsen 
might have done justice to the occasion. After all, what could have been 
more familiar than Allawi's appeal to Iraqis to fight "the enemies of the 
people".



Power was ritually handed over in legal documents. The new government was 
sworn in on the Koran. The US proconsul, Paul Bremer, formally shook hands 
with Mr Allawi and boarded his C130 to fly home, guarded by special forces 
men in shades.



It was difficult to remember that Mr Bremer was touted for his job more 
than a year ago because he was a "counter-terrorism" expert – this 
definitely should be in inverted commas – and that what he referred to as 
"dead-enders" [Baathist diehards] managed to turn almost an entire Iraqi 
population against the United States and Britain in just a few months.



According to Mr Allawi yesterday, the "dead-enders" and the "remnants" 
belonged to Saddam Hussein. Those of them who had not committed crimes 
could even join the new authorities, he announced. But it had already been 
made clear that Mr Allawi was pondering martial law, the sine qua non of 
every Arab dictatorship – this time to be imposed on an Arab state, heaven 
spare us, by a Western army led by an avowedly Christian government. Who 
was the last man to impose martial law on Iraqis? Wasn't it Saddam Hussein?



No, Mr Allawi and his chums – along with the convicted fraudster Ahmed 
Chalabi, now dug up from his political grave – are not little Saddams. 
Indeed, it is Mr Allawi's claim to fame that he was a Saddam loyalist until 
he upped sticks and fled to London. He almost got assassinated by Saddam 
before – this by his own admission – he took the King's shilling (MI6) and 
the CIA's dollar and (again by his own admission) that of 12 other 
intelligence agencies.



Yesterday, Mr Allawi was talking of a "historical day". As far as the new 
Prime Minister is concerned, Iraqis were about to enjoy "full sovereignty". 
Those of us who put quotation marks around "liberation" in 2003 should now 
put quotation marks around "sovereignty". Doing this has become part of the 
reporting of the Middle East.



Perhaps most remarkable of all was Mr Allawi's demand that "mercenaries who 
come to Iraq from foreign countries" should leave Iraq. There are, of 
course, 80,000 Western "mercenaries" in Iraq, most of them wearing Western 
clothes. But of course, Mr Allawi was not speaking of these men. And herein 
lies a problem. There must come a time when we have to give up clichés, 
when we have to give up on the American nightmares. Al-Qa'ida does not have 
an original branch in Iraq. And the Iraqis didn't plan September 11, 2001.



But not to worry. The new Iraqi Prime Minister will soon introduce martial 
law – journalists who think they can escape criticism should reflect again 
– and thus we can all wait for a request for more American troops "at the 
formal request of the provincial government". Wait, then, for the first 
expulsion of journalists. Democratic elections will be held in Iraq, "it is 
hoped", within five months. Well, we shall see.



True, Mr Allawi promises a future Iraq with "a society of all Iraqis, 
irrespective of ethnicity, colour or religion." But the Iraqis who Mr 
Allawi promises to protect do not apparently include the 5,000 prisoners 
held in America's dubious camps across Iraq. At least 3,000 will remain 
captive, largely of the Americans.



There were many promises yesterday of a trial for Saddam Hussein and his 
colleagues although, not surprisingly, Iraqi lawyers felt there were other, 
more pressing issues to pursue. Paul Bremer abolished the death penalty in 
Iraq but Mr Allawi seems to want to bring it back. Asked whether Saddam 
might be executed, he remarked that "this is again something which is being 
debated in the judicial system in Iraq". He said, however, that he was in 
favour of capital punishment.



According to American sources, the United States has been putting pressure 
on Mr Allawi for at least two weeks in the hope that his ministries could – 
in theory, at least – function without US support. American advisers had 
already been withdrawn from many Iraqi institutions. Yet when he appeared 
yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke with words that might have come from 
George Bush. He warned "the forces of terror" that "we will not forget who 
stood with us and against us in this crisis". As the new "Cabinet" stepped 
forward to place their hands on the Koran, a large number of Iraqi flags 
lined the podium behind them – though not the strange blue and white banner 
which the former Interim Council had concocted two months ago.



The real problem for Mr Allawi is that he has to be an independent leader 
while relying upon an alien, Western and Christian force to support his 
rule. He cannot produce security without the assistance of an alien force. 
But he has no control over that force. He cannot order the Americans to 
leave. But here is the real question.



If Mr Allawi really intends to lead Iraq, the most powerful demonstration 
he could show would be to demand the immediate withdrawal of all foreign 
forces. Within hours, he would be a hero in Iraq. The Americans would be 
finished. But does Mr Allawi have the wit to realise that this ultimate 
step might save him? Who can tell, at this critical and bloody hour? 
America's satraps have been known to turn traitor before. Yet the whole 
painful equation in Baghdad now is that Mr Allawi is relying on the one 
army whose evacuation he needs to prove his own credibility.



The Western occupying powers have left behind a raft of dubious 
legislation. Much of it allows Western companies to suck up the profits of 
reconstruction – an issue over which the Iraqis had no choice – and many 
people in the country have no interest in continuing Mr Bremer's occupation 
laws. No one, for example, is likely to spend a month in jail for driving 
without a licence. But why should US and other Western businesses have 
legal immunity from Iraqi law? When a British or American mercenary shoots 
dead an Iraqi, he cannot be taken to an Iraqi court.



But Mr Allawi relies upon these same mercenaries. Which is why, sadly and 
inevitably, he and his government will fail. The insurgency now has a life 
of its own – and a plan. If it can continue to maintain an independence 
struggle for nationalists within the Sunni Muslim areas north and west of 
Baghdad, then the Sunnis may also claim that they have the right to form 
Iraq's first independent, post-American government.




The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20040629/e92f4e3e/attachment.htm>