the Americans, with Tony Blair loyally chugging behind, sink deeper into the Iraqi quagmire. But the quite correct perception that the US has already failed in Iraq is becoming the consensus in Iraq as well as much of the rest of the world.
It is a failure of historic proportions. The aim of the war in Iraq was to establish the US as the world superpower which could act unilaterally, virtually without allies, inside or outside Iraq. The timing of the conflict had nothing to do with fear of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with getting the war won in time for the run-up to next year's presidential election in the US.
The US failure to win a conclusive victory in Iraq is like that of Britain in South Africa during the Boer War. Like the US, Britain went into the war filled with arrogant presumptions about an easy victory. As the conflict dragged on, with a constant trickle of casualties from attacks by the elusive Boers, nationalists from Dublin to Bombay drew the conclusion that the British Empire was not quite as tough as it looked.
In Washington as a visiting fellow at a think-tank for the first six weeks of the year, I was continually struck by the ignorance and arrogance of the neo-cons, then at the height of their power. They had all the intolerant instincts of a weird American religious cult, impervious to any criticism of their fantasy picture of Iraq, the Middle East and the rest of the world. Iraqis willing to explain how their country really worked found appointments with senior officials mysteriously cancelled at the last moment, sometimes while they were sitting in the official's waiting room.
This should be the real charge against Tony Blair's government - not that it did not understand what was happening in Baghdad, but that it did not take on board the strange happenings in Washington.
There is nothing peculiar about Britain supporting the US come what may, since this has been a priority of British foreign policy for nearly a century. But it should have been realised much earlier in London that this US government is very different from, and more dangerous than, any of its predecessors. The extent and irreversibility of the American failure is not yet appreciated outside Iraq.
Sunday, 12 March 2006
THREE YEARS AFTER SHOCK AND AWE
President George Bush is about to embark on one of the toughest campaigns of his second term. Tomorrow, with the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq looming, he will make the first of a series of speeches to convince the American public, a sceptical world - and perhaps even himself - that things are going the right way in Iraq.
Signalling the start of this public relations offensive, Mr Bush said on Friday that Iraq had stepped back from "the abyss" of civil war. That is debatable - in the eyes of many Iraqis, civil war has already begun- but it shows how far expectations have sunk since the invasion was launched with such swaggering confidence 36 months ago.
Far from creating a stable, democratic and prosperous Iraq, whose benign influence would spread to the rest of the Middle East, the United States and its faithful ally, Britain, have created what Foreign Office minister Kim Howells yesterday called "a mess". Iraq could no longer attack its neighbours or develop nuclear weapons, he said, adding: "So yes, it's a mess, but it's starting to look like the sort of mess that most of us live in."
To appreciate how ludicrous this statement would appear to the average Iraqi, it is necessary only to point out that Mr Howells was visiting Iraq to examine the oil industry. In December and January, daily oil production was around 1.1 million barrels a day, the lowest since May 2003, when President Bush declared major combat operations at an end. Before 2003, oil output was 2.5 million barrels a day. Ironically, revenue has risen to about $2.5 billion a month, because world oil prices have shot up, at least partly because of the situation in Iraq.
But for all the efforts of the political establishments in the US and Britain to play down the problems, reality persists in breaking through. The latest example of this for Mr Bush, whose handling of Iraq is now supported by fewer than 40 per cent of Americans, is the death of a US hostage, Tom Fox, one of four kidnapped Christian peace activists who include the 74-year-old Briton Norman Kember.
Rather than being the kind of bad news that masks quiet progress, it illuminates the daily threat to Iraqis.
Iraq is the most dangerous country in the world. And in many important ways, things are getting worse. Iraq Body Count, which has sought to do what the Pentagon and the Iraqi health ministry refuse to do - keep a tally of Iraqi civilians who die violently - estimates that even before the third year of occupation has ended, the toll is higher than in either of the previous two years.
According to IBC, which compiles figures for civilian deaths reported by at least two media outlets, 6,331 were killed between 1 May 2003 and the first anniversary of the invasion, and 11,312 in the second year of occupation. The toll for the period from the second anniversary of the invasion to the beginning of March, it says, was 12,617 - and that did not include most of the deaths in the upsurge of sectarian violence which followed the destruction of a major Shia shrine in Samarra last month.
Average violent deaths per day, IBC adds, went from 20 in year one of the occupation to 31 in year two and 36 in year three. When Iraqis are asked about the biggest change in their life since 2003, nearly all point to the danger of violent death. But IBC admits that with the increasing inability of journalists to move around and report freely, its method of monitoring civilian deaths is becoming increasingly inaccurate.
What evidence has emerged indicates that a widely ridiculed study published in The Lancet in autumn 2004, estimating that at least 100,000 civilians had died violently since the war began, might not be so inaccurate.
Apart from sectarian killings or the risk from trigger-happy coalition troops, ordinary Iraqis have most to fear from crime, which is why everyone is armed. Kidnapping is an industry, with children a frequent target, leading most well-off Iraqis to flee: hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have left for Jordan, Syria and Egypt. One banker who stayed was kidnapped when his seven bodyguards were murdered.
Many Iraqis supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein because they wanted a return to a normal life. Sitting on some of the world's largest oil reserves, they did not see why they should not enjoy the same standard of living as Kuwaitis and Saudis. But if Saddam had led them to ruin and defeat, Iraqis have found that in many ways their lives have got worse without him. In the first year of occupation, some Iraqis comforted themselves with the thought that "the US cannot afford to fail". But the more time has passed, the greater the extent of the failure has become obvious. For all the billions of dollars in reconstruction money, there is not a single crane on the skyline in Baghdad, except a few rusting examples left over from Saddam's grandiose projects to build giant mosques. There are more cars in Baghdad, but there is also a permanent traffic jam because so many streets are blocked for security reasons.
Optimists can point to some improvements. Teachers now get $200 a month, compared to $2 three years ago, and many have returned to the profession. Some Iraqis have benefited from the influx of dollars. For the first time there are mobile phones and satellite TV, but the cost of living has soared and there is very high unemployment, perhaps 50 per cent. Most people survive on a state-subsidised ration, just as they did under Saddam. The most glaring failure is that the supply of drinking water and sewage disposal are both below pre-invasion levels, according to the US Government Accounting Office. Electricity output has just begun to exceed the Saddam-era figure of 4,600 megawatts. Overall, Iraqis have power only for 12 hours in 24.
People might have tolerated such difficulties if they were convinced the country was heading towards greater stability and self-government. Instead they are having to live with the consequences of the occupation authorities' early mistakes, born of ignorance and overconfidence. The best-known is the precipitate decision to disband the entire Iraqi army and sack every member of Saddam's Baath party, no matter
