Slaughter in Iraq Soon Seems to be Part of Normal Life--Patrick Cockburn

Tweet "Of course Messrs Bush and Blair argue there is no occupation. In June 2004, sovereignty was supposedly handed back to Iraq. "Let Freedom Reign," wrote Mr Bush. But the reality of power remained firmly with the US and Britain. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said this month that he could not move a company of soldiers without seeking permission of the Coalition (the US and Britain). Officials in Mosul confirmed to me that they could not carry out a military operation without the agreement of US forces. There is a hidden history to the occupation of Iraq which helps explain why has proved such a disaster. In 1991, after the previous Gulf War, a crucial reason why President George HW Bush did not push on to Baghdad was that he feared the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be followed by elections that would be won by Shia parties sympathetic to Iran. No worse outcome of the war could be imagined in Washington. After the capture of Baghdad in 2003, the US faced the same dilemma. Many of the contortions of US policy in Iraq since then have been a covert attempt to avoid or dilute the domination of Iraq's Shia majority.

"For more than a year, the astute US envoy in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, tried to conciliate the Sunni. He failed. Attacks on US forces are on the increase. Dead and wounded US soldiers now total almost 1,000 a month..

"An Iraqi government will only have real legitimacy and freedom to operate when US and British troops have withdrawn. Washington and London have to accept that if Iraq is to survive at all it will be as a loose federation run by a Shia-Kurdish alliance because together they are 80 per cent of the population. But, thanks to the miscalculations of Mr Bush and Mr Blair, the future of Iraq will be settled not by negotiations but on the battlefield.

The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn is published by Verso.

From the Independent Newspaper found on Cursor.org