"The Devastation of Iraq"

[TexasLawyer]

From Asia Times

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GA11Ak01.html

Middle East
Jan 11, 2005

The Devastation of Iraq
By Dahr Jamail

The devastation of Iraq? Where do I start? After working seven of the past 12 months in Iraq, I'm still overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to describe this.

The illegal war and occupation of Iraq was waged for three reasons, according to the administration of US President George W Bush. First for weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found. Second, because the regime of Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda, which Bush has personally admitted have never been proved. The third reason - embedded in the very name of the invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom - was to liberate the Iraqi people.

So Iraq is now a liberated country.

I've been in liberated Baghdad and environs on and off for 12 months, including being inside Fallujah during the April siege and having warning shots fired over my head more than once by soldiers. I've traveled in the south, in the north, and extensively around central Iraq. What I saw in the first months of 2004, however, when it was easier for a foreign reporter to travel the country, offered a powerful - even predictive - taste of the horrors to come in the rest of the year (and undoubtedly in 2005 as well). It's worth returning to the now-forgotten first half of last year and remembering just how terrible things were for Iraqis even relatively early in our occupation of their country.

Then, as now, for Iraqis, the US invasion and occupation were a case of liberation from - from human rights (think: the atrocities committed in Abu Ghraib, which are still occurring daily there and elsewhere); liberation from functioning infrastructure (think: the malfunctioning electric system, the many-kilometer-long gasoline queues, the raw sewage in the streets); liberation from an entire city to live in (think: Fallujah, most of which has by now been flattened by aerial bombardment and other means).

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[indigobusiness]

1. Sort of a thanks, but no thanks...

situation.