Water supply damaged by mortar attack in Baghdad.

“BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Baghdad’s mayor decried the capital’s crumbling infrastructure and its inability to supply enough clean water to residents, threatening Thursday to resign if the government won’t provide more money.”

Friday July 1, 2005 9:46 PM
Water Plant Fire Deepens Misery in Baghdad
By MARIAM FAM

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – A mortar attack sparked a fire Friday that forced authorities to shut down a water plant, leaving millions of weary Baghdad residents with dry taps in 100-degree heat, Iraqi officials said.

Just a day earlier, the mayor of the capital threatened to quit because of mounting infrastructure problems – including a lack of clean drinking water.[…]
The water shortage added to the misery of Baghdad’s estimated 6.5 million people, who face frequent electricity outages, erratic fuel supplies, congested traffic, diminished public services and the ever present threat of kidnappings and car bombings.

Hundreds killed in the ‘triangle of death’ area.

Violence in Iraq and US presence By Laith Saud, Opinion, al Jazeera

Tuesday 28 June 2005, 14:44 Makka Time, 11:44 GMT  

Following one of the deadliest periods for Iraqis since the American-led invasion of the country in 2003, there is as yet no indication as to when the situation may improve.

Indeed, the war being waged in the middle of the streets of Baghdad and Mosul or Najaf and Falluja has made life for the average Iraqi difficult, precarious and dangerous, especially with no foreseeable end to the conflict.

In addition, promises to end the American occupation of Iraq figured largely in the campaigning of the United Iraqi Alliance, (UIA); in spite of victory, however, the alliance has taken no steps towards such an end – betraying or ignoring the wishes of the Iraqi electorate. […]

Consider the current situation in Falluja: According to a recent article by Daud Salman, of the 65 schools severely damaged by the American assault on Falluja, only one quarter have been repaired. Of these few, many are being used as American bases and staging points for military operations.

For the average resident of Falluja, the implication is clear – their standard of living and their children’s education are subordinate to the wishes and well-being of the American military campaign. Instead of labouring on behalf of the residents of Falluja, the current Iraqi government has conceded to American authority in this regard and has relegated the well-being of Iraqi people to a secondary concern.

Fallujah 2005

Dispatch from Fallujah, 1920

“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the willfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad but the responsibility, in this case, is not on the army which has acted only upon the request of the civil authorities.”

T.E. Lawrence, The Sunday Times, August 1920

Follow this link if you dare, for graphic images of Fallujah citizens who were killed in their beds, shot in the head while sleeping. Disabled people shot to death in their homes.

On top of lack of security from suicide bombs, mortar fire, kidnappings, US raids on their homes, arrests without  trial, Iraqis’ daily lives are made miserable by lack of infrastructure like clean water supply, sewage treatment, electricity, traffic control.

Most Iraqis consider the US Military as occupiers and not liberators. Since the grievous death toll against innocent Iraqis has instilled outrage and a will for vengeance against the US forces, that cannot be undone. No amount of reconstruction, rebuilding, training of Iraqi troops can undo this. The majority of the Iraqi people want the US Military to leave. So leave.

Update [2005-7-3 16:27:36 by sybil]:
A Political Strategy for Iraq

From Talking Points Memo, by Anne-Marie Slaughter who is the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. An international lawyer and expert on international institutions and American foreign policy.

[…]
What about spending the billions allocated for Iraq in ways that directly help the Iraqis themselves in countless small projects rather than a few big ones? What about creating networks of non-governmental institutions to work with Iraqi NGOs? What about creating networks of government officials, from justice to education to health to the economy, extending from the region to the EU and across the Atlantic to provide aid, technical assistance, moral support, and public visibility to Iraqi efforts on the civil side. What about shaming the Arab League into offering tangible support? In short, what about a concrete plan for delivering tangible economic and social benefits to Iraqis so that life is getting better even in the teeth of the violence?

Our response is security, security, security. But giving ordinary citizens a stake in something to secure can only help. Further, the larger point is that the Administration only knows how to measure and use military power. That is the sum total of what power means in their world. In fact, we live in a world in which military power is still vitally important, but it’s only a part of the equation — something the Administration just can’t seem to get. We need to build up our civilian power and work with as many other nations and regional and international organizations as possible to increase it and use it as widely as possible.

The answer to the rising death toll in Iraq is not to pull our troops out. Nor is it to put more in, even if we had more to put. It is to match our military effort with a political and economic effort, to ensure that it not just our soldiers who are on the line. But all the President’s talk of a “political strategy” is just that.

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