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THE ROVING
EYE
Fear and anger in the Sunni
triangle
By Pepe Escobar
RAMADI - Sheikh Khaled from the al-Halabsa
family, established in the outskirts of Fallujah on the
road to Ramadi, is one of the most powerful men in the
Sunni triangle (Baghdad-Ramadi-Tikrit). Relaxed in his
dishdash robe, drinking tea on the porch of his
house, facing an immaculate garden and his own black
Mercedes in the garage, he is nonetheless a very
pessimistic man: "We don't believe in American promises.
They have lied before the war 'promising democracy'. If
Americans believe in freedom and independence, why don't
they let the people vote for the Governing Council?" The
sheikh adds that "even if I had a family member in the
Governing Council I would not trust them because they
were elected by tanks."
The sheikh echoes a
popular sentiment all over the Sunni triangle that the
Americans themselves encouraged the widespread looting
that so traumatized Iraqis after the end of the war in
April, "So they must have an extra reason not to leave."
The Americans negotiated with regional sheikhs before
entering Ambar - the province that includes Ramadi and
Fallujah and which is considered one of the richest in
per capita terms in Iraq. Most of the well-off in Ambar
are contractors or are in the transportation business.
All mosques are private. According to the sheikh "when
the Americans occupied the land, they encouraged looters
to come here. I caught some of them myself."
The
Americans were victims of a serious case of cultural
misunderstanding - according to the sheikh: "The
Americans confiscated all weapons. They encouraged
looters to attack industrial complexes, steal generators
... I told the American commander that we as sheikhs
cannot face our families because we have no weapons. If
you can't protect us, why did you take our weapons? The
American commander then said there would be military
patrols. But there are no patrols - the Americans are
afraid. In al-Haswa there is one of the biggest storages
in the Middle East, it is central for the whole of Iraq.
It has food, cars, electrical appliances, spare parts
... looters attacked it armed with RPGs. We were
unarmed. The Americans didn't do anything." As a result,
now there is no dialogue between the sheikhs and the
occupation forces.
While the businessmen sheikhs
in the Fallujah-Ramadi axis have lost their patience,
but stop short of admitting that they are financing the
resistance, the religious sheikhs are facing another
kind of problem. In Ramadi itself we are told that
sheikhs who criticized the American occupation in their
Friday prayers were arrested. Sheikh Salah and his
brother, from Ramadi, say in fact that there was only
one high-profile case: a cleric who rhetorically bombed
the occupation forces was arrested for two months. So
now clerics are much more subtle. In last Friday's
prayers, in a mosque contiguous to the Ramadi bazaar,
the basic resistance message was "we hope the Governing
Council is not who we think they are, so they have to
listen to our demands to be trusted". But at the end of
his sermon, the sheikh could not help but "ask God to
destroy America and release Iraqis from the occupation
as soon as possible".
The Americans definitely
need some public relations. Sheikh Salah and his brother
- prominent businessmen in Ramadi - are adamant that "in
the beginning most people in the city were against
Saddam [Hussein]. With the occupation, now most want him
back." The sheikh's brother owns the best hotel in the
city, closed four days before the war and not yet
reopened. The reason: no security. The Americans have no
military base in Ramadi: they are lodged in one of
Saddam's former palaces. Every day there are American
patrols. According to Sheikh salah, "Inside the city
there are few attacks. But they are always attacked in
the highway [to the Jordanian border] and in the
outskirts."
People in Ramadi say that the
Americans are attacked at least six times every day: the
Americans never admit more than one or two attacks a
day. Unlike the road from Baghdad to Samarra and Tikrit,
the road to Ramadi has no American checkpoints. Thieves
holed up in the desert, equipped with BMWs and
Kalashnikovs, continue to attack travelers on the
Amman-Baghdad highway near Ramadi; but according to
locals "the Americans have not done anything to catch
them". The American checkpoint on the highway is in the
wrong place - at least 100 kilometers away from Ramadi.
Ramadi has an American-installed mayor, Abdul
Karim Barjes. Sheikh Salah says "he never left his
building" and unlike the mayor of Fallujah, is not
respected by the local population. People in Ramadi - as
well as in Fallujah - say that they saw Arab
fedayeen (para-military) only in the beginning of
the war.
Most of all, people in Ramadi are angry
because "the Americans have done nothing for the city in
five months", says Sheikh Salah. The streets of Ramadi
echo the same accusations heard in Fallujah: American
soldiers in their raids are taking gold, money and
pistols from people's houses. People are also very much
aware of Ali Babas (common thieves) turned Mukhabarat
agents paid by the Americans.
The Governing
Council is as unpopular and untrusted as anywhere in the
Sunni belt. Ahmad Chalabi, the current chairman, is
perceived "as an American agent. And he has American
nationality. We would never vote for him if there was an
independent election". As far as a larger United Nations
role is concerned, Sheikh Salah expresses the local
consensus: "Whatever the UN does it is better than the
occupation, as a halfway solution. But we don't agree
with any foreigners occupying Iraq."
A striking
refrain is heard across the Sunni triangle, from Baghdad
to Samarra, from Fallujah to Baqouba. As Sheikh Salah
puts it, "If Saddam came back again, he would rebuild
Iraq in one month. After the [1991] Gulf War, he rebuilt
Iraq in 45 days." The people who are saying this never
in their lives were Ba'ath Party members.
The
mood in the heart of the Sunni triangle all the way to
Ramadi is replicated in the very poor, working-class
neighborhood called Fourth Police, almost in the
outskirts of Baghdad. Most people in this area did
support Saddam's regime and were Ba'ath Party members -
and many abandoned their weapons and did not fight
during the last war. They swear the resistance is
composed of ordinary Iraqis. Practically everybody is
armed. "Islam tells us we have to resist occupation. We
will get rid of the Americans," says a local carpenter.
Nobody has detected any suspicious behavior by potential
Arab fedayeen.
The anger in the Sunni
triangle is pervasive. Workers are angry because 400,000
civil servants were sacked, and because there are only
unknown exiles - 1,500 of them, mostly from the US and
the UK - working in the Iraqi Reconstruction Development
Council. Sunnis are angry because for the Americans the
Kurdish region is the priority. Businessmen are angry
because there will be no role for companies from Arab
countries in the reconstruction process. Poor people are
angry because the UN scaled down its foreign staff to
only 42 in Baghdad, while relying on roughly 4,000
Iraqis for humanitarian work. Law-abiding citizens are
angry because former defense minister Sultan Hashim
Ahmad was granted immunity and was duly removed from the
American "pack of cards" listing 55 wanted people (he
was number 27). Everybody is angry because the US
military cleared its troops in the recent "friendly
fire" incident in Fallujah which killed eight Iraqi
policemen.
The only people with nothing to
complain about are those in the booming roadblock
business - as the Americans bunker themselves out of
sight. After the surreal slalom by two Ali Babas in a
stolen battered Toyota on September 20, which cynics
widely considered a trial run for a car bombing, there's
a new roadblock arrangement in front of the
Palestine-Sheraton hotel complex in Baghdad - which
houses large numbers of foreign journalists and American
businessmen - the Aike hotel - where some American media
are staying - was attacked last week. A trip through the
Sunni triangle yields signs that no roadblock will
prevent the same from happening to the Palestine.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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