Iraqis rue another wasted
year By Dahr Jamail and Arkan
Hamed
BAGHDAD - Despite the parliamentary
elections last week and temporary ease in
violence, Iraqis remain bitter about the outgoing
year and skeptical of 2006.
"As a doctor I
usually travel daily from home to college," said
Um Feras, a doctor of physics at Baghdad
University who asked that her last name be changed
for her protection. "[This year] was a terrible
year, and now it has become unacceptable for me to
leave my house to go teach due to the troops, who
always wear
sunglasses even on gloomy
days, aiming their rifles at everyone like they
are gangsters."
The majority of Iraqis in
Baghdad now fear the security forces, as dozens of
people each week are "disappeared" by police and
soldiers around the city; new torture chambers
have been discovered recently.
Feras told
Inter Press Service (IPS)the daily chaos on the
streets of Baghdad, such as closed roads and
bridges, causes her to be late, as well as most of
her students.
"Nothing is good in Iraq
now," she said. "Torture, detained friends,
pillaging of houses, seeing neighbors suffering
from poverty, no electricity, no water and gun
fights everywhere. We have no relief from this
suffering now."
Electricity in Baghdad
remains far below pre-war levels, with most houses
enjoying just three to five hours per day.
Meanwhile, oil exports in December have sunk to a
two-year low while as much as 22% of the US$21
billion set aside by the US government for
reconstruction projects in Iraq has been diverted
to security, Dan Speckhard, the director of the
Iraq reconstruction management office, told
reporters earlier this month.
Asked about
her hopes and expectations for 2006, Feras said:
"I only want a normal life far away from the
interests of those bastards who invaded our
country. I don't care about the elections and
politics and the new political parties because
these are just a small part of the strategy of the
invaders."
She added, as she began to cry:
"My dream for the coming year is that the invaders
pull out, we have Iraqis who love one another to
govern Iraq, we build something related to
civilization and have emotions towards our land
and lives in order to get back to the situation
where each of us loves the other and we feel the
good will of God. But I can't say this will
happen."
Other Iraqis, such as 40 year-old
leather worker Ismael Mohammed, feel the same.
"[This year] was worse than 2004 because
the coalition forces are still handling everything
tightly in their hands and nothing has changed
except the faces of the governors," he told IPS in
Baghdad. "They are trying to get everything they
can from Iraq, meanwhile, financially it is
getting worse, fuel [availability] is worse and
the roads are worse."
His feelings are
common around Baghdad; reports say Iraq is
suffering an unemployment rate of more than 50%,
oil exports remain below pre-war levels and
infrastructure remains in shambles amidst the
broken promises of the Bush administration.
"Democracy? Where is our democracy?" asked
Mohammed who said his best day of 2005 was when
one of his cousins was released from Abu Ghraib
prison. "Freedom? People shout with no one to
hear. Everything goes with a bribe now. You want
to be a professor - easy, just give me the money
and you are a professor."
Mohammed told
IPS he remains sad and perplexed as to why a
cousin was recently killed. "We are Shi'ite. Yet
he was killed." And he has other questions.
"Who profits from this [new] constitution
because we already had one? Who is profiting from
all of this? Iraqi leather used to be the best all
over the Middle East, but now it even seems as
though the rain has stopped falling in Iraq, as my
trade has stopped growing. Now we even have to
import leather."
According to the
Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based
think tank, the value of Halliburton stock - US
Vice President Dick Cheney is a former CEO of the
company and reportedly still has financial ties,
has increased 138% since March 2003. Halliburton
has been awarded at least $10 billion in contracts
for operations in Iraq.
Meanwhile, US
citizens aren't benefiting from the occupation
either. The average monthly cost of the Iraq war
for the US is $5.6 billion for a total of more
than $225 billion to date, pushing their national
debt to more than $8 trillion, according to the US
Department of the Treasury.
Meanwhile,
Mohammed voiced the dreams of many Iraqis for
2006. "To get rid of the invaders and have God
give back blessings to the people of Iraq. We want
good people in positions of authority who will
compensate Iraqis who have suffered. I would like
to see Iraqis work as one unit, putting the good
of the country ahead of divisions between them and
to go on dealing as humans. "We need a lot of
work to obtain true sovereignty and to cure the
problems brought by the invaders, as independence
isn't so easy that we can get it in one year.
Democracy cannot be given as simple as that; we
have to work hard for it and educate people to get
it."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has
reported that Sunni and secular political groups
were angry over what they charged was a rigged
election on December 15. They are demanding a new
vote, and, according to the newspaper, have
"threatened to leave a shambles the delicate plan
to bring the country's wary factions together in a
new government". The Sunni Arab minority also
hinted at an increase in insurgent violence due to
their suspicions of electoral fraud.
Preliminary election results suggest a
solid victory by the United Iraqi Alliance, a
coalition of Shi'ite Muslim religious parties that
dominated the outgoing government.
