Page 2 of
2 ROVING IN THE RED
ZONE Inside
Sadr City By Pepe Escobar
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the house, but they were ready to attack."
Security in his district is provided by tribal
guards, and not by Muqtada's Mehdi Army. Everyone
in the district seems to agree Sadr City is the
most peaceful place in Iraq. The heavy turbulence
is another story - it involves deadly clashes
between the Mehdi Army against the Americans,
Sunni guerrillas or al-Qaeda in Iraq.
'We lack everything' Hussein
tries somewhat to be lenient with the government of
Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki: "The problem is Parliament did not
allot money for Sadr City according to our
necessities." Because of its reputation as a safe
neighborhood, Hussein says a lot of people from
other parts of Iraq are moving into Sadr City.
Each district has two schools. Sheikh Ali
Hasan, elegant in his brown robe, responsible for
one of Sadr City's districts, says there are more
than 100 schools in the neighborhood, but as
Hussein points out, "The number of students
exceeds the places we have available."
There are plans to build a university. The
municipality already has the land, 300 hectares;
they also want to build a medical center and a
park. But they need help. And no help is coming
from the Maliki government.
According to
Hussein and Hasan, there are also not enough
health services in Sadr City. Caring for almost 3
million people, there are only two general
hospitals (one of them for children), one women's
hospital and a few clinics. "Our doctors have
united and have taken some initiatives. But we
lack everything. Especially with this government,
they are not stable."
Hussein remembers,
"After the fall of Saddam, there were a lot of
good expectations. But the Americans came here
with no architects or machines. They think they
have the right to do anything they want." He
refers to the recent million-people march from
Kufa to Najaf called by Muqtada: "If the Americans
had any sensibility, they would have left Iraq."
Hussein and Hasan confirm that the
Americans usually "come at night, sometimes by
day, always protected by helicopters". They
"sometimes bomb houses, sometimes arrest people,
sometimes throw missiles". Three months ago "they
surrounded Sadr City. They keep doing it
sometimes, for a few hours." Hussein is adamant:
"This is not a dangerous place. You can walk
around anywhere. Even Sunnis live here. Our
director of finance, he lives in Adhamiyah, he
comes to work here. Many women officials too. The
other way around, it would not be possible."
It has been a long time since Muqtada
himself has been to Sadr City. Every resident says
something to the effect that "he is in our
hearts". Hussein stresses, "I am an Iraqi first,
but also a Sadrist. Muqtada is always with us. We
even listen to his whispers. He is the only
musician in our country; the orchestra is playing
other things. He is the only leader who has called
for the unity of Iraq."
Muqtada's recent
speech, in which he accused Bush of building
"non-national and non-Islamic walls of political
and sectarian division", has struck an extremely
powerful chord in Sadr City. Were the Pentagon
tempted to wall Sadr City, the feeling is that
nearly 3 million people would instantly be up in
arms. There have been rumors that Muqtada has
directed the Mehdi Army to attack any trucks in
Baghdad transporting concrete blocks. But no one
in Sadr City confirms it.
Victory by
genocide Even urban, highly educated,
secular Shi'ites - and a few secular Sunnis as
well - agree that the Mehdi Army at least balances
the excesses and the sometimes gruesome methods of
the Sunni Arab resistance.
Hussein sees
the Mehdi Army as a question of sovereignty and
emphasizes its social role as "spontaneously
helping people and trying to solve their practical
problems".
Naturally, Sadr City residents,
in their natural habitat, do everything they can
to play down the other dark - and very real - side
of the Mehdi Army: the sectarian killings, the
"armed and dangerous mob on a rampage" element. On
the other hand, Sadr City will continue to live in
constant fear of being attacked by more horrendous
car and truck bombings. And there's of course
Amrika.
The Pentagon is now
spinning murky stories of "secret cells" in Sadr
City loaded with EFPs (explosively formed
penetrators), bombs made in Iran used in most
attacks by the Mehdi Army against the US in Sadr
City. Residents angrily deny it: they say the
Americans are attacking the neighborhood, not the
other way around, and they have nothing to do
"with the Iranians". The Mehdi Army may have
access to these bombs on the black market, but
this does not mean they are being armed by Tehran.
The key problem is Shi'ite-Shi'ite
violence. The Badr Organization, the armed wing of
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq and effectively trained by Iran's
Revolutionary Guards, is now clashing with the
Mehdi Army in Sadr City itself. This boils down to
a rivalry between eminent families fighting for
political hegemony - al-Sadr and al-Hakim (Abdul
Aziz al-Hakim heads the SCIRI). The fighting could
expand - with horrific consequences. Muqtada has
already issued orders for the Mehdi Army to cool
down.
As for Amrika, there's no way
the US will conquer any hearts and minds among
more than half the population of Baghdad. And
should the Pentagon go for the much-feared "battle
of Sadr City", there will be only one way to yell
"mission accomplished": by perpetrating a mass
genocide.
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