Death in the Desert
24 May 2006 7:11 am by Taylor Marsh
IRAQ: Death in the Desert
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It doesn't get any grimmer than Dexter Filkins piece this morning in The New
York Times.
It's wholesale slaughter, compliments of the Interior Ministry, who has a lot of help from others, with Sunnis being murdered at random. The
way it's told by mothers and wives is a life of “torture, kidnapping
and murder at the hands of government security forces.” Out of around
145,000 “officially sanctioned” and trained police, no one evidently
has a clue how many are rogue officers, because everyone is out for himself, so no one trusts anyone in the government security forces. I wouldn't either.
That's not all. Besides the 145,000 officers trained to protect Iraq itself,
there are 117,000 Iraqi soldiers, plus 50,000 “private security guards.”
Nothing like having mercenaries in the middle of this mix, along with 135,000
American soldiers, none of whom know what's going on because not even the Iraqis
know. How many of these groups, minus the Americans, have been infiltrated by
Iraqi enemies? Take a guess, because it's as good as the official answer.
Bodyguards charged with protecting officials end up running death squads and kidnapping rings while on guard, because they've got so much access, which ends up as a way to solidify their power base with a legal facade.
I'm telling you, I don't know how it could be any worse.
Some of these armed groups, like the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police, often
carry out legitimate missions to combat crime and the insurgency. Others,
like members of another Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, specialize in torture,
murder, kidnapping and the settling of scores for political parties.Reining in Iraq's official and unofficial armies is the most urgent task
confronting Iraq's new leaders. In speeches and private conversations, Prime
Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki says he intends to clamp down on the death squads
operating within the Iraqi government, and to disarm the militias that provide
the street muscle for Iraq's political parties.(snip)
The outcome of the struggle has far-reaching implications for Iraq's future,
as Iraqi and American officials try to curb the abuses that threaten to push
the country closer to a sectarian war without impeding the government's ability
to fight the Sunni-led guerrilla insurgency.“I think they have the evidence now as to who is doing most of the killing,”
said an American official in Baghdad who is not authorized to speak publicly.
“It's a question of political will, the political will to do what needs
to be done.”“I have just not seen it yet,” the official said.
Frankly, I've not been to Iraq, but I've read everything available coming out of that country and it seems to me we're way past the point of using this type of language. “Toward
chaos”? Come on. Let's be serious. If Iraq hasn't fallen into chaos then the word has
been rendered meaningless.
We're not stabilizing Iraq. We're now involved in saving the Iraqis from themselves. We're
past the point of no return and have been for some time. We're not even in charge. The militias rule.
