Interview with Sara Flounders of the Troops Out Now Coalition
Our correspondent, Mehdi Geramifard has talked to Sarah Flounders, Organizer of “Troops Out Now Coalition” in New York on continuation of chaos in Iraq.
Question: More than two years after the invasion of Iraq and more than one year after transfer of power to the new Iraqi government, there have been nearly five hundred car bombings. Why does chaos continue in Iraq?
Answer: The United States is facing in Iraq today a resistance that they never expected, predicted or planed for and that they cannot defeat. No matter how much money they throw at it, they have an alliance with a completely corrupt grouping in Iraq and the money goes like water into sand. They cannot throw enough soldiers at it because they no longer have enough soldiers. The enlistments are so far down in the U.S. It has created what they are calling a death spiral in their volunteer military core. They have the real danger of trying to bring back the draft and all of the deep domestic opposition that would bring and the Bush administration is dealing an absolute denial of reality, when you think of the quotes of Bush from May of 2003, when he said combat operations in Iraq has ended and that the U.S. had totally prevailed and they were securing and reconstructing the country what a hauling blunder that has been. And just last month when Vice President, Cheney said that the insurgency in Iraq was in its last throes and that of course is not true at all. So they are existing an absolute denial as the level of resistance has continued that is beyond their scale to cope with. There is enormous opposition from political, military, every force within Iraqi society an opposition that has a responsible that is deeply understood around the world. Those images don’t come back to people in the U.S. But they are seen by every one else in the world and what is recognized is that the world’s leading superpower that looks so enormously powerful. The people of Iraq have completely tided down and mobilized and humiliated the world’s largest superpower and that is quite an accomplishment and it is being felt on a global basis. It’s being felt throughout Central Asia, it’s being felt in Latin America. I’m confident it’s also been deeply felt in Iran who also faces continuing threats from the U.S. today threats on their oil and threats on their national sovereignty.
Question: Some believe that Iraq after the U.S. invasion has turned into a new source of global terrorism and terrorist attacks have been increased sharply in recent months. So how could President Bush claim that its so-called global war on terrorism has been successful?
Answer: Well, I think the people in the world look at terror entirely differently the terror that came to Iraq, came on the basis of helicopter gun ships, aircrafts, the bombing of the entire country, the occupation of the whole country, the checkpoints in every city, town and village in Iraq. This is terror and what there is on the part of the people in Iraq are many different forms of resistance. Some requiring great sacrifice and self-sacrifice, there are other actions of massive demonstrations, a petition campaign to gather a million signatures saying that the occupations must end. It is going on right now in Iraq. There are many different kinds of acts of resistance that the whole population is taking on. But the terror comes from the occupation and the instruments of the occupation that the U.S. and Britain and their allied forces are carrying out against the people of Iraq.
Question: President Bush has kept none of his promises made before the invasion of Iraq, securing and democracy is not established in Iraq. Chaos continues, freedom and liberty does not exist in Iraq. So how could President Bush convince U.S. families to send their loved ones to Iraq to help him keep his promises?
Answer: This is the problem that the Bush administration faces; they are less and less able to convince the people of this country. Because this is the war based on a lie. The whole population knows this. Support for the war is now below half the population that mean the majority of the population is today against this war. There was also another important poll recently that that 42 percent of the population felt that President Bush should be impeached because it is proved that this war was based on a lie and based on conscious fraud and of course this is something that the population deeply believe. Recruiting is down, so low that less than 25 percent of parents would want their child to enlist in the military and this is a real change from the past when many poor and working people saw the military as the only position for their children to receive education, training and job skills. So what’s happening in the United States and in Britain are the same. What Bush and Blair administration are facing in Britain and the U.S. is the same thing. The population is growing to realize that their administration has endangered them by creating war on another country that did nothing to make themselves the target. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was not a threat to the United States. This was a war from the very first for control and domination of the oil of the entire region and the U.S. had a plan and they made it quite clear that once securing Iraq, they would move on to Iran, to Syria to the reconstitution of the entire area under their hegemony.
Question: President Bush has acknowledged serious and in some cases unacceptable problems among Iraqi security forces being trained to replace U.S. troops. Don’t you think that it is a pretext to keep military presence there?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. Let me make it clear the Bush administration would like to withdraw some of its troops because it doesn’t have troops any more to send. It does not have the reserve forces to send. So they would like to create a puppet army and they have been unable to do that. Iraqi officers claim that they have thousands of people on the payroll, they pocket those salaries and in fact they have in some cases only 3 hundred of that tried battalions actually exist. One Iraqi politician who is a part of the parliament admitted that 15,000 Iraqi security forces, which the U.S. talks about is not true. He claims the number is less than 40,000. So even the very forces and the army that they claim they are training, the corruption is so great that army exist on paper and in payroll that is pocketed only and that is part of their enormous problem. They brought with them such corruption that they are unable to secure any area. They have also been unable to rebuild anything. The city of Baghdad in this treble heat of summer is running water for more than two weeks not only electricity reduced to 3 and 4 hours a day and sometimes there has been no electricity at all.