Free to do bad things

War leaders are trying  to damp down bad news coming out of 
post-invasion Iraq, writes Brian Whitaker  

The Guardian: Saturday April 12, 2003

On one of the bleakest days since the invasion began, US defence 
secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday shrugged off turmoil and looting 
in Iraq as signs of the people's freedom.  

"It's untidy, and freedom's untidy," he said, jabbing his hand in the air. 
"Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad 
things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things."  

Mr Rumsfeld insisted that words such as anarchy and lawlessness 
were unrepresentative of the situation in Iraq and "absolutely"
ill-chosen. 

"I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it," he
said. "I read 
eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just 
was Henny Penny - 'The sky is falling'. I've never seen anything like it! 
And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are 
going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious 
dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight 
or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed 
we had shot - one thing after another. It's just unbelievable ..."  

In an extraordinary performance reminiscent of the Iraqi information 
minister who assured the world that all was well even as battles raged 
visibly around him, Mr Rumsfeld quipped:  

"The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, 
and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some 
building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, 'My 
goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were 
that many vases in the whole country?' "  

In what appeared to be a concerted effort to damp down media coverage 
of the chaos, the British government simultaneously laid into the BBC 
and its defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, accusing them of 
"trying to make the news" rather than reporting it.  

A spokesman for prime minister Tony Blair claimed that "in the main the 
anarchy and disorder is being directed against symbols of the regime". 
Mr Gilligan hit back: "The reality is half the shopping district [in 
Baghdad] is now being looted. Downing Street may be saying it's only 
regime targets that are being attacked. I'm afraid it isn't."  

In the absence of any authority, residents of Baghdad have been 
erecting barricades to keep out marauders and there is some evidence 
of shooting, either between looters and citizens who are trying to 
protect their own property, or between rival gangs of looters.  

Hospitals and laboratories have been ransacked, with thieves often 
seizing vital equipment - heart monitors, incubators and microscopes 
- which is of no obvious use to them. A report today says only one 
hospital in the city still has a functioning operating theatre.  

The International Committee of the Red Cross has reminded the US and 
Britain of their legal obligation under the Geneva Convention to protect 
civilians and essential services such as hospitals.  

The US yesterday appealed for Baghdad's police - as well as fire and 
ambulance services - to resume work. It is doubtful that many will do so 
at present: the public is unlikely to welcome a return of the old regime's 
crime prevention apparatus, and the police themselves may be unwilling 
to put their lives at risk to help out the Americans.  

In a move that further undermines the United Nations' role in Iraq, 
the US has secretly and unilaterally resumed weapons inspections, 
according to a report in the Guardian today.  

This will also annoy the British government, which still officially 
supports the UN's Unmovic team.  

The American inspection team, nicknamed "USmovic", which was set 
up in Kuwait a week before the war began, has already started work. 
It includes inspectors recruited from the previous Unscom team and 
is led by Charles Duelfer, former deputy head of Unscom.  

The US has a pressing need to find evidence of chemical or biological 
weapons in Iraq, since this was the pretext for the invasion in the first 
place. But the American-controlled inspection team has no international 
recognition and will also have to struggle to establish its credibility. 
The work of Unscom during the 1990s was partly discredited by allegations 
of espionage which were later, to some extent, admitted. Whatever 
"USmovic" finds, it is liable to be accused of planting evidence, 
even if that is not actually the case.  

In northern Iraq, where the key cities of Mosul and Kirkuk were 
"liberated" by Kurdish forces with American support, the
"liberation" 
of any available property has also begun.  

Turkey is particularly worried about Kirkuk and has troops on the border 
ready to invade if Kurdish forces do withdraw from the city. Turkey's fear 
is that possession of Kirkuk and the surrounding oilfields would make a 
Kurdish state in the region economically viable. This could jeopardise 
the territorial integrity of Turkey, where there is a substantial Kurdish 
population.  

This morning there are reports of some Kurdish forces leaving Kirkuk, 
but they are said to be holding back until more US troops arrive to take 
over from them and maintain order.  

This is only part of the picture, however. At the same time, large 
numbers of armed Kurdish civilians have been reported entering the city. 
They are said to be former residents of Kirkuk who were displaced by 
Saddam Hussein's policy of Arabisation (ethnic "cleansing"). In the 
slightly longer term, these returnees are likely to strengthen Kurdish 
claims to possession of the city.  

In southern Iraq, it was reported yesterday that British forces shot 
dead five alleged bank robbers in Basra. The robbers are said to have 
fired first.  

There is also some embarrassment over Sheikh Muzahim Tamimi, the 
tribal leader appointed by Britain to take charge of Basra province. 
It has emerged that he is a former brigadier-general in Saddam Hussein's 
army and was once a member of the Ba'ath party. Several hundred 
protesters threw stones at his house earlier this week.  

One theory circulating in London is that the sheikh was appointed 
accidentally because British intelligence confused him with his 
anti-Saddam brother (who turns out to have been shot dead by the 
secret police in 1994).  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/dailybriefing/story/0,12965,935381,00.html

                         -==-

Source: Information Clearinghouse
[ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2879.htm ]

Cheers, Steve..

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