Woes of the liberated

HAVING destroyed Iraq by their unjustified and pulverising invasion, it now seems that the United States either does not care about or is incapable of relieving the turmoil, agony, deprivation and sheer chaos it has created in that hapless country. While President Bush and his cohorts in the White House are still basking in the glow of their "magnificent victory" over Saddam Hussein, the people of Iraq whom they have now "liberated" are crying out, apparently in vain, for some kind of action to ease the widespread misery that this "liberation" has inflicted upon them.

A month after Saddam's statue was toppled in Baghdad, signalling the success of the invasion, there is still no security in the country apart from what some of the invading forces may be prepared to exercise. The result is that lawlessness, particularly looters, is still running rampant and Iraqis are afraid to leave their homes lest they return to find their possessions stolen. Apart from the thousands of Iraqi citizens, including women and children, who were slaughtered in the prolonged "coalition" bombardment, the hundreds who have been injured and maimed are lying in hospital beds unable to obtain proper treatment because electricity and water supplies have not been restored. Also, as a result of this failure, raw sewerage is regurgitating back into homes in Baghdad and flowing into some of the streets. There is no power to operate the pumping stations and, in any case, municipal workers have abandoned their jobs because they have not been paid in weeks.

As a result of the invasion, all the amenities, systems, institutions, infrastructure and civil authorities that make for some kind of civilised living have either been destroyed or broken down and, a month after, Iraqis are yet to see the kind of concerted emergency action from the invaders needed to at least relieve some of their anguish and suffering. All the great and earnest concern for the Iraqi people evinced by Bush and his lieutenants now begins to ring hollow but that, in our view, should not be surprising since the real objective of the invasion has been attained, that is the securing of Iraq's vast oilfields out of which the US plans to pay US firms for reconstruction contracts, ease the menacing budgetary burden of Bush's huge tax cuts — which, it seems, will largely benefit the rich — and, of course, ensure for the US an abundant supply of oil from a hopefully grateful post-Saddam regime.

But it appears that all is not proceeding according to plan for the US occupiers. The effort to set up a puppet regime in Baghdad has become so difficult that retired General Jay Garner and some of his top aides have apparently admitted defeat and will soon be departing. Barbara Bodine, the US coordinator for Central Iraq and de facto mayor of Baghdad, will also be quitting "in the next couple of days" having been unable to bring any significant assistance to the stricken Iraqi capital. But what could poor Barbara have done without the necessary support? Over in Britain, coalition partner Tony Blair is also having his share of problems with the resignation of International Development Secretary Clare Short who was not only critical of Blair joining the invasion without UN Security Council sanction but has now expressed her strong disapproval of the US-UK effort to set up a new Iraqi government without any contribution from the United Nations. With the cold war long over, the US is indisputably the world's only superpower. What is now unnerving from this development is the maverick mentality demonstrated by this callous Iraqi adventure, a gross repudiation not only of the multilateral movement on which so much of the world's progress depends but also demonstrating the shaky ground on which the ideals of democracy and freedom of speech rest in America itself.