“The coalition remains offensively oriented to kill or capture anti-coalition elements, terrorists, and conspirators against the Iraqi people, and to establish a safe and secure environment,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmit, the deputy director of operations of the occupying armies, at a January 22 press briefing in Baghdad.

The same day, Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, told reporters that more Iraqis had come forward with information following the December 14 capture of the deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. This, he said, allowed his troops to “conduct numerous precise raids to kill or capture financiers, [bomb]-makers, and mid-level leaders of the former regime.”

Odierno claimed that under this kind of pressure, Hussein’s followers have become “a fractured, sporadic threat with the leadership destabilized, finances interdicted, and no hope of the Baathists’ return to power.”

Over the previous week, said Kimmit, there had been “an average of 18 daily engagements against coalition military forces, just over two attacks daily against Iraqi security forces, and just over one attack daily against Iraqi civilians.”

The death toll among U.S. forces has continued to grow at an average rate of a bit more than one a day. By January 23 it stood at 362 since the invasion was declared over, and 500 since the start of the war in March.

In addition, 50-plus troops from the United Kingdom have been killed, along with 19 from Italy and one each from Denmark, Spain, Ukraine, and Poland—each of which has been named by Washington as a member of its “coalition of the willing.” According to GlobalSecurity.org, which pulls together different media and research services, Washington has 131,000 troops in Iraq, alongside 24,000 from allied armed forces.

U.S. generals Kimmit and Odierno said that the opposition military forces have increasingly aimed their fire at Iraqi police and civilians who collaborate with occupying troops. On January 22 a bomb killed two men when it exploded in the offices of the Iraqi Communist Party (CP) in Baghdad. The CP has a representative on the U.S.-run Iraqi Governing Council. Its cadres danced in the streets of Baghdad on hearing news of Hussein’s capture by imperialist troops.

CP representatives participated in the Baathist government in the early 1970s, giving political backing to its actions—including its murderous assault on the Kurdish people in the north—until the party itself became the target of repression.

Reporting the bombing attack, the Associated Press described the party as “the most organized political group in the country,” with “small offices nationwide. The party operated underground under Saddam Hussein’s regime, and openly in the northern Kurdish areas that were outside government control.”  
 
Shiite protests demand elections
As U.S. forces prepare for a massive troop rotation into Iraq over the coming months, Washington’s blueprint for assembling a more representative Iraqi face on its occupation has come under attack. The plan, which was drawn up in November of last year, calls for Iraqi leaders to hold caucuses in 18 provinces to select a legislature. That body would in turn select a provisional government.

Well over 100,000 people mobilized January 19 in Shiite communities in Baghdad and to the south to reject this schema and demand direct nationwide elections.

Marchers carried portraits of Shiite cleric Ali Sistani, who opposes the U.S. plan. Other leaders of the Shiite community, which comprises 60 percent of Iraq’s population of 25 million, have also called for a referendum on the presence of the occupying troops.

U.S. officials have insisted that only indirect elections can be prepared at this time, while saying that the plan can be modified. U.S. secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters January 22, “The United States has always been for direct elections. The only question was when and how fast.” U.S. officials had met with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Rumsfeld said, adding that “my hope is that he will be sending an assessment team down to meet with the Governing Council sometime later this month or next month to talk about that.”

As Annan put together his delegation, Ali Sistani called a halt to the Shiite demonstrations, saying that his supporters should wait out the UN officials’ verdict. The spokesman for another Muslim cleric, Muhammad Said al-Hakim, said, “Who will supply legitimacy to the new government? I think you will agree with me when I say the UN or the rule of the UN.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home