Sunday Times (London) July 20, 2003
US digs in for a deadly mind game
By Tony Allen-Mills, Washington and Hala Jaber, Baghdad
A GROUP of Iraqi civilians gathered beside a Baghdad road last week and erupted in cheers when they spotted American troops. It should have been a reassuring moment for the US forces who expected to be greeted as liberators for ousting Saddam Hussein but have been treated more like trespassers.
Yet the revellers on Highway1 were scarcely a comfort to Washington. Drawn to the scene by the sound of a large explosion, the Iraqis began cheering when they realised a US convoy had been attacked.
One truck was destroyed by either a remote-detonated landmine or a grenade. One American soldier was killed and three were wounded.
The incident symbolised a dismal week for 175,000 American and British troops as they struggled with an unruly populace, baking temperatures and fragile morale in what threatens to become a longer and more expensive stay than anyone at the White House or in Downing Street had bargained for.
A senior US general's unusually candid admission that anti-coalition resistance had hardened into a "classical guerrilla-type campaign" did little to curb unease that the operation to get rid of Saddam may be plunging into a quagmire.
Yet doomsday comparisons to Vietnam were given short shrift by General John Abizaid, the new Arabic-speaking chief of US Central Command. Abizaid, who made the "guerrilla" admission, appeared unshakably confident as he addressed his first Pentagon press briefing since he took over from General Tommy Franks.
"Look at the Arab press," said Abizaid, the son of Lebanese immigrants. "They say, 'We drove the Americans out of Beirut, we drove them out of Somalia, we'll drive them out of Baghdad.' And that's just not true. They are not driving us out of anywhere."
No sooner had Abizaid insisted that "we're going to win" than support arrived from an unexpected quarter. A survey by the British pollster YouGov found that more than 50% of 800 people questioned in Baghdad wanted coalition troops to stay in Iraq for at least a year. Almost three-quarters expect their lives to be better 12 months from now.
There was little doubt that a dangerous number of Iraqis remain bitterly resentful of the US presence in Iraq.
Another soldier was shot dead yesterday while guarding a bank, bringing the US toll in Iraq to 149.
Yet the YouGov poll confirmed that the Americans are not widely regarded as evil aggressors. Between the taunts of the anti-Americans and the retorts of a US general once known as the Pentagon's "mad Arab", it was clear a new phase in the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds had been joined.
At stake in what some in Washington have labelled the third Gulf war, costing $ 4billion a month, is not just the fate of Saddam and his Ba'ath party die hards, but the intriguing question of whether American troops can capitalise on cautious Iraqi optimism and finally be cheered in the Arab world for doing something right.
The challenge for Abizaid is whether he can provide a secure platform for new Iraqi leaders to emerge without them suffering the same fate as Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi. Denounced by some as a "collaborator" after he became mayor of the town of Haditha, al-Jurayfi and his eight-year-old-son died when gunmen sprayed their car with bullets last week.
The attack followed a series of assaults on Iraqis who have dared to assist the American reconstruction effort. Earlier this month seven US-trained Iraqi policemen were killed when a bomb exploded during their graduation ceremony. Last week the home of a police officer was firebombed after he served tea to US soldiers in his garden. Two of his teenage children were killed.
Despite the attacks, "we have not seen signs that this has stopped people from co-operating with us", said Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator in Iraq.
Sabotage attempts have declined and councils are starting to function in some towns.
Yesterday the US opened the first recruitment centres in Iraq. Former soldiers below the rank of lieutenant-colonel can join the new Iraqi army, which the US hopes will grow to 30 battalions within two years.
US supplies are flooding into hospitals. And a new 25-member governing council, drawn from a broad spectrum of Iraqi political, religious and ethnic groups, has begun work on a constitution with the promise of elections as early as next year.
Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy US defence secretary, has arrived in Baghdad to focus on coalition successes and to emphasise American determination to complete the transition to a new democratic regime.
Yet complaints have proved impossible to ignore, not least because many have come from Iraqis who cheered the fall of Saddam. One doctor in the northwestern city of Qaim was outraged by the way American troops dumped the bodies of two teenagers who were killed while illegally attempting to cross the Syrian border.
"They dropped them off wrapped in blankets and without so much as an American signature on a document explaining what had happened so we could try to trace their relatives," the doctor said.
Other former Ba'athist professionals are furious that the Americans treat them as if they were all Saddam's thugs. University professors, hospital directors and mid-level bureaucrats have all been purged from their jobs in American-imposed "de-Ba'athification".
Iyad Allawi, a formerly exiled leader of the Iraqi National Accord and a member of the new governing council, said the dismantling of the entire Ba'athist establishment had been a mistake. "They should have removed the upper crust and left the rest to carry on with the day-to-day tasks and needs of the country," he said.
Forced searches of homes have been criticised by Iraqis as "offensive, unacceptable and dishonourable to our women". The use of sniffer dogs inside houses has outraged some Muslims who regard the animals as unclean.
The presence of African-American troops has also aroused latent racist tensions.
"To see them search our women is not only degrading but unbearable," one Iraqi claimed.
Few in Washington deny that the long-term viability of the reconstruction effort depends on Abizaid's ability to overcome such frictions. The best start, the general admitted, would be to catch Saddam, who has infuriated Washington with a series of taped messages encouraging the resistance.
But Abizaid also has to deal with complaints from his own troops. Angered by a Pentagon decision to delay their infantry division's return from Iraq, Private Clinton Deitz and some of his fellow soldiers turned themselves into instant celebrities last week by speaking on US television. "If Donald Rumsfeld (the defence secretary) was here, I'd ask him for his resignation," said Deitz.
Abizaid promptly warned that public criticism of Rumsfeld and President George Bush would not be tolerated. Another officer said: "Soldiers have bitched since the beginning of time. But what does 'bad morale' mean? That they're not combat-ready or loyal? Nobody here fits that definition."
Yet growing concern among military families fuelled reports yesterday that Washington may have to swallow its pride and turn to the United Nations for help.
US officials were said to be considering a new UN resolution that would open the door to international peacekeepers.
Washington has largely scorned the UN since it failed to approve the war, but the scale of the reconstruction effort has forced a rethink. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, has urged the coalition to move quickly towards a restoration of Iraqi sovereignty.
Before American forces can leave, however, Abizaid must find a way of stopping persistent lethal guerrilla attacks that appear to have been planned before Baghdad fell.
Despite Rumsfeld's previous reluctance to categorise them as anything more than gangster opportunism, Abizaid painted a startling picture of what he called "Ba'athist remnants" organised across the country.
Former members of Saddam's intelligence service, Special Security Organisation and Special Republican Guard had "organised at the regional level in cellular structure", he said. They were operating in groups of six to eight people, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns. He added: "The resistance is getting more organised, and it is learning."
However, defence experts in Washington said the attacks, which have killed 35 US troops since Bush declared the war over in May, were sporadic. "This is a very far cry from Vietnam," said John Pike, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org.
Other sources pointed to evidence that Saddam may have conceived of a guerrilla war long before the Americans invaded. The London-based Arab daily Al-Hayat published a document marked "top secret" that was purportedly found in Iraqi intelligence archives.
Entitled A Plan for Action in the Event of a Regime Downfall, it contains 11 orders for guerrilla-style resistance, including destroying power stations and "mobilising of dependable elements".
Saddam may be hoping the US will tire of casualties and hand control to a weak Iraqi government that would swiftly collapse. The Butcher of Baghdad might imagine being swept back to power on a wave of nostalgia for his iron rule.
An intelligence source last week insisted there was no sign that Saddam himself was orchestrating resistance. Nor are all the attacks being carried out by Saddam supporters. Abizaid identified several different culprits, including what he called "Al-Qaeda lookalikes".
Yesterday US forces claimed new success, announcing 1,200 arrests in sweeps in the area around Baghdad over the course of a week and the seizure of weapons. But danger loomed in the Shi'ite south, where a cleric denounced the governing council, despite its inclusion of several Shi'ite leaders.
"Do not stand by, hands folded, if this council does not express your opinion," declared Sheikh Muqtada al-Sadr, who told worshippers in the holy city of Najaf that "an Islamic army must be created and volunteers for this great army must come forward".
Previously implacable rivals, Iraqi Sunnis and Iranian-backed Shi'ites were briefly united in their complaints about American forces. Even Abizaid's Arabist sensibilities will be tested by the complex religious and political differences of the forces he needs to tame.
oThe former Iraqi information minister known as Comical Ali for his claims of victories even as Baghdad fell has been accused of ordering two murders while he was ambassador in Sweden nearly 20 years ago.
A criminal complaint was filed with Stockholm police last week. It accuses Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf of ordering the deaths of Majid Hussein, a former captain in Saddam Hussein's secret police who had defected, and Azad Jundi, an asylum seeker.
Additional reporting: Jon Swain.
© Copyright 2003, Times Newspapers Limited
