Is the U.S. really bringing stability to Baghdad?

In the coming weeks, we will see the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces on 19 March, and the fall of Saddam Hussein on 9 April. There will be much rancorous debate in the Western media about the success or failure of the “surge” and the US war effort here.

But for millions of Iraqis like Bassim, the war has robbed them of their homes, their jobs and often their lives. It has brought them nothing but misery and ended their hopes of happiness. It has destroyed Iraq.

Patrick Cockburn reports from Iraq, as honestly – and harrowingly – as ever.

People in Baghdad are not passive victims of violence, but seek desperately to avoid their fate. In April 2004, I was almost killed by Shia militiamen of the Mehdi Army at a checkpoint at Kufa in southern Iraq. They said I was an American spy and were about to execute me and my driver, Bassim Abdul Rahman, when they decided at the last moment to check with their commander. “I believe,” Bassim said afterwards, “that if Patrick had an American or an English passport [instead of an Irish one] they would have killed us all immediately.”

In the following years, I saw Bassim less and less. He is a Sunni, aged about 40, from west Baghdad. After the battle for Baghdad between Shia and Sunni in 2006, he could hardly work as a driver as three-quarters of the capital was controlled by the Shia. There were few places where a Sunni could drive in safety outside a handful of enclaves.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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