Saturday, February 23, 2008
George Bush's legacy in Iraq
Is best illustrated by the situation in Basra, the city with all the advantages and all the problems that will arise when you have no center of power to control events.
Yet the city remains deeply troubled. Disappearances of doctors, teachers and other professionals are common, as are some clashes among competing militias, most of which are linked to political parties. Murder victims include judicial investigators, politicians and tribal sheiks. One especially disturbing trend is the slaying of at least 100 women in the last year, according to the police. The Iraqi authorities have blamed Shiite militiamen for many of those killing, saying the militants had probably deemed the women to be impious.And this is what will happen all over Iraq when the US pulls out, until there is a consolidation of power sufficient to exert control. The continued presence of US troops will only delay the coming of that day.
“Most of the killings are done by gunmen in police cars,” said Sheik Khadem al-Ribat, a Basra tribal leader who claims no party membership. He spoke of the militias in an antechamber of his downtown mosque, his voice barely above a whisper. “These cars were given to the political parties. There are supposed to be 16,000 policemen, but we see very few of them on the street, and most of the ones we do see are militiamen dressed as police.”
Two dozen Shiite political parties and their respective militias compete, often violently, over control of the oil sector, seaport profits, smuggling operations across the nearby Iranian border and political authority over Iraq’s economic nerve center. So while the sectarian tension that has marred life elsewhere is missing here, the strife itself is not.
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