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Al-Ahram Weekly 26 Aug. - 1 Sep. 1999 Issue No. 444 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 26 Aug. - 1 Sep. 1999 Issue No. 444
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Paying in blood and tears
By Salah HemeidAt first glance, the front-page picture that appeared in many newspapers last Wednesday of a woman wailing over a pile of rubble looked like just another Turk who had lost relatives in the recent earthquake near Istanbul. But the woman, whose face bespoke heart-rending pain, was neither a Turk, nor was she in Turkey. She was a bereaved Iraqi villager whose home and family had been destroyed in a US air strike a day earlier.
More than eight years ago, the US-led Western allies won the Gulf war against Iraq and imposed two no-fly zones on the country, claiming to protect Shi'ites living in the south and the Kurds inhabiting the north from President Saddam Hussein's oppression. Since then, US and British warplanes have continued their air patrols in Iraq's skies, insisting that the operations are necessary to contain Saddam's regime.
But it is not difficult to see that these objectives, so vigorously pressed by the American officials, are far from successful. In recent months the air patrols have turned into daily confrontations between Western planes and Iraqi air defences, which started challenging the no-fly restrictions after the December stand-off over Iraq's expulsion of UN weapons inspectors. Some of these confrontations have turned into bloody battles that have resulted in the death of many innocent civilians caught in the clashes.
Iraqi woman wails the death of her relatives after a US bombing raid outside the no-fly zones in which twelve people were killed
(photo: AFP)
In the latest incident, 12 people from one family were killed and one seriously injured when US warplanes attacked sites in Jassan, a small Iraqi town near the Iranian border on 17 August. The same day, American planes bombed several sites in northern Iraq, killing eight civilians and injuring nine others. Six days later US planes pounded a site near the town of Ba'shiqa in northern Iraq, again killing and wounding several civilians.
Who is to blame for the deadly atrocities and the slaughter of all these innocent civilians? Can the on-going massacre of Iraqis be brought to an end? Are the civilians simply trapped in this dirty war, or are they deliberately and methodically put near the military targets? Where are these precision bombs which the Americans have always boasted off?
Questions pile up and confusion still reigns supreme. Iraq claims that US pilots were targeting civilians. The US air force, however, denies Iraqi reports, saying it only targeted military sites. And as usual, the US army insists that the attacks were acts of self-defence against Iraqi provocation.
When Iraqi tanks stormed the northern provincial capital of Irbil three years ago and destroyed bases of Saddam's US-backed opponents, the American planes did not stop Baghdad's incursion into the heartland of Kurdistan. Nor did US planes intervene when Saddam's troops attacked Shi'ite villages in the south, the last such incident having taken place in July, when Iraqi troops bulldozed a whole town in Rumaitha, a Shi'ite settlement in southern Iraq.
The containment strategy is another problem. Washington's policy-makers have repeatedly asserted that the no-fly zones are part and parcel of their strategy of coupling "diplomacy with a show of force" in order to parry threats against Saddam's neighbours and block his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Kenneth Bacon, the chief Pentagon spokesman, has said that frequent US and British air raids this year have reduced by 40 per cent to 50 per cent the number of anti-aircraft missile batteries in the two zones. The United States can pretend, as Bacon did, that it has been able "to scare Saddam" and "force him to keep his head down". It can also claim that its air strikes have been effective in draining resources which might otherwise have been spent on other branches of Baghdad's military machine.
But this is nothing more than rhetoric and Washington seems not to have learned much from its past mistakes. The American failure to compel Saddam through use of force to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors in their efforts to rid Iraq of all its prohibited weapons is only one example.
In the wake of last week's wave of air strikes, the United States was criticised by its ally and partner France which had once helped set up the northern no-fly zone. French Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement lashed out at the American raids, saying that the policy victimises innocent civilians without shaking Saddam's hold on power. According to reports, France is planning to raise the issue during next month's session of the UN General Assembly, possibly setting the stage for a diplomatic tussle with the United States.
Washington's war of attrition has even come under fire at home. Eight influential Congressmen wrote to President Clinton this month scoffing at what they labelled "the continued drift in US policy toward Iraq". Their letter was expected to spark a larger national debate about the American approach toward Saddam.
One key question which Washington should answer is whether it wants to play another cat-and-mouse game with the Iraqi leader. Iraqi radars will continue to be turned on as US planes fly over Iraqi territory and switched off when they appear to be targeting air defences. As a result, a few more bombs will be dropped, but probably not close to the exact targets. While the bombing spree continues, more Iraqi civilians are paying the cost of a forgotten war in blood and tears.
