by Jarret B. Wollstein, Editor
Just days before President Bush declared that the U.S. is making “good progress” in Iraq and our plan to bring democracy to that country is “advancing well,” the U.S. embassy in Baghdad (Iraq’s capital) sent a long memo to the Secretary of State depicting an Iraq mired in chaos, despair and hopelessness.
As the following quotes from that memo, released by the Washington Post on 6-18-06, makes it clear, that there is little doubt that Iraq is now far worse off under U.S. occupation than it was under Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.
While most Iraqis applaud Saddam’s departure from power, they do not support the horrors that unending war and foreign occupation has brought to their country.
R 1243PZ JUN 06
FM AMEBASSY BAGHDAD
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 5042
INFO IRAQ COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS BAGHDAD 001992
SENSITIVE
(SBU) Beginning in March, and picking up in mid-May, Iraqi staff in the Public Affairs section have complained that Islamist and/or militia groups have been negatively affecting their daily routine. Harassment over proper dress and habits has been increasingly pervasive. They also report that power cuts and fuel prices have diminished their quality of life. Conditions vary by neighborhood, but even upscale neighborhoods such as Mansur have visibly deteriorated.
Women’s Rights
The Public Affairs Press Office has nine local Iraqi employees. Two of our three female employees report stepped up harassment beginning in mid-May. Indeed, some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative.
Another, a Sunni, said that people in her middle-class neighborhood are harassing women and telling them to cover up and stop using cell phones (suspected channel to licentious relationships with men). She said that the taxi driver who brings her every day to the green zone checkpoint has told her he cannot let her ride unless she wears a headcover.
Evictions
6. One colleague beseeched us to weigh in to help a neighbor who was uprooted in May from her home of 30 years, on the pretense of application of some long-disused law that allows owners to evict tenants after 14 years. The women, who is a Fayli Kurd, says she has nowhere to go, no other home, but the courts give them no recourse to this new assertion of power.
Power Cuts and Fuel Shortages A Drain on Society
Temperatures in Baghdad have already reached 115 degrees. Employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without. That was only about four hours of power a day for the city.
Central Baghdad neighborhood Bab al Mu’atham has had no city power for over a month.
Fuel lines have also taxed our staff. One employee told us May 29 that he had spent 12 hours on his day off (Saturday) waiting to get gas.
Security Forces Mistrusted
11. In April, employees began reporting a change in demeanor of guards at the green zone checkpoints. They seemed to be more militia-like, in some cases seemingly taunting. One employee asked us to explore getting her press credentials because guards had held her embassy badge up and proclaimed loudly to nearby passers-by “Embassy” as she entered. Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people.
14. Some of our staff do not take home their American cell phones, as this makes them a target. Planning for their own possible abduction, they use code names for friends and colleagues and contacts entered into Iraq cell phones. For at least six months, we have not been able to use any local staff members for translation at on-camera press events.
More recently, we have begun shredding documents printed out that show local staff surnames. In March, a few staff members approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate.
Sectarian Tensions Within Families
16. Ethnic and sectarian faultlines are also becoming part of the daily media fare in the country. One Shiite employee told us in late May that she can no longer watch TV news with her mother, who is Sunni, because her mother blamed all government failings on the fact that Shiites are in charge.
Frayed Nerves and Mistrust in the Office
17. Against this backdrop of frayed social networks, tension and moodiness have risen. One colleague told us he feels “defeated” by circumstances, citing the example of being unable to help his two year old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in the stifling heat. Another employee tells us that life outside the Green Zone has become “emotionally draining.” He lives in a mostly Shiite area and claims to attend a funeral “every evening.”
19. Staff members say they daily assess how to move safely in public. Often, if they must travel outside their own neighborhoods, they adopt the clothing, language, and traits of the area. In Jadriya, for example, one needs to conform to the SCIRI/Badr ethic; in Yusufiya, a strict Sunni conservative dress code has taken hold. Once upscale Mansur district, near the Green Zone, according to one employee is an “unrecognizable ghost town.”
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