Read Online Don't Panic: Isis, Terror and the Middle East by Gwynne Dyer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gwynne Dyer
Tags: General, Social Science, History, Political Science, Modern, middle east, Terrorism, World, Islamic Studies, 21st Century, Middle Eastern
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Willis, former senior official, Coalition Provisional Authority
American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone. In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did .
Alan Grayson, Florida-based attorney prosecuting CPA corruption 12
The consequence of all this corruption was that there was practically no improvement in living conditions in Iraq to compensate for all the inconveniences and humiliations of the foreign occupation. Four years after the arrival of U.S troops, Baghdad was still getting only six hours of electricity a day; even today, Iraqi living standards are far below what they were in Saddam Hussein’s heyday. So one can easily imagine the gradual development of a resistance movement against the occupation among disgruntled Iraqis over a period of a few years. In fact, it took only a couple of weeks, and the blame for that remains with L. Paul Bremer III for his demented decision to disband the entire army and police force and purge all former Ba’ath Party members from the bureaucracy. He had unwittingly imposed a social revolution on the country, driving the Sunni Arab minority from power after five centuries on top, and creating a reservoir of half a million Sunni ex-soldiers and ex-bureaucrats with a deep grievance against the occupation authorities and lots of time on their hands.
The very earliest clashes were spontaneous, like the unarmed demonstration in late April 2003 by students in the Sunnicity of Fallujah against the takeover of a local high school as a base for American soldiers. Shots were heard off in the distance, the nervous U.S. troops opened fire from the roof of the school, and thirteen students were killed. But by May the first deliberate attacks against American soldiers were taking place, mainly in Sunni areas in and around Baghdad and in the smaller Sunni cities of Fallujah and Tikrit. At first these usually consisted of ambush operations in which small groups of guerrillas would open fire at passing American vehicle convoys, together with the planting of some primitive IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) by the roadsides. The American occupation authorities dismissed these resisters as “dead-enders” who would soon fade away, but in fact the attacks grew quickly in scale and complexity: by mid-summer the U.S. army was losing an average of one soldier killed and seven wounded each day.
We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture them or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order on this country .
L. Paul Bremer III, June 30, 2003 13
Bring ’em on!
President George W. Bush, July 2, 2003 14
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq .
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Mosul, Iraq, July 21, 2003 15
I think we have to recognize that as time goes on, being occupied becomes a problem .
L Paul Bremer III, October 26, 2003 16
The insurgency took a major step up on August 19, when a massive truck bomb was driven up to the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, the headquarters of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq that had been created only five days earlier, and exploded outside the office occupied by U.N. Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello. Twenty-two people were killed in the blast, including Vieira de Mello, and more than a hundred were wounded. As a result, the United Nations withdrew most of its six hundred staff from Iraq. It was not the first truck bombing in Iraq—the Jordanian embassy had been struck on August 7, killing seventeen people—but it was the first suicide bombing. It was also puzzling: why was the Iraqi resistance wasting its time attacking the United Nations?
There was no answer at the time, but in the following year a Jordanian called Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of an Islamist revolutionary group, claimed credit
American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone. In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did .
Alan Grayson, Florida-based attorney prosecuting CPA corruption 12
The consequence of all this corruption was that there was practically no improvement in living conditions in Iraq to compensate for all the inconveniences and humiliations of the foreign occupation. Four years after the arrival of U.S troops, Baghdad was still getting only six hours of electricity a day; even today, Iraqi living standards are far below what they were in Saddam Hussein’s heyday. So one can easily imagine the gradual development of a resistance movement against the occupation among disgruntled Iraqis over a period of a few years. In fact, it took only a couple of weeks, and the blame for that remains with L. Paul Bremer III for his demented decision to disband the entire army and police force and purge all former Ba’ath Party members from the bureaucracy. He had unwittingly imposed a social revolution on the country, driving the Sunni Arab minority from power after five centuries on top, and creating a reservoir of half a million Sunni ex-soldiers and ex-bureaucrats with a deep grievance against the occupation authorities and lots of time on their hands.
The very earliest clashes were spontaneous, like the unarmed demonstration in late April 2003 by students in the Sunnicity of Fallujah against the takeover of a local high school as a base for American soldiers. Shots were heard off in the distance, the nervous U.S. troops opened fire from the roof of the school, and thirteen students were killed. But by May the first deliberate attacks against American soldiers were taking place, mainly in Sunni areas in and around Baghdad and in the smaller Sunni cities of Fallujah and Tikrit. At first these usually consisted of ambush operations in which small groups of guerrillas would open fire at passing American vehicle convoys, together with the planting of some primitive IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) by the roadsides. The American occupation authorities dismissed these resisters as “dead-enders” who would soon fade away, but in fact the attacks grew quickly in scale and complexity: by mid-summer the U.S. army was losing an average of one soldier killed and seven wounded each day.
We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture them or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order on this country .
L. Paul Bremer III, June 30, 2003 13
Bring ’em on!
President George W. Bush, July 2, 2003 14
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq .
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Mosul, Iraq, July 21, 2003 15
I think we have to recognize that as time goes on, being occupied becomes a problem .
L Paul Bremer III, October 26, 2003 16
The insurgency took a major step up on August 19, when a massive truck bomb was driven up to the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, the headquarters of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq that had been created only five days earlier, and exploded outside the office occupied by U.N. Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello. Twenty-two people were killed in the blast, including Vieira de Mello, and more than a hundred were wounded. As a result, the United Nations withdrew most of its six hundred staff from Iraq. It was not the first truck bombing in Iraq—the Jordanian embassy had been struck on August 7, killing seventeen people—but it was the first suicide bombing. It was also puzzling: why was the Iraqi resistance wasting its time attacking the United Nations?
There was no answer at the time, but in the following year a Jordanian called Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of an Islamist revolutionary group, claimed credit
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