The US might be seen as withdrawing from Iraq, but really it is occupation by remote control, writes Ayman El-Amir* In pre-election congressional campaign hype, US President Barack Obama will announce next week that the full withdrawal of US combat troops in Iraq has been completed on schedule. They will leave behind not only a wreck that was once Iraq but a continuing war with different, more brutal rules of engagement. One- third of the full complement of the invasion force, or 50,000 troops, will remain in Iraq for support, assistance and training purposes that may reach far beyond that, including more combat missions. They will receive crucial assistance from an army of paramilitary contractors who are closely attuned to the lethal tactics of the notorious Blackwater USA. Blackwater killed 17 Iraqis in 2007 and has recently been fined $42 million for security violations and illegal arms smuggling. The violence and instability triggered by the US invasion are far from over, while the formation of a new government is hamstrung by sectarian and ethnic divisions. Daily explosions are reverberating ever more loudly and killing more Iraqis throughout the country. And with uncertainty hanging over the schedule of when the Iraqi police and army may be ready to take over security responsibilities, Iraq seems to be heading for a protracted war of sorts. To confirm the post- withdrawal situation of ambiguity, General Raymond Odierno, commander of the US forces in Iraq, stated he did not preclude the possibility of his (combat) forces returning to Iraq after complete withdrawal is fulfilled next year, if the Iraqi government so requests. In the history of colonial conquest, military occupation and exploitation is rarely so short-lived. Old colonial powers usually overstayed their welcome, assured by weak resistance and a favourable international environment. France occupied Algeria for 130 years; Britain occupied India for nearly 400 years, and Egypt for 74 years. Americans, however, have little patience for long and inconclusive wars. In the Korean War, US involvement under the United Nations' flag was less than four years. Vietnam's eight years of genocide is only surpassed by the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which has recently passed the 10-year mark. In Vietnam, the US losses were 58,000 dead and 350,000 wounded, and between 1-2 million Vietnamese casualties. In Iraq, US losses are 4,415 dead and tens of thousands wounded. Estimates place Iraqi casualties at between 200,000 and 500,000 deaths. US interest and involvement in Iraq is for the long haul. It includes the huge Gulf region's energy resources, the strategic location for military and commercial purposes, an observation post to monitor and cap Iran's rising regional power and ensuring continued belligerent Israeli supremacy in the Middle East. Of significant concern is the fact that the Middle East-Gulf area is a region in transition towards the unknown. The continued presence of the US military, whether for training, assistance, support, combat or any other reason, will always be a casus belli -- a cause for resistance by many groups of different motivations, including Baathists, Al-Qaeda and Iranian- supported resistance fighters. The conflict will further be fueled by the Pentagon's recruitment of a secret army under the name "security consultants", modelled on Blackwater's soldiers of fortune. Recruitment contracts have already been signed with companies like DynCorp and Xe. Should their mandate, privileges and immunities transcend the reach of a future Iraqi government then, like Blackwater USA, their actions will be atrocious and a cause for bloody confrontation with Iraqi resistance. Under circumstances of continued violence and instability, the "consultant" training mission may well turn into a secret war of assassination, psychological warfare, intelligence gathering, secret detention and torture, and defence of oil installations. In the process, they may end up rivalling the Green Berets in Vietnam. The Obama administration's exit strategy is based on the Iraqisation of the war in Iraq like the Vietnamisation of the war by former President Richard Nixon after the Tet Offensive in 1968. It involves training, supporting and supplying the Iraqi army and police and then moving on to Afghanistan. It is like a wild gambler who, after losing a few poker hands, moves on to the roulette table to lose more. Reports of the state of preparedness of the Iraqi army are conflicting. US commanders claim it is nearly up to par with the mission while the Iraqi chief of staff, General Babakir Al-Zibari, says that will not be the case until 2020 and only then can US troops leave Iraq in safe hands. The prevailing political chaos is a reflection of the sectarian conflict that was created primarily by occupation administrator Paul Bremer to divide Iraq, break up its power and make it more malleable to Western influence and exploitation. Whatever was the purpose of the invasion seven years ago, what it has achieved more than the destruction of country, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the control of Iraqi and Gulf energy resources is questionable. A recent case in point is the agreement between the US Halliburton and Royal Dutch Company of the Netherlands to develop Majnoon oilfield in southern Iraq and increase its annual output from 800,000 barrels to 1.8 million. President George W Bush's vice-president, Dick Cheney, was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000 and continued to draw deferred salary until after the invasion of Iraq. His stock options in the company rose from $241,000 in 2002 to over $9 million in 2004. Halliburton received more than $10 billion in contracts from the Bush administration for work in Iraq and elsewhere. Even if the current political logjam in Iraq is unblocked and a government is formed, under the steadying hand of Iran, there is no guarantee that the sectarian genie the US let out in 2003 will obediently climb back into the bottle. More likely, it will be a US policy of divide and rule by remote control. The more worrying question is if the professional Iraqi army and police force will be able to completely cleanse themselves of the sectarian affiliation and influence that are so clear in the current wave of bloodshed. Over and above colonial interests, former president George W Bush wanted the invasion of Iraq to be the litmus test for the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Initially, Bush and his neocon conmen conceived that the proliferation of a string of pro-American democracies was the best antidote to terrorism. This was short-lived. Not only was it abandoned before anything was achieved, but it was reversed by the new administration of Barack Obama. Draconian autocracies are now breathing more easily in the Middle East, consolidating their power, and some are preparing to bequeath their rule on their offspring. The relapse of democracy in the Middle East makes the future look darker for the people of the region and for US interests. Continued US presence in Iraq will reignite resistance on a much wider scale by forces of different religious and ideological orientation. For most of the 20th century, the presence of foreign military troops has been the root cause of resistance and guerrilla warfare, further strengthened by exploitative US interests in alliance with ruling dictatorships. * The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington DC.
