Iraq One Year On. by ABC TV News - Special Report Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 7.30 Report 1:28pm 19th Mar, 2004   Broadcast: 18/03/2004    "Insurgents push Iraq toward civil war", Reporter: Peter Cave.    KERRY O'BRIEN: The ABC's foreign affairs editor, Peter Cave, is standing by now in Baghdad.    KERRY O'BRIEN: Peter, I guess heightened tension would be an understatement as the anniversary approaches?    PETER CAVE, ABC FOREIGN EDITOR: It probably is Kerry. There's no doubt at all that this country is on the brink of a civil war and that there are people trying to push it over that brink. The bombing last night that killed 29 at a hotel not far from where I'm standing was one example. While that was happening there was also a rocket attack on American soldiers out at the airport. Two soldiers were killed there, another four or five were very badly wounded. In Baquba, to the north, a couple of rockets slammed into a police station, narrowly missing the policeman there, narrowly missing a couple of American troops and very badly wounding two civilians who were standing outside the police station. So certainly, as the anniversary approaches, as the handover to local control approaches, there are those here who are attempting to push it over that brink.    KERRY O'BRIEN: Of course that handover is just over three months away and when you look closely at the hurdles to overcome between now and then, you've really got to wonder. To what extent are these bombings and these attacks actually hampering the attempts to put that handover together in a smooth way?    PETER CAVE, ABC FOREIGN EDITOR: What they're doing more than anything else is eroding people's feeling of security, the feeling that they're safe in this country, that they're ready to move on to the next stage. The Americans would dearly love to hand over to an Iraqi government of some sort by the middle of this year. They'd like to have democratic elections out of the way by the end of next year and be out of here or certainly on the way out of here, moving troops out, by the end of this year. The way it's looking, that's not going to happen.    KERRY O'BRIEN: You've got the three ethnic groups, the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds, all with deep suspicion of each other, who somehow have to find a way to share that power democratically.To what extent do you have a sense that those suspicions are breaking down as they sit around the table putting their constitution together, trying to put a future together?    PETER CAVE, ABC FOREIGN EDITOR: Well, you've got various levels.You've got the interim Governing Council which consists of people appointed by the Americans, selected across a broad range of groups in the country, they're not regarded with a lot of respect by the vast majority of Iraqis. Certainly, while they're sitting down, making agreements with the Americans, other things are going in other parts of the country. I'm sure that members of the former regime sitting in the Sunni triangle have very little regard for what the interim council is agreeing and even the Supreme Ayatollah Sistani, who is the spiritual leader and to a large extent the political leader of the vast majority of people in this country, the 60 per cent of people who are Shiites, he has very little respect for what the council is doing. Even his own representatives can make an agreement, sign a piece of paper and he'll appear a few hours later and say that agreement isn't going to work. It's not what he wants    "Hope shines in Iraq gloom", Reporter: Mark Bannerman.    KERRY O'BRIEN: Occupation forces and Iraq's citizens are bracing for a spate of attacks as Saturday's anniversary of the first shots in the Iraq war loom close. The hotel bombing in Baghdad overnight leaving 29 dead, with a fear of worse to come. The body count of both Iraqis and Americans just keeps rising as insurgents target the people and infrastructure so vital to any hope of a democratic Iraq. And as the country still struggles to get to its feet, the 1 July deadline when America hands back sovereignty to a shaky interim Governing Council is approaching with gathering speed.To this point, there is still no date, nor agreed process, for even the interim election that would select a transitional government leading, at some indefinite future point, to democracy. With the spectre of civil war growing, it's a big ask. And in America, President George W Bush has his own double-edged Iraq legacy to deal with. Shortly we'll cross to Washington, but first, Mark Bannerman looks at life in Iraq since the war.    MARK BANNERMAN: Right now, Iraq is no place for the faint-hearted. Each day there are more than a dozen attacks against coalition forces or anyone who cares to associate with them. And, as last night's bombing of a Baghdad hotel showed, neither soldier nor civilian is safe in this country.    DICK CHENEY, US VICE PRESIDENT: The thugs and assassins in Iraq are desperately trying to shake our will. Just this morning they conducted a murderous attack on a hotel in Baghdad. Their goal is to prevent the rise of democracy. But they will fail.    MARK BANNERMAN: If progress is being made and democracy is on the rise, it is not immediately apparent to Faisal Younis and his family. Before the war he had a secure government job, a comfortable home and children educated at university.That job disappeared with Saddam. Now the family lives day-to-day without essential services, cooking by kerosene lamp, ashamed their country is occupied by foreigners. When the bombs started falling, when the Americans started driving up the highway just up the road from here, the tanks and the soldiers, how did you feel?    HALA YOUNIS: Upset. And I even cried, because I saw the blood on the streets, the blood of the Iraq soldiers.    MARK BANNERMAN: For this family it's fair to say the departure of Saddam has been a mixed blessing. As you can see looking at their table, food and many other essentials are now much easier to come by but they have come with a price.    HALA YOUNIS: For the positive side, food is available in every markets and there is a free trade here. But the most important point is the safety.    There is no safety. We can't walk on the streets.    MARK BANNERMAN: Little wonder this family feels insecure. In Iraq, the police is a force in name only. Here in a Baghdad suburb, there are 75 poorly trained men overseeing 350,000 people. They have no computers, and even phones are hard to come by.    COLONEL AHMED IZULDEN, AL QUDS POLICE (TRANSLATION): We don't have any way of collecting evidence. We don't have any cameras. I keep asking for equipment to monitor phone calls, to help me catch the criminals, but nobody is giving me anything.    JOOST HILTERMANN, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: The overall situation in Iraq in terms of security remains dismal.    MARK BANNERMAN: Joost Hilterman works for the International Crisis Group in Brussels and he has just returned from Baghdad. He believes the inability of the coalition to create a secure environment for ordinary Iraqis is its greatest failure and its greatest problem.    JOOST HILTERMANN: Well you can't start the rebuilding of the economy if people don't even feel safe going to their jobs, when traders don't feel safe driving on the roads. You cannot have fair elections in an unsecure environment. Security affects everything.    MARK BANNERMAN: In this security vacuum there's now evidence that across the country there's been a systemic campaign of assassinations intended to kill future community leaders. Late last year, Dr Abdul Al-Latif Al-Mayah, a distinguished academic, was gunned down in his car. Here at this major Iraqi university, four other academics have also been assassinated. The reasons for the killings are not clear. But their impact surely is.    HIBA AL-MAYYAH: If all this killing continue, there is very difficult to build a new Iraq, to establish a new government in Iraq. Because they killing the leaders, the professors who led Iraq.They're killing our future. Killing our hope. That's the problem.    MARK BANNERMAN: Hope comes in many forms.    Oil was and remains Iraq's great hope. According to the US, oil was to be the cash cow that would transform this country once Saddam was gone. In March last year, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the US House of Representatives: "The oil revenues of that country (Iraq) could bring between $US50 billion and $US100 billion over the course of the next two or three years." But that forecast was based on a peaceful Iraq, not one where terrorists sabotaged the oil industry at every turn.    JOOST HILTERMANN: I think Iraq is going to be in for a very hard time for quite some time. There is very little productive capacity. There is huge unemployment, so the challenges are huge.    MARK BANNERMAN: Faisal Younis knows the challenges first hand. He's a journalist by trade and he has been unemployed for 12 months. This week he began working for one of Iraq's new breed of independent newspapers. This should give him hope, but he's not sure.    FAISAL YANUS: We know what happened after the war. It's very bad, very bad. We very sad. We don't want the war. We want peace. We want a life. We want job.    MARK BANNERMAN: The impact of an ailing economy has implications, too, for the political process. Earlier this month a group of Iraqis hand-picked by the Americans signed up to a draft constitution. Those same people have also agreed to take over the running of the country by June and then to run elections to create an interim government early next year. The question is: Can they deliver?    JOOST HILTERMANN: Well, if you were to ask an Iraqi that question then the answer would be, "Well all previous timetables have gone out the window.    "So this one will too." There is a tremendous amount of goodwill between and among Iraqis. There are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong, for sectarian violence to increase. And for, in fact it is possible that the situation may dissolve into civil war. I'm not predicting it, but I think it is certainly something that is possible and we should guard against it.    MARK BANNERMAN: And that is the fundamental issue here, hope versus realism. Yes, there is goodwill but as last night's bombings show, there is also the capacity for violence and turmoil that will make any prediction seem utterly foolish.    "Bush feels pressure to bring troops home", Reporter: Jill Colgan    KERRY O'BRIEN: In America, President [George W] Bush is facing growing pressure to bring troops home and stop the loss of American lives. But an early withdrawal or a badly managed handover of power could spell disaster for Iraq and a major political fallout for the President. Washington correspondent Jill Colgan.    JILL COLGAN: An American Indian ritual to mourn the dead as the families of soldiers killed or injured in Iraq join anti-war protesters.    FEMALE MOURNER: Creative God we just thank you for this day. We thank you for all the people that have given their lives for us.    JILL COLGAN: This rally is one of a series of protests marking the anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. Their march is taking them to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the coffins of US soldiers are brought home but hidden from view.    MOTHER OF US SOLDIER #1: I'm here to honour my son, Kelley Stephen Prewitt. He was 24. His convoy was attacked or ambushed and he was killed.    MOTHER OF US SOLDIER #2: My son was killed last month. He was killed on February 3 or 4 for a useless, senseless, destructive war.    JILL COLGAN: More than 560 Americans have now died in Iraq. Now the families of those killed have found their voices and are calling loudly for the troops to come home. But President Bush cannot bring their sons and daughters home. The US has committed itself to a battle it must win, the stakes for this President are too high for any other outcome.    ANTHONY CORDESMAN, CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Today, unfortunately, the nation building in Iraq is a noble experiment, whether it works or fails, is still an issue.    JILL COLGAN: The US presidential envoy in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has the task of preparing to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis by June 30.    DR REUEL MARC GERECHT, FORMER CIA MIDDLE EAST SPECIALIST: Well I think Mr Bremer wanted to make it a much later date. I think the entire American plan in all sections, I mean, if the State Department had had its way, had their blueprint, I think you would have also seen a day for transfer much, much later down the road.    JILL COLGAN: Influential Shiite Cleric Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani has led the push to meet the June deadline. But Iraq does not have the government structures in place to cope with assuming responsibility for itself.    ANTHONY CORDESMAN: Are they ready to do that? No, they're not even close to being ready and in each ministry different procedures have to be evolved and each minister so far is doing it differently without having a new government in place.    JILL COLGAN: It's still unclear what role the US will play after June 30, though the coalition Provisional Authority headed by Ambassador Bremer will no longer exist.    ANTHONY CORDESMAN: A massive new embassy, thousands of people, almost all of them will be new people with no practical experience. And to say that we're ready to deal with the Iraqi government is as unrealistic as to say that the Iraqi government is ready to deal with us.    JILL COLGAN: Neither is the role of the US military clear.    GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: They will want us to be there to continue to help them, now in the process as we get towards June and beyond. As much of the responsibility as we can turn over to the Iraqis we will do.    DR REUEL MARC GERECHT: They really do want the Iraqis to have more control. They would rather have the Iraqis making all these hard decisions.    JILL COLGAN: But the US will no longer have carte blanche military powers. Its troops will continue patrols and training Iraq's new security forces and it will maintain its rapid response units. But the US may have to ask permission from the Iraqi Governing Council to take pre-emptive strikes against targets in Iraq.    ANTHONY CORDESMAN: A transfer of sovereignty is a transfer of sovereignty. You've had the US commander in Iraq saying that he believes the Iraqis are going to ask us to stay, that they're going to cooperate with us and they understand what is necessary to do the security job. He's also said that if they ask us to leave we have no choice.    JILL COLGAN: It's likely Americans will see at least two more years of their soldiers heading off to a battleground a long way from home. An issue that's already shaping up as a central platform in the battle on US soil for the American presidency later this year.    SENATOR JOHN KERRY, US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're still bogged down in Iraq.What we have seen is a steady loss of lives and mounting cost in dollars to the American taxpayer, with no end in sight.    JILL COLGAN: In Washington, anger at the anti-war protests bubbled over at a rally outside a military hospital where wounded soldiers are convalescing.    PRO-WAR DEMONSTRATOR: You say someone else should be ashamed. Are you going to demonstrate at a cemetery next?    ANTI-WAR PROTESTER #2: Yes because people have been killed for what?    JILL COLGAN: Many Americans are deeply uncomfortable with public demonstrations against the war, viewing them as unpatriotic, an insult to the troops still serving. But one protester who says he's a former marine who served in Iraq last year, claims many soldiers simply want to come home.    FORMER MARINE: They fought for something that they didn't believe in. You say you know the troops. I was there, I talked to the troops. These are my friends and people who fought next to me that are in there right now. They're sitting convalescing in that hospital. Some of them are missing limbs for a war they didn't support or believe in.    JILL COLGAN: The Bush Administration will walk a difficult path on its retreat from Iraq. It will begin that process on June 30, but it will be forced to placate public opinion at home while ensuring it leaves Iraq capable of sustaining the democracy promised by the US. Visit the related web page
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