"Ring time deep" Iraq, struggling with the ruins left by the United States

Source: Global Times

Editor's Note: On May 1, 2003, then-US President George W. Bush delivered a speech aboard the aircraft carrier "Lincoln", announcing the end of the main war in Iraq. Exactly 19 years on, the United States has left Iraq with a still a mess – a difficult reconstruction effort, high unemployment, a lack of public services... For 19 years, the Iraqi people have hoped that the country will get on track as soon as possible, but the result has been endless suffering, which is also a huge failure for the United States, which pursues hegemony and so-called "democracy" in the Middle East. The Global Times reporter recently interviewed Chinese businessmen and scholars from Middle Eastern countries who have lived in Iraq for many years and listened to their stories about the serious harm caused by the United States to Iraq.

Suffered "the most shocking theft in modern history"

A recent article on britain's "open democracy" political website said that the War in Iraq launched by the United States has left the country with the after-effects of economic crisis, energy shortages, sectarianism and increased violence. Some economists estimate Iraq's poverty rate to be 30 percent or higher in 2021, youth unemployment was estimated at 25 percent before the pandemic, and nearly 60 percent of the country's population is under the age of 25. Some Western multinational companies operate key sectors of Iraq, plundering Iraq's resources and taking away the wealth that should have belonged to the Iraqi people.

Chen Xianzhong, a Chinese businessman who has been operating in Iraq for nearly 40 years, told the Global Times that the United States launched the Iraq War in 2003, leaving indelible wounds on the former ancient civilization and the original oil-rich country. His main concern is the serious problem of unemployment. Demonstrations continued in the capital Baghdad and in several southern Iraqi governorates. In the center of Baghdad's Tahrir Square and at the gates of the "Green Zone", there are always young people holding placards and shouting slogans, and their demand is "work, fight corruption", and there will always be a large number of riot police around the demonstrators.

After the United States launched the Iraq War, Iraq's own national enterprises have not developed. The hundreds of large state-owned enterprises supported by oil wealth during Saddam's time either became private or largely shut down, leaving many of those who had previously worked in them with nothing to do. Chen Xianzhong said that a large Iraqi state-owned garment company he often cooperated with in the past used to have more than 2,000 front-line workers, but since the war, because there are no orders, the company rarely starts work, and most of the time workers rely on subsidies provided by the state to survive. For example, he also said that more than 140 factories under the iraqi Ministry of Industry, which were affected by the War in Iraq, were basically in a state of shutdown, whereas in the past, the equipment and workers of these factories were very good. The country's industry cannot be developed, and many things used by Iraqis can only rely on imports, and the people have to pay more for it. The rise in the prices of some food and daily necessities has also made it unbearable for the people at the bottom. In supermarkets in Baghdad, the 1 kilogram of chicken thigh meat has risen from about $2 two years ago to about $4 now, and the price of eggs has risen by about 20 percent.

"Operating in Iraq, whether it's a pawn in a peddler or a celebrity, I have to be in regular contact. Despite their different social status, these Iraqis are almost complaining to me that since the United States invaded Iraq, the local social atmosphere has deteriorated, which is also a sequelae of the war. Chen Xianzhong said that the democratic life that the people at the bottom aspire to has not arrived, and they are disappointed by corruption and corruption.

Some Western media outlets have also slammed the United States for failing to make Iraq a "neoliberal utopia." In recent years, when oil prices have plummeted in the international energy market, the Iraqi government has had to worry about paying the salaries of 4.5 million public sector employees. After the war, Iraq's oil revenues were put into the U.S.-led "Iraq Development Fund," which was held in an account of the Federal Reserve. But in the years leading up to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, more than 70 U.S. companies won reconstruction contracts, and during the same period, Iraqi companies received only 2 percent of the contract value paid by the fund. A 2013 study by the Financial Times showed that the top ten contractors received at least $72 billion in business in Iraq. More importantly, the U.S. contractor did not complete the project, which is undoubtedly "one of the most daring and shocking theft crimes in modern history."

The "water shortage" and "electricity shortage" have led to the boiling of public resentment

"Iraq's infrastructure has been completely destroyed as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation, and successive U.S. administrations have failed to apologize and compensate the Iraqi people for their crimes and the damage and damage they have done to our country." Iraq's "Time" newspaper recently published an article attacking the US government and saying that "it is time for the Iraqi government and people and the international community to demand compensation from all those who have caused damage to Iraq in accordance with international law."

The infrastructure destroyed by the INVASION of the US military has not been completely rebuilt, which is reflected in the use of water and electricity by the people. The southern city of Basra is Iraq's largest port and second largest city, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow and flow into the Persian Gulf. Chen Xianzhong had recently lived in Basra for a while, and the tap water in his residence was bitter and salty, supposedly taken from the "two rivers" near the mouth of the sea, and was only simply purified. After the 2018 demonstrations by local people on the issue of drinking water, the Iraqi central government allocated more than $300 million to improve the water supply system, but only increased the amount of water supply, and the improvement of water quality was not obvious. Some Basra citizens reported that the reason why some interest groups control the local purified water plants and the mineral water industry is because they would rather let the people spend money to buy the mineral water they produce than upgrade the water supply facilities.

In 2018, at least 118,000 people were hospitalized in Basra due to water pollution, and Baghdad was also rated by some agencies as one of the most uninhabitable cities in the world, Al Jazeera reported. According to Chen Xianzhong, in downtown Baghdad, many neighborhoods have not changed a bit over the years. The road has been further potholed by its disrepair. Many of the buildings built decades ago are dilapidated. Due to political instability, few foreign tourists come to Iraq. Friends who have done tourism business say that 80% of hotels in Baghdad are now closed.

The problem of power shortages is also suffering for the Iraqi people. Due to weak infrastructure and excessive dependence on electricity imports from Iran, Iraq has experienced frequent "national power shortages" in recent years. Especially in the hot summer, the electricity shortage made the Iraqi people boil over, they asked: "We are an oil-producing country, why should we send a delegation to Iran to negotiate the purchase of diesel?" Isn't that ironic? High levels of debt and inefficient government work are seriously hindering the industrial development of our own country. "In June and July last year, hundreds of demonstrators ran to the Aziziyah power station in southern Iraq to protest and clashed with Iraqi security forces. When Iraq's electricity minister, Hantush, was forced to submit his resignation, local media said it was the 18th power minister to step down in the past 10 years, and "no one has survived a summer."

In an interview with the Global Times, Jabala, a member of the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Committee and columnist of pyramid newspapers, said: "At the beginning of the overthrow of Saddam's regime, Iraqis rejoiced, thinking that they could live a stable life from now on, and the United States could bring them a decent life, but the result backfired, and even the Iraqi people such as 'Uncle Hammer', who was originally frozen by the media camera and smashed saddam's statue, were dissatisfied, because they did not expect that the 19 years had faced frequent explosions. Shootings and increasingly tight living. ”

"Political imbalances, economic decay, social collapse, a sharp decline in the living standards of the people, as well as the deformity of newborns caused by the DEPLETED Uranium bomb of the US military, the rising incidence of cancer, and the serious damage to the environment are all substantial damage caused to Iraq by the US war." Jabala stressed that the United States has left Iraq a complete mess, bringing a series of obstacles and difficulties to the country's post-war reconstruction, restoration of social order and political stability. He believes that Iraqis have clearly seen that the United States is not waging war for ordinary people, but to grab the interests of the United States itself. "The so-called 'democracy' imposed by the United States in Iraq is actually a hidden selfish and strategic attempt by the United States to control Iraq," Jabala said. 'American-style democracy' is simply not suitable for Iraq's national conditions and political soil, resulting in Iraq's post-war wounds that are difficult to heal and have been groaning on the ruins caused by American invaders. ”

The country's political situation is constrained by a "quota system"

The fighting has resulted in the deaths of 1 million civilians in Iraq. U.S. troops in Iraq are notorious on the battlefield, and the world was shocked by images of their abuses at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

An article titled "The Destruction of the Entire Nation: Why the United States Wages War in Iraq" published on the Russian Independent Television website on May 1 said that 19 years ago, President George W. Bush announced the end of the main war in Iraq, but since then the US military has not stopped bombing the country. It wasn't until December 2011 that the United States withdrew all its combat troops from Iraq, leaving the country with an open Pandora's box. Since then, the extremist organization "Islamic State" has ravaged and once controlled about 1/3 of Iraq's territory, causing great harm to Iraqi civilians. Although the United States has long announced its victory over the terrorist group, a United Nations report released last year showed that about 10,000 Islamic State fighters are still active in Syria and Iraq.

Not only that, but the political interference of the United States with Iraq has also seriously affected the country's reconstruction path. Former Iraqi ambassador to the United States Sumida once wrote that since the fall of Saddam Hussein regime, a "power triangle" composed of political parties, militias and countries (governments) has been formed in Iraq, but the country is the weakest, it has only the appearance of a normal government, and the political will to be independent is extremely limited. Britain's independent news outlet Eye of the Middle East said that after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a "political quota system" was established in the country — the president was served by Kurds, the prime minister was Shiite, and the speaker was Sunni. Iraq has a population of more than 40 million, of which the Arabs account for about 78% (Shia account for about 60%, Sunnis about 18%), Kurds account for about 15%, in addition to Turkmen, Armenians and so on. Iraqis say such a "separation of powers" is what the United States would most like to see, in order to keep people of different denominations in check on each other, and the more chaotic the situation in Iraq, the more favorable it is for them to control Iraq and the entire Middle East.

In iraq's new National Assembly elections held last October, the "Sadr Movement" led by the anti-American-Shiite religious leader Sadr won 73 seats because the election slogan "Anti-Corruption, Anti-Corruption" catered to public opinion. A member of the National Assembly from the faction told Chen Xianzhong: "Corruption is the biggest social cancer in Iraq at present. There are many political parties in Iraq, and there are currently about 200 political parties and political entities that form a coalition of multiple parties, but in the view of this parliamentarian, such a party system is unlikely to change the current status quo, and the country's development is mainly due to interference from external forces such as the United States." Some government officials are well aware that they cannot sit in their current positions without listening to the United States.

Iraqi businessman Taha Lavi told Chen Xianzhong that after last year's election, the issue of forming a cabinet has been unsuccessful due to sectarian contradictions and competing interests. The new National Assembly met for the first time on January 9 this year. According to the Constitution, Parliament should elect a new President within 30 days of its first session. However, the presidential election was postponed several times due to "reasons such as the number of deputies present at the meeting did not reach a quorum". The Media in the Middle East believe that this is precisely the after-effect of the "political quota system" carried out by the United States in Iraq. Qatar's Al Jazeera tv reported that The Iraqi protesters demanded a thorough reform of the governance system, that is, the abolition of the "political quota system". Many believe that such a system will only encourage sectarian violence across Iraq. Not only that, but there are also young people complaining that the recruitment of public officials by the government must be nominated and recommended by a political party, which also affects their employment. Muhaim, manager of the operations department of a security company in Baghdad, told Chen that he applied for a job in many departments after graduation, but was rejected, some asking him to "spend money" and some asking him "why he did not join their political party." In desperation, Muhaim had to go to the security company to work, but this made his family always worry about his safety.