From yesterday's Azzaman Newspaper:

“A health ministry source said yesterday that 15,000 detainees in the ministry of Interior prisons are suffering from Scabies. The disease panicked other detainees in the prisons that lack the basics needed to host human beings. Although the number of the infected is high, the Iraqi authorities did not provide any medical treatment to them. At the same time, the Iraqi authorities have refused requests fro international committees and organizations to visit these prisons and observe to specify what is needed.

The source, who visited some Interior ministry prisons, also said that the prisons authorities and the ministry of Health have not done anything to deal with this problem.”

Talk about progress made in Iraq now! And tell me about qualified people in the government!

Where is the “majority” when this is happening?

Some will say that under Saddam Hussein, the situation was worse in detention facilities. And I will say: So? Wasn’t that the reason why we wanted to be “freed” so we improve the life of all people, including prisoners?

Do you realize where Iraq is heading, or has been heading for a while? It is going down. Chaos, killings, car bombs, civil war, instable government, cholera and now scabies. In a few months, if this did not stop, Iraq will be wiped out of the map. It will be only a black hole on the planet.

15,000 persons with scabies! This is 15,000 lives and 15,000 futures. It is 15,000 families that were killed before they were born.

Do you realize the size of this catastrophe? We are in the 21 century for crying out loud and it is Iraq! It was until very recently the most powerful, most educated and most liberal country in the Middle East.

Where is the people that were voted into the government? Where are the followers of Sistani and Harith al-Dhari who vowed to serve the Iraqi nation?

Maliki and Talbani are vacationing in New York and talking to the world about the “progress” they’ve made in Iraq, when dozens of thousands of Iraqis are waiting for death come to their hospital bedsides suffering from cholera, or in prisons suffering from scabies.

How much longer do we have to wait and how many more Iraqis have to die and how much louder we have to cry for the world to realize that this Maliki’s government, the sectarian government and the government that was formed by giving shares to exiles who don’t care about Iraq and their only interest is to sink it more, is not working. That this government has failed since day one. That this government is not going to work?

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki

Many comments on this blog talk about how Shiites now have power in Iraq and how that should be a great model for other countries, not to bring Shiites to government but to let the majority in the lead. I don’t disagree with this theory, but I do have many concerns.

Let’s look at Iraq: After the invasion in 2003 the “Shiites” came to power. And I put the word Shiites between quotation marks because I don’t believe the Shiites who are in the government now represent any faction of Iraqis.

Who is in power? Absul Aziz al-Hakim, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Nouri al-Maliki, Muqtada al-Sadr, Hussein al-Shehristani and others. Does anyone of them represent Iraqis on a wide range?

What did the Iraqi Shiites, or “the majority” as they like to be called now, get from this government? Even something as minor as renovating the Askariya shrine that was bombed in February 2006 did not happen. What kind of developments did the Shiite south get so far?

We have witnessed two Shiite governments in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. What good did that bring Iraq?

The political leaders in Iraq now are Shiites by name only, but they don’t care about Iraq or Iraqis, obviously. They are all traumatized; they were forced to leave the country decades ago, many of their family members were killed by the baathist regime in Iraq. Hakim alone lost more than 60 relatives to the baathist government. Dawa party was banned and anyone with links to it was killed or forced out of the country.

That is the background our current leaders came with. Did it ever occur to anyone that the current leaders of Iraq are traumatized to the bone and such background doesn’t qualify people to be decision makers?

How can someone with a history of sorrows and agonies like Hakim be trusted to govern Iraq? He has all this hatred in his heart, understandably, and the only thought he has in mind is to take revenge. Not only by ordering his Badr “organization” to kill Sunnis everywhere and for no guilt of theirs, but also by turning a deaf ear and blind eye on the corruption of the government. Why should he care? This is the country that killed his relatives and sent him to exile for years and years.

This may sound harsh, but it is the truth, I believe.

Dawa party is leading Iraq now?! Are you kidding me! This party lost thousands of people to Saddam Hussein’s government and its followers will never forget the ugly campaigns the former regime launched against them. Does that mean they have a right to be the ruling power in Iraq now? NO. It means they should be allowed to participate in the government if they want. But it is not a must that the Prime Minister of Iraq is from Dawa party, which is the condition now in the political mayhem there.

They are all traumatized. They need help, not positions.

What did we expect when we allowed relatives of those who were killed by Saddam Hussein to assume power? Many people believe in the myth that Saddam Hussein favored Sunnis over others in Iraq and that all Sunnis were exempt from his torture, how do you want this traumatized group of exiles to treat Sunnis? And how do you want the Sunnis to react to what is happening to them in Iraq now?

I have a relative who worked as the manager of the financial department of one of the ministries for at least two decades. She was never a baathist and that got her in trouble several times, but the minister at the time liked her work and defended her. She was known for her honesty and diligence. But a few months after her ministry was taken by one of the Shiite groups, the minister approached her and said “frankly, we love your work and know that you have a great reputation, but now is the time of Shiites. I have to let you go.”

I never joined baath party, Dawa party, Hakim’s party or Sadr group. Does that mean I am not Iraqi and don’t have the right to be in a leading position in the government in the future?

Tell me now, is this the way it should be? Now is the time for Shiites? And what, the Sunnis go die?

Well, the answer according to the current system in Iraq is: Yes it does.

Iraqi Mojo commented on my last entry and said “but the fact is that his top guys were mostly Sunni Arabs. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that.”

And I wanted to ask him and all those who believe in this theory: And who are the top guys in post-war Iraq governments? Aren’t they only Shiites?

Under Saddam Hussein regime, you had to be favored by Hussein to get a position, and now you have to be favored by Sistani, Hakim and Jaafari to be in the government. Why are we still whining about Hussein’s time then?

“Part of the healing is acknowledging the truth about what happened. It helps us heal,” Iraqi Mojo said. But I ask: heal from what? And how? By phasing out every single Iraqi, who does not identify as a Shiite, and bring in whoever is in the street and fits the word even if they are unqualified? Is that how the new Iraq is going to heal?

What did the average Sunnis do to you and others so you want to heal? And if this is “help” why hasn’t is been working? And why it will definitely not work?

How will it help to keep talking about what Saddam Hussein did, or Zarqawi, or Sadr, or Hakim, or Harith al-Dhari?

The Iraqis need someone to unite them. They need someone to say “OK, hundreds of thousands were killed during Saddam and after him. Let’s forget about that time now and for ever. The best way to honor the dead is to prove that their lives did not go in vein and start building what they spent their lives hoping for, that is an Iraq where people can live together and be able to plan for ten years ahead.”

What we need now is a secular government that cares about renovating the infrastructure more than it cares about spending millions of dollars on religious shrines. We need a government that would build housing units so people can get jobs and places to live and get married and continue the circle of life that has been on hold since 2003. Shrines should always come later, never before human beings and their needs. Sistani and Harith al-Dhari should never be names mentioned when we talk about the government, never. If they want to be religious authority, then give them a rug and ask them to teach people how to pray. That’s what they are good for and that’s what they should be doing.

Don’t you think?

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki

Note: Ali published a new entry also. It's interesting.

Most of us, who are interested in what is going on in Iraq, watched live General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testifying on the situation in Iraq in the Cannon Caucus Room this morning and recommending steps in the path ahead. But I wonder how many people emphasized on the details of the session.

The testimony was not surprising. In fact they did not come up with anything that I haven’t talked about and predicted at least eight months ago, and for that matter many people did, too.

Progress is tangible in Iraq, success is attainable, the Iraqi government is facing challenges, the Iraqi forces are capable of handling the situation on their own or close to, the political parties are about to reconcile, the Iraqis are feeling the progress, less car bombs, less sectarian killings, less bodies in the streets and on and on with this talk, which I assume we are all used to now.

What struck me the most in the whole session was a sentence that was said in the introduction before the general spoke. Tom Lantos, Chairman of House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said that the Iraqi government should know that “the free ride is over.”

What an insult to Iraqis and Americans. You think that a career politician like Lantos would know by now how to choose his words. A “free ride”?

Let’s do the expenses here for a minute:

Hundred of thousands of Iraqis were killed.
About four million Iraqis displaced outside and inside Iraq.
People imprisoned in their homes and cannot leave because it is dangerous to peak over the outside door.
Dozens of bodies found tortured to death every single day in and around Baghdad and in other provinces.
The Iraqi youth have no teachers and professors, they stopped going to schools for fear of being murdered in one way or another, and they have no future.
Thousands of Iraqis lost their jobs in the “new democratic” Iraq and lost every means to provide for their families.
And many other items…

Was it a “free ride?”

Another thought:
Petraeus summarized by saying: “I have recommended a drawdown of the surge forces from Iraq,” starting end of this month. The interesting part is that I am not a politician, not a military man, not a professional political analyst but I was still able to interpret all this happening back in January. Read this post.

Have you noticed the political trick Bush played on the Americans yet?
He sent more than 20,000 more troops to Iraq earlier this year and is going to withdraw them by next July. Then we will be left with the original number of American troops in Iraq after all. So what did he do? Where is the withdrawal that most Americans are asking for?

This was the most awaited report from and on Iraq. What did it add to what we already know or heard about?

And what happens after July 2008?

“It would be premature to make recommendations on the pace of such reductions at this time,” Petraeus said.

Good for you. “Mission accomplished.” Or should I say: trick accomplished?

You can watch video clips from the hearing on CNN

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki

We "came here today to see with our own eyes the multiple changes that are taking place in Anbar province," President Bush said today during his visit to Iraq. "Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces."

For months now we’ve been hearing about the “success” and “stability” some parts of central Iraq are enjoying due to the “successful” surge that Bush tasked earlier this year. US generals and politicians have been talking about how safe the streets in Fallujah and Ramadi have become. They claim to be able to walk down the streets there with no flack jackets and with minimum security. They even invited Congress members and other influential figures to visit cities in Anbar province to see how “safe” they are.

Although any human being with the smallest working brain would know that this is not true, newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post and Los Angeles Times were tricked into it. I’ve read many stories talking about the “progress” that have been made in Anbar and other places. And that makes me furious because it proves that earlier this year, when I said that we will hear lies about “progress” in Iraq just to prepare for the withdrawal and that no one will care about the Iraqis anymore, I was right.

“We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq,” Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack said in a piece in the New Yok Times five weeks ago. They went to Iraq and spent eight days only, shuttled in armored vehicles when they weren’t flying in black hocks. Eight days… and did they meet Iraqis? NO.

“The first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops,” they said in the third paragraph, which is what we call “the nut graph” that tells the whole point and reason of writing a story. Do you get it?

“Last week we strolled down its streets without body armor,” they said about Ramadi. But did they tell us that it was ONE street only? No. they said “streets.” Did they tell us that this street was blocked four years ago and no car is allowed to move on it? Did they tell us that the street only leads to the US troops barracks, which means average Iraqis don’t use it anymore but to cross from one neighborhood to another? Did they tell us that it was the main street in Ramadi that was the busiest in the city and until it is the busiest again we cannot say it is normal again there?

I don’t get it. How can the Americans be so foolish? Why don’t they ask questions? Why don’t they check the information that is being fed to the?

Don't we still remember the city of Tal Afar in the north? Don’t we remember when Bush called it a “success story” a while ago and since then it’s been the perfect spot for al-Qaeda to stage their car bombs and suicide attacks? It is one of the most powerful evidences of the failure in Iraq.

If it is such a success in Anbar, where are the construction projects? Why don’t we see one factory back to working there? Anbar province houses Iraq’s biggest glass factory. Why isn’t it functioning again? And why we don’t see one single street being cleaned up of the rubble of four years of destruction? And why do we still see cement barriers and barbed wires everywhere?

Even if it is true and Anbar is safe now, should the Iraqi government be making all the efforts to start reconstruction there to make an example for Iraq to follow? How can the Iraqis be motivated if when there is insurgency, they have to suffer, and when there is not they also have to suffer. Why should they help the government to stabilize the country if in both cases the only winners are the Shiite government, Kurdish politicians and Sunni insurgents?

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki