Baghdad -- Om Hussein, wrapped in her black abaya, lists the contents of the family's walk-in storage closet: three 175-pound cases of rice, two 33-pound cases of cooking fat, six cases of canned tomatoes, three crates of assorted legumes, a one-month supply of drinking water, frozen chicken livers in the freezer. And in the garage, jerry cans filled with fuel are piled floor to ceiling.

Om Hussein, who was reluctant to give her full name, and her Shiite family are preparing for war. They've stocked up on food. They bought a Kalashnikov rifle and a second car -- so that there is space for all 13 members of their extended family should they need to flee in a hurry.

"We are afraid of what will happen in the coming days," she says. "Maybe there will be a monthlong curfew, or maybe fighting in the streets will force my family to stay in the house for days at a time."

In the past week, President Bush has tried to assure Americans that Iraq has stepped back from the brink of civil war. "Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace," he told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Monday.

Few Iraqis, however, share Bush's view that the crisis has been averted. They are readying themselves for the worst, fleeing likely flash points, stockpiling weapons and basic foodstuffs, barricading their neighborhoods, and drawing lines in the sand delineating Sunni and Shiite territory.

Since the golden dome of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra was reduced to rubble last month, the country's long-simmering sectarian feud has flared into the open with unprecedented brutality.

In the wake of that attack, a series of sectarian reprisals has left hundreds of ordinary Iraqis dead and dozens of mosques ransacked. Daily execution-style killings and car bombings continue. On Sunday, multiple car bombs killed scores. The bodies of scores more, many bound and garroted, have been discovered around Baghdad since Monday. The capital's hospitals overflow with the wounded. Meanwhile, the country's politicians remain deadlocked in negotiations to form a government based on the outcome of elections more than three months ago.

A recent AP-Ipsos Poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans think a civil war is likely in Iraq. Iraqis by and large share that assessment. The dozen Iraqis interviewed for this article, Sunnis and Shiites, have bleak expectations. Many are afraid and increasingly reluctant to see their names or their pictures in print.

"There is no security right now, and I don't expect things to get better," says Tahrir Aboud Karim, 25, an abstract painter who has laid down his brushes and taken up arms to defend his largely Sunni neighborhood against roving Shiite militias. "I'm an artist, so I have a sense of what people need. When things were peaceful in Iraq, the people were lacking beauty, so I painted. Now the people need security, so I have become a soldier."

Every evening, after sunset, Karim joins some 50 young men at checkpoints around the perimeter of the Al Jihad district in southwest Baghdad. Makeshift barricades of palm trunks, scavenged razor wire and rubble have turned this 1,500-home neighborhood into a quasi-fortress.

Karim and his band of armed neighborhood watchdogs have maintained an uneasy calm. Elsewhere, Shiites and Sunnis have become refugees in their own country, as they flee neighborhoods and outlying villages where they have found themselves members of a suddenly unwelcome minority.

On the other side of Baghdad, more than 50 Shiite families from nearby villages have turned the classrooms of the Al-Shahid Al-Jazairi elementary school in the Shiite neighborhood of Shoala into a refugee camp. They sleep on the school's cracked tile floors, atop dust-colored mattresses donated by neighbors, and cook with kerosene camping stoves.

Mohammed Hussein, a 32-year-old Shiite shopkeeper from the Sunni-dominated suburb of Abu Ghraib, near the infamous prison, has taken shelter here. The day after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, he says, he found a notice pasted to the door of his women's clothing store in the Abu Ghraib market.

"We have information that you are engaged in suspicious activities and have cooperated with suspicious people," the notice read. "You have 48 hours to leave." It was signed by a group calling itself the Mujahedeen Brigades. Hussein collected his family and fled that same day.

"Now I don't have anything," he says. "I had to leave all the goods in the store, and all my furniture in my home. It's not safe to go back to get them."

At least 10 other Shiite families fled Abu Ghraib that same day, he says. Hussein, once content to live among Sunnis, is now vowing to fight his erstwhile neighbors. "I don't have the money to buy guns, but if they try to attack me again, I will fight even if I have to use stones," he says.

Such stories can be found on both sides of the Shiite-Sunni divide, as the respective sects consolidate their territory and expel potential enemies. Until last week, Abu Abdallah lived in Diwaniya, a largely Shiite provincial capital south of Baghdad. Abdallah, a Sunni, fled when Shiite militias loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr began attacking the city's Sunni residents.

"They raided our mosque, and killed or kidnapped many of the worshipers and guards," he says. "They started to raid our homes and kidnapped whole families at random."

The 36-year-old father of two fled Diwaniya with his family and the clothes on their backs. They moved in with relatives in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Baya. Once a mixed neighborhood, Baya is increasingly a Sunni-only domain.

"Anyone who says this war has a solution is wrong," says Abdallah, his family's recent ordeal etched in sunken, blood shot eyes. "This is truly a civil war now. There is only hatred, envy and a blood-thirst for revenge."

The migration to safer neighborhoods and provinces has upended property values across Iraq. Real estate prices in Baghdad have plummeted, while rents in onetime backwaters such as Nasiriya have skyrocketed. For many Shiites, that relatively calm southern city has become a sought-after haven from the sectarian bloodshed roiling Baghdad and central Iraq.

"You could buy a house in Nasiriya for $1,500 before the war," says Hussein Ali, a real estate broker in Baghdad. "That same house today is worth between $50,000 and $60,000 because now, especially after the Samarra bombings, people are desperate to live someplace safe."

Meanwhile, Iraqis are stockpiling arms, preparing to defend themselves in the event of a full-scale civil war. Arms dealers say that the supplies of guns for sale -- once as common as date trees and kebab stands -- have largely dried up.

"After the Samarra bombings, the demand for guns went way up, and the supply became very low," says a gun dealer in Baya, speaking anonymously out of fear for his safety.

Weapons prices have skyrocketed. A used Kalashnikov that sold for $100 before the Samarra bombing now sells for $150. The price for a 9mm Browning handgun has gone up from $800 to $1,200.

The hobbling arms dealer stands behind the counter of his gun repair shop polishing the barrel of a Russian-made Makarov pistol. His succinct appraisal of the Iraqi weapons market suggests what may lie ahead:

"This is not the time to sell guns, only to buy guns."

In the Jordanian capital, Raad, 38, played Beatles covers and jazz music in bars, hotels and at special functions to raise enough money to get his family out of Iraq.

A few weeks after Baghdad fell, his wife and two sons joined him in Amman and the family has since applied for refugee status in the US.

Youth leaving

Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, stories like Raad's are becoming increasingly common.

Tens of thousands of mostly young Iraqi professionals, artisans, musicians, college professors and doctors have left in search of security and stability abroad.

Zeyad Alwan*, 30, a medical professional in Baghdad, says the carnage in the city has convinced him he must leave by any means possible.

"I simply don't want to get killed by an illiterate, black-clad slum dweller, or a militiaman dressed in police uniform, or a young confused soldier from Texas, or a bearded fundamentalist from Yemen or Saudi Arabia," he said.

Alwan had wanted to leave before the 2003 invasion, citing a thirst for personal freedoms which he could not achieve under the government of Saddam Hussein and its suppression of political dissent.

"I have seen enough people kidnapped, shot at, and blown to pieces; and I have witnessed many friends, colleagues and family leaving the country. It's not the same country I used to live in. I don't know it anymore."

UN attack

For Omar Farouq, it was the attack on the United Nations compound in late August 2003 that spelled the end to his hopes of staying in Iraq.

A communications officer for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Baghdad, Farouq and his wife had planned to take a vacation in Lebanon for a few weeks before resuming work in the newly liberated country.

However, following the attack on the UN, violence escalated dramatically in Iraq and the international body pulled its foreign staff from the country.

"Things in Baghdad started to get more and more destructive. Prolonging our stay in Beirut ... we came to the decision that starting life over again in another country would be best for us," he said.

He finally settled in London.

Although the decision to leave Iraq has haunted him, he has no regrets, pointing to the declining state of leadership and management in the country.

Mismanagement, corruption

"Unfortunately because of the sectarian division ... the country is now in absolute chaos. I also don't believe that the country can be prosperous even with the reconstruction efforts of the local Iraqis because of the corruption and mismanagement of the country's funds."

Berlin-based Transparency International (TI), founded in 1993 to curb corruption in international transactions, warned in early 2005 that Iraqi reconstruction efforts were failing due to extensive corruption.

"If urgent steps are not taken, Iraq will not become the shining beacon of democracy envisioned by the Bush administration, it will become the biggest corruption scandal in history," the Global Corruption report of the non-profit, independent organisation found.

Farouq said he felt that Iraq was being "sucked dry" of its natural resources.

Trying to return

Then there are others who have bucked the trend and tried to enter Iraq rather than leave.

But for Leila Zaid*, a medical nuclear engineer, her hope of putting her expertise to good use in the war-torn country did not materialise.

"I design, repair and develop medical machines for treating and curing cancer patients," she told Aljazeera.net, explaining that her skills are very much in need in Iraq.

From her home in the Netherlands, where she has lived since the mid-1990s, she contacted officials at the Iraqi health ministry, hoping to contribute to the reconstruction effort.

After weeks of silence, she offered her services for free but was rebuffed.

After 18 months of trying to get Iraqi officials to listen to her, she says, she gave up and decided returning to Iraq would be too dangerous anyway.

She may have made the right choice.

Professionals targeted

The BRussells Tribunal, a committee of intellectuals and artists established in the tradition of the 1967 Vietnam War crimes Russell Tribunal, says hundreds of Iraqi professionals have been killed in Iraq since 2003.

"With thousands fleeing the country in fear for their lives, not only is Iraq undergoing a major brain drain, the secular middle class - which has refused to be co-opted by the US occupation - is being decimated, with far-reaching consequences for the future of Iraq," the tribunal says.

The tribunal's website has published the names and vocations of at least 130 scientists, doctors and academics killed in the past three years.

The Iraqi Association of University Lecturers says 300 Iraqi academics have been killed since 2003.

An education ministry tally says 100 academics have left the country since the beginning of the war.

Imad Khadduri, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist and physics professor residing in Canada, believes the brain drain has sealed the future of the country's education system.

"With no one left to train Iraqis to teach and instruct a new generation, any hope of reconstruction in the country is lost.

"This is a great, great danger to Iraq's future," he said.

Put on hold

Alwan believes efforts to rebuild the country may have to be put on hold for the time being.

"Some of us might have more to offer to Iraq in a safer environment. We are not meant to prosper in war zones. Perhaps there will be a time when we can all return and help heal Iraq's wounds. Now is not that time."

Farouq has a more pessimistic outlook, saying he and his wife miss Baghdad as well as the family and friends left behind, but he would never consider returning.

"I lived through the Iraq-Iran war along with the two Gulf wars. I witnessed 13 years of crushing economic sanctions affecting everyone around me. But what's happening in Iraq now has, by far, surpassed that."

* Some of those interviewed requested their real names not be published for fear of reprisals against family members in Iraq

The overstressed network is producing less than half the electricity needed to meet Iraq's exploding demand. American experts are working hard to shore up the system's weaknesses as 100-degree-plus temperatures approach beginning as early as May, driving up usage of air conditioning, electric fans and refrigeration.

If the summer is unusually hot, however, ''all bets are off,'' said Lt. Col. Otto Busher, an engineer with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division.

''We're living miserably,'' said housewife Su'ad Hassan, a mother of four and one of millions in Baghdad who have endured three years of mostly powerless days under U.S. occupation. Her family usually goes without hot water and machine washing, she said, and ''often my children have to do their homework in the dim light of oil lamps.''

Despite such hardships, Army Corps of Engineers officers regard their Restore Iraq Electricity project as one of the great feats in corps history, along with the building of the Panama Canal a century ago.

Their efforts and related programs, at a three-year cost of more than $4 billion and tens of thousands of man-hours, built or rehabilitated electric-generating capacity totaling just over 2,000 megawatts - equaling the output of America's Hoover Dam.

''It's not a disappointment, not in my opinion. We've added megawatts to the grid,'' said Kathye Johnson, reconstruction chief for the joint U.S. military-civilian project office in Baghdad.

For one thing, deprived areas outside the Iraqi capital are doing better, with a nationwide average of 10 to 11 hours of electricity daily, compared with three to five hours in Baghdad. That represents a reshuffling of priorities from prewar days, when the Baathist government diverted flows from northern and southern power plants to this central metropolis.

Although the U.S. effort helped boost Iraq's potential generating capacity to more than 7,000 megawatts, available capacity has never topped 5,400, held down by plant breakdowns and shutdowns for maintenance, fuel shortages and transmission disruptions caused by insurgent attacks, inefficient production, sabotage by extortionists, and other factors.

In the first week of February, a busy maintenance period, output dropped to 3,750 megawatts, reports the joint U.S. agency, the Gulf Region Division-Project Contracting Office. That's a new low since the period immediately after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Now the U.S. reconstruction money is running out, the last generating project is undergoing startup testing in southern Iraq, and the Americans view 2006 as a year of transition to full Iraqi responsibility, aided by a U.S. budget for ''sustainability,'' including training and advisory services.

Even that long-term support may fall short, however. The reconstruction agency allotted $460 million for this purpose, but in a report to Congress on Jan. 30 the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction estimated $720 million would be needed.

The decline of Iraq's electrical system can be traced back at least to the 1991 Gulf War, when U.S. warplanes targeted the grid. The government rebuilt the system to produce 4,400 megawatts, still short of demand. But damage from the 2003 invasion - and particularly from looting that followed - knocked production down to 3,200 megawatts and wrecked transmission lines.

The Army engineers who rolled into Iraq in 2003 found power plants barely operating, lacking spare parts and suffering from years of neglect brought on by U.N. trade sanctions. They brought in contractors to upgrade installations, but the looting and sabotage went on. Insurgents attacked fuel pipelines. Other Iraqis toppled transmission towers to keep power in their own cities and away from Baghdad.

To battle the insurgency, U.S. authorities shifted more than $1 billion from power projects to security spending. Having planned to add or rehabilitate 3,400 megawatts' worth of power production, they settled instead for 2,000. The lack of security also slowed work: Fewer than half the 350 local power-distribution projects planned by the Americans had begun as of early this year, the inspector-general reported Jan. 30.

''It's problems, rather than mistakes,'' said Mohamoud al-Saadi, an Iraqi Electricity Ministry official, citing the sabotage and insurgency.

But some believe the Americans also made a critical mistake by installing gas-turbine generators rather than building or overhauling more of the oil-fueled, steam-run plants.

Iraq doesn't have pipelines to deliver natural gas from its oil fields, so plant operators resort to low-grade oil to run the gas-combustion engines, reducing power output by up to 50 percent and potentially damaging the machinery.

''Turbines don't run well on that, and that forces us into a maintenance cycle,'' said Tom Waters, deputy director for electricity in the U.S. reconstruction office.

Meanwhile, demand kept rising as Iraqis bought imported air conditioners, washer-driers, DVD players and other power-hungry appliances. To help fill the gap, households or neighborhood groups are buying diesel-run generators, stringing dangerous makeshift wiring around their homes.

Demand, almost 9,000 megawatts last summer, is expected to rise sharply this year, and the Army engineers responsible for Baghdad are worried.

''We're about 4,000 megawatts in the hole nationwide to meet our needs,'' Maj. Al Moff, 4th Infantry Division electricity specialist, noted at a recent internal briefing for division officers.

He said the system risked losing 300 megawatts more in hydroelectric power because the Tigris River was running extremely low. But a recent agreement by Turkey to release more upriver water appears to have lifted that threat.

One solution could be power from Iran: one Iraqi proposal is for a transmission line to import much more than the 100 megawatts of Iranian power Iraq now buys.

The U.S. Embassy won't talk about it, in view of Washington's animosity toward Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. But the reconstruction office's Waters said one of the U.S.-financed Iraqi substations under construction could handle more Iranian power.

''Completing an Iran transmission line could give them up to 1,500 megawatts,'' said Army engineer Moff.

The Iranian Embassy says Tehran has earmarked $1 billion in loans for Iraqi infrastructure, mostly for electrical power, the Iranian news agency reports.

Even if a major Iran linkup is built, however, other projects may stay in the blueprint stage unless more aid is forthcoming from Washington or other donors.

''We have a lot of unfinished projects because of a lack of government funding,'' said the Electricity Ministry's al-Saadi.

Reconstruction chief Johnson agrees with Iraq's five-year cost estimate. ''It's probably in the range of $16 to $20 billion to complete the infrastructure to provide 24/7 sustainable power to all the citizens of Iraq,'' she said.

In the long term, Johnson said, it's essential for Iraq to open its power industry to private investment. That would mean making it profitable by following the advice of the World Bank and others to raise rates; Iraqis now pay 50 cents to a dollar a month.

Can people afford more?

Hassan's family already cannot afford fuel for its small generator. ''Most of the time we can't use it,'' the Baghdad housewife said.

Whether she and others can afford higher rates, a classic ''chicken and egg'' problem confronts energy-short Iraq, said Moff.

''Before you can raise rates,'' he pointed out, ''you have to have power.''

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

"Today the Americans came to these parts and the buried bomb blew up their Hummer vehicle," says a teenage boy, adding, "if Allah wants it, the mujahadeen will win."

This grisly footage, purportedly shot in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, has appeared in the form of a three-minute video on the Internet. It marks the latest attempt by Jihadist militants to exploit children for propaganda purposes.

Last week Adnkronos International (AKI) obtained a copy of another video shot in Ramadi. On that occasion the action shown took place in the apparently placid setting of a school classroom.

Still, sinister references to the carnage that blights Iraq on a daily basis soon became evident. The pupils were being taught to sing Jihad songs by hooded militants who rewarded their efforts with pens, rulers and erasers. The video concluded with images of two small boys, clad in black tunics and wearing black ski masks and one holding a pistol in his tiny hand.

Unlike the professionally shot video of the schoolchildren posted on the Internet by the Ansar al-Sunna group, part of the terror galaxy of al-Qaeda linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the latest crudely filmed footage bears no indication on who its authors might be.

But the sudden appearance of children protagonists in the videos, indicates that the Jihadist militant groups have no intention of sparing the young from the horrors of the fighting. It also shows the extent of the militants' control in the restive al-Anbar province, were Ramadi is located.

During World War II, after German occupation of Europe was complete, there arose underground resistance movements. Prominent among these were the French and the Norwegians. When I was in high school in the 1950's I was a World War II buff. After all, the war was not long over and many men in our small community, including my father and his three brothers all fought in WWII.

Many have disparaged the French resistance as too few in number and ineffectual. But while in high school I recall reading a story of a husband and wife in the French resistance. One day they were in a café when the Gestapo stormed in, guns drawn, and advanced toward their table. The husband pulled out his pistol, shot his wife in the head and then killed himself. They knew the end was at hand and that before death there would be torture. It took incredible courage to do that. That was 40 years ago and I have never forgotten that story. When your homeland is occupied by foreign troops, extraordinary courage seems to come naturally.

Norway had its own style. Although Norway had professed neutrality, the country was critical to the German Navy with its thousand miles of coast line. With Norway in their control, Germany could launch its submarine wolf pack into the Atlantic at will. So, in April 1940 the Germans invaded Norway. But the Norwegians gave the Germans a bit of surprise. They fought bitterly and the Germans took heavy casualties, although Germany's superior numbers won out in the end. But the Norwegians never gave up. They established an extremely effective underground, and throughout the war were able to relay to Allied forces submarine movements, the results of which were critical to the British Navy. Once again, when your homeland is occupied by foreign troops, destroying all you have lived and fought for, extraordinary courage is not so extraordinary after all.

Anther story I recall vividly from those same high school days was that of the Norwegian resistance discovering a traitor amongst them, a man who had given over names of the resistance to the Nazis. He was confronted by the resistance in his home with his family. They tied him to a chair and then summarily executed his wife and three children in front of his eyes, and he was allowed to go free, to live whatever life was possible for him.

So, what defines terrorism? Was this terrorism? Or was it resistance against an occupying force?

This episode echoed the thinking of the French anarchist, Emile Henri, discussed recently by Alexander Cockburn:

"Asked at his trial in 1894 why he had killed some many innocent people…Henri explained to the court that anarchism 'is born in the heart of a corrupt society which is falling to pieces; it is a violent reaction against the established order. It represents egalitarian and libertarian aspirations which are battering down existing authority; it is everywhere, which makes it impossible to capture.' So, said Henri as he faced the guillotine, "il n'y a pas d'innocents". "There are no innocents," at least among the privileged classes."

And to add one more note to this saga, let me cite a recent article by former Sen. Gary Hart in the Boston Globe. Hart writes that, "In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia and…marched on and occupied Moscow. Napoleon and his generals took over the palaces of the court princes and great houses of the mighty boyars."

"Sadly for Napoleon, the Russians had different plans for their nation. Within days after abandoning their city to the French army, they torched their own palaces, homes, enterprises, and cathedrals. They burned Moscow down around Napoleon. Denied his last great triumph, the disappointed emperor abandoned Moscow and started home. Along the way, he lost the world's most powerful army."

The lesson of history is to never underestimate the occupied and oppressed. And the second lesson is you can't win against the occupied. You don't have the same will. They will die for their cause. Consider our own revolutionary soldiers, a rag-tag bunch at best, up against a well trained and disciplined British Army. But through sheer tenacity, determination and courage, the British were defeated and finally gave in. They realized this war would go on forever, no matter how many troops they sent to the colonies. American courage and determination to be free was endless, stopless. This is how history plays out.

So, now when we look at Iraq, we see the same thing. Even with the ethnic strife and potential for civil war, Iraqis want their country back from the U.S. occupiers. In fact the civil strife has worsened to the point that U.S. military commanders are ordering their troops to stay in their barracks as much as possible. So, one asks, why are our troops there if they are only hiding out in their barracks? What exactly is their mission now?

The sickening answer is they are to save George Bush's "reputation."

The average Army soldier or Marine in Iraq probably has a pretty decent life at home. Most likely he is close to his mother and father and is probably married with children, and has a good job in the U.S. He found the military to be both an adventure and an opportunity for growth and a chance to honor his country in military service, just as those who fought in WWII in the Pacific islands of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan. He might recall the bloody beaches of Normandy, where the 2nd U.S. Ranger battalion had the unenviable job of scaling up the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, with German troops firing down on them. Casualties were heavy. At the end of the 2-days action, the landing force of 225+ was reduced to about 90 men who could still fight.

But there was purpose to their mission. They fought to destroy Nazism and Japanese Imperialism. But today our troops in Iraq fight for no honorable cause, and it is not their fault. They are soldiers. They take their orders. But one has to wonder about the big guns, General Abizaid and General Casey. They have shown no courage or commitment to their troops. They have proven be stooges of Donald Rumsfeld. When the history of this war is written, the U.S. military command will be seen as weak and compliant, unwilling and unable to defend America against a rogue president -- nothing more than toy soldiers kissing ass to get ahead. The lesson is that courage is not to be found in the military.

But now after three years, and the recognition that the war was a fraud, theses brave soldiers in Iraq know the difference: 70- 75% of them want the war to end and want to come home to their families rather than fight George Bush's personal war. This is not what they signed up for. They signed an oath to defend and protect the United States. After three years it has become clear to them that this is not the goal in Iraq. Good, decent American soldiers have become the oppressors, destroying much of Iraq's infra- structure, where water, food and medicine are hard to come by, and electric power in Baghdad is available only 20% of the day.

It is time to admit defeat in Iraq as has concluded ultra- conservative William F. Buckley recently in an article in the National Review. Writes Buckley:

"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed… Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols."

Buckley concludes, "…different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat."

Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., worked in aerospace industry for 22 years. He now teaches in the California Community College system. He can be reached at grellick@hotmail.com

The parliament session, at the national assembly inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, lasted just 30 minutes, as members were sworn in.

The members stood together and pledged to "preserve the independence and the sovereignty of Iraq and to take care of the interests of its people".

The session was then adjourned because there is still no agreement on a permanent speaker for the assembly or deputy speakers.

Under the constitution, the largest parliamentary bloc, controlled by Shias, has the right to nominate the prime minister. The Shias have nominated Mr Jaafari.

But politicians involved in negotiations to form a new government have said part of the Shia bloc, those aligned with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, would like to see Mr Jaafari ousted. Those seeking Mr Jaafari's removal, however, fear the consequences of such a move, given his backing from the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls a thousands-strong militia, the Mahdi army.

Sunnis, Kurdish and some secular Shias argue Mr Jaafari is too divisive and accuse him of doing too little to contain revenge killings after Sunni insurgents destroyed the sacred al-Askari shrine in Samarra last month. The bombing and subsequent killings have increased fears of civil war.

Today, Mr Jaafari told a news conference: "If my people ask me to step aside I will do this," Reuters reported.

Reporters were unsure if he was referring to the people of Iraq or those in his own Shia party.

The US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been brokering talks between the various factions to try to establish a national unity government. Mr Khalilzad has been pressing political leaders to reach an agreement under which the country's majority Shia Muslims would share cabinet posts equitably with minority Sunnis and Kurds.

Washington sees this arrangement as the best opportunity for blunting the Sunni-driven insurgency that has ravaged the country since 2003. If a strong central government were in place, the Bush administration had hoped to start removing some troops by summer.

As parliament opened today, vehicles were banned from Baghdad's streets to prevent car bombings.

A pianist played as representatives of the country's main ethnic and religious blocs - many in traditional Arab and Kurdish dress - filed into the conference centre where the assembly is based. The session opened half an hour late with a reading from the Qur'an.

Meanwhile today, almost 2,000 Kurdish demonstrators went on a rampage in the northern city of Halabja on the 18th anniversary of the poison gas attack by Saddam Hussein's army that killed 5,000 residents.

Police fired live ammunition into the air, wounding at least six people, in a bid to stop the rioting by residents, angry over what they see as the regional government's failure to rebuild the area.

The demonstrators marched through the streets, chanting "down, down with the government".

Early today in Baghdad, police reported the discovery of 27 more bodies discarded in various parts of the city overnight.

A wave of sectarian killing has swept the capital and other cities since the Samarra bombing.

The victims were all men, some with their hands bound, who had been shot execution-style and dumped in both Shia and Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods, an interior ministry official said.

The Iraqi people know what to expect from occupation. They remember the 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut, the 22 year Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon, and the 38 years of oppression that continues to plague the lives of Palestinians. Iraqis also witnessed the US bombing campaign of 1991, the reneged US support of a postwar Shia uprising, and the sanctions that left Iraqi women and children forgotten. While the West mainly erases these events from their minds, the people of the Middle East, and more specifically Iraqis, must endure the consequences of these events.

If the Bush administration interviewed my father, a 59 year old, Christian Republican Arab doctor living in the US, they would have realized, "Arabs don't like to be occupied." Arabs-be it Sunni, Shia, Coptic, Orthodox or Maronite-don't want to be invaded by a Western force capable of bombing Baghdad to oblivion. Nevertheless, many Muslim and Christian Arabs in the Middle East send their children to Western schooling and profoundly appreciate Western Culture. As James Zogby-president of the Arab American Institute-pointed out on CNN, Americans can see the integration of US based multinational food chains and stores in Saudi Arabia. More than 70 McDonalds and 32 Pizza Huts spread across the country, while a 69,000 sq ft Chuck E. Cheese opened in Jeddah in 2001, with bumper cars, a bowling alley and a new ice rink. There is thirst for American culture within Saudi society, without the aggression and ramifications of US foreign policy.

Where America Went Wrong

US President George Bush and his administration thought they could have it both ways; fulfilling their interests while containing the resistance in Iraq. But "winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis" proved to be unprofitable in postwar Iraq. Consequently, the Bush administration didn't center on reconstruction and ensuring the stability of Iraqi society. It is not enough to say that the US forces "liberated" Iraq. For example, after the fall of Saddam, many Iraqis supported the American presence, but when the deterioration of living conditions set in and security declined, the support for the American presence faltered. The Institute for Foreign Policy (IPS) documented that 48 suicide attacks a month occurred in 2004 compared with 20 suicide attacks in 2003. By the same token, the Baghdad morgue is on pace to record more deaths attributed to unnatural causes this year than in 2004.

In August of 2003 a poll conducted by Zogby International and American Enterprise showed that nearly two thirds of the Iraqis wanted US troops to stay for at least another year. Just seven months later a poll administered by USA Today/CNN/Gallup revealed that only one third of Iraqis believed the American presence was doing more harm than good and 57 percent wanted an immediate pullout.

Governmental corruption, lack of electricity, high unemployment, and rising poverty diminishes the prospect for stability in Iraq. Veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn asserted that one billion dollars was "plundered from the Iraq's defense ministry." He also noted that during the interim Iraqi government's rule in 2004, as much as 2 billion dollars may have gone missing from their ministries. The US appointed the interim government.

According to the BBC on March 16, 2005, Transparency International stated in its Global Corruption Report 2005 that foreign contractors should abide by anti-corruption laws and that the revenues streaming in from Iraq oil "needed to be much more transparent and accountable." The BBC continued with a quote from Transparency International's chairman Peter Eigen, "Corruption doesn't just line the pockets of political and business elites, it leaves ordinary people without essential services and deprives them of access to sanitation and housing," In the BBC article, Transparency International directly criticized the US for awarding companies contracts in a process that was "secretive and favoured a small number of firms." As this corruption became more commonplace, the resistance towards the occupation surged.

Instead of starting a massive campaign to empower and employ the Iraqi people, the Bush administration protected US corporate interests, including close administration allies such as Halliburton and Bechtel. Figures of unemployment in Iraq reach as high as 60 percent. If the US heavily integrated Iraqi companies and workers from the outset, the reconstruction process would have stimulated the Iraqi economy. According to IPS, nearly 60 percent of Iraqis rely on food handouts. The average Iraqi income in 2004 was 800 dollars compared with 3000 dollars in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the UN sanctions severely weakened the Iraqi economy only to then have the US invasion exacerbate the dilemma.

The US Forces are Part of the Problem

The US troops created an environment of tension and animosity. The infrastructural destruction and casualties of the US invasion are compounded by mass arrests for indefinite periods of time without charge, widespread claims of torture, the mishandling of civilians in house raids, shootings at checkpoints, and the confirmed use of chemical weapons on insurgents and civilians in Fallujah.

Incidents such as the torture at Abu Ghraib, the killing of an unarmed "fighter" in Fallujah (as was filmed on camera last year) and claims that American forces bombed weddings cripple the support for American forces.

In the 2004 siege of Fallujah-aptly titled "shake and bake"-the US military used phosphorous bombs against insurgents. The military originally claimed the bombs were used to "illuminate the battlefield." A defense website, GlobalSecurity.org, contends white phosphorus can burn "to the bone." The BBC reported that white phosphorous "ignites on contact," and "burns until deprived of oxygen." The result of this Saddam style attack trumps the scandal of Abu Ghraib and other highly scrutinized actions by US forces. American forces using the same procedures as Iraq's former dictator may cause increased support for attacks against Americans, higher recruitment for foreign fighters seeping across the borders, and international condemnation.

The condition of the checkpoint system poses a serious threat to the daily travelers in Iraq. On June 17 2005, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote an open letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donal Rumsfeld, "Checkpoint shootings have sparked outrage among Iraqi citizens, undermining public confidence in the U.S. military." The two groups claim the procedures of the American Forces are insufficient and "endanger civilians, including journalists, as well as U.S. service members."

Mass arrests continue to cause deep concern for Iraqi families and the rule of law. Author Aaron Glantz documented a troubling account in his book, How America Lost Iraq. In the village of Abu Siffa, the townspeople alleged that coalition forces arrested 83 Iraqi men and boys. One of the townspeople said that three of the detained were under the age of sixteen, and fourteen were over the age of sixty, while three men were lawyers and ten were secondary school teachers. A fifteen year old boy, arrested and released, said that the detainees were not charged, not given a lawyer, and allowed no visitors. When Glantz interviewed the boy, only one other detainee had been released. According to Glantz, Colonel Nate Sassaman "indicated that the raids and detentions were necessary for 'national security.' But after two months, U.S. forces admitted that the detainees were only guilty by association because they lived in the same village as the Ba'ath official." Glantz asked a schoolteacher, Nasser Jassem Hussein, if he was a member of the Ba'ath Party, "Of course…We're all members of the Ba'ath Party here, but that doesn't mean involved in the resistance." While the detainees were only "guilty by association," only one more person had been released after the two months, leaving eighty detainees in US custody. Similar accounts have been frequently covered in the international press.

The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights revealed in an October 2005 report that occupation forces held about 11,500 of the nearly 24,000 detainees. The report stated, "There is an urgent need to provide remedy to lengthy internment for reasons of security without adequate judicial oversight."

In November of 2005, new allegations were made that US forces tortured two Iraqi prisoners. According to the Washington Post, two Iraqi men claim that "U.S. troops put them in a cage with lions, pretended to execute them in a firing line and humiliated them during interrogations at multiple detention facilities." The Post quoted White House Spokesman Bryan Whitman's response, "this is a legal matter, it will be handled as such, but it should not surprise anyone that detainees would make false allegations against their captors." Nonetheless, Iraqis are more inclined to reject the administration's questioning of events after the abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Damning Effects of Troop Presence
Aaron Glantz's wrote, "When you are a soldier in a war zone and you see a young boy standing in your peripheral vision, you don't have time to notice whether he's armed. You just shoot." This dilemma illuminates the problem of the US presence. Securing and "liberating" a state is quite impossible, if "young boys" around you get thrown in with the "enemy." Collateral damage is a term for militaries, not civilians trying to survive. Appropriately, Iraqis don't react with a "take the good with the bad" attitude to collateral damage.

In Patrick Cockburn's article, The War So Far: Worse Than Vietnam, explains the "unraveling" of the occupation:

Many innocent farmers were being shot dead….Ever since Saddam Hussein closed the banks in 1990….Iraqis kept their money at home in hundred dollar bills…Farmers feared robbers and were usually armed. When a U.S. soldier knocked at the door of a house in the middle of the night and saw an armed Iraqi in front of him he would open fire.

Furthermore, these incidents are underreported in the West as they fall into the category of "collateral damage."

Cockburn continues, "Ordinary U.S. soldiers can shoot any Iraqi by whom they feel threatened without fear of consequences. With suicide bombers on the loose, the soldiers feel threatened all the time."

Sidestepping Humanity

Breaches in US ratified international treaties further exemplify the lost strategy of the US government and its ability to protect and "liberate" the nation of Iraq. Eric Seidman interviewed Patrick Resta, the New England organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who stated, "Our supervisor told my platoon that 'the Geneva Conventions don't exist in Iraq and that's in writing if any of you want to see it.'" Resta said that his commander didn't create the idea, instead it was "policy put in place." The IVAW organizer also said that they [the medics] were not allowed to tend to Iraqi civilians unless they were on the brink of death. Instead the civilians were expected to use their own hospitals, which in his area offer "only one type of antibiotic, no glass in the windows, little if any functioning diagnostic equipment, [and] reused surgical instruments without proper sterilization." The US government ratified all four Geneva Conventions and all four apply to US forces in Iraq. Specifically, articles three and four address the issue of humane treatment of prisoners during war and treatment of civilians in a war zone.

The Iraqi Media

Satellite TV gives many Iraqis uncensored coverage of the mayhem. Unfortunately, American forces attacked a number of media outlets, which reinforces the notion that America is willing to stand in the way of the "free press" to preserve its own interests. Adam Gantz reported that the US Defense Department also joined the media circle in Iraq, founding a Baghdad TV station al Iraqiya, a newspaper al-Sabah, a pan-Arab radio station, Radyo Sawa, and a news channel for satellite TV, al-Hurra. These media projects came along pushing the American agenda during the same period that Al Jazeera's offices were attacked by US forces and the Baghdad bureau was repeatedly shut down. In November 2005, the UK's Daily Mirror published an article pertaining to a secret memo claiming that George Bush and Tony Blair met in April 2004 and discussed taking "military action" against Al Jazeera in the company's base in Doha, Qatar. Since the article, the British government has put a gag order on discussing the secret memo.

In March of last year the US forces shut down Muqtada Al Sadr's newspaper al-Hawza al Natiq for "inciting violence." This double standard on "free press," and disregard for democracy only reasserts the failure of the US.

In late November, the New York Times disclosed US plans to embark on a multimillion dollar secret project to "plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends." This last ditch effort to win back the support of the Iraqi people is extremely revealing. The administration cannot even find Iraqis that are willing to support the occupation. Instead they are looking to feed the same "propaganda" to the Iraqi people that is being fed to Americans.

Why America can't militarily win

Militarily, the US forces cannot win. Of course, they will conquer Fallujah, Tal Afar, and any other area where confrontation takes place. However, the strategy of the insurgency is not to win the war head on, but rather to weaken the US forces by using guerilla warfare (car bombs, suicide bombs, and roadside bombs) and capitalizing on Iraq's spiraling out of control. After the destruction of Fallujah, the insurgency fled quite quickly, avoiding direct confrontation with US forces. The infrastructural and economic destruction of Fallujah didn't destroy the base of the insurgency. Ironically, the siege fueled recruitment, further isolated US forces from Iraqi civilians, and didn't significantly enhance American control over the Sunni stronghold. The American forces eventually retreated, stating that the insurgency was conquered, only to lose control of Fallujah months after the battle. Keeping control of a country the size of Texas with 25 million residents is not feasible with 160,000 troops. If the US were to win militarily in Iraq, they would have to drastically step up their force count, probably in the range of 450,000 as some military analysts have suggested, and start rolling over the country. Under the guise of "liberation" the US forces would need to become the new Saddam Hussein, forcing Iraqis into submission and killing anyone that comes in their way. Moreover, since the military has such a low approval rating, finding people who are willing to rat out the insurgency has become increasingly difficult.

Losing the Hearts and Minds of Americans

This administration believed they could spin the events of Iraq to the American people. This was true in the beginning. The American people forgot about the promised weapons of mass destruction, the assurance that Iraqi oil would pay for the venture, and the guarantee that the people of Iraq would greet the US soldiers with open arms. The minds of Americans, however, started to change as soldiers came home in flag draped caskets and nearly 15,000 returned wounded, many in wheelchairs or prosthetics.

The continuing struggle in Iraq and the administrations misgivings, however, emboldened the anti-war coalition. According to CNN, Decorated Vietnam Vet and conservative democrat John Murtha stated, "It's time to bring the troops home." He went on to say "Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence," he said. Yahoo quoted him as saying, "The war in Iraq is not going as advertised…It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

While leading democrats are still too wary to call for an outright withdrawal, the American people may soon be calling for one. In a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll only 35 percent of Americans approve Bush's handling of the war, while 54 percent think America shouldn't have invaded Iraq. The numbers are also rising on troop withdrawal. Nearly one in five Americans want to see the troops come home today and 33 percent of those polled want the American forces home within a year's time. Anti-war democrats like Murtha are starting to receive airtime on major media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC. If this trend continues, it will profoundly affect those on the fence in the US who are not getting a clear picture of the anti-war movement. Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed Iraq and adamant anti-war critic, received noticeable airtime, but was painted as part of the "fringe left" in the mainstream press. People like Murtha will reinforce the position of the anti-war movement considering his long-running history of being conservative and a friend to the White House. Until this point George Bush hasn't felt the wrath of a fiery opposition. If the media continues to give the anti-war movement a platform, the American public will more quickly realize that we have lost the war in Iraq.

What has Become of Iraq?

The Iraqi Body Count (IBC) claims between 27,000 and 30,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the war. In mid-December George Bush gave an estimate on the Iraqi death count for the first time, "I would say 30,000 more or less have died." In a new report released by IBC, during the first two years of the war 20 percent of civilian deaths were women and children. Additionally, US forces accounted for 37 percent of civilian deaths, while insurgents accounted for only 9 percent of civilian deaths. Affirming the contention of lawlessness, "post-invasion criminal violence," attributed to 36 percent of the civilian death toll. The numbers by IBC are thought to be conservative. Last year's Lancet report estimated that 98,000 or more "excess deaths" of Iraqis may have occurred since the start of the US invasion.

Anguish and anger resonates within each Iraqi community. In October the British newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph, released information from a survey administered by the Iraqi university team which found that 45 percent of Iraqis support attacks on foreign troops. It is not just a case of Sunni resistance-which make up only 20 percent of the population-and Iraq's Al Qaeda. There is a strong support for violence against foreign forces and the numbers are strengthening. Added to the growing unease in the Shia community in the South, it is apparent why aggression is effectively taken out against US forces and interests.

The primary focus of the US involvement in Iraq should be on the basic necessities of Iraqi society. Proper sewage and access to clean water are essential. The Ministry of Public Works believes that it may cost up to 10 billion dollars for Iraqis to access clean water. According to the website CorpWatch in April of 2005, the US cut the funding for water projects in Iraq from 4.3 billion to 2.3 billion-"with further cuts planned for the future." Those "further cuts" were another 1.1 billion dollars. The Corvallis Gazette Times stated, "Three of the four major clean-water projects were cancelled."

The reconstruction of water facilities is vital in delivering clean water to the 80 percent of families in rural areas that use unsafe drinking water. The postwar sewage systems must also be reconstructed, which according to the UN report, "seeps to the ground and contaminates drinking water systems."

The UN development agency conducted a study, entitled Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004. The study found that 23 percent of children in Iraq suffer from chronic malnutrition, while 9 percent of Iraqi children experienced diarrhea, a leading "childhood killer," in the two weeks prior to the survey.

Stability cannot be achieved without confronting basic health concerns. The US government spent more than 200 billion in Iraq, yet it continues to slash funding on projects that will further Iraqi society.

Can We Leave?

Over the last two years many prominent Republicans and Democrats professed, "We are there now, we can't just leave." Nevertheless, if we want to uphold the values of democracy and desires of the Iraqi consensus, we can "just leave." On October 23, the Sunday Telegraph disclosed the results of a poll which found that 82 percent of Iraqis "strongly oppose" foreign troops occupying their country. It's the one thing the majority of the country can agree on. The 160,000 soldiers are a driving force behind the resistance for Sunni fighters and Iraq's Al Qaeda led by Musab Al Zarqawi. We can pull out, immediately.

While a much larger disparity in views exists between Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda, they do share a common cause-resisting the American occupation. If the US pulled out tomorrow, the Sunni insurgency would automatically be at great ideological odds with Zarqawi and his gang in Iraq. The Sunni insurgency is not fighting for Al Qaeda's "greater Islamic vision," they are trying to make sure the country doesn't break up and in turn dominate the one-fifth Sunni minority. Even so, some Sunnis have not opposed sitting down at the negotiating table, so long as they do not receive the short end of the stick.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies revealed that between 12,000 and 20,000 hardcore insurgents remained in Iraq as of earlier this year. Diffusing the extreme elements of the insurgency is fundamental in the stabilization process. The main fuel to Al Qaeda's fire is undoubtedly the American occupation. While other factors add to its ease to operate, such as chaos, corruption, fear, and border security, the main source of motivation to gain new recruits would be stripped away. The pulling out of US troops alone would at least make the situation in Iraq more transparent.

The only way to bring Iraq forward is bringing them closer to independence and sustainability. The Iraqis were thrown into a whirlpool of violence and the presence of US forces is making the situation worse. In the Sunday Telegraph poll, only one percent of Iraqis in some areas feel that America increases security. This lack of confidence and opposition to the occupation damaged America's position in Iraq beyond recognition and their mission which has yet to be defined. The US government spent more than 200 billion dollars in Iraq over the last two and a half years and the Iraqi people have little to show for it. Of the 18 billion dollars appropriated for reconstruction, only 9 billion has been used, while corruption has tarnished its implementation.

The people of Iraq need security first and foremost, not only from insurgents, but from robbers and armed bandits as asserted by Patrick Cockburn. He reported, "Even during a quiet day as many as 40 bodies may turn up at Baghdad morgue." Furthermore, the political process needs to take its course. It's senseless to rush into to fixed dates so Iraqis can hold up their ink stained fingers while the situation on the ground is left in shambles. Finally, strong Iraqi leadership is essential in engaging the Iraqi people on a daily basis and not just on fixed "historic" dates that help out US poll numbers. The Iraqi people need to feel a sense of control of their society and future, and this is impeded by the presence of the American military.

These are the principals of democracy: letting the indigenous population rule as a sovereign nation. I always hear "bring the troops home." Not only do it for the troops this time, do it for the Iraqi people.

Remi Kanazi is the primary writer for the political website www.PoeticInjustice.net. He lives in New York City as a Palestinian American freelance writer and can reached via email at remroum@gmail.com

Abizaid said that policy would be worked out with a unified, national Iraqi government if and when that is established, "and it would be premature for me to predict".

Many Democrats have pressed President George Bush to firmly state that the United States does not intend to seek permanent military bases in Iraq, a step they said would help stem the violence there.

Abizaid also told the Appropriations subcommittee on military quality of life that while an Iraqi civil war was possible, "I think it's a long way from where we are now to civil war".

Echoing Bush's statement on Monday on the outlook for reducing US forces in Iraq, Abizaid said if Iraqis can form a unified government, "I think there's every reason to believe ... that we'll be able to bring the size of the force down much more so by December of '06".

Deterring Iran

Abizaid cited the need to fight al-Qaida and other extremists groups and "the need to be able to deter ambitions of an expansionistic Iran" as potential reasons to keep some level of troops in the region in the long term.

But he said it would be far less than the 200,000 currently deployed in the region, including 132,000 in Iraq.

"Clearly our long-term vision for a military presence in the region requires a robust counter-terrorist capability," Abizaid said.

"No doubt there is a need for some presence in the region over time primarily to help people help themselves through this period of extremists versus moderates."

Vital interest

Abizaid also said the United States and its allies have a vital interest in the oil-rich region.

"Ultimately it comes down to the free flow of goods and resources on which the prosperity of our own nation and everybody else in the world depend," he said.

Representative David Price, a North Carolina Democrat, questioned "what kind of signal that sends to the American people and to the Iraqis and the region ... if somehow there is ambiguity on our ultimate designs in terms of a military presence in Iraq".

Last week the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, California Representative Jane Harman, wrote to President Bush urging him to clearly spell-out his plans in Iraq.

The administration's "continuing failure to clarify US intentions provides an excuse for certain Iraqis to avoid compromise and jeopardises our ability to succeed in Iraq," she said.

Why are we hearing such ludicrous and outrageous statements from the highest ranking military general in the United States, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, who when asked how things were going in Iraq on March 5th in an interview on "Meet the Press" said, "I'd say they're going well. I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at."

I wonder if there is a training school, or at least talking point memos for these Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because Pace's predecessor, Gen. Richard Myers, told Senator John McCain last September that "In a sense, things are going well [in Iraq]."

General Pace also praised the Iraqi military, saying, "Now there are over 100 [Iraqi] battalions in the field."

Wow! General Pace must have waved his magic wand and materialized all these 99 new Iraqi battalions that are diligently keeping things safe and secure in occupied Iraq. Because according to the top US general in Iraq, General George Casey, not long ago there was only one Iraqi battalion (about 500-600 soldiers) capable of fighting on its own in Iraq.

During a late-September 2005 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Casey acknowledged that the Pentagon estimate of three Iraqi battalions last June had shrunk to one in September. That is less than six months ago.

I thought it would be a good idea to find someone who is qualified to discuss how feasible it would be to train 99 Iraqi battalions in less than six months, as Pace now claims has occurred.

I decided that someone who was in the US Army for 26 years and who worked in eight conflict areas, starting in Vietnam and ending with Haiti, would be qualified. If he had served in two parachute infantry units, three Ranger units, two Special Forces Groups and in Delta Force that would be helpful as well. And just to make sure, if he taught tactics at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama and Military Science at the United States Military Academy at West Point, thus knowing a thing or two about training soldiers, that would be a bonus.

That person is Stan Goff.

"This is utter bullshit," was Goff's remark about the Pace claim of having 100 Iraqi battalions when I asked him to comment, "He must be counting the resistance among his forces."

Goff adds, "That dip-shit [Pace] is saying he has 60,000 trained and disciplined people under arms ... 65,000 with all the staffs ... and almost 100,000 with the support units they would require. To train and oversee them would require thousands of American advisors. It must suck for a career Marine to be used so blatantly as a PR flak."

Goff mentioned that Pace "and everyone else" knows that the Iraqi forces, "however many there are," are heavily cross-infiltrated.

"He [Pace] is saying that the Bush administration is going to empower a pro-Iranian government with 100 ready battalions, when this administration was handed this particular government as the booby prize in exchange for Sistani pulling their cookies out of the fire during the joint rebellions in Najaf and Fallujah," added Goff.

Further discrediting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Goff said, "To train 99 [battalions] since last September is a claim only the average American might swallow. The right question to ask is, where are they? Where are they headquartered, and where are they in operation? Claiming operations security doesn't count, unless they believe they can hide 100 units of 600 people each in Iraq ... from other Iraqis ... who are often related to them."

He concludes, "These guys have become accustomed to saying any damn thing, then counting on ignorance and apathy at home - along with hundreds of Democrats who need spine transplants - to get away with it. You can quote me on any of that."

There's a good reason why Pace and others are busy spewing smoke - it's to hide the fact that there are no plans to leave Iraq.

While we're addressing propaganda, we mustn't leave out our brilliant military strategist and warrior for protecting human rights, the illustrious Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

On March 8th, Rice delivered the opening remarks on the release of her Department's "2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices."

The introduction to the report says: "In Iraq, 2005 was a year of major progress for democracy, democratic rights and freedom. There was a steady growth of NGOs and other civil society associations that promote human rights."

Uh, right.

This report is submitted to Congress by the State Department. I've often wondered if our politicians are just this ignorant, or simply horrifically misinformed like so many Americans. This report, perhaps, answers the latter.

My point is, if there is a concerted effort by high-ranking officials of the Bush administration to portray things in Iraq as going well, then why are there permanent bases being constructed in Iraq?

This media smokescreen from the likes of Pace, Rice and even "sharp-shooter" Cheney, who recently said things in Iraq are "improving steadily," conveniently leads the American people toward believing there will eventually be a withdrawal of American soldiers.

But the problem with smokescreens is that pesky thing called "reality."

And in Iraq, the reality is that people like Pace, Rice, Cheney and their ever-eloquent front man aren't telling the American public about their true plans for Iraq.

One example that provides some insight into their agenda is the US "Embassy" which is under construction in the infamous "Green Zone."

As you read this, a controversial Kuwait-based construction firm is building a $592 million US embassy in Baghdad. When the dust settles, this compound will be the largest and most secure diplomatic compound in the world.

The headquarters, I mean "Embassy," will be a self-sustaining cluster of 21 buildings reinforced 2.5 times the usual standards, with some walls to be as thick as 15 feet.

Plans are for over 1,000 US "government officials" to staff and reside there. Lucky for them, they will have access to the gym, swimming pool, barber and beauty shops, food court and commissary. There will also be a large-scale barracks for troops, a school, locker rooms, a warehouse, a vehicle maintenance garage, and six apartment buildings with a total of 619 one-bedroom units. And luckily for the "government officials," their water, electricity and sewage treatment plants will all be independent from Baghdad's city utilities. The total site will be two-thirds the area of the National Mall in Washington, DC."

I wonder if any liberated Iraqis will have access to their swimming pool?

And unlike the Iraqi infrastructure, which is in total shambles and functioning below pre-invasion levels in nearly every area, the US "Embassy" is being constructed right on time. The US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee recently called this an "impressive" feat, considering the construction is taking place in one of the most violent and volatile spots on the planet.

Then there are the permanent military bases.

To give you an idea of what these look like in Iraq, let's start with Camp Anaconda, near Balad. Occupying 15 square miles of Iraq, the base boasts two swimming pools (not the plastic inflatable type), a gym, mini-golf course and first-run movie theater.

The 20,000 soldiers who live at the Balad Air Base, less than 1,000 of whom ever leave the base, can inspect new iPod accessories in one of the two base exchanges, which have piles of the latest electronics and racks of CDs to choose from. One of the PX managers recently boasted that every day he was selling 15 televisions to soldiers.

At Camp Anaconda, located in Salahuddin province where resistance is fierce, the occupation forces live in air-conditioned units where plans are being drawn up to run internet, cable television and overseas telephone access to them.

The thousands of civilian contractors live at the base in a section called "KBR-land," and there is a hospital where doctors carry out 400 surgeries every month on wounded troops.

Air Force officials on the base claim the runway there is one of the busiest in the world, where unmanned Predator drones take off carrying their Hellfire missiles, along with F-16's, C-130's, helicopters, and countless others, as the bases houses over 250 aircraft.

If troops aren't up for the rather lavish dinners served by "Third Country Nationals" from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who work for slave wages, they can visit the Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeye's or Subway, then wash it down with a mocha from the Starbucks.

There are several other gigantic bases in Iraq besides camp Anaconda, such as Camp Victory near Baghdad Airport, which - according to a reporter for Mother Jones magazine - when complete will be twice the size of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. The Kosovo base is currently one of the largest overseas bases built since the war in Vietnam.

Camp Liberty is adjacent to Camp Victory - where soldiers even compete in their own triathlons. "The course, longer than 140 total miles, spanned several bases in the greater Camp Victory area in west Baghdad," says a news article on a DOD web site.

Mr. Bush refuses to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq because he doesn't intend to withdraw. He doesn't intend to because he's following a larger plan for the US in the Middle East.

Less than two weeks after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, US military officials announced the intention to maintain at least four large bases in Iraq that could be used in the future.

These are located near Baghdad International Airport (where the triathlon was), Tallil (near Nasiriyah, in the south), one in the Kurdish north at either Irbil or Qayyarah (they are only 80 kilometers apart) and one in western al-Anbar province at Al-Asad. Of course, let's not forget the aforementioned Camp Anaconda in Balad.

More recently, on May 22 of last year, US military commanders announced that they would consolidate troops into four large air bases. It was announced at this time that while buildings were being made of concrete instead of the usual metal trailers and tin-sheathed buildings, military officers working on the plan "said the consolidation plan was not meant to establish a permanent US military presence in Iraq."

Right.

The US has at least four of these massive bases in Iraq. Billions of dollars have been spent in their construction, and they are in about the same locations where they were mentioned they would be by military planners back before Mr. Bush declared that major combat operations were over in Iraq.

It appears as though "mission accomplished" in Iraq was not necessarily referring to guarding the Ministry of Oil and occupying the country indefinitely (or finding WMDs, disrupting al-Qaeda, or liberating Iraqis, blah-blah-blah), but to having a military beach-head in the heart of the Middle East.

Note that while US officials don't dare say the word "permanent" when referring to military bases in Iraq, they will say "permanent access." An article entitled "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq," which was a front-page story in the New York Times on April 19, 2003, reads: "There will probably never be an announcement of permanent stationing of troops. Not permanent basing, but permanent access is all that is required, officials say."

Why all of this? Why these obviously permanent bases? Why the beach-head?

A quick glance at US government military strategy documents is even more revealing.

"Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States," reads the 2002 National Security Strategy.

To accomplish this, the US will "require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia."

Another interesting document is "Joint Vision 2020" from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose "vision" is "Dedicated individuals and innovative organizations transforming the joint force of the 21st Century to achieve full spectrum dominance [bold type theirs]: persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any form of conflict [italics theirs]."

US policymakers have replaced the Cold War with the Long War for Global Empire and Unchallenged Military Hegemony. This is the lens through which we must view Iraq to better understand why there are permanent US bases there.

In the Quadrennial Defense Review Report released on February 6, 2006, there is a stated ambition to fight "multiple, overlapping wars" and to "ensure that all major and emerging powers are integrated as constructive actors and stakeholders into the international system." The report goes on to say that the US will "also seek to ensure that no foreign power can dictate terms of regional or global security. It will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the United States or other friendly countries, and it will seek to deter aggression or coercion. Should deterrence fail, the United States would deny a hostile power its strategic and operational objectives."

In sum, what is the purpose of permanent US military garrisons in Iraq and the implicit goals of these government documents?

Empire.

The conventional view is that a brilliantly successful invasion was followed by a hopelessly ill-planned and mismanaged occupation.

The US-led forces didn't stop the looting after Saddam Hussein fell, they didn't restore power and water, they didn't crack down early and hard on the insurgency, they didn't have enough troops in the country. If only these errors had been avoided, Iraq would now be well on the way to stability and democracy, and our troops would be safely on their way home, the argument goes. I don't buy it.

The failure in Iraq is not a failure of execution; it's a failure of conception. The occupation and political reconstruction of Iraq was not a good idea badly implemented. It was a bad idea that no amount of administrative skill, political savvy, cultural sensitivity or military firepower could have made work.

You can see why political leaders might prefer to see the problems in Iraq as failures of execution. That shifts the blame from those who thought of the idea to those who had to carry it out. But if we are to learn by our mistakes it is important to understand what those mistakes were, and who made them.

We need to face squarely the mistakes of our leaders. We can all be glad that Saddam no longer rules Iraq. But we all know that none of the leaders who conceived and drove the invasion would have done so had they been able to foresee how things stand in Iraq today. Howard was more careful than the others, but he lent his weight - and Australia's - to their arguments.

These leaders misunderstood the costs and risks they were running in setting out to reshape Iraq. And that is what they were about. One thing the flood of instant history has made clear is that, while Howard, George Bush and Tony Blair undoubtedly believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that was not why the invasion went ahead.

It went ahead to destroy the Baath regime and replace it with something more congenial, something more aligned with our interests and, they stressed, our values.

The conception at the heart of this enterprise was that if a fully functioning liberal democratic Iraq did not spring spontaneously from the ashes of Saddam's dictatorship, it could be speedily and efficiently conjured by the application of US power. Especially military power; the whole project was, after all, a Pentagon initiative.

This misconception was powered by a misunderstanding of the nature and limits of armed force. Armies are very good at fighting other armies, but they are of very limited use for anything else. The contrary view is the beguiling illusion that military force can be used to achieve political goals and promote values, rather than secure purely military objectives.

It is an idea that not even the Vietnam War could quite kill off. The invasion of Iraq three years ago was a product of its resurgence. The situation in Iraq today is yet another demonstration of its fallacy. A force of 180,000 troops - and the expenditure of billions of dollars a month - gives the coalition very little influence over what happens in Iraq today, or over the shape of its future.

There is still a faint chance that Iraq's ill-matched factions will find a way to work together in some semblance of national government. But whether they do or not is out of our hands.

We had the power to destroy Saddam's regime, but not to build a new one. Only the Iraqis can do that. Only they can make the compromises, build the trust, contain their fears and curb their rage enough to generate the sense of shared interests necessary to make Iraq work as a democratic political entity. All we can do is watch.

From the coalition's point of view - and especially Washington's - to leave now would be a disastrous political and strategic defeat, with unpredictable consequences.

It might come to that anyway, but in the meantime our leaders just hang on and hope that even if we have failed, the Iraqis will somehow make something work. It's a forlorn hope, but better than certain humiliation.

And for Australia? We are there, above all, to support our ally. As an exercise in alliance management, that is probably justified.

But the fact that we find ourselves in this predicament, compelled to sustain a largely futile symbolic presence in a land in which we can achieve so little, is a testament to the failure of Howard's initial conception.

We need to remember this the next time someone tries to argue that we should send our new "hardened and networked army" to promote Australia's values far away.

Hugh White is a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute and professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.

Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald.

The military doctor had refused to take part in any of the pre-deployment training, but Philip Sapsford, QC, for his defence, said that because Iraq had not attacked the United Kingdom or any of its allies there was no lawful reason to invade the country.

Flight Lieutenant Kendall-Smith had served two tours of Iraq but had a change of mind after reading all the published material relating to the legal advice given to the Government before the decision to join the Americans in invading Iraq. The advice by Lord Goldsmith, QC, the Attorney-General, was finally made public in April last year.

Mr Sapsford said that Flight Lieutenant Kendall-Smith had faced a legal rather than a moral dilemma when he was asked to return to Iraq for a third time. He had concluded that the invasion had done nothing to protect British lives and had destroyed the lives of many thousands of Iraqis.

Although he was a doctor in a non-combatant role, he feared that he could be asked to oversee legally ambiguous situations such as interrogations of prisoners. "The flight lieutenant has been to Iraq, he knows in his own mind what it is like being there. As a doctor, he is entitled to say, 'I will be sharing responsibility by even demonstrating complicity'."

Mr Sapsford said that he was prepared to produce expert evidence to show that an existing United Nations Security Council resolution that the United States and Britain claimed was a mandate for the invasion was no defence in international law.

He told the hearing, which was presided over by Assistant Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss, that he was considering calling as a witness Ben Griffin, a former SAS soldier, who recently resigned from the Army after complaining of "illegal" acts by American troops in Iraq. Although he had expected to face court martial, he left the Army with a glowing testimonial.

For the prosecution, David Perry said that questions about the legality of the invasion in March 2003 were irrelevant.

The charges, he said, related solely to orders given to Flight Lieutenant Kendall-Smith: on June 1 last year he had refused to attend RAF Kinloss for pistol and rifle training, on June 6 he had failed to go for a helmet-fitting, and between June 12 and June 24 he not not turned up for a training course, or for a deployment briefing on June 30.

"To suggest that sending a member of the Armed Forces for pistol training is in some way unlawful would be an astonishing, if not startling, conclusion," Mr Perry said.

He also said that from May 2003 (after the end of the war phase) the multinational force in Iraq was present at the request of the provisional government in Baghdad and had been mandated by the UN Security Council to assist in restoring peace and stability.

The hearing was adjourned until next Wednesday.

Saddam was the last of eight defendants to be called to testify. Though he has spoken frequently since the trial began in October, today's session was the first chance for the judge and prosecutors to question him directly on charges of killing 148 Shias and imprisoning and torturing others during a 1982 crackdown in the town of Dujail.

Instead, Saddam - dressed in a black suit - read from his statement, insisting he was Iraq's elected president and calling the trial a "comedy".

He addressed the "great Iraqi people" - a phrase he often used in his speeches as president - and urged them to stop the wave of Shia-Sunni violence unleashed the bombing of a major Shia shrine last month.

"What pains me most is what I heard recently about something that aims to harm our people," Saddam said. "My conscience tells me that the great people of Iraq have nothing to do with these acts," he said referring to the bombing of the shrine in the city of Samarra.

Mr Abdel-Rahman interrupted saying he was not allowed to give political speeches in the court.

"I am the head of state," Saddam replied.

"You used to be a head of state. You are a defendant now," Mr Abdel-Rahman said.

The judge repeatedly shut off his microphone to prevent his words from being heard and told him to address the case against him. But Saddam ignored him and continued to read from his text.

"What has happened in recent days is bad," he said. "You will live in darkness and rivers of blood for no reason. The bloodshed that they [the Americans] have caused to the Iraqi people only made them more intent and strong to evict the foreigners from their land and liberate their country." Mr Abdel-Rahman said: "You are being tried in a criminal case for killing innocent people, not because of your conflict with America."

"What about the innocent people who are dying in Baghdad? I am talking to the Iraqi people," Saddam replied.

The stormy session was a stark contrast to the past three hearings, when each of Saddam's seven co-defendants appeared and was questioned by Mr Abdel-Rahman and the chief prosecutor.

All eight defendants face possible death by hanging if they are convicted in connection with the Dujail crackdown, which followed an assassination attempt on Saddam in the town in July 1982.

Last month, Saddam stood up in court and acknowledged that he ordered the trial of the 148 Shias before his revolutionary court, which eventually sentenced them all to death. The former president insisted it was his right to do so since they were suspected in the attempt to kill him.

Before Saddam's testimony, his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti - who headed the Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time of the Dujail attack - was questioned for more than three hours by the chief judge and prosecutor, who presented him with half a dozen Mukhabarat documents and memos about the crackdown.

One after another, Barzan insisted that the documents were fake and that his signatures on them were forged. "It's not true. It's forged. We all know that forgery happens," he said.

In previous sessions, Dujail residents have testified that Barzan personally participated in their torture them during their imprisonment at the Baghdad headquarters of the Mukhabarat. One woman claimed Barzan kicked her in the chest while she was hung upside down and naked by her interrogators.

Barzan insisted the Mukhabarat agency was not involved in the investigation into the attack on Saddam and denied any personal role in the crackdown.

"I didn't order any detentions. I didn't interrogate anyone," he said, adding that he resigned from the Mukhabarat in August 1983. "There is not a single document showing that I was involved in the investigation."

The defence has argued that Saddam's government acted within its rights to respond after the assassination attempt on the former Iraqi leader.

The prosecutor has sought to show that the crackdown not only sought to punish those behind the attacks but also Dujail's civilian population, saying entire families were arrested and tortured and that the 148 who were killed were sentenced to death without a proper trial.