The arrest of Saddam Hussein: will the anti-US resistance continue?

Does the arrest of Saddam Hussein, last Saturday in Tikrit, mean the end of the resistance against US occupation? Will it have removed the main obstacle to democracy and security in Iraq , as Western political leaders are saying? A reaction from Mohammed Hassan, Middle East specialist.  

David Pestieau  

What is your first reaction on this arrest?

Mohammed Hassan. It is amazing that the man most wanted by the US and its allies in the whole world was able to evade arrest for more than eight months. This indicates that Saddam Hussein could count on a certain level of support among the Iraqi population. Did you know, for example, that some 69 different intelligence services are active in Iraq , with as priority mission to proceed to this arrest?  

Does the arrest of Saddam Hussein mean the end of the resistance against US occupation?

Mohammed Hassan. No. The arrest is a political success for the US occupation troops. The United States will use this arrest for propaganda purposes, in order to demoralise the anti-US resistance and the Iraqi population. Without any doubt, this arrest will provoke confusion and an amount of disorganisation in the ranks of the resistance. But over the past few months, the resistance has been able to get organised. It is no longer embryonic, it no longer lacks coordination and it can no longer be crushed. It has arms, financial means and even well-informed intelligence services. Recently, the Americans found the day-to-day schedules of the colonial administrator Bremer in a resistance hideout…

Add to this that the resistance is not solely composed of members of the old Baath Party but also of other patriotic, nationalist and Islamic forces, in a sort of federation.

With this arrest, the occupier hopes to have struck at a part of the resistance leadership. But the objective conditions that give rise to the resistance are still in place. The occupation continues, the economic crisis is very serious. Many Iraqi’s don’t even have the food rations that they still received under Saddam Hussein. 400,000 soldiers have been demobilised without retirement benefits or salaries. And 250 out of the 700 first soldiers of the new Iraqi army have deserted right after their training.

History has proven that a colonial occupation cannot crush a resistance, not even with the arrest of some of its leaders. Take Algeria , where the major leaders of the anti-French resistance were arrested in the very first years of the anti-colonial war.  

Has the arrest removed the main obstacle to democracy and security in Iraq , as Western political leaders pretend?

Mohammed Hassan. There can never be democracy under colonial occupation. The colonial democracy, US style, is a democracy based on ethnicism and clanism, on the economic pillage of the country and on the repression of all nationalist forces.

Washington ’s henchmen who are now leading the provisional government (completely subordinated to US colonial administrator Bremer) support the US project of a federal State that will divide Iraq in three parts. Just like the Americans have done in Yugoslavia . On one hand, and confronted with the resistance, Bremer has called for national reconciliation. With a general amnesty, the Americans may try to win over some sections of the resistance, promising them functions in the new government. On the other hand, the pro-Iranian Shiites demand an Islamic State. From now on, all contradictions that have been initiated with the US occupation will intensify, between all these different components. This will further fan instability.

All this is happening in a context in which resistance will most probably continue. And the US will no longer be able to invoke the role of Saddam Hussein in it, thus more clearly exposing the genuine anti-colonial character of the resistance before the whole world.

Helicopters are being downed, there are attacks, US soldiers are being ambushed and killed. Not a day passes without the Iraqi resistance dealing a blow to the occupation forces.

"The resistance awakens all opposition to the Bush war policy: within Iraq, in the whole region, between Europe and the US, and even within the American upper class", according to Middle East expert Mohammed Hassan.

David Pestieau

Nov 12, 2003

The Bush presidency has just received 87 billion dollars from Congress to continue the occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan). Yet in Congress, a few Democrats and even some Republicans who favored the war, are now opposing the occupation. How did this come about ?

Mohammed Hassan. There has been dissent among the various factions of the US upper class since fifty years. There's an internationalist wing of industrials, who advocate a policy of containment. This means to isolate communism and to prevent it from gaining influence. A strong alliance with western Europe was needed for this. Another faction is more connected to the oil and textile industry. They opt for a strategy of rollback, which means to overthrow communism and all independent regimes. They have always claimed that the supremacy of the US is at stake in Latin America and, even more so, in Asia .

Up to the fall of the Soviet Union , both wings had a common understanding. Containment was predominant, but some regimes were toppled, like Iran in 1953 or Indonesia in 1965, whenever this was feasible without confronting the Soviet Union head-on.

And from 1989 on ?

Mohammed Hassan. After the fall of the Soviet Union , a large part of the American upper class favored total rollback. In other words: to install capitalism everywhere under American rule.

The crisis of the late nineties, that still lingers on, has sparked a consensus to overthrow the alleged rogue states. Wars against Yugoslavia , Afghanistan and Iraq have been the first steps.

In Iraq , the strategy was to bring down the regime and appoint a proxy government. And most importantly, to replace the other regimes of the region.

Economically speaking, it's about privatizing all Iraq 's key industries, setting up a neocolonial aconomy, and creating a unified market from which Israel can dominate the entire region.

This is, in fact, the same colonial policy as in the early 20th century.  

Define colonialism ?  

Mohammed Hassan. There is no more constitution, no government, and all restoration contracts have been awarded to American companies. Without any public bidding. It's a real robbery.

Take this Halliburton firm for instance. Its president has been the US vice-president for some time now, Dick Cheney. One of its branches, Kellogg Brown & Root Services, has been assigned the reconstruction of the Iraqi oil industry, for twice the amount originally planned, two billion dollars !  

Not just the reconstruction, but the building of a new oil refinery too. Most striking is the fact that the US Army Corps of Engineers, assigned to the reconstruction, has raised the price based on a study by... Kellogg. That's because the American oil empires want to do more than just drilling the existing oil fields; they want to explore new ones, until they can get 8 million barrels per day out of the ground, that's their ambition.  

In the meantime, Iraq faces an unprecedented unemployment rate.  

Mohammed Hassan. The Americans are now doing in Iraq, what they have been doing all throughout the third world.  They turn manual laborers and well trained intellectuals into a mass of beggars and modern slaves. The Americans are doing today, what the British did in the 1920's when they invaded Iraq .  

Since the Soviet revolution and the later victory over fascism in WW II fueled the liberation from colonialism, it's only logical that colonialism is now rising again, now that the socialist block has vanished.  

But the third world people, and certainly the Iraqis, have learned a lot in the past eighty years. The Iraqis realize fully well that their country had the highest number of people with a degree of the whole Arab world. They know that at a certain moment in time, their country has applied the enormous wealth of its oil to building a modern state.  

This understanding is at the roots of the current resistance. If there is any dissent within American Congress, it's only because the Iraqi resistance is proving every day that the US plans are going to be very costly without a guarantee for success.  

A part of the European upper class seems to oppose this expansionism as well.  

Mohammed Hassan. Yes, because the war against Iraq was also a war against Europe. Rollback goes against the policy of alliance from before the fall of communism. The US are doing everything to divide Europe. To impose their rule completely, they had to rearrange the regions of control, and start a war against Iraq . This is a clear signal to Europe : stay away from the Middle East .  

The restored unity between France , Germany and the US is only make-believe. The disagreements are mounting heads over heels. Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to have the European Union order a poll that has Europeans quoting two countries as a threat to world peace, Isreal (59%) and the US (53%).  

The divisions are also developing within those countries that have remained loyal to the US . When Spain withdraws its diplomatic personnel from Baghdad , it shows the pressure from the pro-European Spanish upper class.  

Even Chalabi, Washington 's friend in Iraq , complains about the lack of power being handed from the US to the Iraqi Council.  

Mohammed Hassan. It's because of the pro-American Kurds in Iraq. For ten years, they have controlled an independent area in the north of Iraq . They were able to arm and organise themselves.

They have a big influence on other pro-American factions. They are imposing their idea about an Iraqi federal state. But they're so blinded by their narrow nationalism, that they fail to see that the US have a very different agenda from theirs.  

The American army needed them for espionage and infiltration, before and after the war. But today, the Americans realize that they control nothing more than that particular area.

So Washington has been appealing to Turkey (which refused in the end), which in turn caused protest from the Kurds. On the other hand, the pro-American Arab movements within the region have no support whatsoever from the population, and no decent orientation either.  

Have the US failed in their assessment of things ?  

Mohammed Hassan. Sure thing. Both Powell and Rumsfeld were forced to admit that they didn't expect such a powerful and organized resistance. Contrary to their initial decisions, they have now drafted part of the former Iraqi army again, to quickly bring about a new army under their command. But this makes Kurdish groups such as Talabani's feel restricted in their power. And pro-American puppets like Chalabi feel the power slipping away from them.  

So the Americans would split power with elements from the former government that defect to them ? That would explain why Rumsfeld talks about an Iraqi army of 200,000 men...  

Mohammed Hassan. Right. The Americans are aiming for one or two opportunistic generals from the previous regime. So as to get part of the roots of the Iraqi army under control. Because it's these people who are now unemployed or in the resistance. In this way, the US hope to divide Saddam Hussain's Baath party.  

The former members of the Iraqi army are the only ones with military experience, who know the elementary structures to erect a real army. But this option is very vulnerable, since such a new army would also be open to infiltration from the resistance. And most of all: it's too late. If the US would have done so, right after the fall of Baghdad when the morale of the Iraqi nationalists was quite low, then they could have hoped for great acclaim. But now...  

The US are also encountering ever greater opposition from other countries within the region.  

Mohammed Hassan. Yes, even from their traditional allies such as Kuwait , Saudi Arabia and even Turkey . These three countries have signed a joint statement with Iraq 's other neighbor nations ( Iran , Syria , Jordania). It says that the American occupation is unacceptable, and they demand that power be restored to the Iraqis as soon as possible. Kuwait has often fought the American decision to clear the Iraqi debt toward it.  

Those statements must have been forced by the overall population, that is supporting the Iraqi resistance?  

Mohammed Hassan. That is a factor indeed, but those are not demagogue statements really. Never before have Kuwait and Saudi Arabia gone this far. These feodal regimes have realized that the US goals aren't limited to overthrowing the Arab-nationalist regime of Saddam Hussain. They want to "democratize", or rather americanize, the entire region. They want to replace all regimes within the Gulf with protectorates, where the locals will only hold some very limited power.  

The American anti-Saudi strategy was unveiled in a Congress report about the September 11 attacks. The role of the Saudi nation is questioned during several tens of pages.

This report demands a compensation of 3,000 billion dollars, just about the entire American debt !  

When the report was published in August, a delegation of Saudi's headed by the heir to the throne went to Moscow to negociate an anti-dumping petrol agreement. Saudi-Arabia commits itself, in accordance with Russia, not to decrease the oil price. You should realize that Saudi-Arabia used to be one of the US's most important allies in its crusade against communism. That country sponsored much of the American economy with its oil dollars. By consistently decreasing the oil price whenever the Americans asked, the currency income dropped for the Arab nationalist countries, and for the Soviet Union, that produces a lot of oil. This has lead to economic crises in these countries.  

The deal between the Russians and the Saudis is an important change and challenge to American rule.

Saudi Arabia used to ask muslim associations within the US to vote Bush, but now they ask to prevent his reelection in any way possible.  

All these differences are getting more pronounced as the Iraqi resistance proves to be stronger and better organized, time and again.  

Mohammed Hassan. There's a link between different forms of resistance: military actions against American convoys, and some kind of intifadah from within the people.  

On Oct 31, the resistance announced a three day strike against the occupation, through a word-of-mouth campaign and illicitly distributed leaflets. On the next day, Baghdad was a dead place. The day after that, an American chopper was downed, with 20 killed. And on the next day, the headquarter of British and American troops was attacked. After the assault on vice-minister of defense Wolfowitz, on October 26th, this shows that the resistance wants to cause panic among the grunts within the American army, but also among its generals

and policy makers.  

The Oct 27 attack against the Red Cross raises some questions. Why target the humanitarian aid ?  

Mohammed Hassan. Things are more complicated than that. In the past ten years, the Red Cross and its Arab counterpart the Red Crescent filed a very critical report about the effects of the trade embargo on the population.  

After the fall of Baghdad, most of the Iraqi Red Crescent personnel were chased out by occupation forces, because they were pro-Saddam. Instead, pro-Americans were appointed as chiefs of the organisation. They only bring aid to areas under American control. For example, nothing ever gets to the city of Fallujah, stronghold of the resistance. And we shouldn't be naïve about it: the US army infiltrates this kind of organisation for its intelligence work. So there’s some motive to those who attacked the Red Cross.  

Can Iraq be compared to Vietnam, as some analysts are doing ?  

Mohammed Hassan. There are elements of similarity, true. But both wars should be placed in their own context. The war against Vietnam did fit within containment. The US wanted another Korea:

a communist North-Vietnam and a pro-American South-Vietnam. But they had to deal with a strongly implanted guerilla, and a well organized communist party that had the support of China and the Soviet Union.  

In Iraq, the US are applying a logic of rollback. The Iraqi resistance has no support from the Soviet Union, nor from any other powerful country, at least not openly. So this situation is a lot tougher.  

But the US have got some weak spots. They lost the propaganda war within the Arab and muslim world. The resistance has got the support of about all layers of the muslim world. The American agression has strongly raised the consciousness of over a billion people. The Iraqi resistance won't be short of money anytime soon, as long as it continues to organize itself.  

Nothing indicates that the American nation will be able to keep carrying the immeasurable burden of war without causing a major crisis within the US itself. Sooner or later, as the disagreements within Iraq and the region are mounting, the Americans will end up in a hopeless position, and they'll be forced to leave the country.