The Legacy, Part Eight

Divided, fragile, destroyed

"Baghdad was built by al-Mansour and cherished by Saddam," was a slogan that adorned many buildings in the Iraqi capital before the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Nearly nine years later, as the last American troops leave, a new slogan has taken its place: "Baghdad was built by al-Mansour, humiliated by Saddam and destroyed by the Americans."
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Many directly accuse the U.S. invasion of stirring up sectarian divisions in a country where Saddam, from the minority Sunni sect, ruthlessly crushed any signs of Shi'ite dissent but minimized sectarian divisions in daily life.

"There were no Sunnis and Shi'ites before the Americans, there was no sectarianism," said Abu Issam as he crossed the bridge. "I am a Shi'ite and my two sons are married to Sunni women."

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The US played the “divide and conquer” game, and it took them almost three years, and the Negroponte death squads, to get the civil war started.  That length of time does indicate that there was little division in Iraqi society between Shi’ites and Sunnis prior to the US occupation.  In fact, the original “deck of cards” for US troops to get Saddam’s top people was 40% Shi’ites.  Intermarriage between the two groups was very common. 

But years of sectarian differentiation, and then death squads targeting Sunnis and car bombs targeting Shi’ites, and the bombing of the mosque in Samarra, lead to a civil war in 2006.  It was awful, and lasted for a couple of years.  Today, the ethnic cleansing has been completed – the Sunnis and Shi’ites of Iraq are living in separate areas.  

And a lot of Iraqis think the car bombs were done by the American and British military and mercenaries.  Correct or not, that is what a lot of them think.  Below is a photo of a British troop on fire coming out of a tank.  The story, as far as I can recall, went like this:  Iraqi police stopped a car in Basra with two Brits in typical Iraqi dress.  The Iraqi police claimed that there were massive explosives build into the car, so they arrested the Brits and took them to jail.  The British military used tanks to break down the wall to the Iraqi jail and set them free, and also confiscated the car with the alleged explosives.  The Iraqi people got angry and attacked the troops, throwing bottles with gasoline and set on fire, into the tank below.  The soldier, by the way, reportedly survived without serious injuries. 

As to the allegations about the car and the intent of the guys in the car – seems to me it would have been easy to prove this wrong to the whole world, by showing the car.  The British military never did that.  And so the Iraqi people think the British and the Americans were behind the car bombs, don't know if they were correct or not.

 

In this Sept. 19, 2005 file photo, a British soldier makes his way out of a burning Warrior fighting vehicle in Basra, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

(AP Photo/Nabil al-Jurani, File)