Dear Pentagon, Is This What You Call ‘Security’

The success of the ‘Surge’ and the drop in American casualties in Iraq is much in the news of late. But how significant is this to the life of the ordinary Iraqi?

According to Fateh Abdulsalam of Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, Iraq has problems that go far beyond the capacity of force to resolve:

“Today there are ongoing military operations in most of Iraq’s provinces, and worryingly, those will be followed with more as long as security forces are used to address any and all of Iraq’s problems. … What guarantees of security do Iraqi citizens have? Can citizens trust government agencies more than they fear armed factions from across the border or which are spawned within our borders?”

So what’s the problem with the Iraqi political system? Abdulsalam goes on:

“No one in Iraq’s cantons of power studies the trends in public life for the next six months, to say nothing of the next year, five years or thirty years, the way authorities in the West do. After all, how could such a study and review take place in the shadow of political wrangling and the absence of responsibility in the part of the governing parties, where bickering over minor issues is the rule?”

By Fateh Abdulsalam

Translated By Nicolas Dagher

August 1, 2008

Iraq – Azzaman – Original Article (Arabic)

Let us diagnose the Iraqi situation by the criteria that the Pentagon uses to measure improvements in security conditions: according to statistics published by the Pentagon itself, only eleven U.S. soldiers were killed in July, the lowest number of Americans casualties since the war began.

It’s true to say that this is how the U.S. measures progress. But although the Americans in Iraq consider themselves the main indicator of the flow of events, this statistic can’t be considered a way of measuring improving health for the entire of the country.

Today there are ongoing military operations in most of Iraq’s provinces, and worryingly, those will be followed with more as long as security forces are used to address any and all of Iraq’s problems.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign and Iraqi coverage of the Iraq War.