WHO IS REALLY PAYING FOR THE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR?

Five years after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception, the cost to the Iraqi people themselves.Through all the special coverage and exclusive reports, very little is said about Iraqi casualties, who are either completely overlooked or hastily mentioned and whose numbers can only be guesstimated.

(Op-ed) Ramzy Baroud Sunday 30th March, 2008
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Also conveniently ignored are the millions injured, internally and externally displaced, the victims of rape and kidnappings who will carry physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives.We find ourselves stuck in a hopeless paradigm, where it feels necessary to empathise with the sensibilities of the aggressor so as not to sound "unpatriotic", while remaining blind to the untold anguish of the victims. Some actually feel the need to go so far as to blame the Iraqis for their own misfortune.

Baghdad has become the most dangerous city in the world, largely as a result of a U.S. policy of pitting various Iraqi ethnic and sectarian groups against one another. Today, Baghdad is a city of walled-off Sunni and Shia ghettoes, divided by concrete walls erected by the US military," reports Dahr Jamail, one of the few courageous voices that honestly relayed the horrendous outcomes of the war. Indeed, there seem to be no promising statistics coming out of Iraq.

Even under the previous regime and the debilitating sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the UN, Iraqis were much better off prior to the war. Now, Iraqis are relevant only as pawns of endless U.S. government propaganda.

From the viewpoint of Bush, McCain and Cheney, they are the victims of al-Qaeda, which must be fought at all costs. From the viewpoint of Clinton and Obama, they need to fight their own wars and take responsibility for them, as if Iraqi "irresponsibility" is the main problem.

In yet another "surprise visit" to Iraq by a U.S. official, Vice-President Dick Cheney declared that Iraq was a "successful endeavour". Considering the exorbitant contracts granted to selected corporations, the war has indeed succeeded in making a few already rich companies and individuals a lot richer.

Meanwhile, Shlomo Brom, a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies and former head of the Israeli army's Strategic Planning Division, sees things from a slightly different angle. "Any Iraq will be better than Iraq under Saddam, because the Iraq of Saddam had the ability to threaten Israel," he was quoted as saying in the Christian Science Monitor.

In considering such skewed logic, one can only hope that Cheney's successful experiment will end soon, and that Israel's desire for security is now sated.

The people of Iraq cannot tolerate any more "success."

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).