Inside Baghdad: A city paralysed by

fear

By Patrick Cockburn

Published: 25 January 2007

Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running
into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes
may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong
religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night. This is
mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair.

Black smoke was rising over the city centre yesterday as American and
Iraqi army troops tried to fight their way into the insurgent district
of Haifa Street only a mile north of the Green Zone, home to the
government and the US and British embassies. Helicopters flew fast and
low past tower blocks, hunting snipers, and armoured vehicles
manoeuvred in the streets below.

Many Iraqis who watched the State of the Union address shrugged it
off as an irrelevance. “An extra 16,000 US soldiers are not going to be
enough to restore order to Baghdad,” said Ismail, a Sunni who fled his
house in the west of the city, fearing he would be arrested and
tortured by the much-feared Shia police commandos.

It is extraordinary that, almost four years after US forces captured
Baghdad, they control so little of it. The outlook for Mr Bush’s
strategy of driving out insurgents from strongholds and preventing them
coming back does not look good.

On Monday, a helicopter belonging to the US security company
Blackwater was shot down as it flew over the Sunni neighbourhood of
al-Fadhil, close to the central markets of Baghdad. Several of the five
American crew members may have survived the crash but they were later
found with gunshot wounds to their heads, as if they had been executed
on the ground.

Baghdad has broken up into hostile townships, Sunni and Shia, where
strangers are treated with suspicion and shot if they cannot explain
what they are doing. In the militant Sunni district of al-Amariyah in
west Baghdad the Shia have been driven out and a resurgent Baath party
has taken over. One slogan in red paint on a wall reads: “Saddam
Hussein will live for ever, the symbol of the Arab nation.” Another
says: “Death to Muqtada [Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric]
and his army of fools.”

Restaurants in districts of Baghdad like the embassy quarter in
al-Mansur, where I once used to have lunch, are now far too dangerous
to visit. Any foreigner on the streets is likely to be kidnapped or
killed. In any case, most of the restaurants closed long ago.

It is difficult for Iraqis to avoid joining one side or the other in
the conflict. Many districts, such as al-Hurriya in west Baghdad, have
seen the minority – in this case the Sunni – driven out.

A Sunni friend called Adnan, living in the neighbouring district of
al-Adel, was visited by Sunni militiamen. They said: “You must help us
to protect you from the Shia in Hurriya by going on patrol with us.
Otherwise, we will give your house to somebody who will help us.” He
patrolled with the militiamen for several nights, clutching a
Kalashnikov, and then fled the area.

The fear in Baghdad is so intense that rumours of even bloodier
battles sweep through the city. Two weeks ago, many Sunni believed that
the Shia Mehdi Army was going to launch a final “battle of Baghdad”
aimed at killing or expelling the Sunni minority in the capital. The
Sunni insurgents stored weapons and ammunition in order to make a
last-ditch effort to defend their districts. In the event, they believe
the ultimate battle was postponed at the last minute. Mr Bush insisted
that the Iraqi government, with US military support, “must stop the
sectarian violence in the capital”. Quite how they are going to do this
is not clear. American reinforcements might limit the ability of death
squads to roam at will for a few months, but this will not provide a
long-term solution.

Mr Bush’s speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by
identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful
Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian. It is the
Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed
and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab world as a
whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the
Iranian threat.

Iraqis also wonder what will happen in the rest of Iraq while the US
concentrates on trying to secure Baghdad. The degree of violence in the
countryside is often underestimated because it is less reported than in
the capital. In Baquba, the capital of Diyala province north-east of
Baghdad, US and Iraqi army commanders were lauding their achievements
at a press conference last weekend, claiming: “The situation in Baquba
is reassuring and under control but there are some rumours circulated
by bad people.” Within hours, Sunni insurgents kidnapped the mayor and
blew up his office.

The situation in the south of Iraq is no more reassuring. Five
American soldiers were killed in the Shia holy city of Karbala last
Saturday by gunmen wearing American and Iraqi uniforms, carrying
American weapons and driving vehicles used by US or Iraqi government
forces. A licence plate belonging to a car registered to Iraq’s
Minister of Trade was found on one of the vehicles used in the attack.
It is a measure of the chaos in Iraq today that US officials do not
know if their men were killed by Sunni or Shia guerrillas.

US commanders and the Mehdi Army seem to be edging away from all-out
confrontation in Baghdad. Neither the US nor Iraqi government has the
resources to eliminate the Shia militias. Even Kurdish units in the
capital have a high number of desertions. The Mehdi Army, if under
pressure in the capital, could probably take over much of southern Iraq.

Mr Bush’s supposedly new strategy is less of a strategy than a
collection of tactics unlikely to change dramatically the situation on
the ground. But if his systematic demonising of Iran is a precursor to
air strikes or other military action against Iran, then Iraqis will
once more pay a heavy price.