Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 16-17

Special Report

 

Hunger, Fear and Chaos Abound in Post-War Iraq, Says Returning Visitor

 

By Homayra Ziad

The prevailing mood during Zainab Salbi's May 29 talk on post-war Baghdad was one of grief and urgency. "The media does not give even a glimpse of how bad it is [in Iraq]," said the co-founder of Women for Women International, an NGO that helps women survivors of war and other conflicts move from crisis into a stable, peaceful, and self-sufficient civil society.

Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, Salbi discussed the status of humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, with a particular emphasis on the role and priorities of women. Iraqis are still in a state of shock, she said, that—despite repeated warnings from the international community—two great powers like the U.S. and Britain were so utterly unprepared for the day-after scenario. Thirty-five years of oppression under the Ba'ath, she explained, added to Iraqis' post-war disillusionment with the United States, has become an explosive mixture in many parts of the country. Meanwhile, the U.S. army has failed to live up to its peacekeeping and security responsibilities.

Salbi recently returned from a trip to the cities of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala, where, she said, an infrastructure nightmare continues. With the temperature hovering at 110 degrees, there are only four hours of electricity—two in the morning and two in the evening—available daily in Baghdad. Due to contaminated water supplies, water is limited. Cooking gas is unavailable, and lines for gasoline snake through the city from 5 a.m. onward, with wait-times of up to 12 hours. The reasons for the shortage of gasoline in a country which contains the world's second largest oil reserves are the limited pumping of gas and the fact that gas station owners, fearing for their security, only remain open for business while their stores are guarded by American tanks. Because the tanks turn away at 4 p.m. each day, gas stations are forced to close.

According to Salbi, a gun culture has developed in Baghdad as a response to the collapse of security. "Everyone has a gun," she said, with children as young as 10 shouldering Kalashnikovs. Before the war began, the government distributed weapons and ammunition to the general public for use against the invading forces. Firearms also were stored in public places, like schools, which were looted in the post-war chaos. The security situation seems to necessitate carrying a weapon at all times. Robbing and looting occur in broad daylight, Salbi said, and the burning and gutting of buildings continues—believed by most to be perpetrated by ex-Ba'athists, or Kuwaitis avenging Iraq's invasion of their country. Land and government property has been seized by desperate individuals, such as a destitute family of 11 whom Salbi found squatting in a bank building, fully aware of the illegality of their action but with no other recourse.

There is limited food as—again, due to security concerns—few stores remain open. Food supplies largely come from neighboring countries, according to Salbi, and are distributed through mosques. Even there, however, a mafia has developed, with first picks going to the families and friends of mosque officials. In another tragic turn of events, old containers looted from Iraq's largest nuclear facility were used to store milk and water. Now many are afraid to drink milk for fear of contamination. Salbi described the incident as just another example of U.S. troops turning a blind eye to any looting that did not involve oil.

The state of hospitals is pitiful, Salbi continued. The plundering has been so thorough, she said, that "patients were [lifted] off as their beds were looted." Most hospitals are running out of medicine. Because healthcare was subsidized by the government, doctors don't know whom to turn to, and are directing their anger at the United States. Many healthcare workers believe that medicine must continue to be subsidized, at least for the poor, and they fear the shock of moving directly from a fully subsidized economy to a free-market system.

Post-war reconstruction, too, is chaotic and unstructured. According to Salbi, there are a limited number of NGOs, mostly European, and they, too, fear for their security. "ORHA [the U.S. Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance] is supposed to be in charge," she noted, and their mandate includes revival of the police force, setting up a salary scale for reconstruction workers in Iraq, cleaning up the country, and food distribution. However, she told the audience, actual implementation issues are hardly discussed.

Added to everything is the still smoldering resentment among Iraqis at the way the war on their country was conducted. Even some American soldiers have been very disturbed by the war's inequality, and what they saw as overreaching by the U.S. army. One soldier described to Salbi how American forces would respond to any Iraqi gunfire with a disproportionate slew of cluster bombs. Iraqis now are describing 90 percent of American occupation soldiers as "rude and cruel." In one incident described to Salbi, soldiers guarding a gas station responded to the harmless antics of young Iraqi boys by waving guns at them, throwing them onto the ground and tying them up.

On the other hand, Salbi said, when real emergencies, such as looting or street violence, arise, the response of most soldiers has been, "It's not our responsibility." Furthermore, U.S. troops themselves have been implicated in the looting, mainly by confiscating expensive items such as antique weaponry from Iraqi civilians and refusing to hand over a receipt or other written proof of the transaction.

The rising temperatures and the pressure of the occupation may have made the soldiers more nervous than usual, Salbi speculated, but animosity against them is clearly developing, especially among middle- and upper- middle-class Iraqis. "If the situation doesn't improve," she warned, "The people are ready to pick up arms."

A further alarming development is that the concept of exacting blood-money for murders, apparently encouraged under Hussain's regime, is beginning to be discussed. Iraqi civilians who suffered personal losses at the hands of American soldiers may choose, in their current state of impotency and despair, to take revenge on the soldiers themselves.

In the political realm, noted Salbi, most Iraqis—even in the religious centers of Najaf and Karbala—are seeking a secular government that respects Islam. The politicians should be Iraqi, they say, and predominantly Muslim. Political parties are mushrooming in Iraq, mostly consisting of Iraqi exiles. Ahmad Chalabi is widely disliked, Salbi said, as is evidenced by myriad banners around Baghdad proclaiming him a thief. On his arrival in Baghdad, Chalabi confiscated the largest country club in the city, the Baghdad Hunting Club, as his political headquarters. Other political parties also have confiscated public or private property for their personal use.

The only widely respected party today, according to Salbi, is the Pachachi group, led by the 80-year-old Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister living in Abu Dhabi (see May 2003 Washington Report, p. 16). Salbi claimed, however, that none of the parties have been "talking to the masses" and addressing the pressing issues of security and sustenance. In order to protect their neighborhoods, young people are creating gangs, made up mostly of men and many ex-army youths. These groups are very vulnerable to being rallied by a charismatic leader, said Salbi. She described her encounter with a 21-year-old ex-Republican Guard member, who was rallying behind Moqtada Sadr, the head of Jamaat al-Sadr al-Thani, a radical Shi'i group. "If Sadr can rally the Republican Guard and ex-soldiers," she warned Salbi, "there is great danger."

Unfortunately, Salbi reported, the post-war explosion of anger and despair has had tragic consequences for Iraqi women. In Saddam Hussain's time, women did not suffer targeting by extremist Muslim groups, she noted, but rather fell victim to the countless regressive tribal values Hussain reintroduced to Iraq. The initial "liberation" of women under socialism in the 1960s and 1970s was reversed in the '90s, presumably as a result of Hussain's desperate consolidation of power. Women suffered most from the Ba'ath's use of sexual violence for political ends—raping women to silence them or their relatives.

In the current free-for-all, these atrocities have surfaced with a vengeance. The kidnapping of girls and women from elementary school to college age has become widespread, said Salbi, and a market for the sale of abducted women has emerged in Baghdad. There are rumors that girls in orphanages and mental hospitals are being raped. Most Iraqis suspect disgruntled ex-Ba'athists, but the fear has translated into a more circumscribed existence for young girls and women than the fairly integrated and independent lives they enjoyed before the war.

Women suffer in other ways as well, Salbi pointed out. In the more patriarchal and conservative mosques, unless they are covered from head to toe women are not allowed to receive food. Salbi shared the story of an Iraqi woman who, though religious, preferred to go hungry rather than compromise her personal Islamic beliefs by covering up.

Women must be consciously integrated into the country's political system, Salbi argued. Though Iraqi women have traditionally been viewed as educated and socially integrated, they are not visible among the groups currently vying for power, Chalabi's party being the notable exception. Other parties are not at all opposed to the involvement of women, however. In fact, at a recent political meeting in Baghdad, Salbi said, men gave a standing ovation to the women who advocated greater female involvement in the political process.

The question mark is the means of implementation. In ORHA planning, Salbi noted, no gender perspective has been incorporated, nor has there been a significant effort to bring women into the political sphere. However, she stressed, there are "plenty of women, from the most conservative onward, who all want to be fully a part of the process." One of the most conservative women Salbi met was a theology student studying at a religious academy, and she, too, Salbi said, spoke forcefully for the political integration of women. Furthermore, women are beginning to reorganize in Iraq, with much of the initial leadership coming from older women involved in rights groups in the 1950s.

In the final analysis, Salbi concluded, "we can't afford to move slowly in Iraq…Iraqis are still looking for American [leadership], but we're not winning this right now."

In addition to the importance of a gendered perspective, Salbi said, the issue of the rehabilitation of Iraqi soldiers and their reintegration into society must be addressed. She also urged that cultural sensitivity training be provided to American soldiers.

Addressing the security situation is crucial to the economic and social liberty that goes hand in hand with democracy, Salbi emphasized. "Some are even saying, 'Alas for Saddam's days,'" she remarked. "'We had food and security. Now we have nothing but the freedom to express ourselves.'"

Homayra Ziad is a Ph.D. student in Islamic studies at Yale University.

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