by Karen Button
Beirut - “The US talks about withdrawal after bringing Iraqi security forces up to speed, yet has paid militias, allowed mercenaries, and, with few exceptions, ignored the blatant abuses and torture committed by Iraqi forces. They have ignored rampant corruption within all ministries, the most egregious resulting in a medical crisis and a judicial joke. They have also committed their own atrocities, ensuring that the new Iraq is riddled with violence, fear, and contempt for the occupying forces.”
Thus starts a new peace plan entitled Planning Iraq’s Future: A detailed project to rebuild post-liberation Iraq. The 250-page book was written over the past two years by 108 Iraqis that consciously included Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and other minorities. Two-thirds of the Iraqis still reside inside the country, the other third, outside.
Unlike some other plans, like that put forward in January by Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Defense Minister and current advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, none of the Iraqis who worked on this plan have ties to the current government.
That’s important, maintain authors of the new initiative. Precisely because the new Iraqi government is backed by occupation forces means it will never hold legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqi citizens and always be a target by resistance forces, says Dr. Khair El-Din Haseeb, Director General of Beirut’s Center for Arab Unity Studies, the Arab world’s most prominent think-tank and sponsor of the project.
The imperative for Iraqis to re-gain control of their country is what fueled the broad-based plan, says Haseeb, who also edited the book. The project, “is a ‘Road Map’ for the liberation of Iraq; a blueprint to a new, liberated, independent, sovereign and democratic Iraq,” he writes in the introduction.
“This plan proposes a direction for the future of Iraq,” explained co-author Dr. AbdulKarim Hani, while in Damascus. “We’ve been asked many times what is the political program of the resistance. Well, this is it.”
Signatories on the plan represent thousands of Iraqis, the authors say, because many of them speak for larger groups. Hani, for example, is with the Iraqi National Foundation Congress (INFC), a broad coalition of Iraqi political, intellectual, religious, and ethnic forces formed in 2004 to defuse sectarian and ethnic divisions.
“This occupation came out of13 years of the worst sanctions the world has seen. Now, we have had four years of even worse suffering. These are the conditions under which this document was written,” explains Hani, who himself finally fled Iraq for Cairo a year and a half ago.
“I don’t like being called a refugee and Iraqis shouldn’t have to be. Yet there are millions who’ve had to leave their homes. To call it a ‘problem’ is too minor; I call it a catastrophe. Every person I’ve met hasn’t left Iraq for pleasure, it’s because they had to. This means, very obviously, the occupation in Iraq has failed! It is imperative for the Iraqi people to have our voice.”
Numerous plans for Iraqi’s future have also been written by other groups opposed to the occupation. Some, like that written by the Association of Muslim Scholars, a powerful Sunni clerics’ organisation, have been submitted to the United Nations. A high-level meeting, planned for next month, will bring together “non-aligned” (those opposed to occupation) representatives from all the different Iraqi projects and form a single agenda.
“In that plan we will also include draft laws to address sectarianism and education,” explains Haseeb. “Among the groups there are contacts with [armed] resistance groups, so we have their agreement as well.”
“We are forming a very broad unified resistance front that represents the will of the Iraqi people,” says Hana Ibrahim, co-author and director of the Baghdad-based NGO Women’s Will. “We are growing very large, so maybe we won’t agree on every detail, but we don’t need to. We can put these aside for now to agree on the most important points, ending the occupation of our country. What’s important a unified resistance front.”
“At that point,” Haseeb reveals, “we can include people both inside and outside of Iraq and we will work together, not just the elite, but at the grassroots. We will have a dedicated website where people and organisations from around the world can register their support.”
The distinction between Iraq’s resistance and other armed groups is critical, contends Haseeb, yet a serious lack of analysis exists in the majority of Western media. Mostly, he says, all armed groups are wrongly lumped together under the umbrella of “insurgent.”
“The [armed] resistance does not attack innocent people and condemns all violence directed at civilians. Their targets are the occupation forces. The Iraqi resistance, whether armed or political, is legally-sanctioned under international law.” This point, Haseeb argues, is frequently missing in most media and completey ignored by the Bush Adminstration.
“We understand there’s been a vacuum of political resistance,” he acknowledges, “and this [plan] will fill that vacuum.”
The main points in Planning Iraq’s Future includes:
- Unequivocal 6-month US and other foreign troop withdrawal, to include all military bases;
- Iraqi National Resistance will declare a ceasefire, while keeping their arms, until the final withdrawal, after which all militias and resistance will be dissolved;
- Annulment of the current political process;
- Installation of interim Prime Minister nominated by non-occupation-aligned political and resistance groups, under UN auspices, for two years;
- Temporary peace-keeping forces installed, with consultation of the United Nations, from Arab nations that did not cooperate with US/UK invasion;
- Laws convening parliamentary elections would be enacted and elections held within two years;
- Army and other security forces not allowed in the political process;
- Non-aligned persons nominated to supervise transparent elections, with oversight by selected internationals (former South African president Nelson Mandela and former US president Jimmy Carter are both named);
- Members of the interim government would not be allowed to participate in new elections;
- Reformation of Iraqi Army (not a return of the former).
“The plan is not perfect when it comes to women’s rights, but it is much, much better than what we have now. It gives us back what we had before,” says Ibrahim from Women’s Will. “And, we must first end the occupation to end the violence. It really doesn’t matter how many rights women do or don’t have if we can’t even walk down the streets in safety or attend school.”
A plan for Iraq is important, Haseeb says, because, “the political process [in Iraq] is crumbling. We have coalitions of [local] governments rather than a central one and the ministers are all living in the Green Zone, meaning they have no access to the ministries they are supposed to run. We know the Ministry of Interior has been penetrated by militias—at least by 80 percent, the Army by at least 50 percent. That means the Americans cannot hand over security to the Iraqi forces as planned.
“They [the Americans] argue without the US Army the civil war will grow. This is nonsense! Even the Pentagon says that resistance attacks have increased by 68 percent and this is against the US military. If the US withdraws, violence would obviously decrease. It’s simple math.”
In March Haseeb sent the plan to members of the British Parliament and the US Congress, among others. “We received acknowledgement from 24 members of the House of Commons showing interest, but so far there’s been nothing from the US Congress.
“I personally prefer to work out a plan for withdrawal with the American forces in Iraq, but with the grave mistakes they’ve made in the past, we can’t count on their rationality.
“Any extension or increase in Iraq will be at the cost of American and Iraqi lives. We need to make Mr. Bush understand this. Despite his security plan, at the end of this month it will be the highest number of casualties yet.”
April has been the deadliest month this year with 100 Americans and 12 British killed. The US military does not record Iraqi civilian deaths and the Iraqi government refuses to release civilian death counts. Estimates put the number of Iraqis killed in April well over 1,000.
“I’m more hopeful than at any time before that the Americans will withdraw,” concludes Haseeb. “They have three choices, go big, go slow, or go home.”
