US leaves behind a stable Iraq

We [Iraq] are now in a big crisis please pray for us. — Canon Andrew White

A day or so ago, the Houseboy in the White House told us that the US had something to be proud of, that they had left behind a stable Iraq.

Really, has Obama tried walking the streets of Baghdad?

A far better description of Iraq post-invasion and occupation would be that of George Galloway: The Mother of All Blunders.

Obama called it: Mission Accomplished.

I was at an Iraq conference a decade ago, it was in the immediate aftermath of invasion and occupation. The Iraqis I met told me they would continue killing Americans until such time as America could no longer stomach the body bags coming home. Then they would withdraw with their tails between their legs.

– Occupation and Resistance in Iraq

Trillions of dollars later, many British and American soldiers killed and maimed, many scarred for life by what they have experienced. They have left behind a war-ravaged country, a country where there was no Al Qaeda turned into an Al Qaeda training and recruitment drive, a country covered in depleted uranium from previous attacks, carpeted with unexploded cluster bombs waiting to maim children, maybe a million Iraqis killed, three million driven into exile, religious sectarian massacres and suicide bombings so common place that no longer reported in the Western media, Sunni against Shia, Muslim against Christian and Jew, maybe a couple of thousand Jews in Iraq reduced to just seven, Christians bombed out of their homes, even Kurdistan until recently deemed safe, is seeing the killings. We saw the degradation of Abu Ghraib. Iran has been elevated to a regional power.

All this Obama calls Mission Accomplished.

For some it has been, some have done very nicely out of Iraq. Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s former employer) has made $32 billion from the Iraq war and yet it continues to receive government hand outs.

– Making a Killing: The Corporate Invasion of Iraq
– Iraq: Order 81

So now that the Americans have officially pulled out, though in reality many are still there, how is Iraq today?

The person best placed to answer that is Canon Andrew White, who has worked tirelessly to bring peace and reconciliation to Iraq. This is what he had to say today:

US may be leaving us but our war is not over it is getting worse every day but we are now forgotten! We have just spent 2 hours trying to get into the Green Zone. Our badges may be the highest level but they are not working as of today, because they are American. This evening I was to take the British Embassy Carol Service. I arrive an hour and a half late we still did a shortened version. How we do our work now I just do not know, I cannot get to the US Embassy to even do our Chapel Services. We are now in a big crisis please pray for us.

The US may have officially left (with tail between legs), the Iraqi people have been left to pay the price of a US-UK failed foreign adventure.

All that is left is prayer.

– The Mother of All Blunders: Obama celebrates US defeat in Iraq
– John Pilger answers Obama’s claim US military is “finest fighting force in history”
– House of Lords debates the plight of Christians in the Middle East

Tags: Iraq, Iraq War