Journalist Dahr Jamail on:

1. The increase in an air war in Iraq.
2. The kidnapping of the Christian Peacemaker Team members.
3. Calls for the US to pull out of Iraq and what would happen if they did so.
4. Videos about Iraq and a new feature on his web site, the Middle East News Wire.

“Almost a thousand combat missions flown in Iraq just for the month of November and they are talking about a drastic increase in that number as they would engage in a troop draw down.” Dahr Jamail

Welcome to Talk Nation Radio, www.TalkNation.org for news and discussion about politics, human rights and the environment. I’m Dori Smith.

An increase in the air war in Iraq even as discussions about a troop withdrawal are going on in America. Will the Bush Administration bomb its way out of Iraq? And what will be the cost to the Iraqi people? What could a major bombing campaign in Iraq do to further inflame an already divided Middle East? Journalist Dahr Jamail joins us today to talk about what is happening to the Iraqi people as 500 and 1000 pound bombs land on their cities and towns. He was in Iraq through eight months of war and occupation and unlike many other reporters he focused his attention on talking with Iraqis, reporting what they were telling him about Abu Ghraib prison, the occupation, house arrests and their long suffering.

You can read his latest work at Inter Press Service, The Asia Times, and other publications, or find them online at Dahr Jamail Iraq dot com During his speaking tour of the U.S. after returning home from testifying at the World Tribunal on Iraq Dahr Jamail said many times that the solution to the ongoing crisis in Iraq is to bring U.S. forces home. I asked him to talk about the new level of criticism aimed at the Bush Administration and recent calls to bring the troops home.

Dahr Jamail: It’s apparent that as long as the failed occupation of Iraq continues to grind forward that the Bush Administration will become more and more desperate in what type of propaganda they are using to justify it as well as blaming the people who are resisting against what’s happening here and I think this is what we are just going to continue to see and should get use to seeing as this goes on because it’s a totally failed situation and as the number of US soldiers dying in Iraq and being wounded in Iraq continues to increase we are going to see more and more of this propaganda like what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld even today came out and warned against, a fundamentalist super-state being generated in Iraq if the US withdraws. –Just more of this type of baseless fear mongering being used by the Secretary of Defense and Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. And it’s really not a surprise when we look at how unpopular the situation in Iraq has become and right now all polls even indicate the fact that the majority of Americans are now against what is happening in Iraq.

Dori Smith: Let’s turn to your December 1st story; “Where People Cannot Afford their Country” –is your title. I want to talk about that because that is not being discussed in spite of the new level of criticism aimed toward the Bush White House there is not a lot of discussion about the suffering and endurance of the Iraqi people and what they have had to go through because of the lies that we are now finally noticing the Bush Administration told.

Dahr Jamail: It is a horrific situation. One that’s really not being reported much if any at all in the corporate media, and that’s regarding, how are people in Iraq getting by? Particularly if we look at the economy there with over 70% unemployment. The infrastructure is in complete shambles and almost no reconstruction has occurred and so what this looks like on the ground. –Even in the Capital City of Baghdad the people are essentially camping in their houses where they have on average three hours of electricity per day now. Sometimes they have running water sometimes not but when they do have that running water they had better boil it otherwise they are going to get very very sick. And then of course the security situation which is very detrimental to everything going on. So it’s a horrific living situation there and one that’s very hard for us back here in the United States to imagine where we have great security, if we have a power outage it’s a really big deal, so it’s very hard to imagine living in such an unstable, insecure, totally demolished infrastructure which the situation is in Iraq right now.

Dori Smith: Dahr you have said in the past that there were problems within the ministries in Iraq that were set up during the time of Bremer’s Coalition and you had said that they were largely controlled by the U.S. Then we saw a series of stories about corruption in these offices and some of the ministers in fact left the country of Iraq trying to escape prosecution. Now in your story you are talking about the Ministry of Trade and you are looking at the amount of supplies that Iraqis are able to get. Talk about the food shortages.

Dahr Jamail: We just talked about how bad the economy is and the extreme unemployment and how difficult it is to move around because of the security situation. So what this has caused is a situation where Iraqis have become increasingly dependent on the monthly food rations. This is the food program that was set up during the sanctions and the Oil for Food program and has continued to this day. The head of every household in Iraq gets a food coupon which once a month they take to a food distribution outlet and they get essentially what is roughly called a “food basket” they get basic staples to survive on for that month. They get rice, beans, sugar, tea, laundry detergent, baby milk powder; just these very basic elements that are enough for people to in a very slim way I should add but enough for people to survive on for a month. And the problem which has arisen lately is: a) the main problem is these aren’t being distributed in a timely fashion so there’s parts of Iraq now that haven’t received a food ration in several months time. So this is a very dire circumstance, especially when we look at it through a recent report which found an estimated 25% of Iraqis would literally starve to death if they did not receive this monthly food ration on a regular basis. b.) And another big problem with it is under the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was the first U.S. imposed government in Iraq when the occupation began small items from this monthly food basket began to be replenished with money so people could then theoretically go buy these missing items on the open market. Like the baby milk for example. But the problem was this created a much greater demand for that item on the market which of course raised the price. So the money given to the people means they don’t have that item in their food baskets plus the money they have to buy it is simply not enough.

This has essentially sped up the problem rather than provided any sort of a solution and as a result Iraqis, many Iraqis are now literally starving to death.

Dori Smith: I think to see Iraq is to really understand that, you know, what the people there have been going through, and certainly the videos available on your web site tell the story. Why don’t you talk about the three videos that are available at Dahr Jamail Iraq dot com

Dahr Jamail: The three videos I have on my site, I have them there because they really show very clearly small glimpses of what’s happening on the ground in Iraq. One video is called, “Caught in the Crossfire.” It’s made by an American independent film maker. And it’s about the second siege of Fallujah. And I really do strongly suggest that folks watch this video because it’s some of the only footage that has come out of Fallujah during and since the second siege of that city. Then there is another one regarding the first siege of Fallujah made by a Japanese film maker called, “Fallujah, April 2004″ and it’s a very solid documentary, no music, not too much editing, just on the ground footage of an individual who went into Fallujah just after the April siege and documented by interviewing witnesses, eye witnesses and doctors about what happened on the ground there, as well as some very powerful footage. It gives a good overview of what happened in Fallujah to generate the resistance there and all the events that led up to the first siege and therefore the second siege of that city.

Then there is another one made by a British film maker called, “A Letter to The Prime Minister,” and it focuses on the events leading up to the invasion itself as well as having some very powerful footage from inside Baghdad during the invasion, as well as footage from inside Fallujah in April which is when I was in that city. I was actually with this film maker inside the city and people can watch first hand the scenes from a small clinic inside Fallujah during the US assault of April of 2004.

Dori Smith: Representative Murtha a Democrat from Pennsylvania, has really come on strong as to the need to pull US troops out. Now, as we look at what Representative Murtha is calling for, however, he’s talking about leaving a US presence there intact so that he said if there were terrorist cells in Iraq they could be targeted from the air. He talked about putting US soldiers in countries near Iraq to protect the region. Just comment on that before we get into a discussion that I know you have been looking at recently about, in fact, an air war in Iraq.

Dahr Jamail: The idea of simply a great reduction in the troop level there along with keeping people in that region ready to do a sort of a quick reaction force and continue on with the military operation as necessary seems a bit of a half measure to me and that’s certainly not bringing the troops home. It’s certainly not going to generate more stability in the region which is the whole goal of engaging in a reduction of US troops there. But more importantly, that would be simply another move towards using US air power in Iraq which is happening right now at a startling rate.

I’m working on a piece right now to try to cover this because it hasn’t been covered by most mainstream media sources at all, as to how heavy and how intense the air campaign the US Military is involved in Iraq is.

If we look at the number of air missions flown in Iraq only for the month of November, we have 996 total combat missions flown from the air in Iraq and that does not include weekends, for whatever reason the US Military, the US Air Force, does not make statistics available for the weekends that they fly missions in Iraq. So excluding weekends which means we would easily see over a thousand, but that’s almost a thousand combat missions flown in Iraq just for the month of November and they are talking about a drastic increase in that number as they would engage in a troop draw down.

And when we look at what these missions are doing we have to also take into account that many of these missions are being flown to drop bombs inside cities. We are talking 500 and 1000 pound bombs, on occasion, a 2000 pound bomb which would literally destroy an entire large two story house. And these are the types of munitions being dropped inside the city generating massive civilian casualties. So talking about a troop reduction while escalating the air war is very similar to the strategy used in Vietnam when they withdrew troops but engaged in a very big increase in the air war there. And we saw what resulted in that policy, that the air war did not compensate for the fact that that war was still lost. And I am certain that we would have the same situation in Iraq.

Dori Smith: Now you’ve written about Operation Steel Curtain, I’m looking at your story November 7th 2005. In this piece you talk about what is indeed happening on the ground and how doctors were clamoring for assistance with a humanitarian crisis. You talk about the war planes coming, and destroying houses, killing and injuring dozens of people. Do you think that enough attention has been paid to the problem that the US Military and the White House have tended to justify their actions in Iraq by always claiming to be attacking and targeting terrorist cells just as Representative Murtha referred to. This strikes me as a dangerous train of thought that has gotten the Iraqi people killed.

Dahr Jamail: It’s another good point because I think it brings us back to the problem with the media which if we consider the fact that the last statistic I saw on this showed that 80% of people in the United States still rely primarily on the main television outlets to get their news. So if we watch, if people watch those outlets they are going to believe, because that’s what the news is being reported as, that of course the targets being hit in Iraq are only “insurgents” are only “terrorists”. This sort of thing. That the majority of the people fighting against the US Military in Iraq are terrorists coming from outside the country –despite the fact that even the Military admits that maximum 6% of the people that they are fighting in Iraq are not Iraqis and are coming from outside the country. So the problem is that people are being led to believe this and the reality is that as in any war throughout history, again, the vast majority of people dying in Iraq are civilians They are not fighters. And they are not even US soldiers. But they are civilians who are inside a house that is hit with a bomb and often times inside of a house that is hit by a bomb because of bad targeting or bad information being provided to the US Military. –And this is simply not being reported and this is a very huge problem because we’ve got a situation in Iraq that is looking more and more like Vietnam on a daily basis and yet the big difference here is we do not have the footage coming out. We do not have the reporting coming out showing how horrible a situation this is on the ground for Iraqi civilians and for US soldiers. The corporate media is not doing its job is not interested in that type of reporting, and is not doing it now and will not do it.

Dori Smith: Dahr let’s talk a little bit about Fallujah because even as we record this we are looking at coverage of the Saddam Hussein trial. Just talk about Fallujah in the context of that trial.

Dahr Jamail: Well, Fallujah is really, it’s an ongoing huge failure of the US Military and the Bush Administration in Iraq because Fallujah is covered up by things like this trial of Saddam Hussein, which is a farce, which by most international organizations and law firms is not seen as legitimate because it’s not an impartial court, it’s not an impartial judge, it’s not being held in a neutral location, and it is a bit of a big show trial. And even Iraqis on the ground are concerned and expressing dismay at this point by how much of a farce it is that Saddam can go in there and raise the ruckus that he has been raising and get away with it essentially –and making these unreasonable demands. And so in my opinion it’s a big charade. It’s a big propaganda distraction from the fact of something like Fallujah where of course people here watching the mainstream news are going to think well, Fallujah has been pacified, things are better there.

The reality is we had ten more Marines killed there just a few days ago right on the outskirts of Fallujah. Two days before that two more Marines inside Fallujah were killed and we’ve got US warplanes dropping bombs in Fallujah on a weekly basis. The situation is anything but resolved. But again, instead of getting reportage about that we are getting shown things like this sort of this mock trial if you will about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

Dori Smith: I’d like to know your thoughts about the comparison between the collective punishment that Saddam Hussein’s on trial for enacting in Dujail and the collective punishment that was exercised in Fallujah where you got into the city in April of 2004 to see the devastating consequence of the US attacks there.

Dahr Jamail: This is an important point, a very important point, because the collective punishment that Saddam Hussein is now being tried for pales in comparison to the types of collective punishment the US Military is meting out in Iraq on almost a daily basis. And again, Fallujah is the primary example because we’ve had thousands and thousands of people, innocent people there killed as a result of the US siege of that city in order to “root out” if you will, excuse me for the expression there but to use a Bush Administration term, to “root out” the people opposing the occupation from that city. So for a few hundred, at most, about a thousand fighters in that city, the US has essentially destroyed the entire city and killed several thousand innocent civilians.

We’ve got similar tactics going on now in Ramadi and other places like around Baquba and up near Al Qaim on the Syrian border where entire cities and villages are being collectively punished on a regular basis. Meaning they are sealed off, no medical supplies, no food are being allowed into the city. Water and electricity are cut off. And again it is civilians paying the highest price.

This has become the standard operating procedure of the US Military in Iraq, this collective punishment. So if Saddam Hussein is going to be tried for this, if there is justice of course the leaders of, and commanders of the US Military going on up, of course, to the Commander in Chief Mr. Bush should be tried for these sort of crimes as well.

Dori Smith: As we watch the Iraqis put in charge of more and more security we’ve seen what people are calling as a matter of fact now, “death squads,” and operating for the Shiites in control in the government. We’ve seen recently that Ayad Allawi, the former Prime Minister of Iraq was actually chased out of a mosque in Najaf –this was kind of a hair raising scene. Allawi having just commented on some of what’s going on in Iraq being similar to what was going on in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, very ironically. Comment on this and what you expect might happen as US troops did pull out.

Dahr Jamail: The situation with Ayad Allawi, he is vying very heavily for political power coming out of the elections to take place there now in just a little over a week’s time and he is essentially the Bush Administration and Blair Administration’s most hopeful front runner to get power because he is the most friendly candidate to those administrations. However, if we look at how well esteemed he is on the ground with Iraqis as you just mentioned. He was chased out of Najaf recently by a crowd throwing shoes which is a highly, the greatest insult you can do to a person in Arab culture is to hit them or touch them with the bottom of your shoe.

So shoes were thrown at him. Rotten tomatoes. He was literally chased out of Najaf. And then today his office in Najaf was blown up by a bomb. So people in Iraq do not like him. They feel betrayed by him. They are well aware of the fact that he is an ex-CIA man and in the back pocket of the Bush Administration, so his chances in this upcoming election are very dim at best.

Then regarding the situation of what would occur in Iraq if the US were to pull out: Essentially most Iraqis on the ground feel that this is only the first step in generating more stability and decreasing the amount of fighting going on in the country. A full and immediate withdrawal of US forces. And I think we need to stay focused on the Iraqi’s opinion on this. Not my opinion. Not other journalist’s, while people do ask for that. I think the most important thing to note is the most recent poll to come out indicating that the vast majority of Iraqis want an immediate US withdrawal was one commissioned even by the British Military. And this poll, the results were announced on October 24th, found that 82% of Iraqis surveyed wanted a full immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces immediately.

Dori Smith: Dahr that leads us very naturally to the Mid East Wire and that’s on your web site, Mid East Wire dot com You are providing translations, a daily Iraq monitor. Just talk about that and put that in some context. You know I’m looking at a December 5th wire story and it says here that Iraqi authorities are scheduled to take over responsibility of the three major prisons in Iraq namely Baghdad International, Abu Ghraib, and the Bucca detention camp in Basra. And that’s by the end of next month. So we’re looking at January.

Dahr Jamail: Middle East Wire, I really would encourage people to check this source out. You can read just the Iraqi daily news briefs that are translated from Arabic into English on my web site. Mid East Wire is a group of about 20 editors over in the Middle East that take pertinent news stories from Iraq and all of the other Middle Eastern countries for that matter and translate them into English on a daily basis. So, it’s a very valuable news source to be able to get information on what’s happening in that region and in Iraq straight from those Arab news sources. It’s the type of information that’s simply not being reported back here. So I definitely would encourage people to avail themselves of that information.

The story you mentioned is a case in point. This is something that, it’s a big question mark if it will be reported back here. Whether or not it will is a big question as well as when it might be reported but the fact is, as you mentioned, just reported today that Iraqi forces are slated to take over control of the three main prisons in Iraq which are now being controlled by the US Military.

So this story is very significant, especially when we look at the fact of how much Iraqi security forces have come under scrutiny, being accused of torture even worse than that which was being conducted by the Americans. And now these people are going to take over control of the three main prisons. It’s very disconcerting for Iraqis and does not bode well for the future.

Dori Smith: Let’s talk finally about the CPT, Christian Peacemaker Team, the four members of this group that have been kidnapped in Baghdad. I know that you have written about them Just talk about your piece.

Dahr Jamail: Christian Peacemaker Team is a group of people based out of Canada but they have offices in the United States and they have people who volunteer for them from all over the world, and they are active in over 100 different countries around the globe and their primary mission is to simply go in, literally at times put their bodies in between people who are fighting to try to stop it. They have done things in Iraq like gone in to document what happened at Abu Ghraib long before it was ever reported in the US mainstream media. They documented what’s been going on in Fallujah They documented what’s happened to the families of detainees and try to bring them aid and comfort so they do, in my opinion, absolutely top notch stellar work. They are great people. They have a great mission and they have been in Iraq since the very beginning of the occupation, even before the invasion itself actually. So the fact that these individuals have been detained is very disconcerting and it still as of today remains unclear who is responsible for this. This is a resistance group that we’ve never heard of before. They could be legitimate but maybe not. There’s a lot of speculation on the ground in Iraq that the people responsible –it could be a covert operation because if we look at the intentional targeting of reporters in Iraq the fact that these members of Christian Peacemaker Team are the last Western ongoing presence in Iraq who are monitoring the transgressions of the US Military there certainly leaves it open for a lot of speculation. Of course that sounds a lot like a conspiracy theorist back here but on the ground in Iraq this is how this is being perceived by many people.

Dori Smith: Well we could talk too about Giuliana Sgrena the woman who was also kidnapped and shot as was the Italian intelligence officer who died when with her, and of course, they were already free and shot by the US Military. So a lot of questions were raised about that and I believe there is a lawsuit right now about that with Sgrena herself looking for information. So it’s not strictly a matter of a conspiracy theory, I mean, there is a certain amount of information available now to suggest that just as you’ve said, that journalists are targeted. There is reason to believe that the people being taken and harassed and targeted in Iraq are chosen for a very specific reason. And it’s not always by the people who we would at first blush imagine.

Dahr Jamail: Yes, absolutely, and that’s another thing that’s difficult to convey to people back here in the US is really how dark, how complex, and how ugly the situation is on the ground in Iraq where you’ve got US Military that is losing the situation. They have essentially lost control of it which is why they are resorting to more air power and so they are willing to do whatever is necessary on the ground to get information and to try to get a leg up on the resistance which has really been dominating them for quite some time now. So, it’s in that context I think it’s easier to understand that the things from the old spy novels and the things from Hollywood that show really dirty tactics, and dirty games being played on the ground. –Makes it a little bit more easy to understand for folks here, how complicated the situation is and how ugly and that things like we have been discussing are very possible, not just possible, are happening to one degree or another on a daily basis inside Iraq.

Dori Smith: Journalist Dahr Jamail home from Iraq and touring the US. Dahr Jamail received an award from Project Censored at Sonoma State University and you can read some of his stories in the 2006 book of the 25 most censored news stories –That is a well known award for progressive journalists and as he makes his way across the US Dahr has received many warm welcomes from people who came to rely on his news reports about the war and occupation, corporations in Iraq like Bechtel and Halliburton, failures at the reconstruction of Iraqi cities, and the impact of the US war and occupation overall on the lives of the Iraqi people.

Dahr Jamail thanks so much for joining us again on Talk Nation Radio.

Dahr Jamail: Thanks a lot Dori.

Dori Smith: The web site for Dahr Jamail is Dahr Jamail Iraq dot com You can also log on to that site for Middle East News Wire and translations of news from the Middle East.

For Talk Nation Radio I’m Dori Smith. Talk Nation Radio was produced in the studios of WHUS radio. You can listen to it live Wed. at 5 PM by logging on to WHUS dot org

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