The false facade of security

July 24, 2007

The false facade of security


THE US is planning to bribe Iraqi nationals working for the US government by granting them refugee status with a view to ensuring their loyalty and commitment to staying on in their jobs in chaotic Iraq.
This is what could be understood from a report that US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Cocker has recommended that all Iraqis working for the US government to be granted refugee status by the US.
Being formally classified by the US as refugee clears the way for those given the status to proceed to the US when the US job is done in Iraq (Of course the question remains unanswered what exactly the US job in Iraq is and what would be a realistic timeline for it to be completed).
According to a cable sent by Cocker and a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Post, if Iraqi employees were not assured of safe haven in America, they would quit, weakening the ability of the US government to make an impact in Iraq even as it tries frantically to stabilise the country.
The cable says in part that Iraqis in US government employment "work under extremely difficult conditions, and are targets for violence including murder and kidnapping. Unless they know that there is some hope of a (migration to the US) in future, many will continue to seek asylum, leaving our mission lacking in one of our most valuable assets."
There is poetic justice in the recommendation. Iraqis working for the US government — meaning the occupation military — are risking their life. They are among the first targets along with US soldiers for the insurgents, who consider them as traitors since they work for the US.
They serve as interpreters, translators, and guides in for the US military. Many serve in various capacities for the US diplomatic mission in Iraq and others are intelligence agents and informants.
Few of the Iraqis in the US payroll in Iraq would volunteer the information that they work for the occupying power. Among the prime reasons is the fear that they could be targeted for killing by insurgents. Some might also be prompted to remain silent about their jobs since they realise that they are doing something not very right as Iraqis.
No definite numbers are available on how many Iraqis would qualify for refugee status as recommended by Cocker, but they would definitely run into several thousands, many of them living in the "safe and secure" environment of the fortified "Green Zone" in Baghdad and US military camps across the country.
The US record of accepting Iraqis as immigrants speaks for itself. Some 825 Iraqis have been given migration status in the US since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and tens of thousands of Iraqi applicants are pending with the US government, which is no longer accepting applications from Iraqis who have fled the country.
Washington promised to take in some 7,000 Iraqis during the fiscal year October 2006 to September 2007, but it has processed less than 140 applications by July 2007, with little or no hope of meeting even 10 per cent of the promised figure.
In simple terms, the US authorities do not trust Iraqis, perhaps except those who work under their direct control and whose credentials have been proved to suit US purposes. One could not really find fault with this argument. Every country has to put its interests first and that is precisely the US is doing, but in Iraq it has to be done at the expense of the people of Iraq as the disastrous US occupation has proven.
One also wonders what would be the fate of many Iraqi exiles who rode back into their country atop US military tanks in 2003. Many of them had to scale down their political ambitions as the realities of post-war Iraq set in. Would they dare to stay on in post-US Iraq or would they take the first flight to safety in their plush homes in Europe and elsewhere?
The Danish government seems to have set an example for other countries with military presence in Iraq. Denmark, which has some 450 soldiers serving with the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, accepted some 200 Iraqis and their families as immigrants this month ahead of the expected withdrawal of the Danish troops from Iraq. The airlifted Iraqis used to work with the Danish military unit in Iraq.
There is indeed suspicion that the disclosure about Cocker's cable was a "planned leak" in order to send an indirect message of reassurance to Iraqis in US government payroll in Iraq without any commitment on the part of the administration.
In any event, Cocker's implicit admission that Iraqis on US government pay in Iraq need assurances of their future highlights the reality that they realise that the US would be leaving behind a chaotic Iraq, if and when it decides to quit the country and there would be no future for anyone deemed to have worked for the US occupation authorities. That also exposes their understanding that the US would not be able to stabilise Iraq and leave the country with the satisfaction that the objectives of the invasion and occupation were achieved. Had the case been otherwise, then everyone in Iraq could be expected to be assured of their safety and security in a post-US Iraq.
Wasn't it — as we heard last from Washington — for the liberation of Iraqis from the Saddam Hussein regime and democratisation of Iraq that the US invaded the country? Shouldn't it follow then that whatever the US is doing in occupied Iraq is aimed at ensuring the freedom, safety and security of the liberated people of Iraq and safeguarding their future? Why then the Iraqis who are helping the US in that mission need any reassurance of their future?
When the people who are supposed to run Iraq themselves do not have faith in the declared US drive to hand over the country to Iraqis, then one should be wondering about the whole American exercise.
No that there ever was any realistic hope that the US would be able to pacify Iraq, what with the irreversible blunders it made at the very outset of its occupation of the country. The Cocker recommendation underlines that the US would not mind turning Iraqis into Americans as along as they serve Washington's purposes in Iraq. However, given that the US purposes in Iraq have faded away from the horizon of realism, reason and logic, Washington seems to be ready to try any gimmick to hang on in the country at least until the present administration remains in office.