Iraq Study Group report highlights crisis of US imperialism in Iraq and at home

The report paints an unrelentingly dismal picture of the conditions that exist in Iraq. Its executive summary begins: “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.” The report goes on to warn that American influence is waning and that “time is running out.”

Contrary to White House claims of “progress” towards “success,” the US-installed regime in Baghdad is disintegrating. Sectarian conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites are escalating and “could trigger the collapse of Iraq’s government and a humanitarian catastrophe,” the report warns.

The US military occupation faces rapidly increasing popular opposition, with armed attacks averaging 180 a day in October 2006, up from 70 a day in January 2006. (Underscoring the escalating violence, ten US soldiers were killed Wednesday, the day the report was released, bringing the total to 2,918 since the US invaded Iraq in March 2003.)

The ISG report admits that the anti-American insurgency is overwhelmingly homegrown and Iraqi: “It benefits from the participants’ detailed knowledge of Iraq’s infrastructure, and arms and financing are supplied primarily from within Iraq. The insurgents have different goals, although nearly all oppose the presence of US forces in Iraq.” Al Qaeda terrorists account for only “a small portion of the violence in Iraq.”

The conditions of life for the Iraqi people are horrific. According to the report: “The Iraqi government is not effectively providing its people with basic services: electricity, drinking water, sewage, health care, and education. In many sectors, production is below or hovers around prewar levels.” The report attributes this failure to violence, corruption, sectarian conflict, inherited economic weakness from the period of the US blockade of Iraq, and the collapse of the courts, the financial system, and other civil institutions.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/isgr-d07.shtml