(thanks to Scott Schneider my Canadian friend for the heads-up on this)
Here’s a snippet, read the rest:
Jeremy Scahill interviews Dahr Jamail for The Nation
Dahr Jamail: Beyond the Green Zone
by JEREMY SCAHILL
We look at, for example, how many people have died, based on figures primarily produced by The Lancet report in October ‘06, which showed 655,000 Iraqis had been killed, or 2.5 percent of the total population of the country.
Another group, called Just Foreign Policy, has taken those figures and extrapolated from them based on more recent media reports, because that first survey, that Lancet survey, the legwork was carried out in July 2005. And so from that time until this time, with new data, it’s now estimated by the group Just Foreign Policy that over 1,100,000 Iraqis have been killed. In addition to that, we can estimate that, very conservatively, another 3 million are wounded. According to the UN these figures are too low as well; I’ve been told this by a UN spokesperson myself when I was in Syria last summer.
Current figures: 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis in their own country, another 2.5 million refugees outside of the country. In addition to that, another 4 million Iraqis are in dire need of emergency assistance, according to an Oxfam International report released last July. When we take into account the fact that Iraq’s total population has fallen from 27 million, when the invasion was launched, to now roughly 23 million, when we add all those figures up, that means over half the total population of the entire country are either refugees–in or out of their country–wounded, in dire need of emergency aid, or dead.
In addition to that, we have the infrastructure, where on every measurable level, it’s worse now than it was after nearly thirty years of Saddam Hussein’s reign, and twelve years of genocidal sanctions. Even oil exports have not for one day been at or above pre-war levels–and this is where Iraq gets 90 percent of its income. Electricity: the average home has anywhere from zero hours of electricity per day to maybe six or seven hours on a really good day. Unemployment: It’s between 60 or 70 percent, vacillating right now. During the sanctions, it was roughly 33 percent, which is about what it was here during the Great Depression. So 60 to 70 percent unemployment, on top of that, 70 percent inflation. We have 45 percent of Iraqis living in abject poverty on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of Iraqis don’t even have access to safe drinking water. So that gives you an idea of the magnitude of how horrific the suffering really has become. According to Refugees International, it’s the fastest-growing refugee crisis on the planet.
You haven’t been to Iraq for a number of months, but you are regularly in touch with Iraqis on the ground. In fact, a lot of the articles that you do you co-author with Iraqi colleagues still on the ground. Many of the journalists who do go to Iraq are trapped in the Green Zone– or what an Iraqi friend of mine calls the Green Zoo. And so, in a way, you may be in a better position to analyze what’s happening there, because of your regular contact with unembedded Iraqi journalists. Give us a couple of examples of news that’s not making it out of Iraq.
I was recently working on a story about Fallujah because one of my Iraqi colleagues lives there. And again, contrast this with what maybe you’ve been hearing about Fallujah. In fact, it’s even been held up by various Bush Administration officials over the last several months as a model city. Look, it’s calmer, things are better now, the plan is working, the surge is working. Well in Fallujah, according to my friend who lives there, the security measures that were imposed around the city by the US military during the November ‘04 siege–the biometric data, the retina scans, the fingerprinting, the mandatory, bar-coded IDs for everyone trying to go in and out of the city. That remains, that has not changed at all. In addition to that, businesspeople estimate that there’s approximately 80 percent unemployment in the city. There are entire neighborhoods that still do not have electricity or running water since the November ‘04 siege. There’s still tens of thousands of refugees from the city from the April ‘04 siege, not even talking about November.
There’s been a vehicle ban, to one degree or another, imposed on the city since May. So how do you live in a city of 350,000 people, when the majority of the time, you can’t even drive a vehicle. Most people are either walking or literally using horse-drawn or donkey-drawn carts. And he quoted a man as saying, relatively recently, that yes, it is quieter in Fallujah today, but it’s the same quiet as a dead body is quiet. That there’s no normal life, that the hospital there doesn’t get medicines and things that it needs, because of the corruption of the Ministry of Health in Baghdad, and the bias that’s there. And just to give you an idea. That’s life in Fallujah today, where there’s literally no normal life.
And that’s in a city that the US is holding up as a victory?
Exactly.
I know your expertise is not necessarily US domestic politics, but like all of us, you’re following the presidential campaign. Do you see any marked difference for Iraqis in the event of a Hillary Clinton presidency or a Barack Obama presidency?
I don’t. They’ve both already officially taken the idea of total unconditional withdrawal of all occupation forces out of Iraq off the table, until after their first term, if one of them is elected. So it’s off the table already until 2013, even before one of them would come into power, if that is going to happen. In reality, they in no way are reflecting the will of the troops on the ground in Iraq, or the majority of Americans now who are opposed to the occupation. And certainly not respecting the will of the Iraqi people, where the most conservative polls I’ve found have shown that 85 percent, at a minimum now, of the total population of Iraq are completely opposed to the occupation and want it to end, right now.
Iraqis are willing to take the risk of what might happen if that much-discussed “power vacuum” is created. And the reality is that the only real first step to a solution in Iraq is full, immediate, unconditional withdrawal, while simultaneously re-funding all the reconstruction projects and turning them over to Iraqi concerns. So this idea of, “You break it, you buy it.” Well, there’s no buying happening. There’s nothing being done by Western contractors on the ground to improve the basic life necessities of any Iraqi in that country right now.
And the other factor is, which candidate is talking about compensation for the Iraqi people? Every Iraqi person who’s suffered from this situation deserves full compensation from this government. Because this is the government that perpetrated the war and continues on in this illegal occupation. So, I don’t see any of these mainstream candidates talking about any of these things, which are really essential if we’re going to talk about a solution to this catastrophe in Iraq.
