English Radio correspondent Farzaneh Esmaili has interviewed Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi Consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, on Iraqi people maintaining the US-led war failed to win battle for democracy.
Question: As the Iraqi people marked the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion, many of them say that the United States has crushed the tyrannical rule of Saddam but failed to win battle for democracy in Iraq. First of all, how is that the US President George W. Bush speaks of victory, but he has only achieved destruction?
Answer: I think this is a good question to ask President Bush and the pro-war politicians in Washington DC because they seem to have some secret answers to these questions. The majority of Iraqis and the majority of Americans don't seem to believe that this war has brought anything other than death and destruction to Iraqis, so what you said is correct. The majority of Iraqis don't believe that this war brought them democracy or peace.
Question: Is it true to say that Washington alone benefits from the war and the United States achieved victory for itself by strengthening its control of the region particularly that Iraq is a strategic country to contain the so-called Iranian threat as the US believe?
Answer: In fact I don't even think that they are enough and correct because the US invasion and occupation of Iraq did not bring a good impact to the United States as a nation or to Americans. It is not one of these typical imperialist occupations that steal resources of the occupied country and bring it back home. What we have seen during the last five years is that both the Iraqi and American public have paid very heavy price for this war. The US has paid very heavy price for this war. The US has paid billions of dollars. The total number that the US taxpayers will pay for this war is estimated to be around three trillion dollars and Iraqis have lost other billions or maybe trillions of dollars from their infrastructure and private property. In addition, one million Iraqis have been killed and five million have lost their homes. So the price has been very expensive for Iraqis and Americans and people who benefited from the war are very small league here in Washington DC, very small number of company owners and top officials and politicians who do care about neither the US public nor the Iraqi public.
Question: What is your take on the fact that on the eve of the Iraq war anniversary president Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq in a speech at the Pentagon vowing no retreat and pledging that victory will prevail?
Answer: The US government historically did not show any flexibility to fact on the ground or to what the people of the US or the people of the occupied countries want. I don't think many Iraqis or Americans expected that President Bush or any major leader in the US government would confess the crimes that they have committed and the destruction that happened in Iraq after all of these years. We see a government that is blind to reality and they build all of their speeches and moves on ideologies and pre-set plans that don't change based on what happens on the ground, so that is why many Iraqis don't really believe that administration reacts to what happens on the ground in sincere way. They give excuses to continue a pre-set strategy that is based on long term intervention in Iraq and this excuses change from time to time but the real strategy does not change and it is based on continuing their intervention in Iraq and the region, whatever the situation on the ground was. So we don't expect to hear real analysis or announcements from this government.
Question: How do you analyze President Bush's paradoxical behavior that on one hand as you mentioned he asserts that the Iraq war has come at a high cost in lives and treasures but on the other hand President Bush expresses that the battle in Iraq will end in victory?
Answer: There is no such a thing as victory and occupation. I don't think occupation can be won. There is no precedence in history and there is no way that this administration or the US government can explain how they can win an occupation. Now when President Bush and other leaders in Washington DC speak about the sacrifices in Iraq, of course they think that these sacrifices are justified because they didn't pay money from their own pocket. They didn't lose their own children. President Bush didn't send his own daughters to fight in Iraq and lost them there. They are not paying the price of the war, neither from their pockets nor from their families and connections. That is why they think that the millions of Iraqis who are killed are very reasonable cost for this war even if it costs the US this much that doesn't really hurt them personally. Here is the point where you see how selfish and irresponsible this government is because these individuals who are ruling the US don't care about the lives of Iraqis or Americans as much as they care about their personal interested their party's interest.