[Marxism] new Iraqi police

["David McDonald" <dbmcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This article charts the progress of the creation of a national-fascist
police force in Iraq that began with Allawi's execution, before he was Prime
Minister, of 6 blindfolded and handcuffed "criminals". His point in this
semi-public and wholly extra-judicial mass murder was: this is what it will
be like in the new Iraq. My cops will get to do what they want. What could
they do that is worse than what I have just done? This is how a Pinochet
recruits.

Here the cops are dispossessing squatters from decent housing originally
used by Saddam's hangers-on. They have no warrants, but they have guns. This
is how Allawi hangers-on are getting their housing ration. By definition,
these actions have to be taking place far from the concentrations of poor
people who form the backbone of the support for the Mahdi Army, so that is
one possible reason for the swagger of forces who, so far as I have heard,
have mostly faced action in districts already cleared of the enemy.

David McDonald

Independent

Police clear out squatters as new Iraqi state starts to flex its muscles
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
04 September 2004

Police clear out squatters as new Iraqi state starts to flex its muscles

French hostages 'handed to intermediaries'

"The police are going to kill me unless you take me with you," said Ahmed
Hussein in a terrified voice, as half a dozen angry Iraqi policemen closed
in on him. One of them had just taken his black pistol out of his belt and
was holding it by his side.

Violence erupts with extraordinary speed in Baghdad. Early yesterday morning
a hundred or more blue-shirted Iraqi police, armed with sub-machine-guns,
had expelled Mr Hussein and 54 families from 17 luxury houses they had
occupied illegally since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The houses, shaded by green bushes and trees from the ferocious heat, were
once homes for Saddam's relatives and guards in the well-off district of
Jadriyah in the centre of the capital. When he was overthrown, homeless
families from all over Baghdad moved into the mansions. But Iyad Allawi, the
Prime Minister, is trying to restore the power of the Iraqi government. This
includes repossessing its property and moving out those who took it over -
often at the point of a gun - at the height of the chaos following the US
army entry into Baghdad.

Mr Hussein had been volubly complaining about his eviction when the police
standing around, mishearing what he had said, thought he had just accused
them of looting his house. One grey-haired policeman said he had worked in
the force for 22 years and was forced to live in a caravan in a distant
suburb while Mr Hussein was living rent-free in the house he had seized.

We finally persuaded a more senior officer to tell his men to allow Mr
Hussein to go and he jumped nervously into the back seat of our car, still
exclaiming: "Let's get away from here before they kill me."

The Iraqi state, once all-powerful, is gradually reasserting itself. In the
wake of the fall of Saddam, there was something of a social revolution. The
poor of Baghdad, destitute and near starvation, seemed to draw real pleasure
as well as profit from looting the ministries and museums and the houses of
the supporters of the old regime.

Full article:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=558109



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