Iraq as seen by the Iraqis

Bill In DC sends us this interesting piece from the Washington Post, Insurgency Through Iraqi Eyes. Much of the article is about some really positive things that the Sunnis and the Shia are trying to do to avoid civil war, worth a read. What I found interesting was the attitude of the Iraqis and the Iraqi press toward the United States.

But skepticism, if not hostility, is much more common. A columnist for the Al-Zaman daily strongly criticized "US forces for defiling the Al-Quds Mosque in Al-Ramadi and hundreds more throughout Iraq." According to the FBIS translation, the writer also criticized Iraqi officials "who justify the misconduct of US forces and allege that mosques are being used by insurgents."

The al-Furat newspaper carried an article criticizing President Bush for "dealing leniently" with the U.S. officials who are charged with "abusing detainees" in Iraq and other places.

And the recent spate of stories about the possible wounding of insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi was a deliberate distraction, says Fatih Abdulsalam in Azzaman.

"For many Iraqis the name 'Saddam Hussein' has been replaced by 'Zarqawi'. The only difference is that while they could easily verify the footage, the speeches and sound bites of the former, many of them believe the latter is the product of the U.S. propaganda machine," Abdulsalam wrote.

"There is no doubt once the name Zarqawi disappears from the Iraqi scene, the forces that helped create it will waste no time in introducing another appellation and soon turn it into a new scourge," he said.

"Another Zarqawi will need to be made because neither the U.S. nor its allies in the government are ready to rectify their deadly errors," he concluded.

Then and Now:

Some Iraqi commentators unfavorably compare Iraq today to the Saddam Hussein era.

"Many Iraqis say the distribution of food rations is not as efficient as it was under the former regime of Saddam Hussein," Azzaman reported recently.

"They say they are getting less food than before and the quality of food items has been deteriorating"

In a front-page editorial for Al-Furat, chief editor Shakir al-Juburi, said the country's southern provinces are suffering from negligence. "No great changes have taken place" since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, he wrote.

Iraqi children are the victims, said Azzaman columnist Jassem Murad

"Iraqi children bore the brunt of the brutal polices the former leader Saddam Hussein pursued in his three-decade rule. Today their sufferings have aggravated and [they] have become the main victims of the new era," Murad wrote.

There has been commendable journalism from Iraq by reporters of all nationalities done at great risk, but there's no disputing Iraq's ordeal looks different when seen through Iraqi eyes.

Notice how even the Iraqis think that Zarqawi is largely a PR creation of the United States and that when he is gone they will simply create a new villan. We discussed this over at Running Scared yesterday. It is important to note that many if not most Iraqis do not think they are better off now then they were under Saddam. One terror has simply been replaced with another.