An Iraqi intifada

An Iraqi intifada

Now the war is being fought in the open, by people defending their homes

Naomi Klein in Baghdad
Monday April 12, 2004
The Guardian

April 9, 2003 was the day Baghdad fell to US forces. One year later, it is rising up against them.

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And I saw something that I feared more than any of this: a copy of the Koran with a bullet hole through it. It was lying in the ruins of what was Sadr's headquarters in Sadr City. On April 8, according to witnesses, two US tanks broke down the walls of the centre while two guided missiles pierced its roof, leaving giant craters in the floor and missile debris behind.

The worst damage, however, was done by hand. The clerics at the Sadr office say that US soldiers entered the building and crudely shredded photographs of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shia cleric in Iraq. When I arrived at the destroyed centre, the floor was covered in torn religious texts, including several copies of the Koran that been ripped and shot through with bullets. And it did not escape the notice of the Shias here that hours earlier, US soldiers had bombed a Sunni mosque in Falluja.

For months the White House has been making ominous predictions of a civil war breaking out between the majority Shias, who believe it's their turn to rule Iraq, and the minority Sunnis, who want to hold on to the privileges they amassed under Saddam Hussein's regime. But this week the opposite appears to have taken place. Both Sunni and Shia have seen their neighbourhoods attacked and their religious sites desecrated. Up against a shared enemy, they are beginning to bury ancient rivalries and join forces against the occupation. Instead of a civil war, they are on the verge of building a common front.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1190300,00.html

We're in Part Three now. There's still plenty of time for a civil war. Let's just hope that the Bush Administration isn't planning on a sequel.