Is Baghdad burning? The looting, anarchy, misery are America’s shame!

United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the motor-mouth of the triumphant George "Dubya" Bush administration, vented his frustration with the media loudly the other day, fuming that instead of focusing on the gains, the world news media were exaggerating the looting, chaos and other problems.

Rumsfeld, 69, a former US Navy fighter pilot, was typically pugnacious and aggressive in tone, as ever prone to intemperate language (a frequent turn-off, which is why – despite his ambition – he never himself made it to the White House). During the years he and Dubya’s dad, George Herbert Walker B., had been in the Gerry Ford Cabinet, this same Rumsfeld had denigrated Bush Sr. as a "lightweight" and a "weakling". In this light, being insulted by Rumsfeld today is par for the course.

On the other hand, Rumsfeld is dead wrong.

The media is right to report the looting, the trashing and pillaging of hotels, palaces, diplomatic missions, and government buildings, the raids by hoodlums and looters even on hospitals, the buildings set on fire, the bank robberies and street chaos, the ignored pleas of the harassed and fearful civilian population for "protection" from the US and British military – even the murder, yes, murder of a pro-US and prominent Shiite cleric (just returned from exile in London) Abdulmajid al-Khoi inside the Ali mosque in the Holy Shiite city of Najaf.

In the latter case, the US-provided bodyguard of al-Khoi, the son of the late Ayatollah Sayed Abdul-Qasim al-Khoi, the former pre-eminent leader of Iraq’s Shias, had remained outside the mosque in deference to religious sensitivities. Alas, in Iraq today there can be no sensitivities, whether religious or nettlesome: There must be order – especially when there is still no "lawful" authority in place to replace the regime just toppled.

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The American soldiers, marines, special forces troops, armored and "cavalry" officers and men, so visible in their Abrams, Bradleys and armed Humvees, as well as the British commandos, Desert Rats, Royal marines, etc. can’t just stand around – manning checkpoints, or looking quizzically on, as everything deteriorates around them.

They’re partially right when they claim that they’re soldiers, not "policemen", and their job remains unfinished – there’s still much fighting to be done, in the northern suburbs, in the drive towards Saddam’s final redoubt of Tikrit, in the many remaining pockets of resistance. But they’re not just soldiers: They’re now, for all attempts at obfuscating that term, the occupying force.

And when you’re the occupiers, it’s paramount that you have to prevent the area you’re occupying from going to pieces, otherwise, everything – including your own warriors and armor – will be sucked into the collapsing crater.

Having "liberated" the Iraqi people and "saved" them from Saddam’s despotism, they now have the duty to save the population, especially from the abusive and vicious propensities of their fellow Iraqis who’re taking advantage of the situation. And what about the many criminals suddenly released from Saddam’s jails? They’re roaming around, terrorizing everybody. Armed bands are proliferating, and they’re out for loot, domination, and, surely, even women. If the Yanks and Brits don’t begin to crack down hard on this rising tide of criminality, it will overwhelm everything in a tidal wave of violence and a complete breakdown of discipline.

Already, a tidal wave – a veritable tsunami – of worldwide condemnation is building up against the "indifference" of the Americans and Brits. Among the critics are those – and they were few enough – who once wholeheartedly supported the overthrow of Saddam’s tyranny and his weapons (still unfound) of mass destruction.

"Our only enemy is Saddam’s brutal regime, and that enemy is yours as well," President Bush had declared in a television address to the Iraqi people, delivered jointly with an equally reassuring message from British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The American President had promised the Iraqis in that TV speech: "We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave."

Mr. Bush – mark your words: The current chaos defies your "peaceful" intentions. If you’re pledging to "protect the rights of all citizens," what about their present right to life, self-confidence in their survival through horrors of the day and night, the protection of their wounded, sick, and suffering in their now-being-hassled and looted hospitals, their terror at the torching of their neighborhoods? Your forces, in a lightning Blitzkrieg that stunned not only Saddam’s Republican Guard but the world, captured so many neighborhoods, buildings, and infrastructure intact. Now these are being burned down, destroyed, pillaged, their furniture and treasures ripped out: Rebuilding from scorched earth and ruins can only be fifty times more difficult and frustrating.

And what about rebuilding vanishing civilian confidence in America’s and Britain’s guarantees and capabilities?

Bush and Blair must act now. As commander-in-chief, Bush must order his soldiers to shoot the shit out of looters in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and whenever they are spotted. Armed patrols must be sent out to hunt down criminal gangs and bring them to justice – if you ask me, the rough justice of a bullet. A few public lynchings might send a more direct and effective message. As for the killers of that Islamic cleric, they have to be tracked down and executed. Tough times call for tough measures. If any law is to be effective, at this critical stage, it must be martial law.

The Chinese have an ancient proverb: "If you save a man’s life, you are responsible for his life forever." If Bush and Blair saved the lives of the Iraqi people, they have to assume responsibility for them, too. If not for life, at least until they regain the ability to govern and defend their own lives.

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Let me tell you, if I may, why it is so important for the Americans and Brits to avenge (no other word will suffice) the blatant assassination inside the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf of the just-returned pro-US Muslim cleric, Abdulmajid al-Khoi. The US had seen the younger al-Khoi as a potential leader in southern Iraq, binding up the wounds of dissension among the predominant Shiites in the country. The victim had also been seen in public, often enough, with Tony Blair. After all, he had resided in exile in London.

Iraq’s population is about 23 million. Of these, the Shi’ite Muslims, for three decades suppressed by Saddam and his Sunni overlords from Tikrit, comprise 55 percent of the population, or about 13 million. (Sunni Muslims compose 42 percent, or about 9.5 million). Chaldeans (Christians), Yazdis, and others constitute three percent, or about 690,000.

Thus, the Shi’ites are critical of any new "democracy" – if possible – in Iraq.

To complete the picture, let’s break Iraq’s population down into ethnic groups this time: The Arabs (Shi’ites and Sunnis combined) constitute 73.5 percent, or some 17 million. The Kurds – whose peshmerga forces liberated Mosul and Kirkuk alongside the Americans in the north – are five million strong, or about 21.6 percent. Turkmens or Turcomen (of Turkish race) represent 2.4 percent or 550,000. Assyrians and other minorities represent 2.5 percent, or about 565,000.

Who was the victim’s father? He was Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoie, the most revered Shi’ite cleric who had tried to restore peace and order in 1991 when the Shiites rebelled against Saddam in Najaf at the tail-end of Operation Desert Storm and the Gulf War, believing that the elder Bush and the American-led "coalition" at that time would push into Iraq to rescue them and overthrow Saddam. They were, instead, massacred by the scores of thousands. (Najaf, next only to Mecca or Makkah and Medina in Saudi Arabia, is to Shi’ites the third holiest city of Islam.)

At the time, Ayatollah al-Khoie was a sickly 91 years of age. Saddam’s internal security men, when they regained control of Najaf, had forced the Ayatollah and his son into a car and taken them to Baghdad. There, the Ayatollah was compelled to appear on TV and denounce the Shi’ite uprising, which, as in Palestine, they called the intifadah. Then they slapped him into detention in a well-guarded house in Kufa, where he died not long afterwards "of old age".

What’s more, on the day of the Ayatollah’s funeral (August 9, 1992), the Iraqi government cut off all telephone communications to Najaf, imposed a curfew which restricted the movement of the hundreds of thousands of would-be mourners, and confined the burial rites to a brief private family ceremony.

Baghdad continued to oppress and murder leaders of the Shia clergy – such as another Grand Ayatollah, Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr, and his two sons, who were gunned down in Najaf. Saddam had his own huge portraits placed in the Iman Ali mosque to dominate all the other mosques in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

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When queried yesterday by journalists about the Muslim cleric’s killing (the Ayatollah’s son, remember) in the Ali Mosque, the US military spokesman in Dohar, Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks – who I must add parenthetically performed brilliantly the past three weeks in his deadpan and self-deprecating style – merely shook his head and said it was "disappointing". It is far more than "disappointing"; sad to say: It was disgraceful.

Now the word is out on the Arab street that if the Americans couldn’t protect al-Khoei (spelled al-Khoi in most news dispatches), they can’t protect anybody. So have a care, general. If there’s anything Arabs respect – as I discovered in my past dealings and forays into the Middle East (although limited enough in scope) – it’s strength. If there’s anything they despise, and take advantage of, it’s weakness.

Three days ago, with their forces and tanks rampaging victoriously all over the place, and their aircraft, flying 30,000 sorties, were blasting everything in their path, the Americans and their British allies looked strong. Now, helpless to curb the looting and the roving mobs (scattering even banknotes in their wake), they’re beginning to look weak.

Indecisiveness and – sanamagan, let’s admit it – sometimes a lack of "ruthlessness" are what provoke Arab scorn.

America’s founding fathers declared at the birth of their nation that all men are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Unless the Americans uphold those ideals to the Iraqi people, they will have waged a war in vain. And their flag will have brought pain, unhappiness, disappoinment – and not liberty.