Musings, perspectives, rants

I never intended neglecting this blog for so long, but other matters have taken up all my time.  I will still be busy with them at least until February.  After that I hope I will have far more time to consider updating a blog.

I've just finished reading an excellent book on the state of affairs in Iraq - The Occupation: war and resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn.  If you want to know what's truly going on in Iraq I urge you to read it.  In a word, it's chaos.  After 4 years of occupation nothing has improved - at all.

I'll outline or quote a few points that struck me while reading it.

"The suicide bombers were usually non-Iraqis, with the majority coming from Saudi Arabia and others from Jordan, Syria or Egypt.  They were motivated by Islamic fundamentalism and hatred of the occupation."  This 'war' is breeding more hatred and, therefore, more terrorism.  Moreover, "an investigation into 300 young Saudis, caught and interrogated by Saudi intelligence on their way to Iraq to fight or blow themselves up, showed that very few had any contact with al-Qaeda or any radical organization prior to 2003".  Congratulations, America.

There are a lot of incidences of trigger-happy Americans who shoot anyone they think is remotely suspicious out of nervousness.  Perhaps understandable, but hardly creating positive feeling towards them.  Even someone holding a camera is shot because it might be a gun.  Even someone fixing their TV antenna can be shot dead by US soldiers.  "A US patrol had beaten an elderly man half to death with their rifle butts because they thought a mortar had been fired from the window of his house."  With Americans it's always shoot first and ask questions later.  Such incidences happen daily.  It is made worse by the fact that many Iraqis do not understand what is being shouted at them by US soldiers and so do not obey instructions and are shot dead.  Anyone may be thought to be a suicide bomber and shot dead immediately.  One victim was a brain surgeon on his way to hospital.

"So many people were being killed in Iraq every day for so many reasons that the outside world had come to ignore the slaughter (if it was even reported) and Iraqis themselves were almost used to it.  The death of a thousand people in a stampede during a Shia religious festival in September 2005 was only a one-day wonder abroad." (It didn't make the news here. Who cares, after all, about a few muslims?  Only American deaths are important.)

Iraqi farmers had their orchards destroyed - part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who did not give information about guerillas - regardless of whether these farmers were likely to know anything or not.  Their livelihood destroyed, these farmers are more likey to help the guerillas than give any future aid to American soldiers.

Fraud and corruption is rife.  Millions have gone unaccounted for.  To give a small example, an American soldier was put in charge of some funds but gambled away the money.  Nobody knew if he had lost 60,000 or 20,000 dollalrs because no record was kept of how much he received in the first place.  1.3 billion dollars "was allocated for arms procurement under Iyad Allawi, but it had been siphoned off abroad in cash and disappeared".

Four years of occupation and Iraqis still don't have basic infrastructure.  Electricity supply is scant and unreliable.  The people of Baghdad were getting only 3 or 4 hours of electricity a day.  Almost everyone had a generator to provide enough if only for air-conditioning as temperatures soared.  Oil may have been cheap but people had to wait 7 or 8 hours in the heat to get it at the official price.  The black market was quicker but more expensive and it's not affordable for many to run a generator.  Businesses closed as the owners are afraid for their lives and stay home.

If all these few 'minor' examples of the chaotic everyday life of occupation were not enough, the Americans seem intent on humiliating the Iraqis in every possible way.  They abolished the red, white and black Iraqi flag and chose a new unwelcome meaningless replacement.  It bore "a sinister resemblance to the Israeli flag".  That act alone would be enough to push enraged Iraqis to acts of violence.  How would the yanks like it if someone abolished their precious flag and imposed a new one that looked like, say Mexico's or Russia's?  The americans are un-fucking-believable.

Aside from outlining the difficulties encountered as a result of the occupation, the book is excellent in explaining the complex politics of warring factions within Iraq - a complex problem which the americans have no hope of solving and only exacerbate by their continued occupation of Iraq.  The Iraqis didn't want Saddam, but neither do they want the Americans.  Their patience has worn thin.

Finally a US soldier with the courage to take a stand against fighting in an illegal and immoral war.

Visit this website to offer your support.

It's either a feast or a famine.  I've been absent for months, but now I have a bit of time and there is so much that I want to write about.  Browsing the internet brings up a lot of issues that are interesting and I haven't even touched on books I've read recently.

I found this article:

A young marine speaks out

It's wonderful to see young Americans in the military realise the truth of the 'war' in Iraq.  It is time that Americans were educated about the truth of their corrupt government and stop the hatred.  Now more than ever is a time for understanding, a time to step back and allow others to come to terms with their own troubles.  No-one asked America to interfere to "save" the Iraqi people.  No-one asked them to be judge, jury and executioner. 

The greatest threat to the world is the current US administration.  The sooner the American people realise that, the better for all of us.

I just watched a very interesting DVD called "Control Room" about the beginning of the Iraq war from the viewpoint of Al Jazeera, Arab media.

It was worth watching, if only to get the viewpoint of the Arabs, rather than the continual biased Western viewpoint.  Rather than be subjective and, as some Americans claim, full of lies, Al Jazeera was objective, trying to understand the true reasons for the invasion (they could see through the lies, they understand that the words 'peace' and 'USA' never come together).  The American soldiers spouted the bullshit they'd been fed - that it was all about freeing the Iraqi people, using 'precision' bombs.  Never mind the thousands of innocent civilians injured and killed, portrayed on TV by Al Jazeera (who, of course 'pretended' that there were casualties).  This was a war, what did they expect?  Americans wanted, of course, scenes of celebration from Iraqi people, but the scene in the square in Baghdad - the 'liberation' of the people, was rigged.  A handful of men waving cloths.  An Iraqi said 'they were not Iraqis... I am Iraqi, I grew up here, I recognise an Iraqi accent'.  The US could have got any Arab-looking person (probably Saudi Arabians) to pose as Iraqis for the photo shoot - the propaganda.  Of course they wouldn't admit it's propaganda.  Only the 'enemy' uses propaganda and lies.

I urge you to watch this movie with an objective mind, without any preconceived ideas. 

I loved the ditty sung by one of the reporters.  It said it all:

Yankee Doodle went to town
riding in on Sunday
saw some people living there
and killed them all by Monday

How right he is.  The Americans have always shot first and asked questions later, if they bothered at all.  Americans caring?  Bullshit.

I've been reading more about the background to the war with Iraq from the time of the Gulf War.  How Bush senior hired public relations consultant John W Rendon to organise anti-Saddam propaganda campaigns within Iraq.  In 1992 Rendon helped organise (and named) the Iraqi National Congress which represented the first major attempt for Saddam opponents to join forces.  Ahmed Chalabi was appointed head of the group.  Chalabi was self-serving and ambitious and made sure to tell the US what they wanted to hear with regard to Saddam's regime.  He saw a future for himself. 

Fast-forward to 2002 and the push for a new war against Iraq.  Chalabi and his lies were still in the picture and the INC provided erroneous reports to support the war.  Their motivation had nothing to do with the welfare of the ordinary Iraqi - but over how Iraq's oil riches should be handled.  The Pentagon brought relentless pressure to bear on the CIA to support a war with Iraq.  The CIA's intelligence conflicted with the INC's.  At the CIA, Chalabi was regarded as an "ineffectual head of a self-inflated and corrupt organisation".  '"The [INC's] intelligence isn't reliable at all" said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA senior official and counterterrorism expert. "Much of it is propaganda... telling the Defense Department what they want to hear.  And much of it is used to support Chalabi's own presidential ambitions."'  In December 2002 Robert Dreyfuss reported that the Bush administration preferred INC-supplied analyses of Iraq over the analysis coming from the CIA.

Of course they did.  They wanted a reason to attack - any lies would do.  The Bush administration are, by now, experts at using lies for their own ends.

These lies, or "distortions" include the following:

September 7, 2002 - Bush cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that he said proved that the Iraqis were on the brink of developing nuclear weapons.  No such report existed.  In 1998 the IAEA had issued a report saying "Based on all credible information to date, the IAEA has found no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goal of producing nuclear weapons..".

September 12, 2002, Bush spoke of Iraq's "continued appetite" for nuclear bombs, referring to the purchase of thousands of aluminum tubes which he said were "used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons".  The IAEA said in a January 2003 assessment, the size of the tubes made them ill-suited for uranium enrichment, but were identical to tubes that Iraq had used to make conventional artillery rockets.  But Colin Powell repeated Bush's lie in February 2003.

October 7, 2002 Bush warned that Iraq had a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used for "missions targeting the United States".  The aircraft actually lacked the range to reach the United States.  He also said that "information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected" had said that Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue, implying that the information was current.  The nuclear defector, Khidhir Hamza, had retired in 1991 and defected in 1995.  UNSCOM investigators described Hamza as "a professional liar".

Spring, 2003, Bush cited alleged documents showing that Iraq had attempted to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger.  IAEA looked at the documents and concluded they were crude fakes.  Forensic experts agreed.

The lies never stop issuing from Bush's mouth.

More later, from "Weapons of Mass Deception".

or a reminder.

Michael Dobbs wrote in the Washington Post in 2002:

"US officials saw Baghdad as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even Jordan - a Middle East version of the 'domino theory' in Southeast Asia.  That was enough to turn (Saddam) Hussein into a strategic partner and for US diplomats in Baghdad to routinely refer to Iraqi forces as 'the good guys' in contrast to the Iranians, who were depicted as 'the bad guys'... The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague."

Of course no-one listens.  Michael Dobbs was one of the very few in the mainstream media to remind people of the thoughts and actions of US policymakers.

But further...

"US support for Iraq continued even after US Secretary of State George Schultz received an intelligence briefing from State Department analyst Jonathan T Howe stating that Iraqi troops were resorting to 'almost daily use' of chemical weapons against the Iranians.  The Reagan administration was so pleased with Iraq's role in driving back the Iranian hordes that it dispatched Donald H Rumsfeld to Iraq in 1983... where he shook Saddam's hand, pledged that the United States would regard 'any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the west' and that Washington was ready for a full resumption of diplomatic relations."

When Saddam actually started gassing people, his government was considered 'legitimate', while the media of the time "expressed no surprise that Iraq would use gas, given the ferocity of their Iranian enemy."

"In 1988 reports emerged that Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against his own citizens - Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja.  Several US senators... introduced the Prevention of Genocide Act which sought to impose sanctions against Iraq for its continuing use of chemical weapons and for other human rights violations.  The act passed in the Senate unanimously, but the Reagan White House launched a campaign to turn it back and succeeded in killing the bill...  "Secretary of State Colin Powell was then the national security advisor who orchestrated Ronald Reagan's decision to give Hussein a pass for gassing the Kurds.... In the fall of 1989, only nine months before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, then-president Bush overrode the objections of officials in three different government agencies and signed a top-secret directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for USD1 billion in new aid."

Taken from 'Weapons of Mass Deception', Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber.

And the US and UN have the audacity to try Hussein on the killing of those Kurds when, not only did they know about it, but allowed it to happen and even approved it.  I'm not saying Hussein shouldn't be tried, but there was no action at the time and meanwhile the US government is responsible for the 'genocide' of thousands of citizens in the Middle East.  The whole thing is a farce and is it any wonder that Saddam's defence lawyers are being assassinated so these facts are not brought out into the open?

I admire Malcolm Kendall-Smith, an RAF doctor of dual British-NZ citizenship for refusing to return to Iraq because he believes the occupation to be illegal.  Good for him.  If only there were more like him who had the courage and wisdom to stand up and refuse to take part in the biggest crime so far this century.  The "war", the invasion and the occupation are illegal according to international law.  But the US puts itself above the law.  There is always one law for the USA and completely different laws for countries that don't like US capitalism, globalisation and imperialism.  It's completely fine, for example, for the US to hoard "weapons of mass destruction" and develop biological weapons, but not countries who are not 'good buddies' with the bully that is the United States.  Double standards.  But I digress.  Here are excerpts about Kendall-Smith:

LONDON: A British Air Force doctor who refused to go to Iraq because he said the war was illegal is due to face a court martial for refusing to obey orders.

Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, faces five charges of disobeying a lawful order after he refused to train and go to Iraq last year.

If convicted at the Court Martial Centre in Aldershot, Kendall-Smith, who was raised in New Zealand and holds dual British-New Zealand citizenship, could be jailed.

The military doctor had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, but said he realised last year the Iraq war was illegal and that he could not return.

At a hearing last month, his legal team had asked for permission to argue that the order to deploy was illegal, but presiding judge Jack Bayliss ruled that the airman could not use that defence.

"None of the orders given to the defendant in this case was an order to do something which was unlawful," Bayliss said.

Opponents of the conflict were hoping to use the case to test in a British court whether the war itself was legal.

Kendall-Smith's lawyers had argued that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to send British troops to Iraq amounted to aggression, a crime under international law.

But the judge ruled that by the time Kendall-Smith refused to go in 2005, the United Nations Security Council and a new Iraqi government had both granted explicit permission for foreign troops to be in Iraq.

The question of the legality of the invasion two years earlier was therefore irrelevant, he said.

Prosecutors maintained from the outset that Kendall-Smith, as a doctor and non-combatant, was not being asked to do anything that might be a war crime.

"Telling a flight lieutenant to attend in Basra as a doctor could not involve any illegality, either in the giving of the order or in complying with it," prosecutor David Perry said.

Opponents of the war have called it illegal because it began without a UN resolution specifically authorising invasion, although the British government's top lawyer Lord Goldsmith advised Blair that military action was lawful.

After the invasion, the UN Security Council passed resolutions permitting US-led forces to remain in Iraq.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3634912a12,00.html

ALDERSHOT, England — A British air force officer who refused to serve in Iraq told a court martial Wednesday that the actions of the U.S. armed forces were “on a par with Nazi Germany.”

Flight Lieut. Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Royal Air Force doctor, has pleaded not guilty to five charges of failing to comply with a lawful order for refusing to deploy to Basra last year.

Kendall-Smith, 37, had served twice in southern Iraq with British forces, but refused to return a third time in June.

He said he was not prepared to take part in an illegal “act of aggression.”

“I have evidence that the Americans were on a par with Nazi Germany with its actions in the Persian Gulf,” Kendall-Smith said.

“I have documents in my possession which support my assertions. This is on the basis that ongoing acts of aggression in Iraq and systematically applied war crimes provide a moral equivalent between the U.S. and Nazi Germany.”

Kendall-Smith, a dual British-New Zealand citizen, is on trial at the Aldershot Court Martial Centre southwest of London.

Edmonton Sun http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2006/04/12/1531833.html

Good on him, I say.

And here's Saddam Hussein being tried for the deaths of a few hundred Kurds in the 80s at a time when the US was buddies with him and did nothing - they didn't give a shit and, in fact, enabled the massacre by ignoring it completely.  Meanwhile, US soldiers have killed thousands of Iraqis and for what?  It's all a farce.  There is no justice in this world and never will be while the US of A is in control - the bullies of the world.

People have short memories, even if they were once aware of some facts behind events.  Take Iraq and Iran, for example, who the US government choose to demonise.  People believe the reasons given for American aggression towards them - use of chemical weapons, aggression towards neighbouring countries, human rights abuses, etc.  But many people choose to ignore, forget or are just not aware of the history of the region.

So, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Kurds - in 1988.  The US government of the time chose to ignore it.  They weren't particularly concerned about repression of Kurds.  In fact they supported Iraq's acquisition of the materials necessary.  In the 1980s the US government supplied the Iraqi government with much of the raw materials necessary for chemical and biological weapons.  But any use of such weapons was not of any particular concern to the Reagan administration.  Reagan killed the introduction of the Prevention of Genocide Act in 1988.

Iraq's military was significantly stronger in the 1980s than it was before the latest invasion by US forces.  Why, in 1997, was Iraq suddenly an intolerable threat when it had only a tiny percentage of its former military capability?  When Iraq was a potential asset, its potential threat was downplayed.  When Saddam refused to kowtow to the US, its much lesser threat was exaggerated.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons inspects laboratories, factories and arsenals and oversees the destruction of any chemical weapons.  The director, Jose Bustani, raised the number of signatories in 1997 from 87 to 145.  The US raised objections over Bustani's insistence that the OPCW inspect US chemical weapons facilities and were critical of his efforts to get Iraq to sign the convention.  If Iraq had signed the convention and inspectors failed to locate evidence, it would weaken American claims that Iraq's chemical weapons' development needed a pre-emptive attack to counter the 'threat'.  Needless to say, the US government put pressure on countries to oust Bustani. 

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was opposed by the Arab league but they wanted to avoid war and keep it as an inter-Arab concern.  They got very close to convincing Iraq to withdraw.  But the States decided to send in large numbers of American troops as a 'deterrent' to Iraq's possible invasion of Saudi Arabia.  Iraq was not interested in invading Saudi Arabia - it had no territorial claims and only increased the number of troops in Kuwait after US forces arrived in the region.  (Interestingly, Bin Laden denounced Saddam Hussein.)  There was no attempt to negotiate on the part of the Americans.  Iraq's 'choice' was to capitulate without negotiation or be crushed.  Sanctions would not be withdrawn even if Iraq withdrew from Kuwait.  So why withdraw if Iraq had nothing to gain?  The US rejected a series of peace overtures by French, Soviets and Yemenis, wanting a massive military response instead. 

Four weeks after bombing began, Iraq accepted a Soviet peace deal in full.  The US rejected it, wanting to continue war.  Even when Iraq withdrew from Kuwait, the US pursued the retreating soldiers.  Tens of thousands of Iraqi troops had withdrawn 36 hours before the first allied forces reached Kuwait.  Retreating Iraqi soldiers and civilians were slaughtered.  The death toll was put at about 100,000.  The Kurds and Shiites meanwhile launched a rebellion against Saddam, but the US did nothing to support them, standing by while thousands were killed.

"The US led military response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait turned Saddam Hussein from aggressor to defender and from bully to hero in the eyes of much of the Arab world."  The Arab world was offended at the war's 'overkill', the heaviest bombing campaign in the history of war, attacking roads, bridges, factories, irrigation systems, power stations, water works, government offices.. going way beyond what was sufficient to rid Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  As a result more Arabs were hostile to the United States.  Can you blame them?  The United States is the warmonger.

Taken from "Tinderbox: US Middle East Policy and the roots of terrorism", an excellent background to the present situation.

Kinda ironic don't you think?  That Bush accuses Iraq of producing and threatening to use nuclear and chemical weapons.  The States are the biggest stockpiler of nuclear weapons and they're the ones using chemical weapons (again).  Just shows the reasons for the 'war' are utter bullshit.

US lied about chemical weapons in Iraq

I didn't know about the napalm (or more accurately, mark 77). 

The lies issuing from the White House are phenomenal and yet people (idiots?) still support Bush and the rest.  They must be people who don't read.  The article above illustrates this with the following:

"In May this year, she (Ann Clwyd) wrote to the Guardian to assure us that reports that a "modern form of napalm" has been used by US forces "are completely without foundation. Coalition forces have not used napalm -- either during operations in Falluja, or at any other time." How did she know? The British foreign office minister told her. Before the invasion, Clwyd travelled through Iraq to investigate Saddam's crimes against his people. She told the House of Commons that what she found moved her to tears. After the invasion, she took the minister's word at face value, when a 30-second search on the internet could have told her it was bunkum. It makes you wonder whether she really gave a damn about the people for whom she claimed to be campaigning."

How can people just accept someone's word?  Are they so naive?  Wake up, people.  Use the brain you were born with and stop being sheep.

The link below leads to an article in Italian, but the translation follows.

By such means the US 'took' Falluja.

White phosphorous used on civilian populace

ROME. In soldier slang they call it Willy Pete. The technical name is white
phosphorus. In theory its purpose is to illumine enemy positions in the dark. In practice, it was used as a chemical weapon in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. And it was used not only against enemy combatants and guerrillas, but against innocent civilians. The Americans are responsible for a massacre using unconventional weapons, the identical charge for which Saddam Hussein stands accused. An investigation by RAI News 24, the all-news Italian satellite television channel, has pulled the veil from one of the most carefully concealed mysteries from the front in the entire US military campaign in Iraq.

A US veteran of the Iraq war told RAI New correspondent Sigfrido Ranucci this: I received the order use caution because we had used white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military slag it is called 'Willy Pete'. Phosphorus burns the human body on contact--it even melts it right down to the bone.

RAI News 24's investigative story, Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre, will be broadcast tomorrow on RAI-3 and will contain not only eye-witness accounts by US military personnel but those from Fallujah residents. A rain of fire descended on the city. People who were exposed to those multicolored substance began to burn. We found people with bizarre wounds-their bodies burned but their clothes intact, relates Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, a biologist and Fallujah resident.

I gathered accounts of the use of phosphorus and napalm from a few Fallujah refugees whom I met before being kidnapped, says Manifesto reporter
Giuliana Sgrena, who was kidnapped in Fallujah last February, in a recorded interview. I wanted to get the story out, but my kidnappers would not permit it.

RAI News 24 will broadcast video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US
military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqué from the US Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions
(which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city's neighborhoods.

In the investigative story, produced by Maurizio Torrealta, dramatic footage is shown revealing the effects of the bombardment on civilians,
women and children, some of whom were surprised in their sleep.

The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance
on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997

Fallujah. La strage nascosta [Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre] will be shown on RAI News tomorrow November 8th at 07:35 (via HOT BIRDTM
statellite, Sky Channel 506 and RAI-3), and rebroadcast by HOT BIRDTM satellite and Sky Channel 506 at 17:00 [5 pm] and over the next two days

Mood: Both disgusted and saddened

I just watched a very interesting film (the abovenamed) by Maysoon Pachachi.  She returned to Iraq with her father Adnan Pachachi who was involved with the drafting of Iraq's temporary constitution and Bill of Rights.  While she was in Iraq she filmed casual interviews with ordinary people in Iraq.  Each had a story to tell and it was sobering to listen to them.  I'll give you examples from memory.

A man driving with his 15 year old son saw a beaten Iraqi on the road, hands tied, soldiers around.  He stopped.  They searched his car and found an old pistol.  He and his son were arrested.  He was sent to Abu Ghraib while his son was sent to a prison several miles to the south of Baghdad.  (What had his son done?)  While in Abu Ghraib a group of them were shot at with live ammunition.  A boy near him, about his son's age, was killed.  He prayed for the boy and was asked what he was doing...  Eventually he got out and tried to find his son.  The Americans denied all knowledge of his son and it was only after painstaking searches and help, that he found him.  What had they done to deserve such treatment?

Another person told of an incident where a man's car was not working properly.  The carburettor was stuffed and it backfired.  The driver was shot.  No questions asked.

A woman told of American soldiers invading their homes and taking their gold and cash.  The soldier threatened that if they complained he would come back and take them away.

Several complained of arbitrary arrests and shootings.  They believe that the Americans and British are inciting civil war and unrest.  The Iraqis don't want to kill each other.  It's the Americans and British who pretend to be Iraqi and killing other Iraqis which then gives them an excuse to continue occupying the country and controlling everything.

No, they didn't like it under Saddam.  But how is it better now?  Shootings, thefts, arrests without trial, no electricity, no medicine, no jobs, no wages. 
The army was decimated after the Gulf War.  Iraq has NEVER been a threat to the US or anyone else especially since that time.  The soldiers were unpaid.  They didn't want to fight for Saddam but they also didn't want foreigners invading their country (would you?).  What choice did they have?  There were no jobs.

They told of the planes high up in the sky dropping cluster bombs, tearing people to bits.  Then the tanks came in and fired indiscriminately at women, children, buildings.  Who are the terrorists here?

When you've seen any Iraqis on TV think about how they're portrayed.  I bet they're shown as poor and dirty, the women veiled.  When, for example,  have you ever seen a clean, well-dressed, articulate, attractive Iraqi woman?  Iraqis are portrayed as subhuman not worth the 'privilege' of human rights.

Iraqis I've met have always been intelligent, articulate, and very nice, welcoming people.  What have they done to deserve the treatment meted out by the Americans?  All they want is their country back, some basic infrastructures put back in place (all destroyed by US in the Gulf War), some independence, freedom to live peacefully.  They are very patient, but who could blame them for being angry.

The invasion is not about democracy.  After arguing with Americans about their constitution, the Iraqis said among themselves there was no point if the allied rule of law overrode the Iraqi constitution.  May as well call yourselves an occupied territory, ruled by the White House.  How do you think they would feel about that?  Who wants to be ruled by liars and thieves?  The Iraqi government is not autonomous and Iraq will never be free while the 'allies' occupy it.  And they won't leave.  Why?  Oil.
More on 'democracy' later.

If you can find a copy of the film, do watch it.  It's distributed by Arab Film Distribution in Seattle (sold to institutions.  If you're lucky there may be a copy in your library).  www.arabfilm.com