|
Fisk Paints a Middle East in
crisis
By ABC Australia 03/06/06
Robert Fisk says that in his three decades of reporting from the
Middle East for British newspapers, he's never seen it more
dangerous, and that he's certain another major crisis, possibly
even another September 11, is coming.
The World Today - Monday, 6 March , 2006
12:34:00
Reporter: Eleanor Hall
ELEANOR HALL: One of the Middle East's most experienced
observers is warning today that we should prepare for another
major catastrophe in the region.
Robert Fisk says that in his three decades of reporting from the
Middle East for British newspapers, he's never seen it more
dangerous, and that he's certain another major crisis, possibly
even another September 11, is coming.
The veteran war reporter also says he remains baffled by just
who is trying to generate civil war in Iraq.
Robert Fisk is in Australia this week to promote his latest
book, The Great War for Civilization, and he joined me in The
World Today studio a short time ago.
Now, you've been a bit of an optimist about Iraq and civil war,
but do you think what's going on now is already civil war?
ROBERT FISK: Well, it's perfect proof that somebody wants a
civil war. Um, but the problem for me is that the narrative is
that the Shi'ites are being attacked by the Sunnis and their
mosques are being blown up and now the Shi'ites are attacking
the Sunni mosques and the Shi'ites and the Sunnis are going to
fight each other.
I think that's far too simple a version of events. There's never
been a civil war in Iraq. Sunnis and Shi'ites, despite the fact
that the Sunnis as a minority have always effectively ruled
Iraq, have never had this sectarian instinct. It's not a
sectarian society, it's a tribal society. People are
intermarried.
You know, I was at the funeral of a Sunni and asked his brother,
you know, he'd been murdered - probably by Shi'ites, I think - I
asked his brother if there was going to be a civil war and he
said look, I'm married to a Shi'ite. You want me to kill my
wife? Why do you westerners always want civil war?
The first people to mention civil war were the occupation
authorities. The Iraqis were not. Some…
ELEANOR HALL: But the Iraqis are now. I mean, Al-Jaafari's
talking about civil war.
ROBERT FISK: They're not talking about civil war, they're
talking about being frightened of who's doing the bombing. But,
you see, we still don't know who's doing the bombings. How many
names have we been given of the suicide bombers? Two out of,
what, 320 suicide bombings now. Where do they come from, these
people?
I mean, we keep hearing about kidnaps. In every case they were
kidnapped by people, quote, "wearing police uniforms," unquote.
There's a police station on the airport road, it was overrun and
all the policemen executed by men wearing, quote, "army
uniforms," unquote.
Now, we used to have this phenomenon in Algeria, when I was
covering the Islamist government war there, and it took a while
before we realised that they were policemen and they were
soldiers.
In other words, they were being paid by the authorities. These
were not people… there's not a huge wardrobe factory in Fallujah
with, you know, 8,000 policemen's uniforms, waiting for the next
suicide bomber. It's not like that. What we've got is death
squads, and some of them are clearly working for government
institutions within Baghdad.
ELEANOR HALL: So you're saying there are death squads, there's
chaos, but it's not civil war?
ROBERT FISK: Well, it's certainly chaos, and it's certainly
death squads. But I don't regard this as a civil war at the
moment. As I said, somebody wants a civil war. I mean, if you
really try hard and you kill enough people you may be able to
produce this.
ELEANOR HALL: So somebody wants a civil war?
ROBERT FISK: Yes.
ELEANOR HALL: You must have some clues about who.
ROBERT FISK: I don't have… I have suspicions, I don't have
clues. I spend a lot of time, when I'm in Baghdad, trying to
find out who this is and what this is. Clearly, the Interior
Ministry have been torturing people to death, and clearly the
Interior Ministry have people who do operate death squads.
But you've got to remember something, that a very prominent
figure in politics, and a close friend of the United States, was
accused just before the first elections of executing, quote,
"insurgents," unquote, in a police station, a police station I
know very well. This was reported in Australia at the time.
I suspect the story is true. I think he was a murderer, and he
was working for the Americans, and he was a former CIA
operative, as we know. I'm not saying the CIA are doing the
death squads and this is an American plot - no, I'm not.
But I think that there are all kinds of tendencies and fractures
within the current authorities, who all live in the green zone
in the former Republican palace of Saddam, surrounded by
American barbed wire and American protection.
ELEANOR HALL: What's the rationale of this though? I mean, if
these people are in government, why do they want a civil war?
ROBERT FISK: I think what they want to do is to produce a
situation in which their side, or their party, will control
Iraq.
You've got to realise the insurgents too, most of whom but not
all are Sunni, we keep seeing the insurgents as people who want
to get the Americans out. But that's a very short-sighted view
of it. That's our view of it.
It's quite clear the insurgents want to get the Americans out,
but they want to get the Americans out so they can say
afterwards, we liberated our country, we want a place in power.
That is what this is about. This is about securing political
power after the withdrawal of the United States.
ELEANOR HALL: What about the political negotiations that are
going on at the moment though? I mean, is there no faith placed
in those?
ROBERT FISK: Look, I'm sorry to sound so pessimistic, but all
the political negotiations are going on within a few square
acres, guarded by American tanks, from which nobody emerges.
These people who are negotiating, they don't go into the streets
of Baghdad, they don't see the people, they don't see the bombs.
ELEANOR HALL: But the people voted for them.
ROBERT FISK: Yes, the Shi'ites voted for them mostly.
Look, people want to vote. People would like freedom. But they'd
also freedom from us, and that we will not accept, because we
want to go on controlling Iraq and making sure Iraq does what we
want. We want to control the government of Iraq.
I mean, they have a democratic election, and what happens? Bush
comes on the telephone and says come on, we want some unity, get
moving.
ELEANOR HALL: You say the US will have to get out of Iraq, but
it will need the help of Iran and Syria to do so…
ROBERT FISK: Of course, of course it will.
ELEANOR HALL: Now, how would that work?
ROBERT FISK: It'll need the help of Iran to make sure that all
Shi'ite resistance to the United States ends during the
withdrawal, and it'll need the help of the Syrians, who do have
a lot of influence along the border with Iraq, to make sure that
there is some kind of deal with the insurgents that the
Americans can leave not under fire.
You see, I mean I've said this before, but the terrible
equation, of course politically, from an American political
point of view as well, in Iraq, is that the Americans must
leave, and they will leave, and they can't leave.
And that's the equation that turns sand into blood. And that
remains the case. It's very easy to invade other people's
countries; it's very difficult to get out of them. It should be
the other way around, but unfortunately it's not. That's how it
happens.
And the Brits found that, you know, all over the Middle East.
And every time, every time, every time the authorities of the
occupying power say the same things - we will not talk to
terrorists. The Americans say it too. And they don't read
history books, because at the end of the day the Americans will
have to talk to the insurgents in Iraq, and they will, they
will.
ELEANOR HALL: Now, the victory for Hamas, in the Palestinian
elections, how closely is the West's reaction to this being
watched in the Arab world?
ROBERT FISK: With its usual cynicism, yes. It's the same old
story - we demand democracy, we demand they have freedom to
vote, and they vote for the wrong people, so we try to destroy
the government that's been freely elected. We love democracy,
providing the Muslim nations elect the people we want.
I mean, we keep hearing the Israelis will not deal with Hamas.
The Israelis created Hamas. When the PLO were in Beirut, and the
Israelis wanted to counteract the PLO, they urged Hamas to set
up more mosques and social institutions in Gaza.
Even after Oslo a senior Israeli officer, and this was reported
on the front page of The Jerusalem Post, held official talks
with Hamas officials in Jerusalem. Israel won't deal with Hamas…
this is just a facade of narrative, for us, the press.
There is a narrative being set down for us where there will not
be negotiations, but there can be any time the Israelis want,
and if they find it in their interest, they will.
ELEANOR HALL: And yet you're in no doubt that Hamas, or certain
members of Hamas, are terrorists?
ROBERT FISK: Look, I don't use the word terrorist about anybody.
This has become a semantically meaningless word. Look, there are
people in the Hamas movement who support the murder of innocent
people, yes, of course.
There are… I'm not trying to make equivalences here, but when
you have an Israeli air force officer, as we did at one occasion
in Gaza, who bombs a block of apartments, knowing that he will
kill innocent children, as well as a man who is believed to be
behind suicide bombings, what is that man? What goes on in his
brain too?
ELEANOR HALL: Now, you make the point in your book about the
targeted killing of Hamas leaders coming back …
ROBERT FISK: The murder. I don't say targeted killing.
ELEANOR HALL: Okay.
ROBERT FISK: The murder.
ELEANOR HALL: The killing of leaders of Hamas will come back to
haunt the leaders of the West. What do you mean…
ROBERT FISK: Well, we already did have - a year and a half ago I
think - the murder of an Israeli Government minister in
Jerusalem.
Um, you see, once you start going for leaderships, you're
opening a door that can come back at you. And the great danger
is once you say, you know, we might kill Yasser Arafat, well he
died of his own accord, but I mean that was constantly said, so
then you open the door to someone saying well, let's kill the
Israeli leadership, or let's kill the British leadership.
Once you say we're going to kill Osama Bin Laden, what does that
allow him to do? He doesn't need permission of course. But what
doors are you opening…
ELEANOR HALL: Aren't these doors already open?
ROBERT FISK: Oh, they've been opened now, yes.
ELEANOR HALL: But weren't they already open for people like…
ROBERT FISK: The moment we turned our back on international law
and gave up on justice and wanted revenge, that was the end.
ELEANOR HALL: Now, you describe in your book, you were there for
Rafiq Hariri's killing in Lebanon…
ROBERT FISK: I was 400 metres away, yes.
ELEANOR HALL: After that you write you're increasingly stunned
by the growing tragedy of the Middle East. Now, I would've
thought that's a big statement from someone who's been reporting
from the Middle East for 30 years.
ROBERT FISK: Yes, but the Middle East has never been in such a
terrible situation, it's never been so dangerous. I've never
found myself going on assignments of such danger as I do now.
Iraq's the worst assignment I've ever been on, ever.
I think that our hypocrisy towards the Middle East, and the
ruthlessness of its own leaders, Arab leaders, has reached such
a stage now that there's some kind of… I mean, some kind of
explosion is going to come.
Over… I did a CBC interview in Toronto, which I've got a copy
of, three years before 2001, and I said an explosion is coming.
And obviously…
ELEANOR HALL: But do you think an explosion is still coming?
ROBERT FISK: Oh yes. I don't… it doesn't have to be a real
physical one like 'bang'. It might be. But something is coming.
I mean, I feel it very strongly.
When I go back, when I went back for the book, I realised I was
feeling it because I live there, I live in a Muslim society, I
live in the Middle East, and all the people around me are
Muslims.
And, clearly, living there, breathing that environment, I knew
something was going to happen. And I still think something's
going to happen. I don't mean September 11, but something.
ELEANOR HALL: But like what?
ROBERT FISK: Well, I mean, the Americans being driven out of
Iraq is one, isn't it?
ELEANOR HALL: But if the Americans leave Iraq the suggestion is
that that will create more stability there. Is that not likely
to…
ROBERT FISK: Well, I hope it would, yes. Um, yeah but, you see,
if the Americans leave Iraq it's an enormous blow to US military
and political and strategic prestige throughout the world,
there's no doubt about it.
ELEANOR HALL: So you've been warned. That's the Middle East
Correspondent for the British newspaper, The Independent, Robert
Fisk, who's been reporting on the Middle East for 30 years and
is in Australia this week to promote his latest book, The Great
War for Civilization. He was speaking to me earlier this
morning.
| (In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit
to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with
the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) |
