WSWS: As Bush lies, Iraq seethes (facts counter CNN happy news)

[Karmadillo]

Decimated economy? Massive unemployment? Death rate, malnutrition on the rise? A tragedy, a catastrophe? No wonder the left never gets on TV. Of course, now that we'll be spending $87 billion to "rebuild" Iraq, all of this will probably change. They'll love us, especially after we're able to start outsourcing US jobs there to help drive down inflated salaries in India.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/iraq-o18.shtml

The Bush administration has embarked on a propaganda campaign to deceive the American people about the actual state of affairs in Iraq.

On Monday, Bush asserted in a series of interviews that there was “a sense that people in America aren’t getting the truth” about the situation. “Good progress,” he told Tribune Broadcasting, was being made by US administrator Paul Bremer toward establishing a “free Iraq.” In his October 11 radio address, Bush downplayed the resistance to the US occupation, declaring the US was “actively pursing the terrorists and Saddam holdouts who desperately oppose freedom for the Iraqi people.” Iraq, he asserted, was seeing “thousands of new businesses,” “busy markets” and “store shelves...filled with goods.” With US help, “the roads and ports and railways necessary for commerce” were being built. Iraq’s oil production was being restored, “the benefits of which are flowing directly to the Iraqi people.”

While Bush and other members of his administration repeated such lies throughout the week, the truth is that six months on from the fall of Baghdad, the US invasion has produced an unspeakable tragedy for the Iraqi people.

The United Nations (UN) and the World Bank estimated this month that Iraq’s economy will shrink 22 percent this year. In 1980, average annual Iraqi income was over $3,000. Hussein’s US-backed war with Iran, the 1991 Gulf war and the subsequent decade of UN sanctions saw it plunge to only $1,020 by 2001. The UN is now predicting that annual income will fall another third this year, to just $450 to $610, as a result of the US invasion. No one expects the situation to improve in 2004. More than 70 percent of working-age Iraqi adults—some 12 million people—are unemployed.

According to Bechtel Corp. engineers, Baghdad barely receives half the electricity supply it requires and its water is 25 percent more polluted than before the war. Raw sewage runs in the streets and is pouring from damaged mains into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The phone system is dysfunctional. Large parts of the city still lie in ruins from the war and from post-war looting. There are ongoing fuel shortages. Endemic crime has driven up both the death rate and personal insecurity. Malnutrition has doubled, according to the aid agency Oxfam.

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[Iverson]

1. point of language

There are so many things to say about this appalling situation, but I offer just this for starters.

Any time that you hear a member of this administration refer to "progress toward" anything (e.g.- peace, democracy, etc.), that is an affirmation that it isn't there.

Framing issues in terms of progress toward something good is a technique to enlist patience. The message is not only that their intentions are good, but also that they desire to reach the end, as opposed to being perpetually "toward" democracy or freedom or whatever.

Thus, dictators and autocrats can always be presented as "moving toward" X.

[Karmadillo]

2. Kick

n/t