Iraqis still scarred 25 years after Iran war

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein can no longer force
Iraqis to celebrate “victory” in the war with Iran but they are
still haunted by the conflict 25 years to the day after it
started.

“All I remember was depression, death and destruction,”
said war veteran Mohammed al-Askari, who fought on the front
lines in the bloody 1980-88 struggle that cost an estimated 1
million lives and ended in stalemate.

“The repercussions are still felt today, it was that war
that killed and disabled many of our people and it was that war
that ruined our once prosperous economy.”

Saddam, who was backed by the United States and billions of
dollars from Gulf Arab states in the war, could have never
imagined the dramatic changes since then that have seen him
toppled and his country now diplomatically close to Iran.

His Iraqi Shi’ite opponents allied with his arch-enemy Iran
were swept to power in January elections boycotted by Sunni
Arabs who now lead an insurgency.

It is a far cry from the days when Iraqis, even those who
believed the dictator squandered the lives of their relatives,
risked the wrath of the secret police if they did not attend
elaborate military parades to mark the war with Shi’ite Iran.

Nominally about control of the Shatt al-Arab border
waterway, the war pitted an Iraq that saw Iran’s Islamic
revolution as a mortal threat against an Iran whose leaders saw
Saddam as an “atheist” occupying Shi’ite holy places in Iraq.

“At the start of the war, we were duped by the media that
portrayed Iran as the devil, we fought with determination but
as the years went on, we began to realize we were fighting for
nothing,” said al-Askari, who was seriously wounded three times
in the fighting.

IMPROVED TIES WITH IRAN

Iraq, which is anxiously trying to improve its ties with
other Muslim states and undermine insurgent support, signed a
military pact with Iran in July in a breakthrough between two
countries that held on to prisoners long after the war ended.

But mainly Sunni-led Arab states have been cautious about
embracing the Shi’ite-dominated, U.S.-backed Iraqi authorities.

And suspicions still run deep among Iraqi Sunnis and even
some Shi’ites in a country that demonized Iran for decades.

“Iran is blatantly interfering in our current affairs and
some in the government are turning a blind eye to this. They
have to mind their own business,” said Soha Allawi, a Sunni
university professor.

Today, lingering mistrust is fueled by accusations that the
Iranian-trained Badr Brigade movement, which fought against
Saddam’s troops in the Iran war, operates hit squads alongside
government security forces.

Denials of the allegations have failed to ease tensions
which have raised fears that Iraq may be sliding into a
sectarian civil war.

“The Iraq-Iran war was unnecessary,” said Ayad al-Samarrai,
a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic party, one of Iraq’s
most prominent Sunni parties.

“It didn’t benefit the Iraqis or the Iranians, it has only
sparked hatred and mistrust between the two nations and that
effect is still felt today.”

Reminders of the protracted conflict litter the desert road
leading from the southern city of Basra to the Iranian border.
Hundreds of helmets of fallen soldiers lie in the dirt near
trenches and barbed wire.

In Baghdad, Saddam built huge monuments glorifying the
conflict like the hands of victory monument in central Baghdad.

The arch is shaped as two crossed swords made of the guns
of dead Iraqi soldiers. Captured Iranian helmets are placed in
a net held by the swords.

The landmark now sits in the heavily fortified Green Zone
housing Iraqi government officials and foreign embassies.
Saddam is awaiting trial over atrocities against Iraqi
civilians.

“Look at Iran’s power now, they became wiser and learned
from their mistakes. Iraq was the opposite — it never learned
and now look what endless wars have brought us,” said Askari.