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Iraqis still scarred 25 years after Iran war

Posted on: Thursday, 22 September 2005, 09:13 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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