Baghdad
“We have to become more concrete”

For almost thirty-five years (1979-2003), the greatest threat to Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein’s regime that killed tortured, raped and terrorized the population. Saddam Hussein was a member of the Sunni religious minority. The 22-million population in Iraq was divided as follows: 13 millions were Shiites, 9 millions were Sunnis (in very short, the schism has for reason the belief of Sunnis that, as descendant of the fourth caliph, Ali, they are the only legitimate successors of Mohammed while the Sunnis consider that the first four caliphs successors of Mohammed rightfully took his place as leaders of Muslims).
The Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein oppressed the Shiite community, imposing restrictions on religious practice including the ban on communal Friday prayer and funeral processions. The non-obedient Shiites were executed. From 1979 to 2003 the number of Shiite victims, executed or killed in prisons is estimated 60,000 to 130,000. Numbers to which should be added 50,000 to 100.000 Kurds; 30.000 Iranians and Iraqis who were poisoned during chemical attacks; and around 900,000 Iraqis displaced.

In 2003, the Americans came and the formerly exploited Shiite gained power. Once Saddam Hussein’s tyranny gone, the hate that had been lingering between the communities exploded. Many Iraqi Shiites said they were hoping the new government, once in power and controlling the Interior Ministry and the nascent Iraqi military, would hit the insurgents hard.
"The new government has to be a lot tougher, fight force with more force,'' says Uday Allawi, a young policeman and Shiite in Baghdad. Two other Iraqi policemen say the use of torture against captured Sunni insurgents has become routine. Nagem Mohammed, a Shiite woman who works in a bookshop in central Baghdad, also wants a tough line. "If the government is strong, not like Saddam, but strong, things will get better,'' she says, "They will control the security situation by not showing any mercy to the insurgents, even if they have to hang them.” Increasing violence in Iraq between Sunni and Shiite communities calls for some quick and effective solution. Every day the sectarian violence makes new victims. The death toll is difficult to estimate. Still, monthly estimation, such as April 2005 during which around 100 people were killed and more than 1000 injured in 135 bomb attacks (among them 67 suicidal) allows to measure the extent of violence. First, the Americans wanted to solve everything by imposing a democratically elected government. It would be unbiased and would pass legislation promoting equality among communities. Since almost every Shiite inhabitant mourns relatives who died in the conflict, the Shiite community opposed the equality plan. That is why American experts designed security measures for Iraq. They sent extra troops, they proposed anti-sectarian laws. The Iraqi parliament however rejected the plan. And people kept on dying in attacks. Thus, in April 2007, the Americans made a new security plan and fixed the deadline to midsummer: the Iraqi government had to accept this one. The deadline passed but the security plan did not. At that moment, the Americans thought: “We have to become more concrete.”

Security is a matter of surveillance: better security means more surveillance. American and Iraqi soldiers began to edify sand, earth or concrete barriers to close down entire streets and risky zones. They left open passages in order to control the traffic to and fro the cities. For example in Sammara, Tal Afar and Falluja as well as Dora, Amiriya and Daoundi in 2005, the American commanders sealed off entire neighborhoods and communities, although not with a lengthy wall. First, the violence decreased. Then it burst again. They opted for more radical solutions.
American troops built a new wall in the Iraq capital, Baghdad to protect the Sunni Arab enclave, the community of Adhamiya which lives on the east bank of Tigris River (where by the way Saddam Hussein made his last public appearance before he went into hiding in 2003). The Sunnis there were surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods from where were launched terrorist attacks, especially suicide car bombs. The Great Wall of Adhaniya is 4,8 kilometers long and 3,7 meters high. It has several traffic control points that allow the authorities to screen people entering and leaving northern Baghdad. The walled territory is accessible only with a special identity card issued by the American army in cooperation with the Iraqi military and government. The construction of the wall involved flatbed trucks carrying concrete barriers weighing 6 tons. Soldiers and operators were working even during the night to make the building time shorter. Under bright spotlights, under the surveillance and protection of U.S. tanks, cranes placed the concrete barriers.
U.S. Major General William Caldwall IV said that separation is not a part of their security plans for Iraq: “Our goal is to unify the city not to subdivide it into separate enclaves.” A statement to which Ahmed Abdul-Sattar, a 35 years old Iraqi government worker, could reply: “I don’t think that the wall will solve the city’s serious security problems. It will only increase the separation between our people, which has been so much worse by the war.” He is not the only Iraqi citizen to oppose the construction. The Shiite Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered to stop the building of the wall, making some reference on “other walls” in the world. As well, Adnan al-Dulami, the leader of the biggest Sunni bloc in the Parliament, said that the situation would become even more disastrous with a wall. The residents of Adamiya refuse to live in the prison. The Shiite government has already choked off basic services to their neighborhood. Trash piles up in the streets, banks are shut down, medical centers to languish. People are afraid that the wall increases the separation. An inhabitant comments: “We have been told that the wall will protect us from Shiite and they were told that it will protect them from us: But it's the Americans who started all the sectarian violence in the first place.”

However, the fact is that the security situation remains out of control. Thus President Bush’s new security plan approves the building of such wall. The wall has been finished on May 5th 2007. The city of Adhamiya is more than ever a bastion for al-Qa’eda linked extremist groups. Parts of the district are so packed with armed militants that they are no-go zones for the coalition forces. The terrorist attacks may have decreased a bit. Still, people don’t feel safer. Other barriers in Iraq have proved that if the number of attacks may diminish after a barrier is built it gradually increases later on until it reaches or even surpasses the original level. Bush’s administration admits that the security plan aimed at buying time for the fighting Iraqi faction in order to achieve political settlements that would, in theory, reduce violence. The question is: will this new wall hold long enough for effective security legislation to be approved by the Iraqi parliament?