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Three years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. The goal was to save the United States and the
world from weapons of mass destruction, to overturn the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and to
create a stable democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
But the results have been crushingly bad. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The Bush
administration is having an endless fight with insurgents from different Iraqi tribes, Sunni and
Shiite Muslims are fighting against each other.
Former Iraqi prime-minister Ayad Allawi said that the country is in civil war, every day an
average 50 to 60 people die. The only safe place in all of Iraq is the green zone in the capital
Baghdad, where Iraqi officials, foreign diplomats and journalists live and work.
Today's Iraq is turning into a new training camp for terrorists.
How to calm down the country and bring peace there again? It seems that the Bush
administration has no answer. President Bush has shifted the responsibility for withdrawal on the
next administration, which will come in 2009.
The situation in which the United States finds itself today in Iraq reminds me of the invasion of
Afghanistan of the Soviet Union Army in 1979. The Soviets invaded to support the pro-
communist government. The invasion provoked resistance throughout the country and attracted
many foreign mojahedin, among them a young Osama bin Laden.
The Soviet Union tried to stabilize the situation by investing a lot of money in Afghanistan. The
USSR built roads, hospitals, universities and schools. But the Afghans never accepted the
Soviets. For them they remained invaders, cooperation with whom was a betrayal of
Afghanistan.
Leaders in Moscow understood that the war in Afghanistan was useless; they were loosing
Soviet soldiers and fighting with the Afghan people. But to leave the country was too scary; the
government of Afghan president Nadjibulla was too weak to defend itself and control the
country.
But there was no other way but to withdraw. The decision was finally taken in 1989, 10 years
after the invasion, and the Soviet Army left a real mess in Afghanistan. The war there did not
stop; the Taliban soon took control of the country and executed president Najibulla.
What was next for Afghanistan, how the country looked, and what kind people ruled there, the
Americans felt on themselves on September 11th, 2001.
I was in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. I interviewed Afghans, and asked them why people
joined the Taliban or terrorist groups. Most of them said that often people fought because they
had nothing to choose except that. When they have only anger and hunger, they can be anything.
In the northern Afghanistan in Shibirgon prison I met hundreds of Taliban prisoners. I was
expecting interviews with intimidating cruel wild men.
Instead I found people in cages, who smelled of urine and dirt, looked scared and pitiful. Many
of them were under 18-years-old. One of them told me that he joined the Taliban when all the
men in his family were killed. He had to feed himself and the Taliban provided free food.
During clashes in Afghanistan in 2001a few Uzbeks were detained too. Some of them were
secretly handled to Uzbekistan, where they disappeared. And a few of them were taken by the
US military to Guantanamo prison.
One of the Uzbek Guantanamo detainees sent his mother a letter in 2002 though the International
Committee of the Red Cross. I met his family in 2002 and found that the boy Alisher Usmanov
was from a famous Islamic family, which was repressed in the early 90s by the regime of Uzbek
president Islam Karimov. His father Akbar Usmanov was tortured to death in 1995, seven uncles
disappeared in custody.
Alisher, when he turned 16 in 1998 escaped from the family. The first time his mother heard
from him was his letter from Guantanamo. Where is he now, I do not know.
I know that among insurgents and terrorist groups are some people who are real criminals and
they are aware of what they are doing. But most of their soldiers are just victims of bad
circumstances.
This is what the US creates in Iraq every day. The war may give birth to a new Osama bin
Laden, for whom terrorism is not just an honor fight but a business.
Staying in Iraq day after day, fighting and killing innocent and even guilty people, the United
States extends for itself this hellish war. Every single moment it creates a new enemy.
Iraqis suffered under their dictator, but their liberators have not brought any good. Their homes
have been ruined, relatives killed, they lost jobs and the ability to walk the streets in safety.
Even if their homes have been destroyed by Iraqi insurgents, they will blame the Americans.
This is how it was in Afghanistan during the Soviets occupation.
I do not want the US to repeat the mistake of the Soviet Union, and Iraq to become a place like
Afghanistan. And for that it is better to take the decision to withdraw as soon as possible.