While Bush was making the statement, Iraqis in Tikrit were mourning the death of a woman and her three children who were killed while pulling up to a US military checkpoint. Less than 12 hours after Bush’s statements, six US soldiers were wounded in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

- History of Military Occupations Bodes Ill in Iraq

Twenty-four hours after the statements, residents of Iraq’s southernmost city Basra rioted after having to wait for hours in long queues for gasoline. They hurled a grenade at a British army convoy, and then rocks, bottles, and burning tires. According to Arab media reports, the people of Basra could not understand why they were queuing up for hours in a country with the world’s second largest oil reserves.

Is Iraq more secure? The facts speak for themselves.

Although more than four months have passed since the end of the war, partial electricity is available to less than 40 percent of Iraqi homes. Compare this to its availability to 80 percent of Iraqi homes before the war. The telecommunications sector, which was beginning to regain pre-1990 status, was heavily bombed during this war. Telephone communications are practically non-existent in present-day Iraq and many Iraqi cities have no way of communicating with one another.

Unemployment plagues Iraq’s infrastructure. There are currently 9 million unemployed Iraqis. Most, if not all, of them have not seen any wages since March, when the Iraqi government paid Iraqis three months worth of wages in the likelihood of an impending war.

One of the biggest blunders that emerged in the aftermath of the war, according to the recently deceased Nizar Hamdoun, former Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations, is the dissolution of the Iraqi Army, Special Forces and the distancing of Baath party members. US civilian administrator in Iraq dissolved the 500,000-strong Iraqi army and “fired” nearly 1 million Iraqis who were Baath party members. The fact that Iraqis had to be members of the Baath party to progress in their professions seems to have been lost on the administrators. Hamdoun warned a few days before succumbing to cancer in July that this was a recipe for disaster.

Severius Hawa, Archbishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Baghdad and Basra, recently told journalists that the situation in Iraq was dire. He said the situation in Iraq was more dangerous than before the war. “Yes, people were suffering under Saddam, but now everyone is unhappy,” he told journalists. He cited electricity shortages, lack of security, and a lack of vision for the country’s future.

Drug abuse has soared to levels unseen in Iraq’s history. Desperation for drug use has raised the spectre of kidnappings, thievery, thuggery and daylight muggings. So intense is the fear among Iraq’s population that people no longer venture out of their homes after evening hours. Women have chosen to stay off city streets altogether.

Adding insult to injury, some 20,000 wounded Iraqis are virtually ignored in the new, “more secure” Iraq. According to Iraq Body Count (IBC), the international team of academics who in July said that initial reports indicate 6,000 Iraqis died in the war, 20,000 Iraqi civilians were wounded in that same conflict. IBC charges that coalition forces have turned their back on the wounded, including ensuring adequate care and support services, and compensation.

While CNN and other media outlets focus on the plight of Ali, the young Iraq amputee who lost his arms (and family) in a US bombing raid in Baghdad, international aid organizations say there are more than 1,000 other children amputees in Iraq without proper rehabilitation facilities.

Iraq’s economic infrastructure is not faring any better. The United Nations is urging member states to donate a minimum of $250m to cover the humanitarian aid (including healthcare, sanitation, electricity supplies and basic infrastructural repair) needs of the Iraqi people for the rest of the year. Overall, the United Nations says, Iraq is in dire need of another five billion dollars, in addition to the 15 billion promised by some nations. United Nations humanitarian aid co-ordinator in Iraq Ramiro Lopez Da Silva believes contributing states are afraid to commit any funds or assistance while the security issue in Iraq is still impaired.

More secure, Mr. President?

The only sector in Iraq that is perhaps more secure and has seen significant progress since the end of major combat in April is, not surprisingly, the oil and gas sector. In June, Iraq was able to export only 500,000 barrels of oil a day. Last week, US administrators reported that Iraq was exporting 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. It is worth mentioning that the Oil Ministry in Iraq is the only facility to have escaped damage and looting. It is currently surrounded by a heavy US military presence.

Last week, former US Vice-President (and winner of the 2000 Elections Popular Vote) Al Gore criticized the Bush administration for misleading the American public about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and using a propaganda machine to start a war.

A CNN-Time poll conducted last week revealed that 51 percent of polled Americans said they cannot trust Bush as a leader.

* Firas Al-Atraqchi is a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage. Holding an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication, he has eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry. You can reach him at firas6544@rogers.com