Lara Marlowe, in leaving Baghdad, writes that Iraq appears to be spiralling into a morass from which there is no way out
The savage killing and mutilation of four US security contractors in Falluja on March 31st set in motion a dramatic deterioration of the war in Iraq.
Three new elements have transformed the very nature of the conflict: more than 600 deaths inflicted by US forces on the town of Falluja; the advent of an armed uprising by Shia Muslims, and the abduction of some 40 foreigners. In less than a week, Iraqi militants took as many hostages as Lebanese kidnappers did in seven years.
In Falluja, US forces used fighter-bombers and attack helicopters against civilian areas for the first time since the fall of Saddam. In the mind of Iraqis, Falluja was a massacre representing something akin to Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, or Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland.
Never has the abyss between what is happening in Iraq and US rhetoric been so enormous. Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq, maintains he is fighting "a small group of criminals and thugs", even as the residents of Falluja fight house by house, street by street, to defend their town.
US commanders continue to blame Ba'athists and al-Qaeda for the violence that has engulfed the country. The Shia faction which follows Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr is clearly neither. In the Sunni Triangle, which was until last week the Americans' chief headache, Prof Suleiman Jumeili, who lives in Falluja and teaches International Relations at Baghdad University, has interviewed friends and families of rebels killed by US forces.
Prof Jumeili found that 80 per cent of insurgents in the triangle were devout Muslims and Iraqi nationalists - not Ba'athists; not al-Qaeda. This is borne out by the US military's own statistics. Of 7,600 "security detainees", fewer than 100 are "foreign terrorists". But Washington still refuses to admit there is home-grown, indigenous opposition to the occupation.
At the same time, the US seems to believe it can simply press the "delete" button after every blunder. US commanders use language as thoughtlessly as they employ firepower. Gen Sanchez says that "once Falluja is stabilised, the citizens will find no better friend than the Marines of the First Expeditionary Force". In a repeat of the "We'll destroy and then rebuild it" promise that has characterised US intervention in Iraq, Sanchez says he'll shower development money upon the city if US conditions are met.
"Improving the quality of life," Gen Sanchez claims, "has been our commitment to the people of this country as long as we have been here." That may have been the US intention, but the statement is at odds with reality. There is no sign of reconstruction in Iraq.
It is probably too late to persuade Iraqis to trust the US. But the flow of clichés makes it worse. What are Iraqis to think of Gen Sanchez's accusation that Moqtada al-Sadr is "attacking the democratic foundations of the country". What democratic foundations? When Sanchez says "Sadr's gang" wants to rule Iraq "by the barrel of a gun", Iraqis think the phrase more applicable to their occupiers, who by official US admission killed 700 Iraqis last week.
Moqtada al-Sadr has now become the only identifiable face of "the resistance". In recent sermons, he called US Secretary of State Colin Powell a "terrorist", and accused the US of bombing Shia Muslim shrines. As long as the US left him to rant in his corner, al-Sadr had a limited following. By closing down his newspaper, arresting his top aide and ratcheting up the name-calling, the US made him a hero.
Now US commanders say they will "capture or kill" al-Sadr, at the risk of further inflaming southern Iraq and Baghdad. There is much that is objectionable about al-Sadr, but does insulting US officials and making unfounded allegations merit a death sentence? If, as the US claims, al-Sadr is suspected of slaying a Shia cleric, why did it take a year to pursue him?
Even America's British allies are cringing at the US military's "blow 'em away" strategy. "We are staggered by the Americans' loose rules of engagement," a British military source in Iraq said. "We are constantly aware of Bloody Sunday... There have been incidents where the Americans fire indiscriminately on crowds and kill 15 or 20 people, and nobody bats an eyelid."
It grows increasingly difficult to imagine ways out of the Iraqi debacle. Two and a half months before the Coalition Provisional Authority is to "transfer sovereignty" to an Iraqi government, no one knows what that means. The very term reeks of condescension. Since when, Iraqis ask, is it in the gift of a US president to confer "sovereignty" on an established country?
Iraq is supposed to hold elections by the end of 2005. But if real elections were held today, anti-American clerics - not the yes men of the Governing Council - would win the most votes.
Having maligned the United Nations, President Bush has suddenly decided it might be useful. In his speech on Tuesday night, Mr Bush placed responsibility for organising the "transfer of sovereignty" with the UN's envoy, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi.
But the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, is reluctant to take over the mess that Mr Bush created. While Mr Powell asks NATO to pacify Iraq, coalition partners make public protestations of commitment, and dream of getting out.
That leaves the elusive "Iraqi solution". Ideally, this would mean a handover to representative leaders, with Iraqi police and army ensuring security. But Iraqis are divided, and the US will not allow anti-American leaders to take power.
Even US opponents such as Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sunni Muslim Clerics' Association, which has emerged as an intermediary in the Falluja and hostage crises, are preferable to no leaders at all. The alternative is anarchy.
Until last week, the fear of anarchy in the wake of a hasty US withdrawal seemed the best justification for prolonging the occupation. Some diplomats in the Iraqi capital now suggest the presence of coalition forces induces more violence than it prevents.
"The question is: which will be more bloody?" says a Western diplomat. "Occupation forces staying or leaving? In any event, there is going to be bloodshed."