Iraq is nearing its general election in January 2005 but the situation is still a strange chaos there. The American soldiers of over 100,000 strong are unable to put the country in order after the war. A few days ago, Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary and Colin Powel, Secretary of State all recognized the chaotic political situation in Iraq, which was likely to influence the general election to be held soon in Iraq. So they spread out the news by saying that the US didn't exclude the possibility to dispatch more troops to Iraq and would step up the suppression on the anti-US armed forces in order to stabilize the situation there.

Recently, something strange cropped up again in Iraq, indicating that the Iraqi society after the war is short of things believable.

One thing is that the US army arrested a few days ago a lieutenant general commander of the Iraqi National Guard in Baqouba city to the northeast of Baghdad, suspecting that he had connections with the anti-US armed forces. Another is that some Iraqi Christian inhabitants were forced to escape to other countries for they felt the pressures that they were suspected to be the "hailer" of the US army.

If we say that the authority of the US army is suspicious of everything is not quite fair, for among the US collaborators there are quite a number of them who are suspected to "have illicit relations with the enemy" and are quite difficult to be prohibited. In the eyes of the US troops in Iraq, some Iraqi officers are more or less taken as the unreliable "axe-stealers". And this time, the US army only want to catch one high-ranking commander "having illicit relations with the enemy" to intimidate others, namely, to punish one as a warning, so as to screw up the discipline of the Iraqi National Guard. Quite some Iraqi people used to be the armymen who under the duress of the situation joined the National Guard are for eking out a living, not really for helping the US army. Therefore, some of them play different roles in daytime and at night. They go out on patrol together with the US soldiers in daylight while at night "get illicit connections" with and pass on information to, the anti-US forces. The double-faced roles of these people find their root in the duplicity of the roles played by the US army in Iraq. That is: an invader and an occupier play the part of a savior and a dictator, and moreover, they treat the Iraqi people who are against the rulers as the "enemy".

Notwithstanding, we should not neglect another scene of tragedy in Iraqi society after the war, i.e. the skirmishes of tribes and suspicions and jealousies between different religious sects. In the past, many of the Iraqi Christians having only a population of 3 percent of the total moved to Syria and other countries for living because they were not reconciled to suffering from discrimination and maltreatment. After the war some of them returned to their native places, hoping to see a new and lenient social environment. However, a rigid reality turned their hope into bubbles for they are suspected to be the "hailer of the US army". Therefore, they are now once again forced to leave their hometown, moving to other places. The state in which the people have lost their confidence reflects the extremist feelings cropped up in Iraq under occupation. And to alleviate the extremist feelings it is necessary to let the Iraqi people to exercise their own state sovereignty as early as possible and let them be the masters of their own country.

Article by People's Daily newspaper and translated by People's Daily Online