"The longer the US stays in Iraq and continues to pit the sects and ethnicities against one another the greater the chances of civil war."

Dahr's dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country.

The following interview was conducted with SoN editors, Cihan Aksan and Jon Bailes, via email in February 2006.

State of Nature: In his State of the Union Speech, Bush claimed: "In less than three years, [Iraq] has gone from dictatorship to liberation, to sovereignty, to a constitution, to national elections". How would you respond to this?

Dahr Jamail: It is all deliberate misrepresentation of the horrific situation in Iraq which has been generated directly from the US invasion/occupation. First, I would respond by saying that any "election" in Iraq is a breach of international law - as it is illegal to have elections under occupation, which occured after a grave breach of international law by the illegal invasion itself - which has even been deemed illegal by the Secretary General of the UN himself.

Second, we must judge the "success" of the occupation by basic infrastructure for Iraqis. On all levels - electricity, unemployment, potable water, security, and oil exportation - it is worse than prewar levels. Even child malnutrition is double now than it was even under the genocidal sanctions.

In a poll released in October '05, funded by the UK military, 82% of all Iraqis want the occupiers out of their country, and 45% feel that attacks against occupation forces are "justified."

SoN: You described Fallujah as a modern day Guernica. What did you witness there?

DJ: Use of illegal weapons (White Phosphorous, Cluster Bombs, Depleted Uranium munitions);

Deliberate targeting of medical personnel, ambulances, hospitals and clinics by US forces;

Deliberate targeting of civilians by US military (entire city was declared a "free fire zone" by the US military);

Between 4-6000 civilians slaughtered during the second siege;

Only 10% of compensation promised to civilians by US military has been paid out to date;

Approx. 70% of all buildings in Fallujah bombed/shot by US military.

SoN: What do you think of the argument advanced by Bush that the withdrawal of US troops would plunge Iraq into a bloody civil war and turn it into a safe haven for terrorists?

DJ: There were no terrorists in Iraq prior to the US invasion. They only arrived after. As far as civil war - the US is sanctioning state sponsored civil war by legitimizing and using the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia Badr Army militias to combat a primarily Sunni resistance. Thus the longer the US stays in Iraq and continues to pit the sects and ethnicities against one another (ie-divide and conquer strategy) the greater the chances of civil war. The sooner they pull out (the US) the greater the chances of avoiding a sectarian/ethnic civil war.

SoN: How would you define the resistance in Iraq?

DJ: Most of it is composed of nationalists and secular Sunni who the majority of Iraqis now refer to as freedom fighters and/or patriots. There are, however, some groups who are Islamists and some terror groups operating in Iraq. According to the US military, at most 4% of those launching attacks against occupation forces are foreigners...and now there is documented evidence of fighting between various resistance groups against terror groups.

SoN: How would a US military attack on Iran affect Iraq? How would the Shia in Iraq respond to it?

DJ: Muqtada Al-Sadr has already openly voiced his solidarity with Iran...SCIRI would react the same way. The aforementioned Badr Army is the armed wing of SCIRI - they are of course very pro-Iranian. The US will be sustaining attacks from all of these groups when Iran is attacked by US/Israel. If people think what is going in Iraq now is bad (100 attacks per day against occupation forces on average) it is nothing compared to what will occur in Iraq when Iran is hit.