US claims of Iraqi progress is ‘dreaming’ – UN humanitarian coordinator

Washington's claims that conditions are improving for the Iraqi people are simply not apparent, Hans-Christof von Shponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General told RT.

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RT: Washington believes its intervention in Iraq was a success. Do you agree?

Hans-Christof von Shponeck: I don’t know what they are talking about. I think all the indicators that we can witness without reading papers, we can just see pictures [which] tell us that the destruction of the state continues. I see absolutely no progress whatsoever. You have a problem in the north; the Kurdish-Arab relations in Iraq are not good. You have an ISIS [Daesh/ISIL] problem, as we can see in Ramadi, in central Iraq; Mosul remains an occupied city as far as ISIS is concerned. There is a division in the government in Bagdad. So where, I ask you, is the progress? This is dreaming. We hoped one could come to that conclusion, but it is far from the reality on the ground.  

RT: Why does the US maintain it made things better for the Iraqi people, do they believe what they say or is it politics at play here?

HCS: Unless there is schizophrenia here involved, I would say they can’t possibly believe in the argument that Iraq is better off today than it was a few years ago. The deterioration is very, very obvious. And if you are looking for indicators, go and look at those who are now taking the long journey away from Iraq into the Middle East, across the Mediterranean into Greece, ending up on the fences of Hungary that come from Iraq. Then I think you can come to a different conclusion.

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RT: Washington is maintaining this stance. So has it got an inability to swallow its pride and admit its policy is wrong then?

HCS: No, I don’t think it is just superficial pride involved. I think it is the fear that to the number of serious failures, foreign policy failures, military, security failures that have occurred in recent years. What am I talking about? Go and look at Libya. Is Libya better off since military intervention? Is Afghanistan now at the point where it can start rebuilding its nation on its own? Nowhere. So the number of failures is growing and naturally the political reaction in Washington is to try to cover this up as much as possible.