“It is a natural result of what is going on in Iraq under this U.S. occupation that so many Iraqi students failed the high school exams,” Mahmood Jassim, a teacher in Baghdad told IPS.

“How can a student pass such difficult exams feeling terrified, exhausted in the heat, in darkness without electricity, having to work in the absence of a dead or detained father, and all the problems of the world over his head.”

Jassim says about 75 percent of his students are failing their exams.

“I am ashamed of the results my school achieved this year,” a school headmaster in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “I cannot tell you what percentage we achieved because that will reveal me and my school. You do not really believe we are living in a democratic country, do you?”

Two headmasters, who also spoke on condition of anonymity given the prevailing atmosphere of fear, said school results showed sectarian divisions and not for the best of reasons. Shia schools, they alleged, ran a loose invigilation system that allowed students to cheat.

Some teachers believe most students who passed their exams did so by cheating. “Those who cheated have passed while the honest failed,” Ghanim Jamil, a teacher in Baghdad told IPS. “If a student is the son of a senior government official or of a member of an armed group, how can we stop them from cheating? We would be killed.”

But some officials at the ministry of education suggested that the poor results are an encouraging sign.

“The low number of students who passed the exams shows credibility and discipline,” Waleed Hussein, media and public relations official at the ministry told journalists earlier this week.

Hussein refused to say how many students failed their exams.

“I live in an old two-room house with my family after we were evicted from Sha’b Quarter of Amiriya in Baghdad,” Manhal Ali, a high school student who failed five exams out of seven told IPS. “There are five of us plus our parents in the small place that lacks most living necessities such as electricity, not to mention the noisy atmosphere of the crowded space. I passed Arabic and English because I am good at them, but failed the other exams that needed me to study hard.”

Most students IPS spoke to from families that have become refugees appear to have failed the exams this year.

“My father was detained by U.S. forces in 2005,” Omar Khattab, a high school student from Baghdad told IPS. “His fashion shop was looted by the so-called Iraqi army who came with the Americans to take him away, and so now I have to work as a labourer to support my family.”

And Iraq was once considered the best country for education in the Middle East.

Following the invasion of Kuwait led by former dictator Saddam Hussein, UN sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 severely affected the education system. Since the 2003 U.S.-led occupation, the education system has deteriorated faster.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Iraq had until 1989 allocated 5 percent of its budget to education. The average in developing countries is 3.8 percent.

Tens of thousands of new schools were built between 1960 and 1990. But in the 1990s, more than 83 percent of schools were in need of repair in central and southern Iraq. This number has risen since the invasion in 2003.

U.S. promises to rebuild the educational infrastructure led to nothing.

“I decided to stop fooling myself by dreaming of going to college and becoming a lawyer,” Sufian Kathum, another high school student who failed his exams told IPS in Baghdad. “One has to face reality; that Iraq is finished as a country.

“The Americans and their collaborators need us as dirty policemen and garbage collectors who locate roadside bombs for them,” Kathum said. “We must realise that college has become a luxury that we cannot afford.”

Local militias supported by U.S. forces claim to have “cleansed” the city, 70 km to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city’s chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba’i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing unrest.

Authorities may have controlled the media better than the violence.

“Assassinations never stopped in Fallujah, but the media seems unwilling to cover the actual situation here,” a human rights activist in Fallujah, speaking on terms of anonymity given the tense situation, told IPS. “The two bomb blasts that killed six policemen earlier this month and another two that killed three on the weekend seem to have terminated the silence.”

People in Fallujah say they still suffer despite the relative improvement in the security situation. ‘Relative’ is the key word here, because the improvement is measured against two massive U.S. military operations in 2004 that killed thousands in the city, and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“Fallujah was slaughtered by the Americans when her people decided to fight, and then were suffocated when they decided to reduce the fighting against the occupiers,” former intelligence officer Major Ahmed al-Alwani told IPS. “There was strong resistance against American occupation forces since May 2003, but it was the Americans who pointed their guns at the innocent civilians and their houses.

“When the American military plans failed, they decided to hire local tribal militias to do the job for them,” Alwani said, referring to the ‘Awakening Group’ militia created by the U.S. military. “Those also failed, despite the executions and the crimes they committed against people.”

Many people throughout Iraq complain of the brutality and unlawful behaviour of these Awakening Groups. Members of these groups are paid 300 dollars per month by the U.S. military.

IPS talked to Sheikh Wussam al-Hardan, known as the ‘engineer’ of the Awakening Forces of Anbar Province. He blamed the Islamic Party for abuses carried out against civilians in Fallujah.

“We had a very limited role in Fallujah, and the police force was in charge of all security operations there,” Hardan said. “We know that all detentions and executions were committed in our name, but people of Fallujah now know that it was the Islamic Party that controlled the police force that was active since January 2007.”

On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting of local tribal sheikhs affiliated with Awakening Groups and military officials. Three Marines, two interpreters and 20 Iraqis died in the attack. Among the Iraqis killed were the mayor of nearby Karmah town and three leading sheikhs. The sons of two sheikhs and the brother of the third also died. All were members of the local Awakening Council, according to U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

“Security events take place all over Iraq and people get killed,” Captain Jamal of the Fallujah police told IPS. “But we wonder why all this huge echo for two incidents in a city that exiled the U.S. marines with all their military machine.”

According to a survey conducted in March for several news organisations by D3 Systems of Virginia in the U.S. and KA Research Ltd. of Istanbul, most Iraqis blame the U.S. military for the worsening security situation.

The majority of Iraqis surveyed disapproved of U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, most disapproved of the Iraqi government, and most felt that all occupation forces should leave Iraq immediately.

The police forces are particularly unpopular. “The police force mainly consists of young men from surrounding villages who are loyal to their tribal chiefs,” Rammy al-Rawi, a university student who lives in Fallujah told IPS. “We believe it is a fight between the Islamic Party and the Awakening Groups of the tribes who are both collaborating with the Americans for money and power.”

“Al-Maliki is a dictator who must be removed by all means,” 35-year-old Abdul-Riza Hussein, a Mehdi Army member from Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS. “He is a worse dictator than Saddam; he has killed in less than two years more than Saddam killed in 10 years.”

Following the failed attempt by the U.S.-backed al-Maliki to crack down on the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the situation in Iraq has become much worse. Iraq appears to be splintering more widely under this rule than under Saddam’s.

Fierce fighting has broken out between Sadr’s Mehdi Army and Maliki’s army and police forces in Baghdad, which comprise mostly the Badr Organisation militia, the armed wing of the political group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. military in Baghdad, there has been a sharp increase in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces, from 239 in February to 631 in March. Most of these attacks are believed to have been carried out by the Mehdi Army.

The Mehdi Army is known to have substantial control of the streets of Baghdad, Basra, and many other predominantly Shia areas in southern Iraq.

But there is also considerable Shia support for Maliki’s effort to disarm the Mehdi Army. “Those who shout loud against Maliki and his legally elected government are all thieves and murderers and must be executed,” says Aziz Mussawi, a resident of Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, who fled for Baghdad when the clashes started there last month. “These militias will destroy Iraq if left unleashed.”

Many Iraqis feel caught in a cross-fire in what they see as a battle for power between the Shia factions. “Over a thousand Iraqis got killed and more than that number wounded just for a game of chess between warlords,” Mohammad Alwan, a lawyer in Baghdad told IPS. “All of them call for dissolving militias while they keep militias of their own. Most of those in power in the government are militia leaders.”

Sadr and his followers are calling for unity, in an attempt to bring as many Iraqis as they can, Sunni and Shia, to their side. The rival Fadhila Party, that is powerful in many Shia provinces and in cities like Basra where it holds the governorship, has also called for unity.

It is widely believed in Iraq that parties who call for unity are using the issue to get public support against federalism, seen to be supported by the U.S. and Iranian backed parties such as the SIIC and Maliki’s Dawa Party. Many in Iraq see federalism as the break-up of the country.

After five years of occupation and suffering, with no end to it in sight, many Iraqis have become skeptical of all political and religious leaders.

“Sadr is another face of the Iranian project, despite their pretending to be a national movement,” Jassam Hady, a colonel of the former Iraqi army in Baghdad told IPS. “All those in the Iraqi government in the so-called Green Zone have militias that have killed Iraqis under one flag or another.”

Hady, like many Iraqis, believes that the current spasm of violence will worsen as the two main Shia groups, the Sadr Movement and Maliki’s affiliations, continue to vie for power ahead of the provincial elections slated for October.

Division has broken out also within tribes; many have now come to back Sadr, not because they like him, but because they hate the Badr militia of Hakeem’s SIIC and Maliki’s Dawa party.

“Our problem in the southern parts of Iraq and other Shia dominated areas is that all options are bad,” the chief of a major tribe in Basra who fled for Baghdad, told IPS on condition of anonymity. “Iranian controlled militias killed so many chiefs of tribes because they refused to support these division projects concealed under the flag of federalism.”

Several tribes in the south have formed unions to fight the separation project, but some sheikhs have formed counter unions to support the Badr and Dawa agenda.

Most people seem to oppose any federalism that would separate Shia from Sunni Muslims.

“We will be weak without our Sunni brothers,” says Shamil Mahmood from Sadr City, the east district of two million in Baghdad. “The whole of the south will be swallowed by Iran, that will humiliate us and treat us like animals.”

And when U.S. forces speak of a reduction in violence, many Iraqis simply do not know what they are talking about.

Hundreds died in a series of explosions in Baghdad last month. This was despite the strongest ever security measures taken by the U.S. military, riding the “surge” in security forces and their activities.

The death toll is high, according to the website icasualties.org, which provides reliable numbers of Iraqi civilian and security deaths.

In January this year 485 civilians were killed, according to the website. It says the number is based on news reports, and that “actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site.”

The average month in 2005, before the “surge” was launched, saw 568 civilian deaths. In January 2006, the month before the “surge” began, 590 civilians died.

Many of the killings have taken place in the most well guarded areas of Baghdad. And they have continued this month.

“Two car bombs exploded in Jadriya, killing so many people, the day the American Secretary of Defence (Robert Gates) was visiting Baghdad last week,” a captain from the Karrada district police in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS.

“Another car bomb killed eight people and injured 20 Thursday (last week) in the Muraidy market of Sadr City, east of Baghdad, although the Mehdi army (the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr) provides strict protection to the city,” the officer said. “There is no security in this country any more.”

Unidentified bodies of Iraqis killed by militias continue to appear in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. The Iraqi government has issued instructions to all security and health offices not to give out the body count to the media. Dozens of bodies are found every day across Baghdad, residents say. Morgue officials confirm this.

“We are not authorised to issue any numbers, but I can tell you that we are still receiving human bodies every day; the men have no identity on them,” a doctor at the Baghdad morgue told IPS. “The bodies that have signs of torture are the Sunnis killed by Shia militias; those with a bullet in the head are usually policemen, translators or contractors who worked for the Americans.”

The “surge” of 30,000 additional troops came to Iraq, mostly Baghdad, in February of last year. The total current number of U.S. troops in Iraq is approximately 157,000. They were sent to end violence, and with a declared aim of helping political reconciliation.

But where peace of sorts has descended in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital city of six million (in a population of 25 million), it comes from a partitioning of people along sectarian lines. The Iraqi Red Crescent reports that one in four residents has been driven out of their homes by death squads, or by the “surge”.

According to an Iraqi Red Crescent report titled ‘The Internally Displaced People in Iraq’ released Jan. 27, 1,364,978 residents of Baghdad have been displaced.

The Environment News Service reported Jan. 7 that “many of the capital’s once mixed areas have become either purely Sunni or Shia after militias forced families out for belonging to the other religious branch of Islam.”

Some of the eerie calm in areas of Baghdad comes because togetherness has ended. Sunnis and Shias who lived together for generations are now partitioned. This is not the peace many Iraqis were looking for, surge or no surge.

On Jan. 8, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond announced that there were at least 2.2 million Iraqis internally displaced within the country, and that at least another two million had fled the country altogether. This, no doubt, would make many areas quieter.

The U.S. military has erected three to four metre high concrete walls around several neighbourhoods, forcing residents to choose either Sunni or Shia areas in which to live. Such separation has brought large-scale displacement, and protests.

Sunni Muslims seem to have the worst of it. Many Iraqis are outraged by the number of Sunni detainees the “surge” has taken.

Residents of Amiriya district of western Baghdad demonstrated Feb. 11 against mistreatment by U.S. and Iraqi forces involved in the “surge”. The “surge” aims to eradicate al-Qaeda from Iraq, but this has meant that most military operations have been carried out in Sunni areas like Amiriya.

“We are here to protest against the unfair arrests and raids conducted against the innocent people of Amiriya,” Salih al-Mutlag, chief of the Arab Dialogue Council in the Iraqi government told IPS at the demonstration. “This has gone too far under the flag of fighting terror.”

Al-Mutlag said they were also demonstrating against arrests in the western parts of Baghdad, despite an apparently peaceful situation there as a result of residents’ cooperation with Iraqi army units. Large numbers of residents came out in the Dora region of southwest Baghdad to protest against the U.S. military for arresting 18 people, including an 80-year-old man.

“We are the ones who improved the situation in western parts of Baghdad without any interference from the Americans and their puppet Iraqi government,” former Iraqi Army Major Abu Wussam told IPS in Amiriya. “We negotiated with our brothers in the Iraqi national resistance who agreed to conduct their activities in a different way from the traditional way they used to work.

“It seems Americans did not like it, and so they are punishing us for it, instead of releasing our detainees as they promised.”

Some of the apparent peace on the street is a consequence of rising detentions. In November last year Karl Matley, head of the Iraqi branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross, declared that more than 60,000 prisoners and detainees are held in prisons and other detention centres. A large number of these were taken during the “surge”.

By August 2007, half a year into the “surge”, the number of detainees held by the U.S.-led military forces in Iraq had swelled by 50 percent, with the inmate population growing to 24,500, from 16,000 in February, according to U.S. military officers in Iraq.

The officers reported that nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody were Sunni Arabs.

Given that the majority of the detained are Sunnis, the “surge”, rather than bridging political differences and aiding reconciliation between Sunni and Shia groups, appears to have had the opposite effect.

And yet, there could be more dangerous reasons to doubt such success of the “surge” that is claimed.

Among the recent arrests in Baghdad, the U.S. military counted six members of the Sahwa (Awakening) forces. This is a force of resistance fighters now ostensibly working with the U.S. military. The U.S. pays each member 300 dollars monthly. More than 80 percent of about 70,000 Sahwa members are Sunni.

The arrest of some Sahwa members is indication of U.S. military doubts about the loyalties of some of these Sahwa fighters. Shia political parties and militias already accuse them of being resistance fighters in disguise. Many believe that large numbers of Sahwa forces are resistance fighters simply riding the “surge”.

“How come Sunni parts of Baghdad became so quiet all of a sudden,” says Jawad Salman, a former resident of Amiriya who fled his house in 2006 after Iraqi resistance members accused him of being a government spy. “It is a game well played by terrorists to divert the fight against Shia groups. I lived there and I know that all residents fully support what the U.S. calls the terrorists.”

The Sahwa strategy has brought down the number of U.S. casualties — for now. But the U.S. strategy seems to have done less for Iraq than for its own forces.