By Dr Mustafa al-Bazergan

Monday 27 September 2004, 18:02 Makka Time, 15:02 GMT 

In the past few months, as the world watched Iraq turn into a quicksand for the US-led occupation forces, the Bush administration has been busy promoting a false image of a civil war in the country, apparently as a pretext to perpetuate its occupation.

Far from a civil war, what is really happening is a determined popular uprising against foreign forces . . .

Unlike most of the coalition partners who sent troops to Iraq, the Romanian President Ion Iliescu was candid enough to admit that the mission of the coalition forces in Iraq has failed.

"The reason for the failure in Iraq lies in the coercive measures taken to make the changes there," he said. Iliescu also admitted that

the coalition expectations

that the Iraqi people

would welcome them

had turned out to be

 an illusion.