The War Against Iraq Has Begun
Saul Landau
Radio Progreso Weekly, 22 August 2002
The US war against Iraq has already begun according to DEBKA, a pro-Israeli, internet intelligence report that has often predicted events with uncanny accuracy. "The fact of the matter", DEBKA reported on August 10, "is that American military concentrations are already unobtrusively present in northern and southern Iraq ". On August 12, 2002 posted reports of 4,000 US troops "landing in Aqaba", that "will be transferred to the northeast Jordanian desert region bordering on Iraq.
DEBKA’s report states that officially, the US troops "have come for a three-week joint exercise with the Jordanian army. But ...military sources report that the American increment supplements the US force already stationed in Jordan , raising the total to close to 8,000 US troops. King Abdullah and Jordanian ministers have been consistent in denying the presence of American troops on their soil. They insist that Jordanian bases will not serve as jumping off points for an assault against Iraq ". DEBKA does not believe the Jordanians. Neither do I.
While Americans debate in the streets the rights and wrongs of a war against Iraq , the US media crows over leaks of war plans that it obtains and Congress debates the right and wrong way to depose Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush, however, works the sneaky attack by salami method. He uses, according to DEBKA, "clouds of disinformation and diversionary ruses" – see Bush’s latest claim that he has "not yet set a date for the actual attack" - to cover his slicing away of Iraqi sovereignty.
Like the solemn Jordanian King, other allied leaders also protest that they will not participate in Bush’s aggressive operation. Meanwhile, European military units work with US forces to prepare for war against Iraq . An American documentary filmmaker just back from the region confirmed that he saw US army and marine units establishing bases around Iraq . He said they have begun to supply these new bases with large amounts of weapons and ammunition. The ring of bases, according to DEBKA sources, "extends from Georgia and Turkey in the north, Israel, Egypt and Jordan to the west, Eritrea and Kenya in the southwest, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain to the south". In addition, the US Navy has built up an armada in the nearby waters. During the first week in August increased numbers of bombing sorties took place in southern Iraq .
We are almost at war! George W. Bush, holder of the world’s most powerful office after "winning" a dubious election, appears to have developed military hubris – maybe chutzpah is a better word. US policy, he arrogantly announces, intends to have a "regime change" in Iraq . Bush sort of knows that Iraq is located near our dear friend and loyal ally, Saudi Arabia . Bush will soon be briefed on why the oily Saudis refuse to hand over suspected terrorists to US authorities.
Bush kind of understands that regime change means using a massive US military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, recognized by the world as Iraq ’s leader. This is illegal under US law, but few in power and authority seem to notice. It is quite possible that W has forgotten some of the words in the pledge of allegiance - "to the republic". Does he recall only the recently court-mandated deletion of "under God"?
His pose of blatant imperialism has astounded a few members of Congress as he shrugs off suggestions that he should consult with them or get UN security council authorization or even explain to the US public why he wants to commit US lives and resources to such a venture. Then again, W admits to not doing well in political science courses and implicitly – look at his daily schedule, the amount of time he spends in the gym and on vacation – acknowledges that Vice President "Uncle Dick" Cheney runs the country.
Surely, Cheney can, but won’t, explain why the United States is fomenting attack plans against a country without casus belli – that is without any provocation by Iraq against the United States . Cheney refuses to explain anything, from his suspicious behavior as Halliburton CEO at a time of big profits and phony accounting to his role in consulting in secret Enron executives to formulate a national energy plan.
Bush and company have not made a convincing case for attacking Iraq . During and after the 1991 Gulf War the United States and its European allies charged Iraq with invading a neighbor, accumulating weapons of mass destruction, disobeying UN Security Council resolutions, and violating the human rights of minorities in its territory. They could well have leveled those charges against Israel – in spades - but successive Administrations have seen no reason to seek consistency.
So, without a cause for war, despite absence of world wide support for such an undertaking and lacking the money to pay for this large-scale expense, W has, nevertheless, made his intention clear: Saddam must go.
He has no replacement for Saddam to head Iraq after we deliver the crushing blows. Washington experts refer to the Iraqi opposition as a joke. Perhaps the Afghanis will have dumped Karzai, their temporary, US-picked leader by then and Bush can send him to Baghdad to govern Iraq in the post war period.
Bush wants regime change, but not nation building. The Europeans can do that when we’ve finished bombing, rocketing and cleaning out resistance. They’re better at cleaning up the messes than we are anyway. We’re still cleaning out the enemy in Afghanistan and then, presumably, the Europeans can usher in democracy there.
War provides a breathtaking method to distract the US public from the Bush-Cheney connections to major corporate scandals. Who will remember as war news dominates the headlines, that Bush made sizeable profits when he sold his Harken Energy stock after getting a tip that the company was heading South. Who will demand, amidst TV photos of US bombs and rockets, that Cheney account for Halliburton’s fake accounting practices – that’s a civilized way to talk about corporate fraud. What a fine diversion war makes for a public that might get angry at losing its pension funds while the heads of state were making tens of millions at their expense! Indeed, US planes bombed Iraq during Clinton ’s Monica scandals and W’s early months in office, when people still remembered the hanky panky of the Florida election.
Wag the dog? Surely someone in the Administration will offer a reason to declare war on Iraq other than Saddam’s being evil incarnate. W has never met the man. When his Daddy served as Vice President and Donald Rumsfeld was a leading official who traveled to Iraq and authorized US support for Saddam Hussein in the war against Iraq , knowing all about his use of chemical weapons.
But for W Bush, Saddam forms one of the three points in the Axis of Evil. And evil, as the pious W knows, must be fought. Soon, hopefully, a media person will ask about specific reasons for going to war, other than that Saddam refuses to allow the UN weapons inspectors to return.
The Administration accuses him, without any proof, of hiding stockpiles – or even anthills - of lethal bio and chemical weapons. One of the former inspectors, Scott Ritter, says this charge is ridiculous and agrees with Saddam that the inspection team looked for years and found nothing.
Former Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana , once a leading Democratic figure in the House and now head of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was bewildered. "You have not had the president articulate why Saddam Hussein needs to be removed", he said. Nor, added Hamilton , has he "made the case that Saddam is an imminent threat to the United States ". Indeed, even the normally obedient House Republican heavy Dick Armey, hardly pro-Arab, advocated containing Saddam, rather than waging full-scale war.
So, what’s really happening? War plans "leak" to the press. Congress has brief hearings, featuring performances by members of the weak, whining and competing Iraqi exile groups, who try to impress Americans on how democratic and powerful they are. Congress listens to how best to get rid of Saddam, not if we should.
Dissenting members wring their hands. They wait for the sounds of war so that they can resolve any moral issues that might bother them and give full support to the president during war. The media softball throwers follow suit. The weekend talk political shows discuss the pitfalls of a ground invasion and the limitations of an all out air war. Almost no one in prime time talks about the absence of a cause of war or refers to the language of the UN Charter.
Nor do we read much about the horrors of war, the losses suffered by the Iraqi people, who have endured the pain of sanctions and frequent bombings to enforce a so-called US-British imposed no-fly zone. Welcome to empire in the 21st Century. Our president has discovered Evil as a cause for waging war. That word may sound abstract to some of us, but the very religious W knows what it means. It transcends drinking, drug taking and promiscuity – silly stuff he did when he was young and irresponsible, but all in good fun. Evil means doing the Devil’s work in the political world. Saddam is first of all a Sunni Muslim, not a Christian, and therefore evil by conviction – even if he doesn’t practice the religion.
Everyone knows he’s a terrorist because Bush says so. Proof? The media might ask, if they mustered the cojones to do so. "Proof", W has as good as screamed at the media and Congress, "I don’t got to show you the stinkin’ proof".
US intelligence agencies have not directly linked Saddam to the 9/11 terrorist attacks– there was one unsubstantiated report about an Iraqi intelligence officer meeting with an Al-Qaeda operative in Prague – but it is taken as axiomatic that the Evil dictator of Iraq approves of terrorism, even though he has denied it.
So, fellow Americans, prepare for the next war to bring us peace. The Constitution, which was seriously eroded by the Supreme Court majority in 2000, deciding that counting votes isn’t part of the democratic process, means what a semi-literate president says it means.
Copyright 2002 Radio Progreso
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