Mideast will pay the bill for US failure in Iraq
by Z Pallo Jordan, 04 April 2013, 05:51
TEN
years ago, TV viewers across the world watched US President George Bush
demand the unconditional surrender of Saddam Hussein, his sons and the
government he led. By the next day, these TV audiences could watch in
awe as the US unleashed its digitised war machine on Iraq. Within two
weeks, Bush could land on an aircraft carrier and proudly declare,
"Mission accomplished!" to the soldiers assembled for the purpose.
We
could be forgiven our confusion about the exact nature of the
accomplished mission, but a number of things were clear. First, Iraq’s
infrastructure had been well-nigh destroyed by US aerial bombardment.
Second, thousands of noncombatant Iraqis had perished. Third, although
Bush sounded extremely confident, the conflict he had ignited in Iraq
was far from over.
The war that finally arrived in March 2003 had
a long incubation in the planning rooms of Washington, DC. Like all
modern wars, it was preceded by a lengthy propaganda campaign to
convince the US public of the justice of the war and to persuade
international opinion that the US was acting in everyone’s best
interest.
Even before Bush assumed the presidency, many who then
took up official positions in his administration had advocated the
invasion of Iraq. Using the repetition of misinformation, they created
the false impression that Iraq was behind the September 11 2001 attacks
on the US. Every possible inducement was also used to persuade the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to link those attacks to Iraq. An
alleged meeting between one of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, and Iraqi
intelligence officers in Prague turned out to be a lie. A front group,
named Citizens for a Free Kuwait, was established with the assistance of
one of the largest public-relations companies, Hill & Knowlton.
Another group, called the Council of American Muslims for Understanding,
launched the Open Dialogue website, funded by the US state department.
Even the much-touted Iraqi National Congress, whose spokesmen
unashamedly called for the invasion, turned out to be little more than a
front organisation funded by the US government.
The invasion was
ostensibly to uncover and destroy the weapons of mass destruction
Saddam had allegedly amassed. Throughout the build-up to the invasion
and during the war itself, the huge elephant in the room was the nuclear
power in the region, Israel.
The first casualty in all wars had
already been ruthlessly mutilated by a compliant US media even before US
boots hit the ground in Baghdad. Their Goebbelsian style was
shamelessly emulated by virtually every media organisation in the West,
including our own. Within days of the initial US aerial assault, they
had invented a name with a profoundly racist undertone, "Ali", as a kind
of "one name, fits all" for all Iraqi officials.
Ten years
later, about 5,000 US soldiers, most of them young men and women who
went into the military for lack of opportunity, have died in Iraq. The
Iraqi dead are numbered in the hundreds of thousands; the wounded in the
millions. Not one weapon of mass destruction was found and disarmed.
Many
of the trailer-park lads and lasses who fought the war will come home
minus a finger, a leg, an arm or an eye; 200,000 have already returned
home with post-traumatic stress disorder; 5,000 will never see their
homes again. The stated aims of the war — to restructure Iraqi political
institutions and unseat a dictator — have been only partially achieved.
The US invasion has left the country and the region less stable and its
future far less certain than before. The armed US presence next door
has fuelled Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
Clearly
Saddam’s "weapons of mass destruction" were a pretext for the invasion.
Had the CIA been less rigorous, September 11 would have served the Bush
administration equally well. Iraq has now been reduced to a divided
nation state, its military capacity destroyed and its infrastructure in
ruins. Thanks to the US war, there are now only two regional powers,
Israel and Iran. Of the two, Israel is the nuclear power.
To his
credit, while serving as a senator for Illinois, US President Barack
Obama denounced the war as "dumb". Ironically, he is now obliged to
clear up the mess made by his predecessor and to salvage what he can of
US dignity. Obama has slapped down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s invitation to a confrontation with Iran and twisted his arm
to apologise to Turkey. As he disengages US forces, the question arises:
what did the US war in Iraq achieve?
The war has demonstrated
the limits of US power. Instead of bringing a new order to the Middle
East, it has stimulated instability. The "new American century" Bush and
his neoconservative backers had hoped the war would inaugurate has
lasted less than a decade. But the price for that failure will be
exacted in the Middle East, not in the US.
• Jordan is a former arts and culture minister.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
by Z Pallo Jordan, 04 April 2013, 05:51
TEN
years ago, TV viewers across the world watched US President George Bush
demand the unconditional surrender of Saddam Hussein, his sons and the
government he led. By the next day, these TV audiences could watch in
awe as the US unleashed its digitised war machine on Iraq. Within two
weeks, Bush could land on an aircraft carrier and proudly declare,
"Mission accomplished!" to the soldiers assembled for the purpose.
We
could be forgiven our confusion about the exact nature of the
accomplished mission, but a number of things were clear. First, Iraq’s
infrastructure had been well-nigh destroyed by US aerial bombardment.
Second, thousands of noncombatant Iraqis had perished. Third, although
Bush sounded extremely confident, the conflict he had ignited in Iraq
was far from over.
The war that finally arrived in March 2003 had
a long incubation in the planning rooms of Washington, DC. Like all
modern wars, it was preceded by a lengthy propaganda campaign to
convince the US public of the justice of the war and to persuade
international opinion that the US was acting in everyone’s best
interest.
Even before Bush assumed the presidency, many who then
took up official positions in his administration had advocated the
invasion of Iraq. Using the repetition of misinformation, they created
the false impression that Iraq was behind the September 11 2001 attacks
on the US. Every possible inducement was also used to persuade the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to link those attacks to Iraq. An
alleged meeting between one of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, and Iraqi
intelligence officers in Prague turned out to be a lie. A front group,
named Citizens for a Free Kuwait, was established with the assistance of
one of the largest public-relations companies, Hill & Knowlton.
Another group, called the Council of American Muslims for Understanding,
launched the Open Dialogue website, funded by the US state department.
Even the much-touted Iraqi National Congress, whose spokesmen
unashamedly called for the invasion, turned out to be little more than a
front organisation funded by the US government.
The invasion was
ostensibly to uncover and destroy the weapons of mass destruction
Saddam had allegedly amassed. Throughout the build-up to the invasion
and during the war itself, the huge elephant in the room was the nuclear
power in the region, Israel.
The first casualty in all wars had
already been ruthlessly mutilated by a compliant US media even before US
boots hit the ground in Baghdad. Their Goebbelsian style was
shamelessly emulated by virtually every media organisation in the West,
including our own. Within days of the initial US aerial assault, they
had invented a name with a profoundly racist undertone, "Ali", as a kind
of "one name, fits all" for all Iraqi officials.
Ten years
later, about 5,000 US soldiers, most of them young men and women who
went into the military for lack of opportunity, have died in Iraq. The
Iraqi dead are numbered in the hundreds of thousands; the wounded in the
millions. Not one weapon of mass destruction was found and disarmed.
Many
of the trailer-park lads and lasses who fought the war will come home
minus a finger, a leg, an arm or an eye; 200,000 have already returned
home with post-traumatic stress disorder; 5,000 will never see their
homes again. The stated aims of the war — to restructure Iraqi political
institutions and unseat a dictator — have been only partially achieved.
The US invasion has left the country and the region less stable and its
future far less certain than before. The armed US presence next door
has fuelled Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
Clearly
Saddam’s "weapons of mass destruction" were a pretext for the invasion.
Had the CIA been less rigorous, September 11 would have served the Bush
administration equally well. Iraq has now been reduced to a divided
nation state, its military capacity destroyed and its infrastructure in
ruins. Thanks to the US war, there are now only two regional powers,
Israel and Iran. Of the two, Israel is the nuclear power.
To his
credit, while serving as a senator for Illinois, US President Barack
Obama denounced the war as "dumb". Ironically, he is now obliged to
clear up the mess made by his predecessor and to salvage what he can of
US dignity. Obama has slapped down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s invitation to a confrontation with Iran and twisted his arm
to apologise to Turkey. As he disengages US forces, the question arises:
what did the US war in Iraq achieve?
The war has demonstrated
the limits of US power. Instead of bringing a new order to the Middle
East, it has stimulated instability. The "new American century" Bush and
his neoconservative backers had hoped the war would inaugurate has
lasted less than a decade. But the price for that failure will be
exacted in the Middle East, not in the US.
• Jordan is a former arts and culture minister.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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