Was Iraq War a `Blunder' or Was It Treason?

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Dave Lindorff

New Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), is calling President Bush's invasion of Iraq a "stark blunder" and says that his new scheme to send 21,500 more troops into the mess he created is just digging the hole deeper.

I wonder though.

It seems ever more likely to me that this whole mess was no blunder at all.

People are wont to attribute the whole thing to lack of intelligence on the president's part, and to hubris on the part of his key advisers. I won't argue that the president is a lightweight in the intellect department, nor will I dispute that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and that whole neocon gang have demonstrably lacked the virtues of reflection and humility. But that said, I suspect that the real story of the Iraq War is that Bush and his gang never really cared whether they actually would "win" in Iraq. In fact, arguably, they didn't really want to win.

What they wanted was a war.

If the war they started had ended quickly with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, that would have served their purposes, at least for the short term. Bush would have emerged from a short invasion and conquest a national hero, would have handily won re-election in 2004, and would have gone on to a second term as a landslide victor. But if it went badly, as it has, they figured he would still come out ahead. He would be a wartime president, and he'd make full use of that role, expansively misdefining his "commander in chief" title to imply authority over the Congress and the courts, to grab power heretofore unheard of for a president.

This, I suspect, was the grand strategy underlying the attack on Iraq.

If I'm right, there may have been method to the madness of not building up enough troops for the invasion to insure that U.S. forces could occupy a destroyed Iraq and help it rebuild, method to the madness of allowing looters free sway to destroy the country's remaining post-invasion infrastructure, method to the madness, even, of allowing remnant forces of Hussein's to gather up stockpiles of weapons and even of high-density explosives, so they could mount an effective resistance and drag out the conflict.

So many apparently stupid decisions were made by people who should clearly have been too smart to make them, from leaving hundreds of tons of high explosives unguarded to cashiering all of Iraq's army and most of the country's civil service managers, that it boggles the mind to think that these could have been just dumb ideas or incompetence. (L. Paul Bremer, for instance, who made the "dumb" decision about dismantelling the Iraqi army, prior to becoming Iraq's occupation viceroy, had headed the nation's leading risk assessment consultancy, and surely knew what all the risks were of his various decisions.)

I mean, we expect a measure of idiocy from or elected leaders and their appointees, but not wholesale idiocy!

This disaster has been so colossal, it almost had to have been orchestrated.

If that's the case, Congress should be taking a hard look at not just the latest installment of escalation, but at the whole war project, beginning with the 2002 campaign to get it going. Certainly throwing 21,500 new troops into the fire makes no sense whatever. If 140,000 of the best-equipped troops in the world can't pacify Iraq, 160,000 aren't going to be able to do it either. You don't need to be a general to figure that out. Even a senator or representative ought to be able to do it. So clearly Congress should kill this plan.

Since it's not about "winning" the war, it has to be about something else. My guess would be it's about either dragging things out until the end of 2008, so Bush can leave office without having to say he's sorry. But of course, it could also be about something even more serious: invading Iran.

We know Bush is trying mightily to provoke Iran. He has illegally attacked an Iranian consulate in Iraq (an act of war), taking six protected consular officials there captive. He is sending a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, and is setting up Patriot anti-missile missile bases along Iran's western border. This buildup has all the earmarks of a pre-invasion. All that's needed now is a pretext--a real or faked attack on an American ship, perhaps, ala the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" that launched America into the Vietnam War.

The way I see it, either way the president is committing treason, because he is sending American troops off to be killed for no good reason other than for aggrandizing power he shouldn’t have, and/or simply covering his own political ass.

Treason is the number one impeachable crime under the Constitution, and we're at a point where Congress is going to have to act or go down in history as having acquiesced in the worst presidential crime in the history of the nation.

12:01 pm pst

Hangings Fuel Sectarian Split Across Mideast

January 17, 2007
News Analysis
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO, Jan. 16 — The botched hanging of Saddam Hussein and two lieutenants in Iraq by its Shiite-led government has helped to accelerate Sunni-Shiite sectarianism across an already fragile Middle East, according to experts across the region.

The chaotic executions and the calm with which Mr. Hussein confronted the gallows and mocking Shiite guards have bolstered his image among many of his fellow Sunni Muslims.

But something else is happening too: a pan-Muslim unity that surged after the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, is waning.

And while political analysts and government officials in the region say the spreading Sunni disillusionment with Shiites and their backers in Iran will benefit Sunni-led governments and the United States, they and others worry that the tensions could start to balkanize the region as they have in Iraq itself.

“The reality of the current situation is that we are approaching an open Sunni-Shiite conflict in the region,” said Emad Gad, a specialist in international relations at the government-financed Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “And Egypt will also be a part of it as a part of the Sunni axis. No one will be able to avoid or escape it.”

This changing dynamic in the region, described by many scholars, analysts and officials in recent days, is a result not only of the hangings, the Iraq war and the Lebanese political struggle. It has also been encouraged by Sunni-led governments like those in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and some Sunni religious leaders alarmed by the rising influence of Iran, the region’s biggest Shiite power. Far from Cairo, in a sprawling farming village in the Nile Delta region north of the city, Hamada Abdullah, a Sunni Muslim, said that after the war between Hezbollah and Israel, he posted a small picture of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, on the bare wall of his home. It did not matter that Sheik Nasrallah was a Shiite Muslim aligned with the Shiite state of Iran.

--MORE--

Video: UN Sec. Gen. Annan declares Iraq safer under Saddam

UN Sec. Gen. Annan declares Iraq 'worse than civil war'

Obama and Saddam have something in common

Really.

The commonality is right there in the opening sentence of Obama's Profile. See it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

AWB Executives Should Be Charged After Report on Iraq

(Update3)

By Gemma Daley


Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- AWB Ltd. executives paid kickbacks to win sales to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, a government inquiry found, recommending charges against 11 officials from Australia's monopoly wheat exporter.

Prosecutors should pursue officials including Trevor Flugge, the former chairman of the Melbourne-based exporter, for breaching criminal, banking and company regulations, Commissioner Terence Cole said in a report published today. Calls to Flugge's lawyer were not returned.

The probe was triggered by an investigation of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who found AWB paid bribes to win sales. Prime Minister John Howard said he'll urgently review AWB's monopoly on arranging wheat exports from Australia, the world's third-biggest exporter of the commodity.

``The report of the Cole inquiry has clear implications for the operation of a single desk system for Australian wheat exports,'' Howard said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg. ``The government will give urgent consideration to the future of marketing operations for the export of Australian wheat.''

AWB, which ``deeply regrets'' the way it conducted its wheat trade with Iraq, said it won't respond to allegations against individuals in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

Biggest Supplier

Cargill Inc. and Glencore International AG are among companies that have called for an end to AWB's monopoly, a legacy of when the company was state-owned. AWB was the biggest supplier of food under the UN's Oil-for Food program and paid $222 million in kickbacks, according to Volcker.

``The next step for the industry is to devise a wheat export system that doesn't confer monopoly power on any one company,'' Greg Canavan, an analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney said before the report was released.

The findings will be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cole said in a report distributed in Canberra today. Cole said AWB did not inform Howard's government or the UN of its ``true arrangements with Iraq.''

Cole said there was no suggestion of illegal activity by the government, prime minister or ministers.

The former judge led a 10-month inquiry that heard from 60 people, including Prime Minister Howard. Cole also said that Davidson Kelly, a former employee of BHP Billiton Ltd., may have conspired with AWB. BHP Billiton, the world's biggest mining company said it was studying the Cole report in a statement to the exchange.

BHP Billiton

The inquiry had heard AWB inflated wheat contracts to recover $8 million of debt, which Gibraltar-registered Tigris Petroleum Corp., BHP's joint venture partner studying oil fields in Iraq, had said it was owed arising from a grain shipment. Kelly set up Tigris in 2000.

Former BHP Group President Energy, Phil Aiken had signed a letter giving Tigris the authority to recover the debt under a ``misunderstanding,'' Cole said. BHP Petroleum, or BHPP, had acted by ``mistake because Mr. Aiken, who had no personal knowledge of the 1996 shipment, was not told at any time that the shipment had been approved by the managing directors of both BHP and BHPP only on the basis that the transaction was a gift,'' Cole said in the report.

Worst-Performer

Shares of AWB, the worst-performing stock on the S&P/ASX 200 Index this year, have fallen 55 percent since the inquiry began Jan. 16. The inquiry has prompted the resignation of at least four executives, including former managing director Andrew Lindberg and company secretaries Richard Fuller and Jim Cooper. Cole said Lindberg was ``not guilty of any criminal conduct.''

Wheat growers in the U.S., the world's biggest exporter of the grain, have called for an end to AWB's monopoly, saying it gives Australian farmers an unfair advantage in price negotiations.

``The loss of the single-desk has been largely incorporated into the share price,'' said Justin Braitling, who helps manage A$100 million in stock at Wilson Asset Management including AWB shares. AWB shares rose 10 cents, or 3.6 percent, to A$2.86 at the 4.10 p.m. close of trade in Sydney.

AWB, which controlled about 14 percent global wheat trade last year, is also facing pressure on earnings as drought threatens to cut wheat production in Australia to a 12-year low of 9.5 million tons. The nation shipped 15.2 million tons of wheat in the 12 months ended June 30, 2006, worth A$3.3 billion ($2.6 billion), according to the country's commodity forecaster.

The Volcker-led U.S. investigation into the Oil-for-Food program has separately resulted in criminal charges against at least seven people, including Oscar Wyatt. The program allowed Iraq to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and medicine while remaining subject to economic sanctions.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gemma Daley in Canberra at gdaley@bloomberg.net ;

Last Updated: November 27, 2006 02:05 EST

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=auAuxJTZ.cT4&refer=asia

Los Angeles Times' Jonathan Chait: Bring back Saddam Hussein

Jonathan Chait:
Jonathan Chait: Bring back Saddam Hussein
Restoring the dictator to power may give Iraqis the jolt of authority they need. Have a better solution?
November 26, 2006


THE DEBATE about Iraq has moved past the question of whether it was a mistake (everybody knows it was) to the more depressing question of whether it is possible to avert total disaster. Every self-respecting foreign policy analyst has his own plan for Iraq. The trouble is that these tracts are inevitably unconvincing, except when they argue why all the other plans would fail. It's all terribly grim.

So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power.

Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale.

At the outset of the war, I had no high hopes for Iraqi democracy, but I paid no attention to the possibility that the Iraqis would end up with a worse government than the one they had. It turns out, however, that there is something more awful than totalitarianism, and that is endless chaos and civil war.

Nobody seems to foresee the possibility of restoring order to Iraq. Here is the basic dilemma: The government is run by Shiites, and the security agencies have been overrun by militias and death squads. The government is strong enough to terrorize the Sunnis into rebellion but not strong enough to crush this rebellion.

Meanwhile, we have admirably directed our efforts into training a professional and nonsectarian Iraqi police force and encouraging reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites. But we haven't succeeded. We may be strong enough to stop large-scale warfare or genocide, but we're not strong enough to stop pervasive chaos.

Hussein, however, has a proven record in that department. It may well be possible to reconstitute the Iraqi army and state bureaucracy we disbanded, and if so, that may be the only force capable of imposing order in Iraq.

Chaos and order each have a powerful self-sustaining logic. When people perceive a lack of order, they act in ways that further the disorder. If a Sunni believes that he is in danger of being killed by Shiites, he will throw his support to Sunni insurgents who he sees as the only force that can protect him. The Sunni insurgents, in turn, will scare Shiites into supporting their own anti-Sunni militias.

And it's not just Iraqis who act this way. You could find a smaller-scale version of this dynamic in an urban riot here in the United States. But when there's an expectation of social order, people will act in a civilized fashion.

Restoring the expectation of order in Iraq will take some kind of large-scale psychological shock. The Iraqi elections were expected to offer that shock, but they didn't. The return of Saddam Hussein — a man every Iraqi knows, and whom many of them fear — would do the trick.

The disadvantages of reinstalling Hussein are obvious, but consider some of the upside. He would not allow the country to be dominated by Iran, which is the United States' major regional enemy, a sponsor of terrorism and an instigator of warfare between Lebanon and Israel. Hussein was extremely difficult to deal with before the war, in large part because he apparently believed that he could defeat any U.S. invasion if it came to that. Now he knows he can't. And he'd probably be amenable because his alternative is death by hanging.

I know why restoring a brutal tyrant to power is a bad idea. Somebody explain to me why it's worse than all the others.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-chait26nov26,1,4863795.column

"instigator of warfare between Lebanon and Israel."? Chait either thinks you're stupid or he is. As for Saddam coming back to power, I'd say the odds now favor that.