Last night, the Iraqi government -- which is unable to provide the most basic services to even the residents of Iraq's largest city -- executed their former president, Saddam Hussein. The Bush Administration has already touted the conviction and sentencing of Saddam as a great success for the fledgeling Iraqi government, which seemed to have taken up the dictators trial as the first order of business, ahead of such things as getting electricity and clean water (let alone security) to it's citizens. Throughout the media coverage of Saddam's trial, no one seemed to have wanted to mention the fact that it was the American government who supported and financed Saddam through his worst excesses.
Saddam Hussein was a despot, well deserving of his fate. But the fact is that there are many like him, all over the globe. I have long held that it should not be the responsibility of the United States to take up the task of removing dictators whenever we see fit. "Spreading democracy" is a costly endeavor, in both treasure and lives -- a job best left to a nations own people, should they find it necessary and be up to the task. This week it was revealed that this view was also held by the recently deceased, highly respected former Republican president, Gerald Ford.
In a 2004 interview with award-winning journalist and author Bob Woodward, former president Ford expressed doubts as to the wisdom of the current Bush administration's rationale for going to war with Iraq. He stated that he personally would have preferred to exhaust more diplomatic efforts in dealing with Saddam, "through sanctions, through restrictions, or whatever, to find another answer."
After the March 2003 invasion, information has gradually come to light which has proven that the Bush Administration knowingly manipulated intelligence about WMD and even created a government bureau (the "Office of Strategic Information") specifically for use in spreading disinformation about Iraq to build domestic support for the White House's Iraq policy.
I have written articles in which I speculated about the reasons why the Bush Administration would want to depose Saddam Hussein so badly as to lie to Congress, the American public, and the international community in their zeal to do so. Simply put; it all comes down to war for oil. But the real tragedy lies in the fact that the war in Iraq was not only unjust and unnecessary, but it diverted finite resources from the battle against an enemy which had, just a year and a half prior, proven itself to be a powerful threat to the American homeland.
Part of the White House's case for war with Iraq was built on claims that Saddam Hussein was somehow allied with the al Qaeda terrorist network which had attacked us on 9/11. This, in fact, is still being maintained today, although it's been disproven by the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Commitee, and the United States intelligence community at large. It stands to reason that a Secular dictator like Saddam would have every reason to be weary of an Islamic fundamentalist organization whose goal is to establish a global Islamic theocracy. This brings me to the general point of this article -- a kind of "what I would have done if I were the president" piece.
Since it became obvious that the promised "WMD" were nowhere to be found, the Bush Administration has trotted out a series of new and improved justifications for the invasion (each one retroactive to the start of the war, of course) which has led to the near hopeless quagmire that we see today. The latest of these soundbite gems has been so that we would have "an ally in the war on terror" in place of the Baath party regime led by Saddam. It is my contention that the best hope we had for an ally in Iraq against Islamic terror was executed last night.
I make no claim to be some kind of social scientist or geopolitical expert, but I can watch what's going on, and make logical inferences from what I see. Of course, I'm sure many will disagree -- but I am only calling it how I see it.
The enemy that wreaked havoc on 9/11 was not Saddam Hussein, it was Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network. That should have been the number one priority of our government; to stop the spread and the influence of Islamic extremism. I was supportive of the initial phases of the new "war on terror," striking at al Qaeda and their Taliban supporters -- decimating their ability to operate and plan new attacks. I agreed with what the White House claimed would be the focus of all of our dealings in the middle east; to "win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world." But unfortunately, that turned out to be the first of what would prove to be a series of empty slogans and rhetoric from the Bush Administration. George W. Bush, and his neo-con cronies, had no interest whatsoever in "winning hearts and minds."
We now know that the PNAC had been calling for Saddams head since early in the Clinton years. We know that Vice President Cheney's secret "National Energy Task Force" was eyeing Iraqi oil fields months before the 9/11 attacks. So it comes as no surprise that Bush would be invading Iraq at the first opportunity he got. One has to wonder, though, whether or not it would be Osama bin Laden being hung instead of Saddam had our Commander-in-Chief not gotten sidetracked by the prospect of all that Iraqi oil. We now know, also, that the CIA commanders of "Operation Anaconda" -- better known as "the battle of Tora Bora" -- had asked the Pentagon for additional troops to close off escape routes from the Tora Bora mountains (the area that bordered Pakistan was supposed to have been guarded by Pakistani troops, who were suspiciously slow in arriving) but were snubbed. It now seems safe to assume that the troops were denied for that operation because the White House was planning for the Iraq invasion, thus allowing bin Laden and his followers to escape.
So, what would I have done, had I been calling the shots?
First, I would have given greater priority to capturing (or killing) bin Laden, especially when the CIA purported to have him cornered. As for having an "ally in the war on terror," my money would have been on none other than the recently hanged Saddam Hussein.
It's only a matter of time after we pull our forces out of Iraq until the new Shiite government begins denouncing the United States as "the great Satan" (they already play a nasty little game of publicly denouncing the U.S. to gain popular support, and then quietly assenting to the presence of U.S. forces in private).
Saddam Hussein was a secular leader, who managed to keep Iraq's volatile sectarian society in a state of relative tranquility. Saddam was all about regime survival -- first and foremost. For an offer to be recognized as a legitimate international player, a lift of sanctions and a guarantee of security; Saddam most surely would rather have cooperated with the U.S. -- shutting down any and all illegal weapons programs, and assisting in the fight against Islamist groups (with whom he had a deep distrust of) -- than to tie his fate to al Qaeda's.
Working with Saddam instead of deposing him would have also helped to prevent another unfortunate byproduct; the emboldening of Iran. Saddam Hussein's regime was the only thing standing in the way of Iran's total domination of the region between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. With the removal of Saddam, we have seen Iran grow in power and influence -- and the establishment of an Iranian-controlled "Shiite crescent."
All of this is compounded by the fact that the Iraq invasion has served as a rallying cry for jihadists worldwide. Earlier this year, leaked portions of the National Intelligence Estimate confirmed what many, including myself, had already suspected; that al Qaeda and other Islamist organizations are actually growing in strength and numbers as a result of the war in Iraq.
And as al Qaeda and their successors have gained in power and determination, our supposed allies in the war on terror have become weary and suspicious of us. The policies of the Bush White House have taken us from being the object of global sympathy and allegiance, to being an international pariah. A recent international poll showed that people throughout the world view the United States as a greater threat to world stability than even North Korea or Iran.
In retrospect; seeking an alliance with Saddam's Iraqi regime would most surely have proven to be a more efficient tactic in fighting the real war on terror. Where the radical Islamist groups once were unwelcome in Saddam Hussein's Iraq; they now find refuge. Where the much maligned Iranian regime once had an enemy in Saddam's Iraq; they now have an ally. Where Bush and Cheney thought they were shooting for a "slam dunk;" they were actually shooting themselves in the foot -- and it's American security and prestige that are suffering the consequences. Not to mention the strain that is being put upon our military, in an age when national security is paramount.
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I'm sure some of you are thinking "How could he say that? Saddam was such a brutal tyrant!"
Well, he wouldn't be the first tyrant we would turn to for help in the "war on terror." Indeed, our good friends the Saudi's are annually among Amnesty International's top human rights violators, worldwide. As are the Chinese; the nation which our government borrows more money from than anywhere else.
Of the nations which Bush branded the new "axis of evil," Iraq was the one that it turns out posed the least of a threat.
President Bush perhaps said it best -- in a moment of typical malapropism -- "The hardest part of my job is connecting the war in Iraq to the 'war on terror'."
I can't imagine why that would be!
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Comments: 18
That's why Chrysler and Chery Automobile Group of China just signed a letter of intent whereby Chryslery will "develop and design" a new mini car--and China will produce it for sale here and around the world. Chrysler cited labor and other costs as being the primary reason for their not being competitive--duh--but they also blatantly pandered to stockholders knowing full well that their design and emission standards are far behind China's [reminds one of R.J. Reynolds decades long insistence that tobacco is not harmful.]
Now that the public's consciousness is somewhat raised about the relationship between consumption, production and oil supplies, Chrysler is johnny on the spot with our best business buds, the Chinese. The bare bottom line is they knew they could keep selling the obscenely energy consumptive gas hogs because they knew consumers were acquiesent and labor here is about $28/hr compared to less than $2/hr in china. A deal's been struck and we're the dummies--again. And they'll come to congress with hands out for our tax dollars to subsidize the R&D. Our gov't is the emissary and enabler for these elitist robbers.
This "new" mini or B class car is actually a modification of an existing prototype [in other words, whatever they can slip by the consumer]. A deal with an entrepreuner who wanted to design and build from scratch fell through. Naturally.
Where's my freaking pitchfork.
The timing of the execution, in spite of all the affirmations from both the Iraqi's and U.S. officials that the trial should be carried out by the Iraqi's, is chilling. After a long drawn out trial, and although there were other charges against Sadam, and though his attorneys asked for a stay of execution to appeal the sentencing, it was "decided" that the execution should be carried out promptly. Sadam was turned over to the Iraqi's as he was on his way to the gallows. In response to Human Rights Watch criticism that the trial was deeply flawed, Al Maliki declared that "our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no reiew or delay in carrying out the sentence." Just in time for President Bush's recommendations for "moving forward to success." Probably not a coincidence.
We've stirred up a hornet's nest for sure. One of the reasons they are so willing to die fighting is because they have no means of earning a living, none of the infrastructure normally associated with a democracy or any other kind of stable society, nor any hope for same in the forseeable future, except as part of the military apparatus. What else is there for them now but to hate us? I don't buy that they hate what we stand for. I think they hate our government and what our government and our military have done to them. They want the foreign infidels out of there. The Iraqi's weren't plotting and planning against us [ok Sadam made an assasination attempt on Poppy Bush--what's a little animosity and hatred between political elites]--but Osama bin Laden, a child of the elite himself, plotted and planned against us. Why?: Because he's a extremist who hated us and everything we stand for and wanted us out of the middle east and has been very clever about drawing in those who hate! We played right into his hands.
Does this sound kind of familiar? We have a government trying to turn their world inside out--and have--and we here at home are living in an economy where war has become a growth industry -- all because the elitists around the world, especially and including George Bush, are scrabbling for oil.
"Part of the White House's case for war with Iraq was built on claims that Saddam Hussein was somehow allied with the al Qaeda terrorist network which had attacked us on 9/11. This, in fact, is still being floated today, although it's been disproven by the 9/11 commission, the Senate Intelligence Commitee, and the United States intelligence community at large"
The 9/11 Commission, in it's public report, documented one meeting between Al Queada members and high officials in the Iraqi government, the classified report documented more. Further, the Iraqi government was providing arms and money to Hamas and Hezbollah. The Iraqi government, at the specific orders of Saddam Hussein was paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers in the West Bank and Gaza strip. Finally, there were several terrorist training camps in norther Iraq, close to the Kurdish area. These camps were obviously placed there for "plausible deniability" if they were discovered. Doesn't sound much like an ally in the war on terror, does it.
"Since it became obvious that the promised "WMD" were nowhere to be found" Seventeen TONS of WMD's, mostly blister agents, have been captured since the invasion of Iraq, along with almost 200 tons of precursor chemicals (chemicals used to produce chemical weapons. The Union of Concerned Scientists, on their web site, noted that if we took the amounts of chemical weapons that were declared by the Iraqis in 1993 to the UN, subtracted the amounts confirmed as destroyed by the inspectors, we would end up with an Iraq still possessing one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world.
"Saddam was all about regime survival -- first and foremost. For an offer to be recognized as a legitimate international player, a lift of sanctions and a guarantee of security; Saddam most surely would rather have cooperated with the U.S. -- shutting down any and all illegal weapons programs, and assisting in the fight against Islamist groups (with whom he had a deep distrust of) -- than to tie his fate to al Qaeda's."
This assertion borders on rank insanity at best. Saddam was repeatedly offered EXACTLY that by the UN, if they would destroy WMD stockpiles under UN inspection. Even as Hans Blix was talking of "unprecedented" levels of cooperation from the Iraqis, his written report documented literally HUNDREDS of violations. Germany, France and Russia were pressing for the lifting of sanctions WITHOUT Iraq disarming, in return for mere guarantees that they would not USE those weapons. Again, Saddam refused this. Over and over, he refused the demands of the UN as asserted in resolution after resolution.
"We now know, also, that the CIA commanders of "Operation Anaconda" -- better known as "the battle of Tora Bora" -- had asked the Pentagon for additional troops to close off escape routes from the Tora Bora mountains (the area that bordered Pakistan was supposed to have been guarded by Pakistani troops, who were suspiciously slow in arriving) but were snubbed. It now seems safe to assume that the troops were denied for that operation because the White House was planning for the Iraq invasion, thus allowing bin Laden and his followers to escape."
CIA personnel are NOT military commanders and are not in charge of troop levels, the military commanders are. Further, the area that you so blithely talk about "sealing off" is some of the most difficult terrain in the world. The Soviet Union, at the height of it's war in Afghanistan, could not seal off that area with more troops than the US has, TOTAL. Further, the local people in that area of Pakistan consider Bin Laden a hero and would have resisted the Pakistani army's attempts to capture him. This is the main reason that Bin Laden has not been found since. The claim that the White House "allowed" Bin Laden to escape is nothing but pure speculation, without any evidence.
Cynth the poet also made an excellent posting about the moral monsters that US policy helps to create and then is horrified to discover that they commit crimes and escape our "orbit".
Mark's "good facts" do not refute the article. The claims for 17 tons of chemicals are not regarded as primarily related to proto-weapons except for Faux News which continues to allude to unspecified weapon-grade material. No authoritative source confirms this.
The single contact between Iraqui agents and Al Queda operatives has been publically identified as "inconsequential". The US in all its intellignece and military branches (except, until very recently, Dick Cheyney) have acknowledged that there was no Iraqi -Al Queda link. Even the President now acknowledges that Iraq was not working with Al Queda - after spending three years suggesting others who said so were favoring terrorists.
The parts of the 9/11 Commission report that you fail to mention are the ones that conclude that the one known meeting between Iraqi officers and al qaeda agents were of no consequence, that Saddam held a deep distrust of bin Laden and all other Islamist groups, and that the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intel agent in Prague was a fabrication.
The alleged "IIS documents" that are the source of your claims about Islamist terrorist camps in northern Iraq, and ties to al Qaeda, have zero credibility -- considering the auspicious timing of their "discovery," the fact that they were passed around to various right-wing syndications (cnsnews, th weekly standard etc.), and that the Bush aministration is already known to have attempted to utilize fraudulent documents in order to justify their high-priced Iraqi oil grab.
Face it, Mark. Your hero Bush (who was busy going AWOL from his gravy train TANG unit during Vietnam) lied, twisted facts, and distorted intelligence in order to sell a war that had nothing to do with the "war on terror."
Here's some truth for you, Mark : "Key Bush intelligence briefing..."
Pay particular attention to the parts that say "One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group."
And then, after a few paragraphs about how the Bush Administration refused to provide Congress with copies of the briefing: "The president and vice president have insisted that they unknowingly relied on faulty and erroneous intelligence, provided mostly by the CIA..."
"...Although the Senate Intelligence Commitee and the 9/11 Commission pointed to incorrect CIA assessments on the WMD issue, they both also said that, for the most part, the CIA and other agencies did indeed provide policy makers with an accurate information regarding the lack of evidence of ties between Iraq and al Qaeda.
But a comparison of public statements by the president, the vice president, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld show that in the days just before a congressional vote authorizing war, they professed to have been given information from U.S. intelligence assessments showing an Iraq-al Qaeda link."
What the hell; it's useless. You're probably so well programmed by the Republican spin machine you wouldn't see the obvious truth if it smacked you in the face.
Score one for George Bush.
I thought it was "score one for the Iraqi people."
I must be getting confused as to who's actually running the show over there.
After all, they say Bush had nothing to do with the verdict being announced the night before the midterm elections.
As far, as there not being any proof of the wmd's , One of Saddams members of his elite Baath Party( a general) said , he was in charge of disposing the wmds, some were dumped in the ocean , he flew some to Damascus to unload it. If Saddam had complied with the UN Inspectors this would not of happened. His own arrogance is what brought him done. For those, of you who still want to appease the terrorists, how can you talk with people who want to destroy you. The threat is real but you wont believe it until you are forced to speak another language or they are bombing us. I dont agree, with all of the Bush adm. policies either but I do believe that there is a real threat to us, it goes back decades. sooner or later we had to deal with it. I give Bush this much, at least hes not a pansy, he didnt bomb an aspirin factory, if the Bush adm had been in office when all of these other attacks against us had occured, he would have taken action.Terrorism is like a cancer if not taken out, it spreads and spreads and devours us, just like these terrorists will do.They hate Israel and they hate us for several reasons.
"Alot of others as well" didn't invade Iraq on spurious (mostly fabricated) evidence. How about reading the article you just posted a comment on? The crux of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq was the alleged NUCLEAR weapons program, and ties to Islamic terrorist groups -- of which there was none of either. Every senior administration official knew this.
The supposed "evidence" of Saddams nukes were: the testimony of Ahmad Chalabi, and other known liars in the "Iraqi National Congress" (a group with an obvious agenda -- of course they would lie in order to facilitate the removal of Saddam), aluminum tubes which the CIA told the administration were unsuitable for use in a nuclear centrifuge (before Bush, Cheney and Rice all insisted that's what they were for) and that they were most suitable for use in building legal conventional rockets, and the infamous forged Niger "yellow cake" documents.
When Saddam's government submitted their "declaration of disarmament" to the White House, the administration rejected it, on the grounds that it "failed to account for the African uranium" -- that they already knew didn't exist!
It makes me sick, the blatant cynical hypocrisy of people who badmouth president Clinton because of the pharmaceutical plant missile strike incident, and then turn around and praise Bush in the very next sentence. Clinton admitted -- immediately afterwards -- that it was a MISTAKE. It happens. It was a product of bad intelligence -- it's happened NUMEROUS times to Bush since the start of the Iraq war. Do these people not remember the "decapitation strikes" on the first couple nights of the war? When Bush ordered bunker-buster (thousand-pound+ bombs) strikes on a restaurant, and then a residence, because he had "reliable intelligence" that Saddam would be at these locations? The results: Lots of dead and maimed innocent civilians, no Saddam. Where were all those Clinton aspirin-factory critcs then?
And damnit -- the war in Iraq had NOTHING to do woth the war on terror until Saddam was removed and jihadists started flooding in from Afghanistan and everywhere else. So stop vindicating Bush by saying he's some great anti-terror strategist. The "war on rerror" has been made increasingly more difficult because of the rash decision to invade Iraq. Not to mention what it has done for Iran.
And as far as Bush not being a "pansy" -- remember , Bush was the one who was AWOL during the Vietnam war. He's now won two elections by somehow successfully denigrating two decorated Vietnam war vets. In fact, the whole "Swiftboat vets" smear campaign -- by insisting that John Kerry, who had been awarded two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star, was nothing but a coward -- called into question the institution which awards such high honors as the Silver Star, thereby diminishing and calling into question the bravery of EVERY soldier who has ever earned them.
And this from a man who purports to support our troops.