No end to Iraq war in sight

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By verne mcdonald

Publish Date: 16-Mar-2006

Amnesty International recently estimated that 14,000 people are being detained without charge or trial in Iraq, and in the past three years hundreds have died from causes related to their imprisonment. The numbers are smaller than in Saddam Hussein’s day, perhaps, and most of the prisoners are in for different reasons, but you cannot blame an Iraqi for thinking that the new regime conducts business as usual.

The fundamental premise of the U.S.–led invasion three years ago was that there were chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons present. Those weapons were either stockpiled for imminent use as supplies for terrorists or were being developed for use by a power-mad dictator. The U.S.–declared “war against terror” required that Iraq be prevented from threatening the American way of life.

Three years ago, voices of reason said that UN inspections had been effective, and were once again demonstrating Iraq’s relative military impotence. These voices also said that Saddam Hussein’s secularist regime had no direct link with Islamist terrorists, and he knew better than to risk another attack after the horrendous losses of Gulf War I, not to mention the drain on Iraq caused by UN–imposed sanctions after his military adventure in 1991.

As for the American way of life, it is a testament to an exploitable streak of insecurity in the people of the U.S. that President George W. Bush was able to convince them, on the basis of a single (albeit spectacularly successful) terrorist attack, that a few thousand remotely located fanatics, or some wacko fascists in a dysfunctional nation on the other side of the earth, were a serious threat to a continental society of hundreds of millions.

The voices of reason have been proven correct, and they have continued to be drowned out. There were no WMD, there was no connection with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and if Hussein was collaborating with al-Qaeda or planning to stick it the U.S. on his own, he was not doing a very good job.

Almost three years ago, Bush declared victory in Iraq, saying the “combat phase” was over. It was not the first time he was wrong.

Even more interesting is how well his enemies have done, compared to him. The U.S. quickly traced the WTC and Pentagon attacks to Osama bin Laden and vowed to take him or kill him. More than four years later, the world’s most powerful nation and its allies have failed to locate a man who is the most identifiable person on the planet outside of Pamela Anderson. It does make one wonder if bin Laden is more valuable alive, as a propaganda tool, than very inconveniently dead as an eternally inspirational martyr.

In the fall of 2001, bin Laden, in a widely broadcast videotape, stated that his aims were to raise insecurity in the U.S. and to cause it to limit freedoms. He wanted the U.S. to invade Islamic countries and unite all Muslims in hatred of its superior attitude. He also said he hoped for a collapse of the U.S. economy—but you can’t have everything.

Bush has followed bin Laden’s agenda about as closely as he can (whether or not his deficits have damaged the economy will take a couple more years to tell), and he has changed his justification for the invasion of Iraq to the thin excuse that it was worth it to depose Hussein, the Hitler-like ogre of Baghdad.

A bastard Hussein certainly is, and mass graves are still being discovered, but the past three years’ record of about 30,000 civilians dead and more than 100,000 injured was achieved without his help. Post-invasion Iraq, with intermittent water and electricity, fuel shortages, car bombs, and sectarian violence, is like a running advertisement for the relative stability of Hussein’s regime.

Bush would argue that the rest of the world is safer. Fortress America, with hundreds of thousands of police and security forces fingering their weapons every time a person with swarthy skin coughs, has suffered less from terrorist attacks than it did in the same number of years before September 11, 2001.

The rest of the world, from London to Madrid, from Saudi Arabia to Bali, has not been so fortunate.

As for the U.S., the invasion of Iraq was supposed to protect its people. How many people in the U.S. might have been hurt without the invasion is a matter of speculation. What is certain is that the invasion has resulted so far in the deaths of more than 2,200 U.S. citizens, and more than 14,000 injured or maimed for life.

It is not going to stop. As in Vietnam, the majority of the population in Iraq is relatively neutral, waiting to see what will happen. A large minority is hostile and determined, and they live there. The U.S. troops will have to leave someday, and the Iraqis know it.

It’s tempting to cite former Texas prosecutor Chris Downey’s comment on U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s inadvertent blast that sprayed Harry Whittington with buckshot. “A lot of accidents can be considered criminal negligent acts.” The charge of criminal negligence can be laid against anyone who “disregards substantial and justifiable risk”, Downey said.

The substantial risk in invading Iraq was discounted because of how its people would benefit from freedom and democracy. The actual criminally negligent result is a people living in privation and fear, wobbling on the brink of all-out civil war. The differences the U.S. has effected in Iraq have been overwhelmingly negative, yet America clings to the attitude of proudly staying the course rather than recognizing that the terrible mistake it has made.

Before the U.S. invaded, Hussein did not dare sleep in the same bed two nights in a row, but the citizens of his country usually had power and water. Now, Hussein is the only Iraqi who can confidently rely on light, heat, fresh water, and three square meals a day. He is also the only Iraqi who has full security, who can repose in peace in the certainty of not being shot at or blown up. Meanwhile, he has a forum in which he can berate judges and fulminate about his unfair treatment. This, if Bush is to be believed, made the U.S. intervention worthwhile.