Mesopotamia Burning, Part I

The conflict in Iraq has been going on for three years and five months now and despite the bright outlook after the toppling of the Hussein regime and the bout of elections during certain parts of the past few years, the conflict in Iraq only seems to be getting worse. In fact, it will probably get much worse before it gets better, that is, if it even gets better at all. Recently Britains outgoing ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, stated in a diplomatic cable that the "[p]rospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy."(1) U.S. army General John Abizaid also held similar views by telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that if the ongoing sectarian violence is "not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war." Although both stated that there was hope Patey stated that it would be bad for at least a decade or more.(2) Which means more American troop presence for another decade, at least. So how did we get to this point, how did American troops end up in a land which was not a threat to the American public and which had no part in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? Why are American troops and Iraqi civilians dying in a war that had nothing to do with the protection of the American people? What was the real purpose for this invasion and the motives behind it? Who were the architects behind this war and why did they want to invade, and who stood to benefit from this invasion? These are some of the questions that I hope to answer over the next five or so months in a ten part series about the war in Iraq: why it happened, who stood to benefit, U.S. history in the region, the build up to the war, etc. Part I in this series is set up to be an introduction to this series and what I plan to cover. While the next five or so months will be dedicated to the conflict in Iraq and its history I do not intend to ignore the other issue of this blog, such as theology/religion and other issues of foreign policy, those will be relegated to others who wish to write on this blog (I will still be accepting articles on e-mail stated above and will place those articles on my blog as soon as I receive them). But, alas, on to the jist of this series.

Part II will be about the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East from the time of the imposition of the Shah into Iran in 1953 all the way up to the Iran-Iraq War and the eventual invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. During the early 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh rose to power in Iran after he was democratically elected to be the head of parliament but he and parliament decided to nationalize the oil industry in Iran which led to a CIA and British SIS backed and propagated coup against the parliament and the prime minister leading to the instillation of the dictatorial Shah who cracked down on many elements on behalf of U.S. and British interests. Years latter, in 1979, the Shah was overthrown by an Islamic revolution in Iran, not soon after Saddam Hussein, a secular Sunni Muslim, was worried about the situation in the religious and Shia Iran thus causing the Iran-Iraq war. Seen as a potential ally against Iran the U.S. again involved itself in the region by allying itself with Saddam. However this was soon cut short after the invasion of Kuwait and the start of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Part III picks up after the invasion of Kuwait and the victory over Hussein and the fall of the Soviet empire. Because of the fall of the Soviet Union America was the world’s only super power and found itself on the cusp of being able to exert its influence all over the globe, especially in regions that were previously dominated by the Soviet Union. Because of America’s new found position in the world neo-conservative elements within the Pentagon argued that America should take steps to make sure that it remained the world’s only super power and that it should use comprehensive geopolitical strategy against countries that could rival America (such as India, China, and as well as Russia, again) and that America should also use preemptive military force if necessary and possible. One of the critical regions in the neo-conservatives view was the Middle East, with its vast oil wealth and political instability.

Due to the election of Clinton however, the neo-conservatives were very limited in their options in trying to get their opinions heard within the government, that was, until the election of Republican George W. Bush, who seemed to have come out of nowhere to overtake a powerful vice-president during the elections of 2000. This is where Part IV of my series picks off. After the election of Bush discussions on Iraq were being talked about as early as Feb. 1, 2001, only 12 days after the inauguration of Bush to the presidency.(3) After the Sept. 11 attacks neo-conservatives within the Bush administration, who had been around during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, started to mobilize in order to gain public support for the ouster of Hussein, even though Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. By 2002 the administration began building up plans to invade Iraq and many began to mobilize public opinion to support a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.

Part V will tackle the topic of the military industrial complex, which President Eisenhower warned us about in his finale address to the nation over 40 years ago, and the other corporate powers which stood to profit from a war in Iraq. The war would create large contracts from the Pentagon and would create large sums of money for U.S. corporate interests due to the privatization of many sectors within the Iraqi economy. This part will also touch upon the connections that Haliburton had with the Pentagon, especially due to the fact the former Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney had become the CEO of Haliburton during the 1990s.

Parts VI and VII will focus on the actual battle itself, beginning in March of 2003 all the way up to the present. Even though complete victory was declared by Bush after a quick fall of the Hussein regime by the fourth quarter of 2003 there was a growing insurgency in Iraq and talk of growing political and security instability in the region. Despite this there were multiple elections and governments within Iraq after the stepping down of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, plus the drafting of an Iraqi constitution with guaranteed freedoms for its citizens. While all of this was good propaganda for the Bush administration’s "war on the home front" and for upcoming elections, the country started spiraling out of control and was delving into deeper and deeper chaos, with threats of civil war looming on the horizon. Journalist and government employees were being killed and kidnaped in regions that had previously been safe to travel and death squads were being formed within the Iraqi government, targeting Sunni Muslims.

On top of the spiraling violence within Iraq allegations of troop abuse were being brought to light. Part VIII will focus on those allegations and on the stresses of war the caused these men and women to go to such extremes. Many of these abuses happened due to a lack of discipline within the lower ranks of the army, yet investigations by Human Rights Watch and others have also shown that these abuses were tolerated by those within the higher ups in the military and the Pentagon.(4) I will also focus on the Haditha massacres and why such massacres happened. Part of this had to due with troop stress caused by bad pre-war planning(5) and not having enough troops in Iraq and not having an enough competent Iraqi army to help make up for this difference.(6)

Part IX will focus again on corporate power but this time on corporate profit and abuse within Iraq. I will focus on the different sectors of Iraqi society taken over by U.S. corporations and the various military contractors and subcontractors and their policies within Iraq. Especially their policies on the hiring and exploitation of workers from countries such as India and the Philippines. Plus the abuse of power by these corporations by the breaking of government signed contracts and the huge sums of money flowing into and out of Iraq building up corporate profit.

Finally Part X, the conclusion of this ten part series will refute the many misguided reasons for going into Iraq, including the real reasons for going into Iraq and the manufactured reasons for going into Iraq. The argument that Iraq was a threat was never a real argument believed by the neo-conservatives who wanted to invade Iraq. Rather it was this imperial ambition to spread U.S. hegemony over the various regions of the globe in order to insure America’s super power status and in order to make sure that America had influence over a volatile region, the Middle East. While many argue that this was a noble cause, and a cause worth fighting for, we will realize over the period of this ten part series that this argument, of American benevolence through the spreading of capitalism and democracy, is a fallacy and that the situation that we are in today, on the verge of a civil war in Iraq, is the direct result of the decision to invade Iraq and the misguided and short sided outlooks of the neo-conservatives who supported and worked to get us into this war.

Notes

1. “Leaked Memo Shows Outgoing British Ambassador Sees Trouble Ahead for Iraq.” The Daily
Star (Lebanon) 4 Aug. 2006.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=74478 (accessed
Aug. 5, 2006).
2. Ibid.
3. “Briefing for NSC Principals Meeting on Gulf Policy.” Memorandum for Secretary O’Neill.
Department of the Treasury. Feb. 1, 2001.
4. Human Rights Watch. “Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by
the U.S. Army’s 82 Airborne Division.” Human Rights Watch 1 nd 7, no. 3 (September 2005), and
“By the Numbers: Findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project.” Human Rights
Watch 18, no. 2 (April 2006). Center For Human Rights and Global Justice. “Fate and
Whereabouts Unknown: Detainees in the ‘War on Terror.’” December 17, 2005.
5. Fallows, James. “Blind Into Baghdad.” The Atlantic Monthly 293, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2004).
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200401/fallows (accessed Aug. 8, 2006).
6. Ibid. Why Iraq Has No Army.” The Atlantic Monthly 296, no. 5 (Dec. 2005): 60-77.