WHAT WENT WRONG IN IRAQ?

Why did we invade Iraq? President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld repeatedly stated and professed to provide proof that Iraq had nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. This was false. Such WMDs that Iraq had possessed were destroyed years earlier. Iraq’s alleged effort to buy fuel for nuclear weapons was based on a discredited forgery. United Nations inspectors found no evidence of any efforts to establish new weapons programs.

President Bush and others purported to provide “proof” that Iraq was closely allied to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attack upon the United States. This too was false. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers came from Saudi Arabia; none from Iraq. No evidence links the hijackers with Iraq. Alleged meetings between Iraqi and Qaeda representatives never took place, nor was there any cooperation between them. On the contrary, Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator, and Al Qaeda, a religiously fanatical movement, were antagonistic to one another.

President Bush stated and purported to provide proof, that Iraq was planning aggression directed toward its neighbors and the United States. This also was false. Iraq’s dictatorial government continued to behave brutally toward its domestic critics and minorities, but engaged in no aggressive action abroad after its defeat and retreat from Kuwait after the 1991 war. There is literally no evidence that Iraq was either planning or in a position to engage in aggression abroad.

Let us assume that every one of the cited errors was a mistake in judgment and not a deliberate deception. A democratic nation does not have the right to engage in war that might result in the loss of tens of thousands of lives (which this war has) based on a single basic mistake, let alone a series of mistakes that utterly disregarded warnings and corrections. Given the abundant evidence rebutting these claims, that continue to be repeated by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to the present day, most American and world opinion has concluded that the Bush Administration was motivated by goals that disregarded reason and truth.

How did we believe that we would win? President Bush and members of his Administration predicted that we would be greeted by the Iraqis as liberators and that flowers would be strewn in the path of American tanks. They were wrong. Military victory was greeted by widespread looting (which American forces did virtually nothing to stop), and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were and continue to be placed in the path of American tanks, resulting in a majority of the more than 3600 American military deaths suffered thus far.

President Bush and his Administration believed that peace and security could be achieved with an undersized and underequipped volunteer army. They were wrong. Inadequate armor on tanks resulted in the needless loss of many lives. The regular armed forces and National Guard members who never imagined their ever going to war have been sent back for repeated and extended tours of duty. When


Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki told Congress before the war began that not enough troops were being sent to Iraq, he was publicly derided by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. When it became evident that Shinseki was right, Rumsfeld alibied that you go to war with the army you have. He was reckless. If you start a war, you shouldn’t do it until you have the army you need.

President Bush and his Administration believed that debaathification (that is, the removal of members of Saddam Hussein’s ruling Baath party) in the Iraqi army and police forces would result in loyalty to a successor regime. They were wrong. Debaathification led former Baathists to ally themselves with other enemies of the occupation, and left the new government without effective internal security.

Rumsfeld also famously said “stuff happens,” which is the verbal equivalent of responding to unhappy unexpected consequences with a shrug of the shoulders. It is the solemn responsibility of the nation’s leaders to anticipate and prepare for the widest range of stuff that may happen before it engages in a war of its choosing.

How do we plan to get out? President Bush sought to create a government that genuinely unifies the mutually suspicious and often hostile Shia, Sunni and Kurdish populations. It has not happened. He sought to create a successful central government in free elections, first under American-sponsored puppets with no credible base of support in Iraq, and finally under the leadership of Nouri al-Maliki. Understandably, the feeble Iraqi government is responsive to internal interests that are not sympathetic to American intervention. There has been little progress toward creation of a multi-sectarian state.

The failure of the United States to understand internal conflicts, provide security and protect borders resulted in the easy entry of members of Al Qaeda (conspicuously absent prior to the American invasion) and other forces bent upon increasing chaos, encouraging anti-American sentiment, and fomenting civil war and lawlessness throughout Iraq.

What is the reality? America is hated in Iraq as being anti-Muslim because of its occupation and its ignorance and disregard of Muslim customs and beliefs. It is impossible to calculate the emotional and political consequences of the callous brutality of Abu Ghraib, the extradition of Muslims (who the United States refuses to acknowledge to be prisoners or war protected by the Geneva Conventions) to unknown prisons in undisclosed countries, where their harsh treatment will not risk examination by American courts, the accidental or criminal acts of American servicemen who kill innocent civilians, and the ignorance and insensitivity of much American behavior, as in a photograph of American servicemen sitting in a Muslim mosque wearing their combat boots.

Investigative journalists estimate that the followers of Al Qaeda constitute between five and ten percent of the insurgent forces, although they represent a larger proportion of those who engage in the most successful violent opposition to the American occupation. No one can know the consequences of total American withdrawal. Partial or piecemeal withdrawal is unacceptable, because the vulnerability of American forces would be increased and the symbolic negative significance of the American presence would not be reduced. No credence should be given to the predictions of those who have until now been wrong about everything connected with the causes and consequences of the American occupation. Some responsible scholars are persuaded that things will get worse – not better – as long as resentment of America’s presence continues to be felt.

Why have we failed? When Osama bin Laden was believed to be cornered in Afghanistan, we deployed our military forces there to the war we were beginning in Iraq, making easier his escape into Pakistan. We betrayed our most cherished ideals in the humiliating treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and the brutal actions of servicemen in widely publicized incidents of promiscuous slaughter of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. When General Antonio Taguba released his detailed report recounting the complicity of government officials in imposing abusive interrogation policies at Abu Ghraib, he was mocked and shunned by the Pentagon and forced to retire early. We violated the basic precepts of habeas corpus and international law in denying legal counsel to prisoners in Guantanamo and elsewhere, and subjecting them to humiliating treatment and torture. We have turned our backs on Iraqis who risked their lives working with the American occupation forces, but have been denied immigration into the United States. In all these respects, we have alienated millions of people throughout the world who once held the United States in the highest regard for its love of liberty and justice.

What can we do? We can get out. Whenever the United States finally decides to leave Iraq, defenders of our failed policies will declare: If only we had stayed…. (This is what they said when we left Vietnam.) But if we stay, and thousands more Americans and tens of thousands more Iraqis die, the invaders would still proclaim that they would succeed if only…. The truth is that the sooner we leave, the sooner we reduce the killing and maiming of Americans, as well as the distrust of America which now extends to most people in most nations. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can participate in international efforts to promote peace and security in the Middle East. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can divert hundreds of billions of dollars from the conduct of an unending war that enriches private corporations and corrupt foreign politicians, to be used to fight poverty and disease in the United States and throughout the world. The sooner we leave, the sooner the United States can regain its place of pride among the free and liberty-loving nations of the world.