Revisionist History in Iraq

[Killfile]

President Bush has asserted that those that are trying to investigate the intel failures that lead to war in Iraq are "revisionist historians" seeking to impose their own views on history. This, hot on the heels of the Senate's closed session begs for some background. So here it is: the history of the Iraq war.

It all starts with a paper trail dating back to 1979 that shows the line of thinking that lead first to supporting Iraq, then to opposing it, and finally to invading it.

The story begins in 1979 when Paul Wolfowitz wrote in a report entitled Capabilities for Limited Contingencies in the Persian Gulf, "We and our major industrialized allies have a vital and growing stake in the Persian Gulf region because of our need for Persian Gulf oil and because events in the Persian gulf affect the Arab-Israeli conflict. The importance of Persian Gulf oil cannot easily be exaggerated."

Shortly thereafter, Iraq and Iran began their long and blood war which the United States funded both sides of (Iraq to oppose Iranian oil interests, and Iran to raise money to fund the Nicaraguan Contras). Sales of precursors for everything from Mustard Gas to Plague lined American defense contractor's pockets while we shipped weapons ranging from stinger missiles to cluster bombs to the Iraqi military.

While years later we would make a big noise over Saddam's use of chemical weapons (chemical weapons we sold him) against his own people (the Kurds), funding to Saddam's regime actually increased after US satellite photography caught his chemical weapons attacks on film. It took the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 for the United States to reverse its position on Saddam Hussein.

Then President George H. W. Bush wanted Saddam out of Kuwait, mostly because Saddam's control of Kuwait would put more than 50% of OPEC reserves in his hands. As any majority stock holder can tell you, 50% is the magic number. At 50%, you own the company - or in Saddam's case, you own OPEC. Bush knew his limits however and just wanted to get Saddam out of Kuwait. Postulating the unthinkable, Bush would later relate his thought process to a veterans group, "We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power - American in an Arab land - with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous."

I'm sure it sounded better than it reads, but the implication is clear. George H.W. Bush knew that invading Iraq and occupying it would spell disaster for the American Military. He wasn't about to open Pandora's box.

Even Paul Wolfowitz agreed. "[Occupation] could have lead the United States into. a country that could not govern itself, but where the rule of a foreign occupier would be increasingly resented."

Rather than occupy, the US leaned on Saddam with sanctions, all the while encouraging ethnic groups opposed to Saddam to rebel. By delicately balancing encouragement with a total lack of military support, US policy kept "the devil we knew" in power, but effectively powerless. While Saddam was butchering thousands and we were making it possible - it wasn't our problem.

Colin Powell summed it up best, "Our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile to the United States."

The system, horrifically bloody as it was, was working fine. Iraq stood between Iran and the world's largest producing oil reserves. Saddam's lucid insanity was effectively contained keeping down US encouraged (but not sponsored) uprisings, and while lots of people were dieing, gas prices stayed low and those people weren't Americans. It sounds terrible, but US foreign policy often is.

George W. Bush got the idea into his head that the world would somehow be better if we overthrew Saddam. Wolfowitz, among others, was having second thoughts about the bloody state of permanent civil war he had helped create in Iraq. The objectives of the Bush administration were clear from the outset. Ron Suskind, biographer of Paul O'Neill (former Bush treasury secretary) described the first meeting of Bush's National Securfity Council on January 30, 2001. He related that the Bush Administration equated "Mideast Policy" with the planning of a preemptive attack on Iraq. some nine months before anyone flew anything into the World Trade Center and several years before anyone even bothered to ask if Saddam had any Weapons of Mass Destruction left.

According to Suskind, within the first 100 days of the administration taking power, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfled, and Dick Cheney were already looking over maps of oil fields in Iraq and considering which oil companies might be interested in them.

Fast forward nine months. Al Qaeda rams the Trade Center, Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania (the latter obviously not their intent). Bush freezes and spends the day on board Air Force One incase anyone plans to ram a plane into him. US intelligence organs determine in the space of a few hours that Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist network were responsible.

September 12, 2001. Donald Rumsfled is worried about the lack of high value bombing targets in Afghanistan (the known headquarters of the al Qaeda network) and suggests bombing targets in Iraq (known not to have any ties whatsoever to al Qaeda). President Bush then specifically ordered Richard Clarke (then counterterrorism chief) to "Go back over everything [and]. see if Saddam did this."

Despite objections from Clarke and others, Bush would not be deterred. "ee if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred.. Look into Iraq, Saddam."

While we'll never now if Bush made his decision at this point or later, one thing is clear. According to the so called "Downing Street Memo" which has long since faded from what limited press recognition it had, by July of 2002, "There was a perceptible shift in attitude [in Washington]. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the connection of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." (Emphasis mine).

Its take me a page and a half, but the implications should be clear by this point. The Bush Administration came to the Iraq situation with an agenda. Even before the Sept 11 attacks, Bush intended to attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam. Terrorism, WMDs, these were tools leveraged against the American People to push them towards occupation. I wonder what “revisions” the GOP would like to make to that record.