Saturday, March 18, 2006
Compare and Contrast
David C. Unger in the New York Times, March 15, 2006:
I. 10 Questions That Should Have Been Asked Before the Invasion201k.com September 14, 2005:
1. What would Iraq look like without Saddam Hussein?
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but he was also just about the only thing holding Iraq together. The people planning this war should have foreseen that once the repressive lid of Baathist rule was lifted, just about everything would be up for grabs in Iraq, including national unity and the balance of power among Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds.
But Saddam was a Bad Man....David C. Unger in the New York Times, March 15, 2006:
Yes, he was. But he was also the cork in the bottle in Iraq. And Bush's war pulled it out.
We can't wait to hear the president claim that "no one could have foreseen" that Iraq would descend into sectarian violence if Saddam was removed without some viable control being put in place after he was gone.
Because lots of people foresaw it. The experts all warned about it. The people who know the region jumped up and down trying to explain that Iraq was a powder-keg held in check by a madman, and that if you removed him you'd need to put something solid back in the bottle or the whole place would explode.
But they experts were hooted down by the Bush administration and its ideological allies in the media. Not that anyone will remember that now.
II. 10 Questions That Should Have Been Asked Since the Invasion201k.com April 16, 2004:
7. What would it take to get more international support?
Incredibly, the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon seemed to have assumed at first that America's Western and Arab allies, and the United Nations, would practically trip over each other to get right with the new order by sending peacekeeping troops and conferring international legitimacy on the political transition. By late 2003, it was increasingly evident that wasn't about to happen. To those not hypnotized by blind self-righteousness, it was no surprise.
Washington had spent much of the previous year generating international ill-will and undermining the United Nations by bypassing Security Council opposition and pulling the plug on international weapons inspectors. President Bush's harsh with-us-or-against-us rhetoric also created a poor climate for multinational cooperation.
The administration might have attracted more nations to help with the hard work that lay ahead in Iraq by offering substantial political and economic concessions. But it never wavered from its insistence on controlling all political, military and contracting decisions itself. In recent days, President Bush has begun to talk more about the difficulty of going it alone, not just in Iraq, but in all of America's dealings. But this represents a turnabout that comes very late in the day and that many will find hard to fully credit.
...how are our troops in Iraq better off fighting essentially alone, just because the Bush administration didn't want to cut France and Russia in on the oil?201k.com July 22, 2004:
Who does that greedy pig-headedness help? Our soldiers?
What percentage of the Iraq oil do you think our soldiers would trade for a truly international coalition to be with them right now?
More importantly: who made the decision not to give that percentage up? And why?
American troops are unfairly being asked to bear the burden of war in Iraq. With only a small British presence--and a token presence from the other "willing" nations--US forces are shouldering the danger almost single-handedly. Worse, 40% of those troops are National Guardsmen. This is unacceptable.
Why, if toppling Hussein was such an unqualified good, could George Bush not assemble a truly international coalition? Doing so would have been far better for US soldiers; it would have divided the danger our soldiers now face alone, avoided the current unprecedented stretching of the military, and removed the need for two unfair and foolish policies: using Guardsmen to fight overseas, and calling out of retirement soldiers who have fulfilled their obligations.
We believe the question of why George Bush couldn't--or wouldn't--build an international coalition is central to understanding why Americans should consider his entire Iraq policy a miserable failure.
While his apologists and spinners suggest that it is the fault of our European allies--mostly France, Germany, and Russia--for not "joining the cause", it is in fact President Bush himself who is to blame.
George Bush deliberately chose to go it alone in Iraq rather than get an international coalition from the U.N., because to get that coalition he would have had to share Iraq oil rights with other members of the Security Council--which he was unwilling to do.
European countries who had contracts to drill for oil in Iraq acted in predictable self interest by not supporting Bush's bid to internationalize the Iraq war--because he would not recognize their contracts or negotiate to share Iraq oil rights with them.
By choosing to keep Iraq oil rights entirely to American companies, George Bush deliberately chose the best interests of America's oil extraction industries over the best interests of US soldiers.
Had he so desired, George Bush could have negotiated deals with France, Germany, and Russia, and brought them into the coalition to invade Iraq. And he could have got a UN resolution. He did neither because it would have required recognizing the rights to Iraq's oil that other Security council countries held.
Conspiracy theory? Left-wing propaganda? Anti-Americanism?
Consider this article from September 29, 2002.American firms are barred by U.S. law from making contracts with Iraq and have had to watch as the rival firms of other nations sign contracts with the Iraqi dictator to pump oil after U.N. sanctions are lifted.Yes, that's the same Ahmed Chalabi. Now disgraced, and under suspicion of espionage, but in September of 2002, still a spokesman for the coming invasion of Iraq.
The oil card is clearly a factor in the current tug-of-war between Baghdad, Washington and key members of the U.N. Security Council that oppose the Bush administration's push for a military move on Iraq. In recent years, seeking to curry favor, Hussein has given huge contracts to oil firms from France, Russia and China, which all have veto power in the Security Council.
The French oil giant TotalFinaElf has the largest position in Iraq, with exclusive negotiating rights to develop Majnoon, a field near the Iranian border with estimated reserves of 10 billion barrels. Moscow has a $3.5 billion, 23-year agreement for several huge Iraqi fields that gives a lead position to a Russian oil consortium led by LukOil.
Iraqi opposition leaders suggest that unless France, Russia and China support the U.S. line in the Security Council, their oil companies may find themselves blacklisted.
"We will examine all the contracts that Saddam Hussein has made, and we will cancel all those that are not in the interest of the Iraqi people and will reopen bidding on them," said Faisal Qaragholi, operations officer of the Iraqi National Congress, the opposition coalition based in London that plays a central role in the American anti-Hussein strategy.
Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, has gone even further, proposing the creation of consortium of American companies to develop Iraq's oil fields.
Back then Chalabi and other administration surrogates were turning logic on its head, suggesting that the oil contracts would be taken away from countries that didn't jump into the coalition. But this was never anything more than deceptive rhetoric--and a cover for greed. The countries in question already had contracts--contracts that would still be valid following a UN sanctioned invasion.
Chalabi had it backwards--on purpose.
Of course the Bush administration could have made deals to get France and Russia on board in Iraq. They didn't want to. They felt they didn't have to. They could take Iraq alone, and cancel the contracts as an "occupying power".
Which is what they did, just as Chalabi had threatened.
The question is: who gained from this strategy? We know who lost--US soldiers; they're fighting a war in Iraq essentially alone. But who gained? And whose strategy was it?
Who, besides Ahmed Chalabi, decided that keeping all of Iraq's oil in the hands of US firms rather than sharing it with allies who stood to lose billions in prior contracts was more important than giving US troops all the help they could use?
Was it Dick Cheney, aka Captain Halliburton?
Was it Donald Rumsfeld, who insisted the US military could do it alone?
More importantly: why did George Bush go along with it? As president it was his responsibility to ensure that US soldiers going into harm's way have all the help and all the materials they need.
What was more important than that to him?
