Middle East expert Dilip Hiro chronicles the runup and impact of the Bush crusade to "liberate" Iraq. He typifies the link the Bush adminstration made between the events of 2001-09-11 as a "phantom". There was no association between the Saddam Hussein government and the lawless attackers known as Al Qaida. Nor were there indications that Iraq clandestinely developed nuclear or chemical weapons that could be brought to bear on neighbouring countries, let alone Britain or the US. In sum, Hiro's depiction of the formation of the "coalition of the willing" is shown as a tissue of misleading information based on a strategy of fear - a "monumental confidence trick" with endless ramifications.
Hiro assembles a cast of flawed characters, giving a biographical sketch of such people as George Walker Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Anthony Blair. From this background, he then describes the various utterances each has produced to justify the crusade. From the beginning, he makes clear that the Iraq invasion would take place. All that was needed was justification. This was provided by various forms of "evidence", all of which was either false or flawed. Tubing for "nuclear centrifuges" turned out to be engine cases. A quest for uranium proved false. And nuclear and chemical weapons claimed by the Bush administration proved elusive - they have yet to be found. With such faulty information at his disposal, even after some of the lies were exposed, Bush gained authority to launch the crusade from a supine US Congress. The US media, once considered a bastion of investigative journalism, remained silent or compliant as the fallacies were revealed.
From the preparations for invasion, which included a eight-month illegal air assault on a sovereign nation, code-named "Southern Focus", Hiro moves on to the actual conflict. The lies and deceptions didn't end with the launching of Tomahawk missiles. In battles where the invaders were to have destroyed only military resistance, the "coalition" dropped updated napalm and used "cluster" weapons. The impact of these devices on the civilian population remains to be assessed, but by the fall of the Hussein government, more than three times the number of civilians killed by the attack on the World Trade Centre had been inflicted. And that's the conservative estimate. Hiro tracks the journal of one young Baghdad woman as the barrage of bombs and missiles rains down on the city. The Bush administration's contention that the Iraqi population would welcome the Yanks with "flowers and cheers" proved as flawed as his reasons for the invasion.
Bush didn't launch a pre-emptive war, but a preventive one. A pre-emptive war is an action to curtail a visible threat. No such threat, especially against the US, existed in Iraq. Bush's imperialist declaration of 2002, which stipulated the US had abrogated unto itself the sole privilege of determining what threatened that nation, obliterated the distinction between pre-emptive and preventive, writes Hiro. This action overturned a precedent set in 1648 in the Treaty of Westphalia, a model for all international relations ever since. Bush also sought to overturn any cooperative mechanisms in his unilateral actions. His method to garner small nations into joining the "coalition of the willing" was by browbeating them with threats of withholding future aid. The populations of even those nations joining the crusade were overwhelmingly opposed to involvement and said so in massive demonstrations, Hiro notes.
In his Summary and Conclusion, Hiro notes the resentment evidenced by Iraqis to the invasion. Even those gleeful at the toppling of Saddam Hussein have no desire for retention of foreign occupiers. The vaunted technology that guided missiles to government facilities has yet to ensure water or electrical supplies to the population of Baghdad and other cities. The mantra of "remnants of the old regime" leading the resistance to the invaders has been repeatedly refuted, Hiro demonstrates. Bremer's "Interim Governing Council" even lacked a ministry for religious affairs - in a nation rent by sectarian differences. The occupying forces, especially those of the US, lacked fundamental understanding of the Arab culture present in Iraq. With much of that culture evident in the Middle East and transported to other Muslim nations, is there any mystery in why resentment against Bush's unilateral adventurism remains in force?
The core of Bush's policies toward Iraq were false and/or misleading, according to Hiro. After reading his summation of declarations and events, it's impossible to refute his thesis. His deceptive administration has demonstrated a mastery of "spin", perhaps only exceeded by that of his flunky, Tony Blair. Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Projects", set well apart from the established departments for intelligence, provided the grounds for invasion. Their information is shown to be either unreliable or long outdated. Yet this was the basis for conning the US Congress into accepting Bush's request for war. Hiro goes on to note how the Bush government edited reports on environmental and health questions in order to sustain his policies. Real information has been shelved, ignored or rebutted to quell dissenters. In sum, it's clear that this book is a mandatory read for all in the USA. Read it for its wealth of information and clarity of presentation. It's a rewarding and insightful summary of adminstration with a tenuous hold on truth. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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