Dark times
History: March 2003, not really prescience
Ready for war: left to right, Prime Minister Blair, President Aznar, President Bush and Prime Minister Barroso - the Azores, Portugal, Sunday, March 16, 2003. White House photo by Eric Draper. President Bush: “The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations…He possesses the weapons of mass murder…the Iraqi regime will disarm itself, or the Iraqi regime will be disarmed by force. And the regime has not disarmed itself.”
It is nothing I ever wished to have been right about. But even in March 2003, it was not hard to foresee resistance to the coming US invasion.
From the original Deep Blade, March 12, 2003:U.S. taking of Iraq does not appear to be the end of the imperial designs of U.S. planners. An extended, dangerous period of escalation of application of U.S. power in an attempt to hold and control its expanding spoils of war can be expected. Despite their arrogance and hubris, Bush and his team should not have much confidence that the chaos of the post-invasion period can be kept benign. There is great uncertainty about the controllability of forces that could be unleashed as America commits to new global management requirements far beyond its present substantial deployments. Current U.S. planning envisions a three-phase transition of Iraq from American military administration to some form of American-style government led by current Iraqi exiles. This process will be highly problematic and will probably require considerable force to pacify the disparate populations within Iraq. Beyond Iraq, the U.S. intends to insure that the behavior of Saudi Arabia and other countries with strategic resources align with its hegemonic goals, thus inviting a radical anti-american response.
And here are additional remarks from the same issue of Deep Blade, that I also gave in a public forum held for the Maine Congressional delegation at the Bangor Theological Seminary on March 16, 2003. (Only Congressman Michaud was in attendance):
This war will perhaps be the worst cynical betrayal of the fighting men and women in the military in U.S. history. The American people need to know that it is only the peace movement that truly supports the troops. The only troop support that means a damn thing is stopping the war in the first place. This is a strong statement given the experience of Vietnam and the first Gulf War, but I believe that this is true. Our troops will be thrown into a battlefield where they will be exposed to deadly toxins. The deleterious effects on our troops and the Iraqi population of extensive use of depleted uranium munitions in the first Gulf War is only now coming to light…
The imperialism of Bush and his lieutenants is a BETRAYAL of the troops and the American people, while they engender a false image that American troops do not care about human life. This image of our troops as storm troopers enforcing imperial policy, like it or not, will take a quantum leap in currency after an attack on Iraq. We will have lost any remaining legitimacy we have in using our military might against actual terrorists (not that I agree this has been the U.S. aim at any point, but post-9/11 legitimacy in the eyes of the world will have been squandered totally). None of this weight do I want our great country, our troops, and all of our people to have to bear.
Bear it we must.
December 31st, 1969 at 16:00
Yup, heard it.
What an arrogant prick–”I don’t know if you understand how journalism works…”
Amy & Juan did a fine job. Still, the whole discussion of pre-war “intelligence” is a slippery business. I started formulating a post about how the Times treated the entire issue of Iraq & nuclear weapons. Their major post-war story was published October 3, 2004. It’s bylined Barstow, Broad, and Gerth. Gordon must’ve been on to other projects by then. The the involvement of ISIS, David Albright, and the not-often-enough discussed Khadir Hamza (aka “Saddam’s Bombmaker”–a total fraud) needs much more elaboration. I agree with Gordon, “It’s complicated.” Now I believe Albright to be basically very solid. But he spent a fair amount of time in the 90s running with the fraud Hamza out of ISIS, spreading all sorts of tales of Iraqi nukes, some roughly true, some false, but never properly contextualized with the Iraqgate scandal and the, yes, very complex story of the inspections in the immediate post Gulf-War 1 period (1991-1995).
March 17th, 2006 at 21:43
Hi Deep
I urge you to watch the latest DemocracyNow with the chap who co-wrote the aaluminium tube exaggeration much punted as proof of profliferation before the 2003 quagmire. Paradoxically his appearance on the show was to criticise some aspects of the quagmire as regards planning following the aftermath. However, Amy Goodman and Juan pressed him on crucial issues regarding the timing of some of his assertions in the meida prior to the quagmire and how these influenced opinion, and why he didn’t pull a lot of his claims sooner considering the fact, as he admitted himself, that he didn’t really think the intelligence was completely sound. I got the impression he was merely squirming. Not only that, he was still selling the lie that “everyone” in the CIA had the same information. More insultingly, he even likened al Baradei’s intelligence to that of the CIA’s. implying that intelligence is merely a relative issue and not a matter of politics. An extremely fascinating show…
March 18th, 2006 at 09:51
Another thing struck me too, the issue of legality and unilateralism. Gordon and the general seemed to be implying that had there been proof of proliferation, thus reneging on 1441, from Saddam’s side that that fact alone would have justified invasion. They appear to be influenced by the discourse of preemptive action still. Furthermore, they were obviously unaware of the fact that Powell knew Iraq was not a threat, as did Rice. Whether or not Powell felt invasion was right or wrong is beside the point. There’s even footage to prove it. The general too made the claim that the Bush Administration were hoping for a smooth transition of power following the ouster of Saddam. However, they must surely have been forewarned as to the incredible instability that the invasion would cause. It is my impression that the CIA is an ambivalent animal in this context, since there appear to be differing intelligence claims prior to the war regarding what the war would mean. Were there not doubts in the military too?