Learning the Hard Way: the American Invasion of Iraq and its Aftermath

Engr. Shehu Usman Abdullahi

sheikhbeta@yahoo.co.uk

Paul Bremer, America ’s pro-consul in Iraq , unceremoniously and somewhat surreptitiously packed out of Baghdad in an American Military aircraft, on June 28, 2004 , two days before the earlier announced date of June 30 for the so-called handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis. The surprised shift of the handover date was supposed to be a tactical manoeuvre to wrong foot the militants bent on freeing their country from foreign occupation.

Bremer’s undignified exit marks the beginning of a three-phased transition plan towards

full sovereignty for the Iraqis: it is expected that sometimes in January of 2005 “transitional” elections will be conducted of representatives responsible for the compilation and drafting of voters registers and the Constitution, both pre-requisite for the last and final phase of general elections in January 2006. This, at least, is the plan of the Americans and their partner, Britain , with the United Nations being made to chorus its approval. America hopes that afterwards Iraq will be at peace with itself and the world, an excellent model for the rest of the Middle East .

The whole episode was a huge and somewhat reckless gamble. The Bush Administration, under the guise of the so-called “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq over one year ago ostensibly for three main reasons: to destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD); to extend its fight against international ‘Islamic’ terrorism; and to effect a regime change: replacing a vile dictator with a western-style liberal democratic government in the heart of a troubled, oil-rich and, in Western eyes at least, primitive Middle East.

From the very outset few governments believed America ’s motives, as evidenced from the fact that Washington never got the full U.N endorsement it sought to wage its war. And among the countries lining up to oppose its move were some of America ’s traditional allies. Even within the nations coaxed and coerced into supporting the American action, the majority of the populace disagreed with their governments: only the citizens of the U.S, still reeling from the shock of the September 11 attacks, and those of Israel , instinctive supporters of any anti Arab move, gave their full support.

Yet, whatever the Americans and their Israeli allies will like to believe, Washington’s excuse for invading Iraq had never really stood to dispassionate scrutiny. Subsequent events in occupied Iraq , as the world is now witnessing, simply provide further prove of this fact which had been apparent to all but the most unflinching American apologist.

The issue of WMD was the hottest topic in the West during the period preceding the invasion of Iraq . America and its transatlantic ally, Britain , made much about the potential danger of the fusion of WMD and international terrorism, in a generalised and rather vague way, without convincingly proving the existence of either, let alone the combination of both, in Iraq . Iraq had been subjected to the most rigorous and intrusive search for WMD over several years following its defeat in the 2^nd Gulf War of 1991. All its known stock of such weapons, along with the infrastructure for its production, was supposed to have been destroyed then.

For much of that period, inspectors would enter the country on U.N. mandated missions to search for remnants of banned weapons systems, and then leave – or be kicked out by Saddam – with the issue in the end remaining unresolved one way or another. There were complaints from the inspectors about access being denied to some sites – like Saddam’s Presidential Palaces – but at no time had any group reported the presence of WMD in those sites they were allowed to inspect. A sort of stalemate settled over the whole issue; with Saddam insisting on the lifting of sanctions imposed on Iraq , and some members of the U.N., led by the U.S. and Britain , vehemently opposing any such move until Iraq was declared in full compliance with the relevant U.N. resolutions. There matters would probably have rested indefinitely but for the fateful emergence of George W. Bush and the tragic occurrence of the September 11 attacks on America .

International scrutiny of Iraq became particularly severe after September 11 and America ’s subsequent declaration of war against international terrorism and states which sponsor it. It was the emotive moment when America demanded countries to make a critical choice: “you are either with us or with the terrorists”, declared President Bush, never in his elements on the finer points of diplomacy. While nations fell over themselves to be with the U.S. , Saddam did not even bother to commiserate with President Bush over the attacks, though it probably would not have changed his fate had he deigned to do so.

Riding on a wave of popular outrage against the devastation of September 11, the Bush Administration quickly laid the ground rules for going after its enemies. In addition to the with-us-or-against-us declaration, the Administration unfolded a new policy towards global security: America now vests on itself the right to pre-emptively attack its enemies once it has determined that a credible basis exists that those enemies pose an imminent threat to its security. This marked a new and dangerous turning point in international relations, and of course spelt trouble for those America paints as ‘bad guys’ – especially the countries President Bush had singled out as forming the “axis of evil”: Iraq, Iran, Syria and North Korea. A cowed international community could only watch helplessly as the world’s only remaining Superpower became judge and jury in international conflict resolution, usurping the role of the only legitimate international body empowered to do so: the United Nations.

To be fair, even before President Bush appeared on the scene American Administrations, particularly their Congressional arm, were never really wild-eyed fans of the United Nations. The average American had always viewed the august body with suspicion, looking down on it as an aggregation of irritating, mainly Third World, fiefdoms masquerading as sovereign nations, with an inefficient, perhaps corrupt, bureaucracy. Ostensibly for this very reason Washington is routinely several years in arrears over the payments of its dues to the U.N, with Congress considering the expenditure as a waste of American taxpayers’ money.

Under the circumstances, it therefore required no act of political genius for President Bush to persuade Congress to support a unilateralist approach to his post September 11 endeavours. But because even Bush needed to give his actions a veneer of international respectability, if not legitimacy, he went through the motions of seeking a U.N mandate. He was in fact reluctantly brought around to this point of view principally through the efforts of his ally across the Atlantic , Prime Minister Tony Blair who, with mixed results, had in the same breath been lending his considerable intellectual and moral weight to persuade the world that America ’s chosen course was the right and inevitable one.

Thus President Bush unenthusiastically took his case against Iraq to the U.N, which then gave the go ahead for a tough and final inspection regime in Iraq, one that provided the inspectors a free and unconditional access to all suspected sites in that country. This time around the inspectors were to verify written weapons status claims submitted by Iraq to the U.N., literally at the point of American guns. It was supposed to be a last chance given to Saddam to come clean about his country’s weapons systems; any major discrepancies discovered between the submitted claims and the inspectors reports were to lead to a second U.N. resolution automatically authorising military action against Iraq. At least that was the understanding of most members of the international community, but the U.S. felt that the first resolution gave it all it needed by way of a mandate to use force against Iraq should the inspectors’ report warranted it.

Reading the international – or more to the point, the U.S – mood correctly, Saddam Hussein acquiesced to the mission and welcomed the Hans Blix-led inspectors to Iraq . While the world held its collective breath, and under persistent pressure from the U.S., the team went through Iraq with a fine tooth comb, periodically reporting back to the U.N with ambivalent interim reports – reports delicately drafted not to disappoint a belligerent U.S. looking for a “smoking gun”, while at the same time trying to reflect the actual situation on the ground which was that no illegal weapons existed, smoking or otherwise. In the end Hans Blix never got the chance to complete his mission. Having concluded that the inspections will not come up with the outcome he desired, President Bush now shed all pretences at peaceful resolution of the conflict and ordered the inspectors out of Iraq, giving Saddam Hussein and his family 48 hrs to leave or face the consequences: in effect a short ultimatum for war.

Well of course Saddam was never going to simply give up his country of birth under threat from an external force, even assuming there was a nation on Earth courageous enough to receive him. The rest was history: the U.S., with Britain and a couple of members of the “coalition of the willing” in tow, invaded Iraq, in surely one of the most asymmetrical wars in living memory. In a matter of 3 weeks, it came to an end, and President Bush gleefully declared that all major combat operations of the war were over, and that the U.S. and – he added almost as an afterthought – its coalition partners had prevailed.

In retrospect this proclamation, issued on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln amidst much pomp and ceremony was, to say the least, a tad premature; for major combat operations in Iraq were in fact just beginning. Much like Chamberlain in 1938 when he made his famous gaffe over his agreement with Hitler, proclaiming to have secured “peace with honour” and “peace for our time”, and then immediately being forced to swallow his words by the Nazi dictator, President Bush is bound to be haunted by his hollow victory cry for the rest of his life.

Perhaps America invaded Iraq without a conclusive evidence of the presence of WMD in the hope that such a proof would easily be found when the whole country came under its control. Now over a full year after the invasion, and despite the best efforts of its inspectors, no WMD have been unearthed, laying to rest America ’s case against Iraq vis-à-vis WMD. Even die-hard supporters of President Bush are now downplaying the import of this factor as an excuse for the war. As to the other reason for the invasion – the extension of the war on international terrorism – the idea had always been very unlikely.

Saddam, like many a full blooded dictator, harboured a deep distrust for terrorists, freedom fighters or Islamic activists – however you wish to describe them – and kept them at arms length or, more often, in one of his many prisons. These men and women tend after all to be fiercely independent souls with deep seated hatred for injustice and its perpetrators and think nothing of confronting both head on: that is how they acquired their notoriety in the first place. It is true that Ghaddafi used to hobnob with such characters in the past, but then the Libyan leader has always been a maverick who often defies a straightforward categorization.

Perhaps Ghaddafi could afford the luxury of playing Russian roulette with sundry extremists because he rules over a lightly populated and homogeneous country with a fairly contented citizenry living under a welfare system, quite unlike in Saddam’s Iraq with its much more numerous and less affluent population composed of a portent mix of restive religious and ethnic nationalities. Or it may be just Ghaddafi’s puerile showmanship, which led him to enjoy playing with fire until another showman, the now late Ronald ( Hollywood ) Reagan, bombed some sense into him and forced him to grow up fast.

Saddam never indulged in such frivolities but took his rule seriously from the very beginning, defending it with uttermost ruthlessness. Armed with one of the most sophisticated and brutal security apparatus in the Middle East , if not the world, he promptly and systematically stamped out any hint of dissent to his regime from any quarters. Religious sentiments were never ever a consideration in his campaign of suppression, except in as much as they helped him to consolidate his rule, as when exploiting the Sunni-Shi’ite divide within his country.

Little wonder that, unlike in many countries of the Middle East , there had never flourished an Islamic revivalist movement within Iraq . And although the Ayatullahs in neighbouring Iran held considerable spiritual and political influence in the domestic affairs of their country even during the time of the Shah – himself by no means a good Samaritan – and would eventually topple him, their colleagues in Iraq knew better than to rub their own ruler the wrong way, or at least dared to do so at great cost; for Saddam Hussein killed more Ayatullahs and other Mullahs than Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi ever did.

The Ba’thist police state Saddam ran with iron hand was therefore no haven for al-Qaeda or any other militant Islamic organisation. Indeed were Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s founder and leader, to have had his way he would have since loved to have toppled the regimes of Saddam and other autocratic leaders in the Middle East: for he considers all of them traitors to the cause of Islam, principally for their cosy collaboration with America. Furthermore, Saddam, whose survival instinct was legendry, knew better than to join forces with militants to attack the U.S. , conscious of the fact that the superpower had been breathing down his neck for over a decade, armed with all kinds of lethal weapons, just looking for the slightest excuse to pounce on him. Granted the man was quite literally a bloody tyrant, but he certainly was no bloody fool.

Now consider America ’s third reason for the invasion: to topple the dictator Saddam and enthrone democratic rule. Well, of course the reality on the ground is that Saddam has now been deposed. Now that the U.S. military juggernaut has accomplished this mission, it should immediately proceed to topple President Mubarak, the Egyptian strongman; President Bashir of Syria ; King Muhammad IV of Morocco ; King Abdullah of Jordan ; or King Fahd of Saudi Arabia . For we have to admit that the Middle East is infested with all sorts of despotic regimes: military, ideological and royal. And authoritarianism is not exclusive to that region either.

Cuba , America ’s neighbour, is not exactly a vibrant democracy; Bush should now conclude the Bay of Pigs invasion which his predecessors had botched 43 years ago. And President Kim of North Korea does not even hide any of the attributes America pretends to loathe: his regime is undoubtedly autocratic, and he proudly admits to possessing WMD. Why not invade his country – or China for that matter, since the Asian giant is no western-style democracy and is bristling with WMD. In short, why stop at Iraq ?

Clearly, America ’s precedent of regime change is a dangerous preposition if taken to its logical conclusion. And the democratic alternative it dangles does not at the moment look very appealing, if the chaos in “liberated” Iraq and the general conduct of America’s finest men and women around that country – especially the horrific pictures and stories filtering out of Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison – is the price nations have to pay for it. American officials like to admit that the abhorrent mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is the act of a few aberrant low level soldiers in the U.S. military. But most Muslims will rather believe the report of Amnesty International and the Red Cross, which agree that prisoner abuses in Iraq are far more widespread than U.S. officials claim, and are tolerated, perhaps encouraged, at a very senior level.

Indeed what is happening in Iraq now is the average Muslim’s worst nightmares come true. Most believers have always considered American culture – what Newsweek International called “sex-and-violence-soaked … that offers up degradation as entertainment” – to be decidedly lecherous; and nothing destroys the Muslim Ummah as quickly as wanton licentiousness. And there is no question but that the theme of the Abu Ghraib prison abuses is pure debauchery. Iraqis and their Muslim brothers around the world could therefore be forgiven for the belief that the Americans are out to strike at the heart of their Islamic culture.

Of the several photographs and video clips so far released, over 90% feature a nude scene and/or a simulation of sexual activity. In the unreleased pictures shown exclusively to members of America ’s Senate Arms Services Committee, we have the words of the distinguished Senators that some of the pictures and movie clips show actual rape scenes and Iraqi women being forced to expose their breasts. BBC TV’s current affairs programme, Panorama, also revealed that the notorious female U.S. marine featured in many of the released pictures, Private Lynndie England , also engaged in consensual sexual encounters with her American male counterparts in front of Iraqi prisoners, just to taunt them.

According to Newsweek Magazine reporting from what it said were “knowledgeable sources”, the unreleased images include an American soldier having sex with a female Iraqi detainee and American soldiers watching Iraqis have sex with juveniles. Time Magazine wrote of one grainy video which seems to show a G.I. preparing to sodomize a male detainee. Earlier in the year, the Economist magazine reported that American troops had ordered the new Iraqi police to release prostitutes they arrested openly plying their trade in a Baghdad street – a practice banned under Saddam.

If this is not a preoccupation with sexual matters, then what is it? It seems that the first liberty granted to the Iraqis is the license to be promiscuous. But if like Muqtada Al-Sadar you took the freedom of speech for granted, you were liable to have your newspaper closed, and a Brigade of U.S. marines hot on your trail with a summons for culpable homicide, trying their best to capture or kill you. Speaking out of turn may also earn you a charge of espionage warranting the forced entry to your offices and the confiscation of your documents by the new Iraqi police, as Ahmed Chalabi, once the darling of the Americans but in fact always a slick fraudster, recently discovered. If the events unfolding in Iraq were not so deadly serious and tragic, they could be almost entertaining.

The apologies coming from members of the Bush Administration more often than not appear contrived: you look for the contrition on the face of those mechanically going through the motions and it just eludes you. And even as some of them appear on Arab Satellite TVs ostensibly to calm Arab anger, other officials are making the provocative charge that the Arabs are being hypocritical by feigning outrage at the Abu Ghraib abuses even as worse things are happening in various prisons in the Arab world. The Americans are forgetting that not only are they committing serious crimes against humanity, they are doing it in other people’s land which they are occupying illegally.

The American people ought to now sit back to reassess the position the action of their government has landed them in. They invaded Iraq to search and destroy WMD and as yet have found none. They extended the war on terrorism to an Iraq free of such activities; now terrorism has extended a welcome hand to them in Iraq , and Bin Laden has acquired a new recruiting and staging ground. President Bush badly wanted to depose Saddam; he has achieved that. However, it is one thing getting rid of Saddam, and quite another to successfully replace his rule with a western-style democratic government.

Mounting casualties in Iraq and pressure from the international community have pushed the Bush Administration to seek a face-saving exit strategy through the three-phase disengagement plan. But nobody, least of all the Iraqis, is fooled by this pretext, as America will continue to call the shots in Iraq for the foreseeable future. It is therefore safe to assume, as we have already seen with the appointments of the leadership of the Interim Administration, that the regime that the Iraqis will be saddled with even after the elections is one likely to be tilted towards the U.S – unless events on the ground conspire to thwart American ambitions.

For the sake of the long suffering people of Iraq , and in the hope of preserving laissez-faire international relations, all the underprivileged peoples of the world – the Wretched of the Earth, as Fanon used to say – should pray that the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration fail to realise the outcome they seek in Iraq . For if Bush and company get their way, the invasion of another helpless country will only be a matter of time.

Engr. S.U. Abdullahi

NNDC Qtrs, Kundila

Kano .