Five years and counting

Five Years and Counting

Five years ago George Bush announced the invasion of Iraq, justified by the threat imposed by the Iraqi regime. It turned out that Saddam was a toothless tiger, despite our assistance to him for decades. The Bush/Cheney regime justified an invasion of Iraq based on the threats of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, because they knew that the American people would not rally behind the cause of “democracy building” in Iraq. The administration launched this war on a platform of deception.

When the WMD claim came up empty, Bush and Cheney did the old bait and switch. They told us that it was a failure of the intelligence community that Saddam had no WMD’s, but that it was still a great opportunity. Iraq had become a magnet for terrorists, “the central front of the war on terror” so we could capture and kill them. Then we would help rebuild a grateful Iraq to blossom as the region’s democratic model country. And the dominoes would fall. All the autocratic Middle East nations would swoon to the ringing of democratic freedoms.

Costs of the Invasion/Occupation of Iraq

The 4,000th US service member to fall victim to this war was announced as the occupation entered its 6th year. For every death, there are 16 wounded soldiers who will struggle for the rest of their lives. We focus on our losses, our wounded, and we must. But we must also attend to the effect of our actions on the people of Iraq.

Tommy Franks, US Field Marshall during the invasion, famously said “We don’t do body counts.” In other words, we care enough about the Iraqi people to liberate them from a former US backed puppet dictator, but not enough to be concerned with the dead and wounded littering the road of their liberation.

Iraqi dead in five years is estimated as high as 1.2 million. Refugees as high as 2.5 million inside Iraq, and another 2 million who have fled the country to Jordan, Syria, or wherever they could find refuge. If the Bush/Cheney government really had the interests of Iraqi people in mind, you would think that they would facilitate allowing refugees to enter the US. Has that happened? No. In 2007, the US admitted just 1,600 Iraqis, each one apparently willing to tell what a bad guy Saddam was. Well, we knew that. We knew that when the CIA helped install Saddam in Iraq. We gave him arms to fight Iran; at the same time we were giving arms to Iran to fight Iraq. It’s the old “Why don’t you and him fight!” It’s the classic ploy of colonialist’s intent on expropriating the resources of poorer nations.

Onward to Iran

Dick Cheney seems hell-bent on making war against Iran. Republican John McCain is singing from the same page: “Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran” from the Beach Boys’ tune. This is a very sick joke. Right now there is an even chance that the Bush/Cheney regime will make war against Iran. Indeed, there is much evidence that this war has already begun. Senator Joe Biden has said that he will introduce impeachment resolutions against Bush and Cheney if they launch an unauthorized war on Iran. That would be a little late and of little comfort to the Iranian victims of an updated version of “Shock and Awe.”

But it would be very convenient for Bush/Cheney. In a single stroke, they could maintain that Iran is causing the turmoil in Iraq, and by attacking Iran, they would move “The News” away from their own failures in Iraq.

The failure in Iraq

George Bush called the March assault on Sadrist militias in Basra a “defining moment” for the government of Iraq. This was a rare moment of prescience by our president. Indeed, it was a defining moment. Iraqi President Maliki directed the assault from Basra. He gave the Sadrists 72 hours to turn in their weapons. Instead, Maliki was chased out of Basra, even though he enjoyed the protection of US troops.

The “defining moment” deserves the “F” word, and that is failure.

But the Surge is working

Triangle Veterans for Peace member Wally Myers’ poetry, read at a recent vigil at the NC Capitol includes these lines: “
We are buying peace now for a more intense war later.” That wider war has already come, as Green Zone residents and employees are now subject to daily rocket and mortar attacks. There is no safe haven in Iraq, and US armed forces are very nearly exhausted.

What’s to be done?

Jacek Tenner, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War tells us that an occupying force has only two obligations: to leave and to pay reparations for the death and destruction caused by the invasion and occupation. To these obligations we would add asylum for every Iraqi who has been made a refugee, and every Iraqi who has helped the US forces in any capacity.

Accountability

George Bush, Dick Cheney, and other members of their administration stand accused of violating Title 18, US Code, Section 317, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. (See Elizabeth de la Vega’s “US v. Bush.”) Further charges include crimes against the peace and encouraging torture, as we learned about in graphic detail just last week. Finally, Bush, Cheney, et al stand accused of treason, for aiding and abetting enemies of the United States, for the invasion/occupation of Iraq has increased the terrorist threat to the US.

Whether the attacks of 9/11 were executed with the complicity of the administration or by willful, criminal, negligence and incompetence, Bush and Cheney leveraged the 9/11 crimes to perpetrate more horrific crimes against the people of Iraq, and against our own service men and women.

The Nixon impeachment hearings had two major flaws. Nixon’s greatest crimes, which led to the killing fields in Laos and Cambodia with his secret, illegal wars, were not included in the impeachment indictments passed by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.

And when vice President Agnew was forced to resign, his successor, Jerry Ford, was never required to swear an oath of “No pardons, no immunity” for any member of the Nixon administration, including Nixon, himself.

This time we’ll get it right. Whether impeachment of Bush and Cheney before the 2009 inauguration of a new administration, or following the ’09 inauguration with criminal indictments, Bush and Cheney must be held to account for their crimes.

The profits from this criminal war must be relinquished to pay for the rehabilitation of our service men and women, as well as compensation to Iraqi victims and their families.

John Heuer
Pittsboro
.