Wonders unending
Many questions remain about the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, writes Mohamed Hakki. Equally puzzling, however, are many of the actions the US is taking in the post-war country
No one knows exactly what happened in Iraq. It will take us several weeks to come up with the answers to the enigma of the regime's sudden fall. The question is not how the mightiest military power in history defeated an impoverished Third World country with an arsenal of World War II weapons that had been reduced to one third of its size since the 1991 Gulf War. Instead, the questions that demand to be answered surround what really happened on 9 April. Where did the entire Iraqi leadership and all the Republican Guard units disappear to? Could the fabled underground tunnels really have swallowed all Saddam Hussein's Rolls Royces and his son's Ferraris plus the entire contents of their palaces?
When ABC's Ted Koppel reported from Baghdad immediately after the American forces entered Saddam's palace, he said it was completely empty -- not even toilet paper was left behind. Forget about Persian rugs or the vulgar gold leaf furniture. Toilet paper? How could Basra have resisted for 10 days, but Baghdad failed to last for even two? And, most provocatively, where did Saddam and his ministers disappear to?
To ask if there was some kind of a secret deal is perhaps to venture into the realm of conspiracy theories, nonetheless, who doesn't wonder whether some sort of a behind-the-scenes arrangement was made. If there was one, why didn't Saddam save his civilian population the slaughter and do as General Petain of Vichy France did and declare Baghdad an "open city"? Why, also are there are no figures for the number of Iraqis who lost their lives? Does anybody care?
Likewise enigmatic is why American forces permitted chaos to spread and looters to empty Iraqi government buildings. Some US soldiers even stood aside as armed men roamed the streets of Baghdad, looting and burning with impunity, according to wire service reports. Some foreign correspondents described how US Marine snipers atop high-rise buildings scanned a neighbourhood for potential suicide bombers, while a traffic jam caused by looters -- two of whom were driving double-decker buses crammed with refrigerators -- blocked the thoroughfare beneath. A headline in Sunday's Washington Post said it all, "Looters in Baghdad Destroy What the War Did Not." I hope this was not the intention of the occupying forces. If it was, then someone should play the tape for them of what happened to Washington, DC in 1968. There was no Saddam Hussein in the White House, yet looters burned major sections of the city's downtown area. The Post, referring to the situation in Baghdad, said the "damage could have a significant effect on the Bush administration's military and political goals in Iraq, complicating efforts to win the trust of ordinary people, return cities to normalcy, and eventually reconstruct the country." I can only hope that US forces would feel ashamed by their passivity.
But journalists and commentators weren't the only ones criticising the state of affairs in Baghdad. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said troops failed to protect hospitals, rendering them inaccessible to hundreds of wounded. The 1949 Geneva Conventions require occupying forces to impose law and order and to protect civilians. US forces, though, were preoccupied with what the Pentagon does best: propaganda. Despite the fact that most Iraqis do not have electric power, which the forces destroyed, operation "Towards Freedom" broadcasts are being transmitted via an EC-130 plane (similar to the Awac). Another mission, called "Commando Solo" is flying TV and radio studios over Iraq that broadcast for five hours a day on frequencies previously used by Iraqi state media. The message? The occupation will be benevolent, alongside "promoting the idea of a free and democratic Iraq"! No mention, of course, has been made of how long this enlightened military occupation will last. Will it be for two years, perhaps five, or even 10? According to the administration it will last "for as long as it takes to prepare Iraqis for true freedom".
The other crime -- one that is no less painful and which will also have a lasting effect -- was permitting the looting of the National Museum of Antiquities, one of the richest museums in the world. People from around the world saw footage of Nabhal Amin, deputy director of the museum, strike his head with both hands -- the Arab gesture for expressing deeply felt grief -- as he cried out "Our heritage is finished." Some 5,000 years of irreplaceable treasures were destroyed, along with the extensive catalogue recording them.
But that's not all. Newspaper articles are being written about lobbying by American art dealers to dismantle Iraq's remaining treasures. After the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq lost many of its treasures, and a good number eventually resurfaced on the black market. Now archaeologists in Britain and the US are concerned that this will be repeated on a much larger scale, owing to the power vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Well, it's already happening, and allowing it to occur represents another crime under the Geneva Conventions. How, then, can Iraqis be expected to believe that the new Mongols who almost completely destroyed their national treasures actually care about their well-being and their future?
But the unjust war has highlighted other troubling matters as well.
During the military campaign against Iraq, it became clear that the US media was no longer reliable, although very few Americans are aware of that fact. It used to be said that traditionally, the US media was liberal. Now, though, it is clearly "embedded" within the right-wing administration. Several recently published articles assert an incredible need for better information. In this context, Peter Arnett's name has given rise to a new verb. People will tell you that if anybody dares to tell the truth, he will be "Arnetted" -- fired, that is, as the journalist was from the NBC network for giving an honest interview to Iraqi television. If you speak to anyone who wants to follow what is really happening not only in Iraq, but in the Middle East in general, they're likely to say they rely on the Internet. Both The Economist and The Financial Times are becoming the journals of choice for many independently-minded Americans. There is also growing criticism of CNN. Apparently, unbeknownst to most Americans, CNN's international service, which reaches 170 million viewers in 200 countries, differs considerably from its domestic one. Viewers of the cable network in London, Hong Kong and other cities abroad saw scenes of Iraqi casualties on the split screen via Arabiyya television network, alongside footage of a statue of Saddam Hussein being torn from its pedestal. US audiences, though, only saw the destruction of the monument of Iraq's former leader. Similarly, non-US viewers of CNN have been treated to scant coverage of two stories that have been repeated in the US ad nauseam, namely those on the rescue of prisoner Jessica Lynch and the death of NBC reporter David Bloom.
Also clear from the war is the extent of Pentagon hawks' opportunism and venality. In a report by the respected Foreign Reports newsletter, (2 April 2003), entitled "Post-war Battles", it described the wrangling over the "right kind" of American officials to help run post-war Iraq, with the Pentagon rejecting a list of eight current and former foreign service officers put forward by the State Department. The hawks in the Pentagon apparently want their buddies and intellectual soul mates in the positions of "civilian advisers" to post-war Iraq ministries, while the State Department favoured Arabists with regional experience.
Several of Wolfowitz's "boys" are apparently now lurking in Kuwait, awaiting their chance to have a go at the spoils of war under the direction of infamous General Jay Garner, currently staying in a beach front villa in Kuwait. They include former CIA Director James Woolsey and several other friends of the war group. As it turns out, Woolsey, who has churned out many anti-Arab and anti- Muslim articles for the Wall Street Journal, is a principal in the Paladin Capital Group -- a venture capital firm that solicits investments for companies specialising in domestic security -- as well as being a member of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, and is reported to be in line to play a role in the post-war occupation.
Whether the cabal of advisers is making plans on the Iraq front owing to ideological commitment or in the aim of self-enrichment is not entirely unclear. However, opportunities in the latter respect would seem to be numerous. It has been said that British colonial advisers (during the period 1918-1938) amassed large fortunes on the side. "They may have gone into colonial service to do good, but they also did very well indeed," was how one observer put it.
Most Americans have never heard of the Defence Policy Group. Its meetings are classified, and the members disclose their business interests only to the Pentagon. The Centre for Public Integrity, a private watchdog group in Washington, recently disclosed that of the 30 members of the Defence Policy Group, at least nine have ties with companies that won more that $76 billion in defence contracts during 2001 and 2002. Adding the $7 billion dollars already awarded to Vice-President Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton, to refurbish the Iraqi oil industry, one can't help but recall the Arabic saying, "the guard assigned to protect the wealth is the first to plunder it!"
As Bob Herbert wrote in The New York Times, "There are not a lot of rich kids in that desert. The US military is largely working-class. The power brokers honing in on $100 billion-worth of post-war reconstruction contracts are not." The Pentagon and its allies are close to achieving what they sought all along: control of Iraq and its bounties, namely the wealth and myriad forms of power that flow from control of the second largest oil reserves in the world. One can only say to the Americans: "Beware of the irony of fate".
