Ten Years Later

The “decade later” mark from the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq in the second Gulf War has come and gone. The “celebration” included a series of blasts in Baghdad that claimed the lives of at least 50 civilians. While the casualty rate was high, bomb blasts are a constant, almost daily reminder of a failed political system. It was just another day in paradise. Once ruled by the iron hand of a Sunni dictator, Saddam Hussein was a member of the majority sect of all global Muslims but a scant 20% in this oil-rich nation, this “democratically-elected” replacement was now squarely in the hands of the Iran-leaning Shiite majority. And as so many of my blogs have pointed out, there is no love lost between these two Muslim factions.

Even high-ranking elected Sunni officials are often labeled as enemies of the state to be hunted down and prosecuted for a host of crimes charged by the Shiites in charge. Rafe al-Essawi, one such politician on the lamb, “was until recently Iraq’s finance minister and among the highest-ranking Sunni politicians. That he is now on the run from his own government in Anbar Province, alleging widespread persecution of Sunnis, is the latest sign that persistent sectarian tensions are undermining any lingering hopes of political stability and national unity…

“Mr. Essawi appears an unlikely figure to emerge as a focus of the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. He is generally regarded as a voice of moderation in a country where a sense of Sunni embattlement under a Shiite-dominated government is widening. He is quick to point out that he played a pivotal role in cooperating with American forces to defeat Al Qaeda here, as a counterpoint to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s tendency to equate the expression of Sunni grievances with terrorism.” New York Times, March 19^th.

Back in 2011, “Iraqi authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Muslim Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi … for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings, a decision likely to fuel sectarian tensions after the U.S. troop withdrawal.” Reuters, December 19, 2011. He was the highest-ranking Sunni holding elective office in Iraq. Things were bad during Saddam Hussein’s era; today is worse for so many. Sunnis get persecuted. Shiites get bombed in retaliation. Kurds in the north have pretty much withdrawn from active involvement in the elected government in Baghdad.

There are a very, very small number of American-owned oil companies in Iraq. Outbid by foreign entities, there is just a token American “oil” presence in a country that probably has the second biggest untapped oil reserves on earth. While you can find some facilities from Exxon Mobile and Oxy, the names that dominate the Iraqi oil industry include Chinese-owned China National Petroleum, Dutch-owned Shell, British-owned BP, several local Iraqi companies and a few from neighboring Kuwait, Malaysian-owned Petronas, Italian-owned Eni S. p. A., French-owned Total S.A., Norwegian-owned Statoil, and Korean-owned Korea Gas Corporation.

Further, Iraq has moved steadily towards its Shiite neighbor to the east, Iran, not surprising since minority Shiite nations are not met warmly by their fellow Sunnis who make up 85% of the faith. Despite denials to the contrary, there is some pretty strong evidence that Iraq has turned a blind eye to Iranian transshipments of “advisors” and munitions to the brutal (and pro-Shiite) Assad regime in Syria.

So basically, we invaded Iraq ostensibly to shut down the potential of weapons of mass destruction… weapons that did not exist. We “re-justified” our invasion as the removal of a horrible dictator, but one who kept Iran at bay. However, the violence of the Hussein administration cannot compare with the daily death and destruction that have become part of the “new normal” in many towns in Iraq, particularly Baghdad.

So the big question remains. Why did we really invade Iraq? The latest theory is that Bush (W)-era Vice President Dick Cheney, often given credit as the architect of this war, coveted Iraqi oil. Political writer and former Bush speech writer noted in a recent Newsweek article: “In 2002, [America’s insider-advisor on Iraq, Ahmed] Chalabi joined the annual summer retreat of the American Enterprise Institute near Vail, Colorado. He and Cheney spent long hours together, contemplating the possibilities of a Western-oriented Iraq: an additional source of oil, an alternative to U.S. dependency on an unstable-looking Saudi Arabia.” Cheney, it seems, was fascinated by the potential of Iraqi oil. Was that the main reason for the invasion?

I don’t think so, but it was a factor. My personal belief is that Dick Cheney, espousing a pretty elitist view of leadership, believed that in challenging times with myriad threats, the president needed to be able to act quickly and decisively. It was like ancient Roman calling on a Senator to become a Caesar to meet heightened crises. Cheney believed that in times of crisis, a U.S. president could not be saddled with excessive oversight or consultation with Congress, the state of the United States as Congress had reined in presidential war powers after our failed efforts in Vietnam. Cheney said: “If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what F.D.R. did during World War II. They went far beyond anything we’ve done in a global war on terror…But we have exercised, I think, the legitimate authority of the president under Article II of the Constitution as commander in chief in order to put in place policies and programs that have successfully defended the nation.” Reported in the New York Times, December 21, 2008.

The Patriot Act was passed following the 9/11 attacks, 342 pages provided to Congress on a Friday in October of 2001, to be voted upon the immediately following Monday. It undid many of the controls that had been placed on presidential powers in the post-Vietnam era. The act was just the beginning of Cheney’s pursuit, through George W Bush, of further empowering the president. But to get Congress further to erode its control over the presidency, Cheney needed a war, a cause that would justify that alteration of American legislative restrictions. The Taliban-controlled Afghanis didn’t actually attack us, and their government collapsed too quickly to generate the need for additional legislation.

Iraq? The evidence wasn’t there, but the Bush administration continued to press its intelligence agencies to come up with proof that would justify an attack on Iraq. Experience in the first Gulf War and continuing military intelligence suggested that this would be a quick and easy target. And Iraq did have oil. It was a natural. The rest, they say, is history.

Massive deficits exploded as the Bush administration waged war by borrowing what they needed while lowering taxes. It was an economic disaster that decimated the Clinton-era surplus and was horribly exacerbated by the recession. It accelerated military priorities at the expense of education, rebuilding infrastructure, proper government oversight over environmental issues and financial institutions and other national needs that just went begging. It was a political disaster as we handed the second greatest oil reserves in the world to a government with very strong ties to our enemy Iran. And it was a business loss to our oil giants who have pretty much been excluded from the potential of oil extraction from that sad nation.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as I watch the debates over military spending, it appears that all of those costly lessons generated by the Iraq War continue to fall on deaf and ignorant ears.