Scott Ritter: The Hardest Word

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Sun, 28 May 2006 13:10:21 -0700

[Zepps_News] #Scott Ritter: The Hardest Word

 

 

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052806X.shtml

 

*The Hardest Word*

By Scott Ritter

The Guardian UK

 

Friday 26 May 2006

 

One has to wonder as to what must have been going through the minds

of those who were advising George W Bush and Tony Blair to " come clean " ,

so to speak, about their respective shortcomings regarding the conduct

of the war in Iraq. With over 2,460 American and 106 UK soldiers killed

in Iraq (not to mention untold thousands of dead Iraqis), the two people

in the world most responsible for the ongoing debacle in Iraq displayed

the combination of indifference and ignorance that got them neck deep in

a quagmire of their own making to begin with.

 

President Bush kicked himself for " talking too tough " , while the

British prime minister ruminated on the decision to disband the

Ba'athist infrastructure that held Iraq together in the aftermath of the

fall of Saddam Hussein. Neither expressed any regret over the decision

to invade Iraq in the first place.

 

Bush made no reference to the exaggerated and falsified claims about

Iraqi weapons of mass destruction he and his loyal ally bandied about so

freely in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Blair, recently returned from a visit to Baghdad where he met with the

newly appointed prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, did not reflect

on the reality that the Iraq of Saddam Hussein was a more peaceful and

prosperous land before British and American troops overthrew the Iraqi

president and condemned Iraq to the horrific reality of insurgent-fed

civil strife.

 

" Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are

doing the right thing, " Bush remarked, although he was quick to add,

" Not everything has turned out the way we hoped " . That, of course, could

qualify for the understatement of the year. For his part, Blair spoke of

faulty judgements, perhaps the greatest of which was to underestimate

the scope and intensity of the insurgency, which he in typical fashion

characterized as fighting against the democratic process, as opposed to

struggling against an illegal, illegitimate and unjust occupation.

 

Blair shared his reflective insights at moment when the people of

the United Kingdom were wrestling with new revelations concerning how he

misled their attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, into putting forward a

legal finding that enabled Britain to go to war with Iraq void of a

second United Nations security council resolution. Blair had apparently

told Lord Goldsmith that Iraq was in " material breach " of its

obligations, despite the fact that no new intelligence on WMD had been

unearthed, and UN weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq

receiving total cooperation from the Iraqi government. Not a peep from

the prime minister on this matter, though.

 

For his part Bush waxed eloquently about the cost of war to America.

" No question that the Iraq war has, you know, created a sense of

consternation here in America, " the president said. " I mean, when you

turn on your TV screen and see innocent people die day in and day out,

it affects the mentality of our country. " He added: " I can understand

why the American people are troubled by the war in Iraq. I understand

that. But I also believe the sacrifice is worth it and it's necessary. "

 

Of course, the president remained mute as to the current visit to

Iraq by the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Michael Hagee, who

in the light of recent accusations of excessive force on the part of

Marines fighting a life and death struggle in the Anbar province of

Iraq, were cautioned to kill " only when justified " . Some 717 Marines

have lost their lives in the fighting in Iraq, most in the

violence-prone Anbar province, where the Iraqi insurgency is

particularly deeply entrenched. Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 5th

Regiment are accused of slaughtering scores of innocent Iraqis in the

aftermath of a fire-fight that followed a deadly attack on the Marines

by a road-side bomb. In the middle of a conflict not of their making,

fighting an enemy as deadly and resolute as they themselves are, the

Marines are now lectured by general's to destroy only that which needs

destroyed, kill only those who need killed, as if war was ever that easy.

 

Instead of focusing on the horrific reality of the unmitigated

disaster that these two politicians are solely responsible for

inflicting on their own respective armed forces and the people of Iraq,

Bush deflected any talk about bringing American troops home. " I have

said to the American people, 'As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand

down,' " he said. " But I've also said that our commanders on the ground

will make that decision. " Blair dutifully chimed in that, in the

aftermath of his Baghdad visit, he " came away thinking that the

challenge is still immense, but I also came away more certain than ever

that we should rise to it. "

 

Both politicians were playing to their respective electorates, Blair

in an effort to forestall his inevitable departure from government, Bush

trying against hope to prevent a democratic landslide in the mid-term

elections upcoming in November. But they both forgot that, to paraphrase

an old military saying, " the enemy has a vote, too. " And the Iraqi

insurgency votes on a daily basis, its ballots counted in the bodies of

those killed because of the violence brought on Iraq thanks to the

decision by Bush and Blair to invade.

 

That decision, based upon lies and deceit, and done in pursuit of

pure power (either in the form of global hegemony, per Bush, or a

pathetic effort to ride Bush's coattails in the name of maintaining a

" special relationship " , for Blair), underscores the reality that when it

comes to Iraq, both are resting on a policy that is as corrupt as one

can possibly imagine.

 

Void of any genuine reflection as to what actually went wrong, and

lacking in any reality-based process which seeks to formulate a sound

way out of Iraq, these two politicians are simply continuing the

self-delusional process of blundering down a path in Iraq that can only

lead to more death and destruction.

 

Perhaps the advisors of Bush and Blair thought they were going to

put a human face on two leaders who had been so vilified over the Iraq

debacle. If so they failed. The joint press conference was little more

than a pathetic show where two failed politicians voiced their continued

support of failed policies, which had gotten their respective nations

embroiled in a failed war. To quote Blair: " What more can I say?

Probably not wise to say anything more at all. "

 

 

 

--

" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about

wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order.

Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down

terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so "

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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