Words of Wisdom Tragically Buried

21 August 2007

by Linda Heard

In 1994, a top level US government official was asked whether US forces should have pushed to Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War and toppled Saddam Hussein. In retrospect, the respondent has emerged as a wise seer — someone who understood the negative ramifications of enforced regime change in Iraq.

Here’s what the official had to say:

“If we had gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. It would have been a US occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over taking down Saddam Hussein’s government what are you going to put in its place?

“That’s a very volatile part of the world and if you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off. The Syrians would like to have the west. Part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim...and in the north you have the Kurds. If the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire.

“The question for the President (Herbert Walker Bush) in terms of whether we went to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was how many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth? Our judgment was not very many and I think we got it right.”

If only the Bush administration and its allies had heeded the words of that thoughtful pundit. If it had sought and profited from his expertise, “Shock and Awe” would have remained someone’s bad dream, while up to 600,000 Iraqis and 4,000 allied soldiers would still be alive today.

It’s true that Saddam’s regime would likely still be in power but the savvy official was right when he asked in 1994, “What are you going to put in its place?”

Today, 13 years on, that question can be addressed with certainty.

The answer, of course, is a system that has been labeled democratic out of which has emerged a government whose members were elected on the basis of their ethnicity and sectarian allegiances rather than their policies.

It is also a government, which is hampered from governing a) because it must arguably takes its marching orders from Washington to survive; b) because the security situation is so perilous ministers are obliged to stay behind the walls of the so-called Green Zone for their own safety; and c) members of government represent groups with different and competing — often irreconcilable — agendas.

The official was spot on when he suggested pieces of Iraq would be in danger of “flying off.” There are people in Washington and within country actively pushing for Iraq to be split up into three, which would render it forever toothless. He was also on the button when he warned that Turkey would feel threatened by Kurdish autonomy in the north.

At a time when both Republican and Democratic war drums are calling for regime change in Iran you may be relieved to know that this American wise man is today an influential figure within the Bush administration. With his in-depth knowledge of this complex region and almost paranormal capacity for predicting future events he will surely work to ensure diplomacy wins through.

In fact you may even have heard of him. His name is...Dick Cheney.

Yes, that’s right. No need to rub your eyes. Dick Cheney, the American vice president and one of the chief architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Unfortunately, by 2003 Dick Cheney had shed his 1994 skin and morphed into the White House’s No. 1 “invade Iraq” cheerleader. During a March 16, 2003 “Meet the Press” interview, Cheney is seen singing from a completely different hymnbook.

Whereas in 1994, Cheney explained America’s reluctance to take down the Saddam government in terms of the US being perceived as an occupier, he now assures Tim Russert that “we will be greeted as liberators.”

In 1994, Cheney asks who could replace Saddam but nine years on he maintains the government of Herbert Walker Bush based its proposition not to push forward into Baghdad on the basis Saddam was likely to be overthrown or ousted.

Moreover, in 2003, Cheney answers his own 1994 question, saying the US would stand up a government that is representative of the Iraqi people, which, while constituting a major commitment on the part of the US, would be a “commitment worth making.”

In 1994, Cheney judged ridding Iraq of Saddam was not worth many American lives so what happened between then and 2003 apart from the 2001 attacks on America, which had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq?

Is he suffering from Alzheimer’s? Was he influenced by neoconservative ideology or the demands of the energy industry? We’ll probably never know because Cheney is secretive and careful not to leave behind a trail of information for his successors to find.

Let’s move to Cheney’s flip-flopping on Iran. In 2000, when Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, the company did business with Iran through its foreign subsidiaries and, in fact, the vice president openly lobbied for the US to lift its sanctions against Iran.

Five years later, Cheney told MSNBC’s “Imus in the Morning” that “Iran is a top threat to world peace and Middle East stability” before warning that Israel “might well decide to act first” should US diplomacy fail.

Now, according to an Aug. 10 report by McClatchy Newspapers titled “Cheney urging strikes on Iran,” the vice president has proposed launching air strikes on training camps run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, which, according to leaks, will soon feature large on the US terrorist blacklist.

One thing is certain, Cheney, the man who accidentally shot his friend in the face, risks being shot in the foot by his own duplicitous words. There is no doubt he is fully aware of the consequences of his actions. His 1994 interview proved that he couldn’t feign ignorance. Yet, for reasons best known to him, he went ahead anyway.

A video of Cheney’s 1994 words of wisdom on Iraq can be seen on the Internet. Watch it and weep!