The Iraq war and America. After almost nine years, the troops are nearly home. We’ll weigh the war.

In this Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 photo, The Iraqi flag waves while federal Police parade in Baghdad, Iraq. In ways big and small, the signs of American influence on the Iraqi military are unmistakeable after years of training to give them the skills to defend their country and the professionalism to do it differently than Saddam Hussein's forces did. (AP)

U.S. military ceremonies in Baghdad today formally ending the Iraq War, in a fortified concrete courtyard at the Baghdad airport. A brass band and speeches as the last American troops pour out of the country. The Civil War was four years long.

World War I, four years. American troops in World War II, four years. The Iraq War, almost nine years long. A strange war. Fought by a tiny percentage of Americans. Launched on a premise that proved untrue. And yet, so much invested.

This hour, On Point: as it finally ends, we are weighing the war in Iraq.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Lawrence Wilkerson,  chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, and a retired U.S. Army Colonel.

Kori Schake, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and professor of international security studies at the United States Military Academy.

Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast and associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York. He’s also a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He’s the author of “The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris.”

From Tom’s Reading List

Wall Street Journal “A defiant Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised he would firmly confront any meddling by Iran after U.S. forces are gone, in an interview in which he said Iraqi interests were best served when nations stick to their own business.”

Al Jazeera “The comments came as Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, continued his visit to the US. Maliki met Obama and senior US administration officials to finalise arrangements for the troops’ withdrawal.”

Foreign Policy “The Obama administration is attempting to cast the Iraq war as a triumph of the president’s vision for American foreign policy.  As a candidate, he promised to bring this war to an end, and as president he’s done so.  It also conveniently fits into the Obama campaign’s general narrative that President Obama inherited problems of Herculean magnitude. ”

Playlist

“To The Colors” by 25th Infantry Division Brass Quintet.

BBC WORLD SERVICE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/?q=iraq%20war%20ends 

US to lower flag to end Iraq war: Timeline

News

An overview of key moments from the nine-year conflict, as President Barack Obama announces the withdrawal of the last US troops from Iraq

Struggle for Iraq

News

Features, news, views and analysis of events in Iraq

In pictures: Iraq handover

News

Pictures of the handover ceremony in Baghdad to mark nine years of US military operations in Iraq coming to an end

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THE NEOCONS PROPAGANDA FORCES THE US INTO IRAQ

 

James Risen

James Risen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist for The New York Times who previously worked for the Los Angeles Times. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government activities and is the author or co-author of two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a book about the American public debate about abortion.

Risen is the author of the book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (January 2006). The book makes numerous allegations about Central Intelligence Agency activities. It alleges that the CIA carried out an operation in 2000 (Operation Merlin) intended to delay Iran's nuclear weapons program by feeding it flawed blueprints for key missing components - which backfired and may actually have aided Iran, as the flaw was likely detected and corrected by a former Soviet nuclear scientist the operation used to make the delivery.

While doing research for the book, Risen's email and phone connections with former CIA Operations Officer Jeffrey Alexander Sterling were monitored by the US federal government.^[3][4] The US federal government also obtained Risen's credit and bank records.^[5] The CIA Public Affairs Office issued a press release indicating that Risen's book contains serious errors in every chapter.

United States v. Sterling

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was being investigated during the Bush administration. In 2010 he was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the few people in US history whose alleged contact with a journalist was punished under espionage law, part of Obama's crackdown on whistleblowers and "leaks". ^[6]

Risen was subpoenaed in relation to the case in 2008.^[7] He fought the subpoena, and it expired in the summer of 2009.^[8] In what the New York Times called "a rare step," the Obama administration renewed the subpoena in 2010.^[8] In 2011 Risen wrote a detailed response to the subpoena, describing his reasons for refusing to reveal his sources, the public impact of his work, and his experiences with the Bush administration.^[9]

 

 

James Risen in State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (2006) reports that the CIA had been weakened by five Years under George W. Bush, and the power of the neoconservatives who had been the agency’s most implacable foes.  By the end of 2005, the centerpiece of the neoconservative agenda—Iraq—had turned into the burial ground of their political fortunes [temporarily because now Iran is in their crosshairs].

Championed by Cheney and enabled by Rumsfeld, led by outside advisors Richard Perle and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservatives had an agenda that was ready made for the world of September 12.  They pushed for preemptive war with Iraq and espoused the remaking of the Middle East through the force of American arms.  During Bush’s first term, they easily swept aside the doubters at the state Department and the CIA, and turned the Pentagon into their policy sanctuary. (221)

The neoconservatives' rise to power proved to be the most surprising development of the Bush administration, and one that confounded and distressed moderates within the Republican establishment.  In past GOP administrations, even in the days of conservative icon Ronald Reagan and certainly during the one-term presidency of Bush’s father, Perle, Wolfwitz, and other neocons were kept on the margins of policy making. (221-2)

The Sudden Rise of Neocons in Bush II Administration

The stunning rise of the Neocons under George W. Bush deeply divided the Republican elite in Washington, and many Republican centrists who served Bush’s father came to sound like Democrats as they privately wondered at the source of the Neocons influence over Bush’s son.  During the 2004 presidential campaign, these Repubiican moderates for the most part remained silent.

The most noteworthy exception was Brent Scowcroft, who had served as national security advisor to the first President Bush, and who inadvertently went public with his concerns when he gave what he thought was a background interview to the Financial Times, saying that he feared that George W. bush had been “mesmerized” by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sheron.

This followed earlier criticism about the decision to invade Iraq.  For his candor, Scowcroft was ostracized by the White House and fired from the one small assignment he had been given, the chairmanship of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory board.  He has since said, to The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “The real anomaly in the administration is Cheney.  I consider Cheney a good friend—I’ve known him for thirty years.  But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.”  (222)

Risen writes that other disaffected moderates repeatedly predicted the decline and fall of the Neocons, only to watch in dismay as they survived into Bush’s second term.  But by late 2005, the neoconservative moment [seemed] to be ending.

Wolfowitz and fellow neoconservative Douglas Feith, who had served as undersecretary for policy, had both left the Pentagon.  John Bolton, a neoconservative at the State Department, was moved out to the United Nations.  With polls showing that the majority of Americans were turning aginst the war in Iraq, the neoconservatives and the right-wing pundits who supported them became more defensive, refighting old battles over the war’s rationale.

 

 

At the height of their power, the Neoconservatives had hurled what they considered their greatest insult at the CIA.  They said the CIA was filled with “pragmatists” who could only see the Middle East as it was, not as it should be.  Dreams die hard, but the dreams of the Bush administration died in places like Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tal Afar.

IRAN NEXT ON THE MENU

According to Risen, Operation MERLIN [the CIA’s Pigin Drop that may have given Iran a leg-up it its neclear program] has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations.  And it may not be over.  Some officials have suggested that it might be repeated against other countries.

MERLIN has been conducted in the darkest corner of the American national security establishment at one of the most significant moments in the long and bitter history of U.S.-Iran relations.  Iran had bedeviled American presidents since Jimmy Carter and the embassy hostage crisis, and neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush [or Barack Obama] have based their polices on a adequate understanding of the volatile political dynamics under way in Iran.

Iran had been implicated in the Khobar attack, however, it wasn’t until June 2001, five years after the bombing, and after Clinton had left office, that the Justice Department issued indiments of fourteen people in the Khobar bombing that alleged that unidentified Iranian officials were behind the terrorist attack.  [However, it must be remembered that the CIA had invaded Iran in 1953 and overthrew and deposed its democratically elected government headed by Mohammed Mosaddeq].

These incidents notwithstanding, in its first few months, the new Bush team largely ignored Iran while obsessing over Iraq.  It was only after 9/11 that senior Bush administration officials began to pay attention to low-level, back-channel talks with Iran that had been under way in Geneva since the Clinton days.

Through those Geneva meetings, the Bush team discovered that Iran was strongly supportive of the U.S.-led invasion of Afgahnistan because of Tehran’s deep hatred for the ruling Taliban, Suni Muslims, heavily dependent on Pakistani support to retain power in Kabul.  Shia-dominated Iran long feared the Taliban’s radical influence on its own suni minority.  Tehran also wanted to retain its influence over western Afghanistan, particularly the trading center of Herat.  In 1998, Iran and the Taliban had come close to a shooting war.  Iran had also supported the opposition Northern Alliance against the Taliban, and after 9/11, Iranian officals at the Geneva meetings were actually impatient with the sluggish start to American military operations in Afganistan.

Quiet Diplomacy

Publicly, the Iranians said little about the war and provided little overt support to the Americans, apart from promising to allow recue operations for any downed pilots over its territory.  But in Geneva, Iranian officails were eager to help and even brought out maps to try to tell the United States the best targets to bomb.  (215)

Iran had captured some al Qaeda operatives.  In early 2002, Iran detained about 290 al Qaeda fighters who had been picked up as they crossed the border into Iran.  They weren’t willing to turn them over directly to the United States, but they eventually did hand over some to third countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, which were working with the United States.  However by that time, Bush had branded them members of the “axis of evil.” 

The Iranians repsonded to Bush’s axis of evil speech with pique; Tehran released Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a ruthless Afghan warlord who had been on the CIA payroll during the 1980s but who was now opposed to the American occupation of Afghanistan.

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq made Tehran happy because the United States was getting rid of their old enemy Saddam Hussein opening the door for Iraq’s majority Shia population to gain power, with, of course the guidance of Iran.  However, [with good cause since 1953 CIA invasion] Iran still distruted the Bush administration’s intentions, [as well they should].  (216)

In May 2003, one month after the fall of Baghdad, the Iranians approached the United States once again, offering to turn over top al Qaeda lieutenants, including both Saif al-Adel, al Qaeda’s chief of operations, and Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s son.  This time, the Iranians wanted a trade; in return for the al Qaeda leaders, Tehran wanted the Americans to hand over members of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile terrorist organization that had been supported by Saddam Hussein and based in Iraq since 1986.  After the fall of Baghdad, the U.S. military had disarmed the MEK’s thousands of fighters and taken custody of the group’s heavy military equipment, more than two thousand tanks, artillery pieces, armored personnel carriers, and other vehicles provided by Saddam Hussein.  But the Bush administration was divided over what to do with the group next.

According to sources, President Bush said that he thought it sounded like a good deal, since the MEK was a terrorist organization. After all, the MEK had been a pupet of Saddam Hussein, conducting assassinations and sabotage operations inside Iran from its sanctuary in Iraq.  The MEK was officially listed as a foreign terrorist group by the State Department; back in the 1970s, the group had killed several Americans living in Iran, including CIA officers based there during the Shah’s regime.

Betrayal

Hard-liners at the Pentagon dug in and ultimately torpedoed any talk of an agreement with the Iranians.  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secrtary Paul Wolfowitz seemed to think that the MEK could be useful in a future war with Iran, and so they appeared eager to keep the group in place inside Iraq.

CIA and State Department officials were stunned that the Pentagon leadership would so openly flaunt their willingness to cut a deal with the MEK; they were even more surprised that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz paid not price for their actions.  At the White House, officials soon learned that the Pentagon was dreaming up excuses to avoid following through on any further actions to rein in the MEK.  One argument was that the military was too busy, with too many other responsibilities in Iraq, to devote the manpower to dismantling the MEK.  The Pentagon basically told the White House that “we willl get around to it when we get around to it,” noted one former Bush administration official.  “And they got away with it.”  [Thereby one can understand the MEK is the so-called freedom fighters or contras within Iran commonly called “the Iranian peoples in rebellion”].

The bottom line was the United States lost a potential opportunity to get its hands on several top al Qaeda operatives, including Osama bin Laden's son.  It became clear to frustrated aides that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was not only failing to curb the Pentagon, but was also allowing decision making on Iran policy to drift.

Guiding the Western War Machine Into Iran

The MEK's political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, understands how to gain attention in the West, particaularly after watching the prewar success of the Iraqi National Congress, the Iraqi exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi.  Like Chalabi's group, the Iranian exiles have used the American press [US-Israel propaganda machine] to issue claims about Iran's nuclear weapons and ballistic missle programs in order to build the case for a tougher U.S. policy toward Tehran.

While the war in Iraq has overshadowed the issue and forced the Bush administration to move slowly, some [former] administration officials have been advocating a more forceful policy of pressuring the Iranians to disarm.  The odds of a confrontation between the United States and Iran seemed to increase in the fall and winter of 2004, when the IAEA reported that Iran was not fully cooperating with international inspectors, and there were new reports that Iran was going ahead with plans to produce enriched uranium despite past assurances to the IAEA that it would freeze such activity.  By 2005, Iran's apparent intentions to continue to develop its nuclear program was inevitably leading to a full-fledged diplomatic crisis. (217-8)

THE LAST DEBATE

In Iowa, Bachmann Attacks Gingrich In GOP Debate

by Scott Horsley

 

December 16, 2011

Newt Gingrich stood center state Thursday night in the Sioux City Convention Center. The sharpest elbows did not come from his close rivals, Mitt Romney or Ron Paul. Instead, it was Michele Bachmann who repeatedly went after Gingrich.

 

From the start of The Greening of America:How the Youth Revolution Is Trying to Make America Livable (1970), Charles A. Reich argues that consciousness plays the key role in the shaping of society.  The Corporate State is the creature of the capitalist economic system and the force of science and technology.  This system and this force have been with us a long time, but they are nevertheless the choice and creation of man.  In the Middle Ages, when a very different consciousness prevailed, neither technology nor the market was permitted to dominate other social values, no matter how great the "logic" of technology.  The most efficient or economic way of doing something was often ignored for religious or social reasons.  Thus in the long-run sense, technology represents a choice, not an inevitablity, and we can make a new choice whenever we are ready to do so.

 

 

The crucial fact to realize about all the powerful machinery of the Corporate State--its laws, structure, political system--is that it possesses no mind.  All that is needed to bring about change is to capture its controls--and they are held by nobody.  It is not a case for revolution.  It is a case for filling a void, for supplying a mind where none exists.  No political revolution is possible in the United States right now, but no such revolution is needed. (268)