Global Policy Forum

By William Rivers Pitt

George W. Bush recently told American troops stationed at Fort Hood, TX, that the war he is about to send them to fight in Iraq will not be about conquering a nation, but about "liberating people." He failed to describe exactly how this will happen, as Iraq is a nation defined by religious and tribal schisms. 60% of the population is Shiite, 23% is Kurdish and the remaining 17% is made up of the Sunni tribes which gave birth to Saddam Hussein in the first place.

Strategically speaking, the Shiites cannot rule, because they are ideologically and theocratically aligned with the hard-line mullahs who control Iran. The Kurds cannot rule because Turkey will not allow it. If the Sunnis are allowed to control Iraq, the same tribal influences that molded Hussein will be present in whomever replaces him. The Sunnis control the Ba'ath Party, which in turn controls/represses the Shiites and the Kurds. None of this has anything to do with liberation or democracy. There is no way around it, either.

Stories are being floated in the international press indicating this push for war will be centered around a summertime engagement. This will be difficult in the extreme - the heat in Iraq is oppressive in the summer, and our troops will be expected to fight in MOPP gear (gasmasks and protective clothing) that will further exacerbate the man-killing temperatures. In fact, the months between April and August are brutal for soldiers and machines. February through March is mud season, making mechanized warfare extraordinarily difficult. The best window of opportunity falls between September and January.

Spokesmen from the Bush administration scoff at the dire American casualty predictions being spoken of regarding the impending attack. There were equally ominous predictions before the first Gulf War, and our total combat losses equaled 148 soldiers. No one seems willing to talk about the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who perished the last time around, nor will they quantify the expected civilian casualty rate for this engagement. That is because these same spokesmen refuse to acknowledge how this war is shaping up.

The last war was fought in the desert. This time, Hussein is preparing his troops and defenses for urban combat in the streets of Baghdad. All the super-technology in the world will not help us in a knife fight, and the five million civilians in that city will feel the hammer. American casualties in that kind of fighting will be significantly higher than anything the American populace is willing to accept, and the smashed bodies of Iraqi civilians will be broadcast via regional television to the entire Mideast. The detonation of rage from this, at home and abroad, will be unprecedented.

In all of these casualty discussions, little attention is paid to the tens of thousands of American soldiers who returned safe and sound from the first Gulf War, only to fall terribly ill soon after they got home. Dementia, joint pain, dizziness, fatigue, rashes, headaches, birth defects in their children, cancer, gaping brain lesions, Lou Gehrig's Disease and a host of other maladies came home with the troops, making their lives a living hell to this day.

These soldiers were exposed to ash and fumes from burning oil wells, depleted uranium from spent artillery and tank shells, pesticides used to beat back the insects, vaccines the military gave them to fight indigenous diseases, and the fallout from bombed chemical and biological weapons stockpiles. The Defense Department and Pentagon still refuse to acknowledge that connections between the war and their health have any credence, blaming the estimated 28% disability rate for Gulf War vets (160,000 out of 573,000 soldiers) on liberal policies of evaluating service-related injuries.

There are approximately 65,000 troops in the Gulf region today; another 25,000 will be shipped over in the next few weeks. If the war becomes a bloodbath in the streets of Baghdad, more will be needed. Considering the slow, brutal attrition rate suffered by the soldiers from the last war, it stands to reason that this war will inflict the same damage to our troops. Even if they survive the war, they stand at least a 28% chance of coming home ravaged by a disease the government refuses to acknowledge exists.

Iraq is a clear and present threat to everything America holds dear. This is what Bush and his team would have you believe. They'd have you believe Iraq could cripple our economy, as Bush described a few days ago. Since when did Saddam start working for Enron?

North Korea, now, is no big threat. Yes, they have nuclear weapons, and the capacity to make one nuclear bomb a month, and the missiles to deliver them, and the gall to throw the UN out on it's collective butt, and a leader that makes Saddam look almost sane by comparison, but they are no big deal. Iraq has no proven weapons, no proven missile technology, and has allowed the UN weapons inspectors to go everywhere and do everything they please, but they are the pressing threat.

What? Terrorist connections to Saddam? He's in cahoots with al Qaeda and Osama? That would be remarkable, considering the fact that Hussein has been viciously repressing Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq for thirty years. If you proselytize for Wahabbi Islam in Iraq, that sect which is practiced by al Qaeda and Osama, you get shot. Period. Osama and al Qaeda have said many, many times that they want to see Saddam dead. So why would Saddam give them weapons? He is nothing if not a survivor, and he could conceive of better ways to commit suicide.

What could Iraq possibly have that North Korea does not have?

Oil?

Shhhhhhh. That's just crazy talk. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?

The fact is that a basis for war has not been laid. The UN Secretary General, Koffi Annan, has recently said as much. Germany's addition to the voting body on the Security Council will make it difficult for Bush to bareface his way to war, as Russia and France are already there and have many times rolled their eyes at our Boy King. How could they not? After all, in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush told America, "We need to counter the shock wave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." It is hard to take such a man seriously. But we must.

The fact is that we may be at war by the end of the month, and not this summer. The UN weapons inspectors in Iraq are due to report their findings on January 27th. The Bush administration has set a tentative date for his State of the Union address on the 28th. In the intervening weeks, we will all come to see in how much esteem Bush holds the international community. If he declares war regardless of what the inspectors report, things will get wild in a hurry.

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