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Iraq revolt: Tactics of diversion |
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by Ritt Goldstein
Email: ritt_goldstein (nospam) hotmail.com (verified) |
10 Apr 2004
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With questions of 9/11 and Africa's oil and "al-Qaeda" dominating headlines, it sure was lucky that Iraq returned to the front-page...or, was it more than just luck. |
Iraq revolt: Tactics of diversion
By Ritt Goldstein
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FD08Ak05.html
While the thin veneer of Iraqi stability cracked in Fallujah, then buckled when al-Hawza - the newspaper associated with Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - was summarily closed, it disintegrated completely over last weekend. The Fallujah killing and mutilation of United States mercenaries was widely perceived as horrific, but equally harsh damage was to done to the well-publicized myth of the common Iraqi's warmth towards the US. In the extremely volatile atmosphere then prevailing, coalition forces arrested a key Muqtada deputy, Mustafa al-Yaqubi, detonating the current violence, with considerable speculation existing as to why.
Numerous media accounts have posed questions of US incompetence, others suggesting a dark and preconceived agenda, some suggesting the possibility of both. Evidence suggests a combination is indeed likely, and the result of the Bush administration's blindness via the politicization of intelligence, coupled with the twin political imperatives of legitimizing a long-term US troop presence and diverting public attention from the issues of September 11.
Appearing this past Sunday on a nationally broadcast US news show, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Indiana's Richard Lugar, said: "Our focus has been on 9/11 - who did what and who didn't - but it ought to be on June 30," the date on which the coalition is scheduled to return sovereignty to Iraq. And now the public's attention has indeed shifted.
Both Lugar and the Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat, Joe Biden of Delaware, argued for a possible delay in the sovereignty process, as well as examining the need for added troops. Concerns have been widely raised over civil war and the dangers of turning over security to the Iraqis. And while Biden has argued for an Iraq hand-off to the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a key issue regarding June 30 has apparently been forgotten; namely, it doesn't matter one iota in terms of the US military presence or role. The US military had no plans to hand over security responsibilities.
According to a US Department of Defense news transcript from the March 3 briefing by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), June 30 is militarily insignificant. "We don't see that date as a significant military date in terms of changing our tactics, techniques, procedures, nor our mission," said US General Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of coalition operations. To emphasize the point still further, Kimmitt added: "We fully expect to be operating on July 15 the same way we're going to be operating on June 15."
According to a February article by Inter Press Service, the former Iraq administrator, Lieutenant General Jay Garner (ret), argued that the US should have very long-term bases in the country, comparing the geostrategic importance of Iraq to that of a former US colony, the Philippines. "Look back on the Philippines ... they were a coaling station for the navy. That's what Iraq is for the next few decades: our coaling station that gives us great presence in the Middle East." But the Filipinos fought a long and bloody revolt against US forces, and the costs of conflict demand legitimation.
Apparently oblivious to what the reality of June 30 means, Washington has begun heated discussion of the June dangers of transferring "security" to Iraqis. This gives rise to potential for speculation regarding the US leadership's apparent lack of knowledge pertaining to the US military's plans; though, past administration actions suggest the possibility of something more.
In a late fall interview with noted former Central Intelligence Agency analyst Ray McGovern, questions of the administration's tactics as regards its public relations (PR) mechanisms emerged. In describing to this journalist the structures which exist for molding opinion, McGovern spoke of "the best-ever PR machine the world has ever seen", highlighting an ability to obscure and confuse unwanted truths. And in a noteworthy parallel which illustrates the administration's use of diversions to counter what it perceives as politically undesirable revelations, McGovern coincidentally recounted another September 11-related episode, that involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) whistleblower Colleen Rowley.
Rowley had repeatedly attempted to get approval to pursue what turned out to be vital leads on the September 11 plot, but was repeatedly rebuffed by her superiors. She was later called on to testify before Congress regarding the restraints which had been forced on her.
"Colleen Rowley's testimony was devastating," McGovern said, then proceeding to describe the administration's tactic of creating a media diversion. "The Department of Homeland Security was prematurely announced, knocking the FBI whistleblower out of the media's primary coverage," McGovern revealed, providing an interesting footnote on present events.
As to what June 30 actually does mean, according to CPA adviser Daniel Senor: "Ambassador [L Paul] Bremer's portfolio will be handed over on June 30. His portfolio is increasingly on the political process. On June 30, the Iraqis will take over for their own political process."
Returning to the military issues of the transfer, Senor noted that the "situation doesn't necessarily change on the military side". Senor also noted that "it doesn't change for much of the civilian reconstruction". And that is the official Defense Department version of June 30 events. But while Washington may be unaware of it, perhaps Iraq's Shi'ites are, and have developed increasing concerns regarding the way Iraq's "democracy" is unfolding.
The Shi'ites are estimated to comprise 60 percent of Iraq's populace, and it's been long postulated that they envision the formation of the new Iraqi government as their only chance to achieve political power, something the previously ruling Sunni minority denied them. But though increasing concerns regarding an Iraq civil war are valid, speculation exists that the present violence could well unite Sunnis and Shi'ites, placing them in opposition to coalition and Kurdish forces, the Kurds also perceiving the moment as the only opportunity for assuring their long-cherished autonomy.
At the end of March, the administration had announced its intention to appoint an Iraqi prime minister after "extensive deliberation and consultations with cross-sections of the Iraqi people", its latest idea in a string of failed attempts to ensure a US-friendly political process. The individual in question would receive the hand-off of political power on June 30, with speculation existing that Ahmed Chalabi (a Shi'ite) is the intended candidate. But Chalabi is closely linked to the US and its neo-conservative community, with those connections escaping few Iraqis.
As early as January, it was reported that both US State Department regional experts and the CIA believed a Shi'ite explosion was coming if the group perceived that a viable democracy wasn't likely. Speculation exists that the current coalition moves against Muqtada could, in part, be a gamble aimed at controlling the timing and nature of that blast. But one of the key problems, a reason for the string of Iraqi political failures, is the politicization of the intelligence process.
"We [CIA] were once a place that the president could come and say, 'hey, you tell me what you really think'," McGovern said, recalling his years of personally briefing the White House. He concurrently noted that the CIA currently had too many who had allowed their decisions to sway with the prevailing political currents, effectively blinding US policy regarding the nature of the issues and events it faced.
The substantive extent of the present gamble which the Bush administration appears to be undertaking cannot be exaggerated, providing a measure of the perceived severity of US political imperatives, or administration blindness.
Providing commentary on Iraq's reality, Democratic senator Ted Kennedy just charged that Iraq is "Bush's Vietnam". But on October 28, former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brezinski provided what may be a more accurate analogy to another country, where France battled insurgents. Brezinski described a movie "which deals with a reality which is very similar to that we confront today in Baghdad ... The Battle For Algiers".
In Algeria, the French lost, and some observers believe that France itself was nearly plunged into civil war because of it.
Ritt Goldstein is an American investigative political journalist based in Stockholm. His work has appeared in broadsheets such as Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, Spain's El Mundo and Denmark's Politiken, as well as with the Inter Press Service (IPS), a global news agency.
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