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What I Heard About Iraq
Eliot Weinberger, 11 January 2005
In 1991, during the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then Secretary of
Defense, say that the U.S. would not invade Baghdad, to avoid "getting
bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq" I
heard him say: "The question in my mind is: How many additional American
casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: Not very damned many."
In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein "has not
developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass
destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his
neighbors."
That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: "We do not have any
direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to
reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Two months later, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "We are able to keep his
arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
On September 11, 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald
Rumsfeld advised the President to "hit" Iraq. I heard that he said: "Go
massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: "How do you capitalize on these
opportunities?"
I heard that the President, on September 17, signed a document marked "TOP
SECRET" that directed the Pentagon to begin planning for the invasion and
that, a few months later, he secretly and illegally diverted $700 million
approved by Congress for operations in Afghanistan into planning for the
new battle front.
In February 2002, I heard that an unnamed "senior military commander"
said: "We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out
of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq."
I heard the President say that Iraq is "a threat of unique urgency," and
that there is "no doubt the Iraqi regime continues to possess the most
lethal weapons ever devised."
I heard the Vice President say: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that
Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
I heard the President tell Congress, "The danger to our country is grave.
The danger to our country is growing. The regime is seeking a nuclear
bomb, and with fissile material, could build one within a year."
And that same day, I heard him say: "The dangers we face will only worsen
from month to month and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to
encourage them. And when they have fully materialized it may be too late
to protect ourselves and our friends and our allies. By then the Iraqi
dictator would have the means to terrorize and dominate the region. Each
passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX
nerve gas or some day a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally."
I heard the President, in the State of the Union Address, say that Iraq
was hiding 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, and
500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas.
I heard the President say that Iraq had attempted to purchase "yellowcake"
uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger and thousands of aluminum tubes
"suitable for nuclear weapons production."
I heard the Vice President say: "We know that he's been absolutely devoted
to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact,
reconstituted nuclear weapons."
I heard the President say: "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons
and other plans this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial,
one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror
like none we have ever known."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Some have argued that the nuclear threat
from Iraq is not imminent. I would not be so certain."
I heard the President say: "America must not ignore the threat gathering
against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final
proof-- the smoking gun-- that could come in the form of a mushroom
cloud."
I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "We don't want the 'smoking gun' to be a
mushroom cloud."
I heard the American Ambassador to the European Union tell the Europeans:
"You had Hitler in Europe and no one really did anything about him. The
same type of person is in Baghdad."
I heard Colin Powell at the United Nations say: "They can produce enough
dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of
people. Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical
weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard gas, 30,000 empty munitions,
and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of
chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry:
6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq
today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons
agent. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein
to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory,
an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan."
I heard him say: "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources,
solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts
and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
I heard the President say that "Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and
unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or
biological weapons across broad areas." I heard him say that Iraq "could
launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after
the order is given."
I heard Tony Blair say: "We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy
those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."
I heard the President say: "We know that Iraq and al-Qaeda have had
high-level contacts that go back a decade. We've learned that Iraq has
trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.
Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraq regime to attack America
without leaving any fingerprints."
I heard the Vice President say: "There's overwhelming evidence there was a
connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident
there was an established relationship there."
I heard Colin Powell say: "Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with
al-Qaeda. These denials are simply not credible."
I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "There clearly are contacts between al-Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein that can be documented."
I heard the President say: "You can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and
Saddam."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Imagine a September eleventh with weapons of
mass destruction. It's not three thousand- it's tens of thousands of
innocent men, women, and children."
I heard Colin Powell tell the Senate that "a moment of truth is coming":
"This is not just an academic exercise or the United States being in a fit
of pique. We're talking about real weapons. We're talking about anthrax.
We're talking about botulinum toxin. We're talking about nuclear weapons
programs."
I heard Senator Hillary Clinton say: "Iraq poses a continuing threat to
the national security of the United States."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "No terrorist state poses a greater or more
immediate threat to the security of our people."
I heard the President, "bristling with irritation," say: "This business
about time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he's not
disarming? He is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He's
playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing for sure is, he's not
disarming, Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past. This
looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I'm not interested in watching it."
I heard that, a few days before it authorized the invasion of Iraq, the
Senate, in a classified briefing by the Pentagon, was told that Iraq could
launch anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons against the
Eastern seaboard of the United States using unmanned aerial "drones."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say he would present no specific evidence of Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction because it might jeopardize the military
mission by revealing to Baghdad what the United States knows.
* * *
I heard the Pentagon spokesman call the military plan "A-Day," or "Shock
and Awe." Three or four hundred Cruise Missiles launched every day, until
"there will not be a safe place in Baghdad," until "you have this
simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not
taking days or weeks but in minutes." I heard the spokesman say: "You're
sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and thirty of
your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city
down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2,3,4,5 days
they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted." I heard
him say: "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never
contemplated."
I heard Major General Charles Swannack promise that his troops were going
to "use a sledgehammer to smash a walnut."
I heard the Pentagon spokesman say: "This is not going to be your father's
Persian Gulf War."
I heard that Saddam's strategy against the American invasion would be to
blow up dams, bridges, and the oil fields; and to cut off food supplies to
the south, so that the Americans would suddenly have to feed millions of
desperate civilians. I heard that Baghdad would be encircled by two rings
of the elite Republican Guard, in fighting positions already stocked with
weapons and supplies, and equipped with chemical protective gear against
the poison gas or germ weapons they would be using against the American
troops.
I heard Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby tell Congress that Saddam would "employ
a 'scorched earth' strategy, destroying food, transportation, energy and
other infrastructures, attempting to create a humanitarian disaster," and
that he would blame it all on the Americans.
I heard that Iraq would fire its long-range Scud missiles, equipped with
chemical or biological warheads, at Israel, to "portray the war as a
battle with an American- Israeli coalition and build support in the Arab
world."
I heard that Saddam had elaborate and labyrinthine underground bunkers for
his protection, and that it might be necessary to employ B-61 Mod 11
nuclear "bunker-buster" bombs to destroy them.
I heard the Vice-President say that the war would be over in "weeks rather
than months."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt
six months."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say there was "no question" that American troops
would be "welcomed": "Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the
streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things
that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let them do."
I heard the Vice President say: "The Middle East expert Professor Fouad
Ajami predicts that after liberation the streets in Basra and Baghdad are
'sure to erupt in joy. . .' Extremists in the region would have to rethink
their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart.
And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be
enhanced."
I heard the Vice President say: "I really do believe we will be greeted as
liberators."
I heard Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister say: "American soldiers
will not be received by flowers. They will be received by bullets."
I heard that the President told the television evangelist Pat Robertson:
"Oh, we're not going to have any casualties."
I heard the President say that he had not consulted with his father about
the coming war: "You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of
strength. There is a higher father I appeal to."
I heard the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands express surprise that
his was one of the nations enlisted in the Coalition of the Willing: "I
was completely unaware of it."
I heard the President tell the Iraqi people, on the night before the
invasion began: "If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed
against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our
Coalition takes away their power we will deliver the food and medicine you
need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror. And we will help you
build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq there will be
no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison
factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and
rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is
near."
I heard him tell the Iraqi people: "We will not relent until your country
is free."
* * *
I heard the Vice President say: "By any standard of even the most dazzling
charges in military history, the Germans in the Ardennes in the spring of
1940 or Patton's romp in July of 1944, the present race to Baghdad is
unprecedented in its speed and daring and in the lightness of casualties."
I heard Colonel David Hackworth say: "Hey diddle diddle, it's straight up
the middle!"
I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that 95% of the Iraqi casualties were
"military-age males."
I heard an official from the Red Crescent say: "On one stretch of highway
alone, there were more than 50 civilian cars, each with four or five
people incinerated inside, that sat in the sun for 10 or 15 days before
they were buried nearby by volunteers. That is what there will be for
their relatives to come and find. War is bad, but its remnants are worse."
I heard the director of a hospital in Baghdad say: "The whole hospital is
an emergency room. The nature of the injuries is so severe- one body
without a head, someone else with their abdomen ripped open." I heard him
say: "Human beings are so frail in the face of these weapons of war."
I heard an American soldier say: "There's a picture of the World Trade
Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar [flak jacket].
Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think, 'They
hit us at home and now it's our turn.'"
I heard about Hashim, a fat, "painfully shy" 15-year-old, who liked to sit
for hours by the river with his birdcage, and who was shot by the 4th
Infantry Division in a raid on his village. Asked about the details of the
boy's death, the Division Commander said: "That person was probably in the
wrong place at the wrong time."
I heard an American soldier say: "We get rocks thrown at us by kids. You
wanna turn around and shoot one of the little fuckers, but you know you
can't do that."
I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that the U.S. did not count civilian
casualties: "Our efforts focus on destroying the enemy's capabilities, so
we never target civilians and have no reason to try to count such
unintended deaths." I heard him say that, in any event, it would be
impossible, because the Iraqi paramilitaries were fighting in civilian
clothes, the military was using civilian human shields, and many of the
civilian deaths were the result of Iraqi "unaimed anti-aircraft fire
falling back to earth."
I heard an American soldier say: "The worst thing is to shoot one of them,
then go help him," as regulations require. "Shit, I didn't help any of
them. I wouldn't help the fuckers. There were some you let die. And there
were some you double-tapped. Once you'd reached the objective, and once
you'd shot them and you're moving through, anything there, you shoot
again. You didn't want any prisoners of war."
I heard Anmar Uday, the doctor who had cared for Private Jessica Lynch,
say; "We heard the helicopters. We were surprised. Why do this? There was
no military. There were no soldiers in the hospitals. It was like a
Hollywood film. They cried 'Go, go, go,' with guns and flares and the
sound of explosions. They made a show- an action movie like Sylvester
Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors.
All the time with cameras rolling."
I heard Private Jessica Lynch say: "They used me as a way to symbolize all
this stuff. It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they
had no truth about." I heard her say, about the stories that she had
bravely fought off her captors, and suffered bullet and stab wounds: "I'm
not about to take credit for something I didn't do." I heard her say,
about her dramatic "rescue": "I don't think it happened quite like that."
I heard the Red Cross say that casualties in Baghdad were so high, the
hospitals had stopped counting.
I heard an old man say, after 11 members of his family- children and
grandchildren- were killed when a tank blew up their minivan: "Our home is
an empty place. We who are left are like wild animals. All we can do is
cry out."
As the riots and looting broke out, I heard a man in the Baghdad market
say: "Saddam Hussein's greatest crime is that he brought the American army
to Iraq."
As the riots and looting broke out, I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "It's
untidy, and freedom's untidy."
And when the National Museum was emptied and the National Library burned
down, I heard him say: "The images you are seeing on television you are
seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person
walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you
think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there
were that many vases in the whole country?'"
I heard that 10,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.
* * *
I heard Colin Powell say: "I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of
mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just
getting it just now."
I heard the President say: "We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to
do so."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "We know where they are. They're in the area
around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south, and north, somewhat."
I heard the US was building fourteen "enduring bases," capable of housing
110,000 soldiers, and I heard Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt call them "a
blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East." I heard that the
US was building its largest Embassy in the world.
I heard that it would be a matter of months until Starbuck's and
McDonald's opened branches in Baghdad. I heard that the HSBC bank would
have cash machines all over the country.
I heard about the trade fairs run by New Bridges Strategies, a consulting
firm that promised access to the Iraqi market. I heard one of its partners
say: "Getting the rights to distribute Proctor & Gamble can be a gold
mine. One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out thirty Iraqi stores. A
Wal-Mart could take over the country."
I heard the President on May 1, 2003, dressed up as a pilot, under a
banner that read "Mission Accomplished," declaring that combat operations
were over: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that
began on September the eleventh, 2001." I heard him say: "The liberation
of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed
an ally of al-Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this
much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass
destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these
19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and
deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the
victims of September the 11th- the last phone calls, the cold murder of
children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists
and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what
they got."
On May 1, 2003, I heard that 140 American soldiers had died in combat in
Iraq.
I heard Richard Perle tell Americans to "relax and celebrate victory." I
heard him say: "The predictions of those who opposed this war can be
discarded like spent cartridges."
I heard Lieutenant General Jay Garner say: "We ought to look in a mirror
and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say:
'Damn, we're Americans.'"
And later I heard that I could buy a 12-inch "Elite Force Aviator: George
W. Bush" action figure: "Exacting in detail and fully equipped with
authentic gear, this limited-edition action figure is a meticulous 1:6
scale recreation of the Commander-in-Chief's appearance during his
historic Aircraft Carrier landing. This fully poseable figure features a
realistic head sculpt, fully detailed cloth flight suit, helmet with
oxygen mask, survival vest, g-pants, parachute harness and much more."
In February 2003, a month before the invasion, I heard General Eric
Shinseki tell Congress that "several hundred thousand troops" would be
needed to occupy Iraq. I heard him ridiculed by Paul Wolfowitz as "wildly
off the mark." I heard that the Secretary of the Army, Thomas White, a
former general, was fired for agreeing with Shinseki. In May 2003, I heard
that Pentagon planners had predicted that US troop levels would fall to
30,000 by the end of the summer.
* * *
I heard that Paul Bremer's first act as director of the Coalition
Provisional Authority was to fire all members of the Baath Party,
including 100,000 civil servants, policemen, teachers, and doctors, and to
dismiss all 400,000 soldiers of the Iraqi Army without pay or pensions.
Two million people were dependent on that income. Since America supports
private gun ownership, the soldiers were allowed to keep their weapons.
I heard that kidnappings and rapes were occurring at the rate of a hundred
a day in Baghdad alone; that schools, hospitals, shops, and factories were
being looted; that it was impossible to restore the electricity because
all the copper wire had been stolen from the power plants.
I heard Paul Bremer say: "Most of the country is, in fact, orderly," and
that all the problems were coming from "several hundred hard-core
terrorists" from al-Qaeda and affiliated groups.
As attacks on American troops increased, I heard the generals disagree
about who was fighting: Islamic fundamentalists or remnants of the Baath
Party or Iraqi mercenaries or foreign mercenaries or ordinary citizens
taking revenge for the loss of loved ones. I heard the President and the
Vice President and the politicians and the television reporters simply
call them "terrorists."
I heard the President say: "There are some who feel like that conditions
are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring them on! We
have the force necessary to deal with the situation."
I heard that 25,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.
I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger, then campaigning for governor, in Baghdad
for a special showing to the troops of "Terminator 3" say: "It is really
wild driving round here, I mean the poverty, and you see there is no
money, it is disastrous financially and there is the leadership vacuum,
pretty much like California."
I heard that the Army was wrapping entire villages in barbed wire, with
signs that read: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach
or try to cross, or you will be shot." In one of those villages, I heard a
man named Tariq say: "I see no difference between us and the
Palestinians."
I heard Captain Todd Brown say: "You have to understand the Arab mind. The
only thing they understand is force- force, pride, and saving face."
I heard that the US, in "a gift from the American people to the Iraqi
people," had committed $18.4 billion to the reconstruction of basic
infrastructure, but that future Iraqi governments would have no say in how
the money was spent. I heard that the economy was opened to foreign
ownership, and that this could not be changed. I heard that the Iraqi army
would be under the command of the US, and that this could not be changed.
I heard, however, that "full authority" for health and hospitals had been
turned over to the Iraqis, and that senior American health advisers had
been withdrawn. I heard Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human
Services, say that Iraq's hospitals would be fine if the Iraqis "just
washed their hands and cleaned the crap off the walls."
I heard Colonel Nathan Sassaman say: "With a heavy dose of fear and
violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these
people that we are here to help them."
I heard Richard Perle say: "Next year at about this time, I expect there
will be a really thriving trade in the region, and we will see rapid
economic development. And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there
is not some grand square in Baghdad named after President Bush."
* * *
I heard about Operation Ivy Cyclone, dropping 500-pound bombs from F-16
jets. I heard about Operation Vigilant Resolve. I heard about Operation
Plymouth Rock. I heard about Operation Iron Hammer, its name taken from
Eisenhammer, the Nazi plan to destroy Soviet generating plants.
I heard that Air Force regulations require that any airstrike likely to
result in the deaths of more than thirty civilians must be personally
approved by the Secretary of Defense, and I heard that Donald Rumsfeld
approved every proposal.
I heard the Marine colonel say: "We napalmed those bridges. Unfortunately,
there were people there. It's no great way to die." I heard the Pentagon
deny they were using napalm, saying their incendiary bombs were made of
something called Mark 77, and I heard the experts say that Mark 77 was
just another name for napalm.
I heard a Marine describe "dead-checking": "They teach us to do
dead-checking when we're clearing rooms. You put two bullets into the
guy's chest and one in the brain. But when you enter a room where guys are
wounded, you might not know if they're alive or dead. So they teach us to
dead-check them by pressing them in the eye with your boot, because
generally a person, even if he's faking being dead, will flinch if you
poke him there. If he moves, you put a bullet in the brain. You do this to
keep the momentum going when you're flowing through a building. You don't
want a guy popping up behind you and shooting you."
I heard the President say: "We're rolling back the terrorist threat, not
on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power."
When the death toll reached 500 American soldiers, I heard Brigadier
General Kimmitt say: "I don't think the soldiers are looking at arbitrary
figures such as casualty counts as the barometer of their morale. They
know they have a nation that stands behind them."
I heard an American soldier, standing next to his Humvee say: "We
liberated Iraq. Now the people here don't want us here, and guess what? We
don't want to be here either. So why are we still here? Why don't they
bring us home?"
I heard Colin Powell say: "We did not expect it would be quite this
intense this long."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "We're facing a test of will."
I heard the President say: "We found biological laboratories. They're
illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far
discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those
who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned
weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
I heard Tony Blair say: "The remains of 400,000 human beings have been
found in mass graves." And I saw his words repeated in a US government
pamphlet, Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves," and on a US government
website, which said this represents "a crime against humanity surpassed
only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields
in the 1970s, and the Nazi Holocaust of World War II."
continued...
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