-Caveat Lector-
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They do not know what they are doing or why they are doing it
30 March 2003
Every day public statements on the war are made with great bravado by
British and US leaders. A day later most of them turn out to be inaccurate
or untrue. Political leaders are understandably evasive about the detailed
military strategy, but these evasions and inaccuracies have nothing to do
with the movements of the troops.
Without qualification Tony Blair declared at the joint press conference
with President Bush last week that two British soldiers had been
executed. Shortly afterwards distressed relatives were informed that the
soldiers had died in combat. A junior minister was despatched to make the
appropriate public apologies. On the same day that Mr Blair spoke of the
executions, the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon claimed that the
discovery of protection suits in Iraq was categorical proof that Saddam
possessed chemical weapons. He withdrew the claim within 24 hours.
Today we report that Mr Blair greatly exaggerated the scale of
humanitarian aid being shipped to Basra. Half the load of a naval ship
consists of food and other supplies from Britain. The rest of the ship is
stuffed full of arms and ammunition. As the head of emergencies at
Christian Aid writes opposite, Iraq needs the equivalent of 32 such ships to
deal with the humanitarian crisis. Most preposterous of all, Mr Blair and
the US leaders said with certainty in advance that the liberators would
be cheered in the streets. Now we are told that our war leaders always
knew the cheers would be delayed and that they are not at all surprised
that Iraqis are resisting their liberators.
So the obfuscation over the causes of war continues now the war has
started. Before the war began the reasons for the conflict shifted
constantly. One day the objective was to remove the weapons of mass
destruction, the next it was regime change and the day after that it was a
war of liberation. An old PhD thesis was paraded as evidence that Saddam
was a threat to the world and had to be dealt with by war. The UN
route was followed, but only so long as the UN agreed with the US and
Britain. When the UN failed to agree Britain and the US blamed the UN.
Each time President Bush or Tony Blair were questioned about a previously
declared objective or statement, which had since changed, they appeared
irritated or bewildered. The leaders believed what they were saying on
that particular day. Now the same sequence is recurring over the conflict
itself. Statements made with apparent certainty are later contradicted by
the facts or clarified by a new ministerial statement. The pattern is
already extending itself to what will happen after the war, with linguistic
games being played to cover up divisions and uncertainty about the
political reconstruction of Iraq.
The persistent inaccuracies, proclaimed so confidently, expose the great
flaw of this war. President Bush and Tony Blair were never clear about why
it was being conducted and what would happen once it had ended. If they
were not clear in their own minds it is hardly surprising that their public
statements fail to make much coherent sense.
From before 11 September Iraq was on the agenda of the divided Bush
administration for reasons that would require the assistance of a
psychiatrist, as well as political and military analysts. They decided on war
long ago and then went about searching for the precise reasons. Even less
thought has been given as to how the war will end and what will happen in
the immediate aftermath. In Britain, Clare Short was quite open about this
in a Commons debate held last month. She said then that the UN did not
want to contemplate the aftermath of a war that many of its members
strongly opposed. Of the many statements from the Bush administration
about the war none conveys a clear sense of what will happen afterwards.
It has been a constant theme in US newspapers, most of whom support the
war, while despairing over the lack of planning. That is what is so worrying
about the shifting arguments and statements from the political leaders.
They do not know what they are doing or why they are doing it. They are
fighting an unnecessary war and are still trying to find the reasons to
justify it, even though the conflict has started and lives are being lost.
30 March 2003 02:01
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