For those of us looking for clues that might help interpret the present moment, here are two signs of the times that I’ve noticed:
(1) Ted Koppel’s Nightline, which I catch only erratically, now seems to end most nights — perhaps each night — with a brief Koppel sign-off labeled (last night anyway) “In the line of duty,” which just seems to announce the latest American death in Iraq. This is perhaps a tiny sign — like the modest little box that’s begun to appear almost daily inside the New York Times, without comment or explanation, labeled “Names of the Dead” with the following in italics: “The Department of Defense has confirmed the deaths of the following Americans in the Iraq theater of operations:” Today, the names are Travis L. Burkhardt, a sergeant in the 170th Military Police Company and Michael E. Dooley, a sergeant in the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment. No notation of how they died is offered. Just keep in mind that Nightline began in 1979 by a nightly toting — of how many days the residents of the American embassy in Iran, captured by Iranian militants, had been held hostage. (Because Koppel’s reputation is a liberal one, no one ever says that the show he began was significantly responsible for the fall of Jimmy Carter and the election of Ronald Reagan.)
(2) You remember Hans Blix, the ultimate, buttoned-down, no emotion, just-the-facts UN bureaucrat? Well, about to retire, he just gave an exclusive interview to the British Guardian with a headline that fits any tabloid: Blix: I was smeared by the Pentagon. His language and claims are striking indeed. The piece begins:
“Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, lashed out last night at the ‘bastards’ who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post. In an extraordinary departure from the diplomatic language with which he has come to be associated, Mr Blix assailed his critics in both Washington and Iraq. ‘I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant.’
” Mr Blix, accused: The Bush administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports; ‘Some elements’ of the Pentagon of being behind a smear campaign against him; and Washington of regarding the UN as an ‘alien power’ which they hoped would sink into the East river.”
It’s hardly surprising that Blix’s “exclusive” wasn’t to an American newspaper. Few who matter in the U.S. give a damn what Hans Blix has to say (though his statements do matter elsewhere in the world). But what should still be noted here — as a sign of the times — are the unexpected levels of anger publicly expressed and by such a man. Americans, including our leaders in Washington, haven’t faintly come to grips with the anger they’ve stirred up and continue to stir up worldwide. They may have to soon, however, because it turns out that the Pentagon, which so angered Blix, has angered elements in the American intelligence community for rather similar reasons. They leaned on them hard and no less uncomfortably. Think of Blix as the bureaucratic canary in the mine.
And then, of course, there’s Iraq. Let’s start on Iraq by mentioning three missing signs of the times there:
” Mr Blix, accused: The Bush administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports; ‘Some elements’ of the Pentagon of being behind a smear campaign against him; and Washington of regarding the UN as an ‘alien power’ which they hoped would sink into the East river.”
It’s hardly surprising that Blix’s “exclusive” wasn’t to an American newspaper. Few who matter in the U.S. give a damn what Hans Blix has to say (though his statements do matter elsewhere in the world). But what should still be noted here — as a sign of the times — are the unexpected levels of anger publicly expressed and by such a man. Americans, including our leaders in Washington, haven’t faintly come to grips with the anger they’ve stirred up and continue to stir up worldwide. They may have to soon, however, because it turns out that the Pentagon, which so angered Blix, has angered elements in the American intelligence community for rather similar reasons. They leaned on them hard and no less uncomfortably. Think of Blix as the bureaucratic canary in the mine.
And then, of course, there’s Iraq. Let’s start on Iraq by mentioning three missing signs of the times there:
(1) The costs of occupying Iraq: These are, in a sense, incalculable. Nonetheless, this subject has been glaringly absent from the media since the war. Today, according to Patrick E. Tyler of the New York Times, Paul Bremer, our “governor” of Iraq “announced that he would create a $100 million public works program to start rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.” An estimated $20 million of that will be “used to repair the looted and destroyed ministry buildings in Baghdad” — $20 million that could have been put to use elsewhere if only a few guards had been stationed at these buildings in the wake of the war. This $100 million evidently will come out of whatever assets were left in the country’s Central Bank or seized from Saddam Hussein. Still, we have a military occupation force of perhaps 140,000 in and around the country; we’re building possibly four permanent bases, armed resistance seems to be on the rise etc. etc. It would be interesting to have some serious estimates from someone of the literal costs of all this — especially once you begin to imagine extending this (see below) into the distant future.
In addition, there are the larger costs of this sort of empire building. A historian friend wrote me today about the only piece either of us have seen on the subject in the mainstream from a significant establishment figure — in this case Felix Rohatyn, most recently our ambassador to France in the lost Clinton era (The unbearable expense of global dominance) “Over the last year,” my friend writes, “I’ve been wondering how it is possible that the economic and financial establishment that has crafted US policy since the 1940s could remain silent in the face of policies that would inevitably destroy the foundation of the global system and US economic and financial viability. This Rohatyn article from the Financial Times is perhaps the clearest example of a response of the kind that has been so glaringly absent.” Of course it’s worth noting that the FT is a British paper. Here’s just a taste of what Rohatyn said. It’s worth reading in full.
“Politically and militarily, it is profoundly unwise for the US to go it alone in the world. But from an economic point of view it simply cannot do so without seriously damaging the American way of life and standard of living. The Iraq war, the recession and stock market losses, together with the tax cuts proposed by the Bush administration have transformed the US budget outlook. Three years after the budget ran a surplus of $240bn, this year’s deficit could rise to $400bn. The president’s recent request for $80bn for the Iraq war and reconstruction is likely to be a first installment; more realistic estimates run to $200bn or more over the next five years. In the long run, the picture is dismal. It cannot, over time, finance its domestic needs while bankrolling the spiralling costs of America’s global military dominance. Something will have to give. A crippled Atlantic relationship will only make matters worse.”
And remember, at least officially, we’re now in the process of overseeing the “reconstruction” of three societies — Afghan, Iraqi, and Palestinian.
2) The dissolution of the Iraqi military: Paul Bremer has dissolved the Iraqi military. 400,000 trained former soldiers are out on the street unpaid — not necessarily the smartest move with armed resistance on the rise. This has certainly been commented upon, at least in passing. But there has been no discussion whatsoever of the larger meaning of the act. Imagine, for a moment, an Iraq without a military, squeezed between heavily armed (and previously hostile Iraq) and heavily armed Turkey and Syria (forget Israel for a moment). The United States, which supported the “stability” of Iraq from 1979, when the Shah of Iran fell to 1990, is unlikely to leave an unarmed, possibly fragmenting Iraq at the heart of the globe’s oil lands now. But think for a minute how long it will likely take to rebuild an Iraqi army — the Afghans still don’t have a functioning national army, after all — most of whose major equipment was destroyed in the war. We’re not talking about a short occupation here, no matter when “elections” of whatever sort are finally allowed to take place, even if they are allowed to take place. For the foreseeable future our military is functionally the Iraqi military.
3) Oil: Again, I say, that if Iraq’s wealth had been based on producing computers or children’s toys, our media would be spending a reasonable amount of time discussing the global economy of computers or toys, Iraq’s new situation within it, and so on. Since Iraq’s potential wealth is based on untold reservoirs of oil and natural gas and since we all know that oil played no role at all or, at best, a very peripheral role in the decision to invade Iraq, there’s been remarkably little discussion of American oil policies and plans in Iraq, the global situation within which that should be understood, or the dreams of the neocons about dominating the oil lands of the world and so its most advanced (or advancing) economies. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a superb report on the state of the Iraqi oil industry (disastrous) by Neela Banerjee (Looting Leaves Iraq’s Oil Industry in Ruins):
“Money from oil, the Bush administration has said repeatedly, will drive Iraq’s economic revival, which in turn will foster the country’s political stability. Many Iraqis agree. Yet from the vast Kirkuk oil field in the north to the patchwork of rich southern fields around Basra, Iraq’s oil industry, once among the best-run and most smartly equipped in the world, is in tatters. Looting, sabotage and the continued lack of security at oil facilities are the most recent problems the industry
“Some Iraqis believe that the looting is deliberate sabotage by people still loyal to the Baath Party rule of Saddam Hussein. Whoever is behind the pilfering and destruction, they have compounded the problems accumulated over 12 years of United Nations sanctions. And the expertise needed to get the oil flowing again often resides with oilmen now tainted by their past association with Mr. Hussein.”
But there’s really been nothing on larger oil dreams or strategies. (Imagine, for instance, writing about the conquistadors in the New World without bringing up the subject of gold or dreams thereof!)
On other matters Iraqi, our elite newspapers (and, in fact, nightly prime-time news as well) has done a far, far better job of covering post-war than either prewar or wartime Iraq. Coverage, for instance, of the slowly increasing armed resistance — by whom is still essentially unknown — in northern Iraq has been strong indeed. Michael Gordon in today’s Times, for instance, reports from Falluja (G.I.’s in Iraqi City Are Stalked by Faceless Enemies at Night):
“American forces are still not clear exactly who their opponent is. Enemy fighters they have killed have not carried identification, and local residents have provided only limited intelligence about who is behind the attacks.
“But one thing is already clear. American forces seem to be battling a small but determined foe who has a primitive but effective command-and-control system that uses red, blue and white flares to signal the advance of American troops. The risk does not come from random potshots. The American forces are facing organized resistance that comes alive at night.”
A piece focused on Baghdad in the Los Angeles Times says in part (Carefully Planned Attacks Target U.S. Troops in Iraq, Military Says):
“‘There is somebody out there trying to kill soldiers,’ said Lt. Col. Joel Armstrong, commander of the 2nd Squadron of the Army’s 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which covers the sprawling Sadr City. ‘These are deliberate attacks’
“In at least two recent cases, soldiers were shot in the neck, not by happenstance, but by training and design, U.S. authorities say. Soldiers’ upper bodies are well protected with their vests and helmets; their most vulnerable point is their neck.
“The attacks are becoming almost routine as the number of dead and injured Americans inches up day after day. On Tuesday, a paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was killed and another injured in an attack on a site where they were collecting weapons from Iraqi citizens, according to the U.S. Central Command. The attackers fired two rocket-propelled grenades and escaped down an alley.”
While a piece by the fine Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post (In Holy City, Things Are Going Right) describes the rare city in Iraq where the occupation is going right:
“In a city so sacred that its soil is used to make the stones on which Shiites bow their heads in prayer, the American occupation of Karbala — 1,110 U.S. troops in a city of 500,000 — has emerged as a rare example of a postwar experience gone right.
“In gestures large and small — from reopening an amusement park with free admission to restoring electricity to twice its prewar level, from stopping looting with a rapidly reconstituted police force, to a conscious effort to respect religious sensitivities — Karbala seems to have avoided the bitterness and disenchantment that has enveloped Baghdad and other cities.
“‘It’s not Fort Apache,’ said Marine Lt. Col. Michael Belcher, the city’s senior American officer
‘Yet[c]omplaints are rife over what many still perceive as too little security.Lurking underneath is a fear that once the Americans leave, even uniformly Shiite cities like Karbala will erupt in bloodletting”
A striking piece by Stephen J. Glain in the Boston Globe (Chaos thrives in Baghdad despite prewar planning) details the only slightly improving chaos of postwar urban Iraq and then reconsiders prewar planning, saying in part:
“The rebuilding problems are all the more striking given the months of planning that preceded the war, specialists say. Months before US and British forces invaded Iraq, the State Department launched its Future of Iraq Project, an exhaustive study of the country as well as problems and challenges the occupation authority might face Project leaders invited about 2,000 specialists organized within 17 working groups.
“Participants said they reveled in detail. During one session, they debated the competing merits of the Windows and Linux operating systems for the new government’s computer network“Occupation officials, who work in a labyrinth of makeshift offices in Hussein’s old Republican Palace, say they are unsure what happened to the Future of Iraq Project and the expertise it generated. Some suggest it was disposed of by civilian leaders in the Pentagon, who stripped control of postwar Iraq from the State Department in a bitter turf fight.”
Interestingly, the British military high command has evidently reached its own conclusion about the success to date of the American occupation. Kim Sengupta of the British paper the Independent reported the other day (Military resists sending more troops to Iraq ‘quagmire’)
“Defence chiefs are resisting calls for British troops to be sent to join American forces in Baghdad because they could be ‘sucked into a quagmire’.
“Although the Ministry of Defence’s official position is that sending units to the Iraqi capital would risk ‘overstretch’, senior officers are believed to have told Tony Blair such a deployment would inevitably mean British soldiers getting caught up in the rising tide of anti-American violence.”
Let me just conclude below with the most vivid account I’ve seen recently of the American occupation in armed, angry Falluja, a piece a few days old by Robert Fisk, which gives a sense of what this occupation may in some places be up against and the problems it may be creating for itself. In addition, a fascinating piece by David Hirst in the Guardian lays out differing responses in Arab countries to the occupation; and finally, the always intelligent Anatol Lieven discusses the dangers involved in the Bush administration’s urge to destabilize the Iranian regime and considers as well the toll a long-term, endlessly messy occupation (you can tell that I’m avoiding the term “quagmire”) of Iraq may take on the Bush 2004 reelection campaign. Tom
Bloodshed, Fear And a Deadly Ambush
Killings At Fallujah
By Robert Fisk
The Independent (off the ZNET site)
June 06, 2003From high over Iraq yesterday, President George Bush cast his Olympian eye over ancient Mesopotamia after praising the Americans in Qatar who had “managed” the war against Saddam Hussein. But far below him, on a dirty street corner in a dirty town called Fallujah that Mr Bush would prefer not to hear about, was a story of American blood and American power and American boots smashing down the front gates of Iraqi homes.
“She’s got a gun,” an American soldier shouted when he caught sight of a woman in her backyard holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. “Put it down! Put the gun down!” he screamed at her. The soldiers were hot and tired and angry. They’d been up since 3am, ever since someone fired a grenade at a lorry-load of troops from the 101st Airborne. You could see why Mr Bush chose to avoid any triumphal visits to Iraq.
To read more Fisk click here
Out of the crucible
By David Hirst
The Guardian
June 11, 2003Ever since the US and Britain went to war on Iraq, the Arabs have been wondering whether this conquest will be a success or the most catastrophic of failures. They wonder, in other words, whether the US really can make Iraq into a platform for a strategic, economic and cultural reshaping of the entire Arab world (as well as Iran) – or whether this extraordinary, neoconservative ambition will provoke what amounts to a second Arab struggle for independence. So the signs that the US occupation of Iraq is running into armed resistance have resonated round the region.
With their hopelessly ineffectual response to the US-British invasion, the Arabs reached what all saw as the lowest point yet in a process of political and institutional decay. Yet it also showed just how strong their sense of common destiny and identity remains. Whatever now happens in Iraq will, for better or worse, have region-wide repercussions.
David Hirst reported from the Middle East for the Guardian from 1963 to 2001.
Dangers of an aggressive US approach to Iran
By Anatol Lieven
The Financial Times
June 8 2003As the Bush administration seeks international support for increased pressure on Iran, US politicians and foreign governments need to take a close look at the dangers of this course. If the US commits itself both to regime change and to preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons by all means, including strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, a vicious circle of pressure and retaliation may develop, ending in full-scale war. The danger is all the greater because if the US wants to stop Iran developing a nuclear deterrent, it must hurry. European intelligence sources agree that Iran may be within two years of developing a nuclear deterrent, and may be past the point where even an end to Russian assistance to Iran’s civilian programme would make much difference.
The writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.