[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]
As a group, intelligence officers are like automobile repairmen and electronics technicians: They are preoccupied with why things happen. In the case of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, that has presented a perplexing problem: Given the results, just why did the Bush administration invade Iraq?
All of the “compelling reasons” that supported an Iraq invasion and which have been presented by the White House to the public and Congress, have been proven to be either suspect or deliberate distortions of the truth. The existence of weapons of mass destruction, substantive Iraqi contact with al-Qaida, the suggestion that Iraq was behind or in some way involved in 9/11, the liberation of the Iraqis from a repressive regime, that we would be greeted by Iraqis throwing flower petals, the spread of democracy in the Muslim world and “fight the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them at home” have all succumbed to subsequent examination.
All of these mendacious rationales should be relegated to the category of things said by the Bush administration to keep the American people frightened and thus willing to continue to support a war in Iraq. Americans are also asked to support all those administration policies – wireless wiretapping, renditions, torture, Guantanamo, etc. — which are claimed to be an integral part of that effort and of the “Global War on Terrorism” and, coincidentally, to keep them supporting the Republican Party.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s recent “tell-all” book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” whether you admire him personally or not, indicates clearly that every time the White House or its supporters says anything that pertains to Iraq, Iran, terrorism or just about anything else, we all need to think again and question what has been said. It’s not that this book is going to tell us a lot about the Bush White House that we don’t already know or suspect, it’s that it gives us a frame of reference for just about everything said by this administration and its supporters since the decision was made to invade Iraq.
It now appears that the slow and deliberate parceling out of “reasons” for the invasion were part of a carefully designed propaganda effort designed to get America behind the Iraq invasion and the global war on terror. At worst, this effort appears to have been a purposeful administration attempt to mislead the public and the Congress. Of course the next question that begs to be asked is, “why was this ‘culture of deception’ put in place?”
This administration, probably because it believed that a perpetual climate of fear would keep Republicans in power, has done everything possible to keep its citizens ginned up and fixated on their personal security. Only a frightened, intimidated and security-obsessed population could be counted on to support the war on terror and the Iraq occupation. As long as that atmosphere could be maintained, the Republicans could fantasize about long-term occupancy of the White House and the Congress, the “permanent Republican majority” dreamed of by Karl Rove. Hence we also have the Rumsfeldian concept of the “long war” and Sen. John McCain’s recent notion that we could maintain a military presence in Iraq for “maybe a hundred years” and that “would be fine with me.”
Until the national repudiation of Republican Iraq policy in the 2006 congressional elections, this deception effort was quite successful. The machinations that have provided those successes have included measures like our color-coded terrorist warning system, enhanced airline security, increased border controls and the Patriot Act. Most effective of all have been the constant accusations by the administration and its supporters that if you are not with them, if you say anything negative about any of the so-called global war on terror policies, you are you are somehow unpatriotic, an appeaser or worse.
We now know from two insider “tell-alls” that the Iraq invasion had been planned prior to 9/11. It would appear that, in order to perpetuate Republican power, the Bush administration undertook the invasion, inter alia, to mire America in a permanent struggle which would create and maintain political support at home. Incredibly, they did so against the advice of the vast majority of experts on foreign policy and the Middle East, both in the government and in academic life.
This Iraq policy, sold by a duplicitous domestic propaganda machine, has brought America international political isolation, a severely damaged military establishment, rejuvenated Muslim fundamentalist terrorism, a weakened dollar, record national and foreign debt, a recession uniquely accompanied by inflation, diminished constitutional rights and political divisiveness here at home. Who is winning here?
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.
