Nerve

It takes a lot of nerve to try to take credit for being a protector of people your government virtually ignored while they were being massacred, but that's not a problem for U.S. Administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer. Bremer visited the memorial to the massacre at Halabja (BBC), which commemmorates the mass murder of 5000 Kurdish people by Saddam Hussein 16 years ago, which Bremer says justifies last year's Iraq war. (!)

There's a catch, of course. The Kurdish prime minister comments in the same article on the topic:

Just before Mr Bremer spoke, the Kurdish prime minister in the Halabja region, Barham Salih, criticised the United States.

He said that US and world indifference to Saddam Hussein at the time of the Halabja attack was the reason the Iraqi leader remained in power for so long.

I think the Kurdish PM is being diplomatic. After all, the US Administration at the time didn't object to the gas attack.

[Context-free comments regarding dropping] sanctions are removed from the larger and more precise context that has the United States befriending, arming, and providing intelligence to Saddam Hussein during the time of his bloodiest endeavors -- the invasion of Iran, the use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, and the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds. All of these were events, literally tens of thousands of times more bloody and vile than the relatively innocuous invasion of Kuwait, with which the United States essentially oversaw and found no problem. The Halabja incident, now invoked in somber tones typically reserved for such horrifying events as the Jewish Holocaust as well as being exploited by President Bush, wasn't even condemned at the time it took place in 1988. (globalpolicy.org)

The chemical weapons that the US fusses over now as proof of Saddam Hussein's inherent evil led to some public condemnations, but in terms of policy and relations were not objectionable at all when used against the Iranians in the years prior to the Halabja massacre, either. At the time, the US was actively courting Saddam Hussein by having Donald Rumsfeld make personal trips there to try to improve relations with him.

Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad in late March 1984. By this time, the U.S. had publicly condemned Iraq's chemical weapons use, stating, "The United States has concluded that the available evidence substantiates Iran's charges that Iraq used chemical weapons" [Document 47]. Briefings for Rumsfeld's meetings noted that atmospherics in Iraq had deteriorated since his December visit because of Iraqi military reverses and because "bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use, despite our repeated warnings that this issue would emerge sooner or later" [Document 48]. Rumsfeld was to discuss with Iraqi officials the Reagan administration's hope that it could obtain Export-Import Bank credits for Iraq, the Aqaba pipeline, and its vigorous efforts to cut off arms exports to Iran.... (National Security Archive, Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984)

[I very much recommend the National Security Archive as the source of all sorts of great information. On a related note, read Iraq: Declassified Documents of U.S. Support for Hussein With Joyce Battle, Middle East Analyst, National Security Archive at George Washington University, a discussion session at washingtonpost.com.]

The use of chemical weapons is either evil, or it's not -- it shouldn't matter what the ethnicity or nationality of the victims are. US objections to chemical attacks against one group (Kurds) yet not another (Iranians) is self-serving, but neither moral nor ethical.

[To hear Bremer's comments and some additional criticism from Kurds, listen to The World's 3/16/04 audio report. (theworld.org)]

*

Bechtel was the subject of yesterday's 'Shut Down the War Profiteers' Action at Bechtel HQ in downtown San Francisco (link to my photos at sf.indymedia.org; see also a short article in the Chronicle (sfgate.com)). From Kosovo to Iraq, Bechtel appears to have used its political connections and heavy political contributions to land work (www.warprofiteers.com), rather than relying on its experience alone.

Government watchdogs noted that all six of the companies bidding on the contract Bechtel won Thursday donated heavily to American politicians -- $3.6 million between 1999 and 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of the money went to Republicans. Bechtel and its employees contributed $1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates over the past three years, with 59 percent going to Republicans and the rest to Democrats.(warprofiteers.com)

"...within days of the American occupation of Iraq, Bechtel of San Francisco, California, was hired to repair the power system, telephone exchanges and hospitals, weeks after multi-billionaire Riley Bechtel, the principal shareholder, was sworn in as a member of President Bush's Export Council to advise the government on how to create markets for American companies overseas." (warprofiteers.com)

Bechtel has a long history of immoral behavior in Iraq: After the US Senate passed the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988" to put economic sanctions in place against Iraq for gassing 5000 Kurds, "Bechtel representatives said that if economic sanctions contained in Senate Act are signed into law, Bechtel will turn to non-U.S. suppliers of technology and continue to do business in Iraq." (PDF (Document 11) from Saddam Hussein: More Secret History at Georgetown's National Security Archive) "...the U.S. corporation, now part of President George W. Bush's project to bring democracy to post-Saddam Iraq, courted the dictatorial regime with full knowledge of Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and the Kurds -- with the approval of U.S. diplomats." (commondreams.org)

All this, yet Bechtel representatives had the nerve to accuse those who protested outside it's offices that the protesters were aiding and abetting the enemy, despite its own history of doing business with a regime that was gassing its people!! (Answering machine recording within the documentary We Interrupt This Empire (videoactivism.com))

Nerve. And nerve gas, but mainly nerve.

The New Pentagon Papers by Karen Kwiatkowski (salon.com) is a lengthy essay from a longtime career employee of an intelligence department, providing an inside scoop on the intelligence community's actions in the run up to the Iraq war. She observed the erosion of intelligence information in favor of political posturing under the influence of Bush appointees. Her initial scene-setting (telling us who everyone was and whether or not they were an appointee) is dry, but it gets better.

(My favorite line isn't actually substantive, but I find it entertaining: "Neoconservatives are fairly easy to study, mainly because they are few in number, and they show up at all the same parties.")

She makes many educational observations:

The talking points were a series of bulleted statements, written persuasively and in a convincing way, and superficially they seemed reasonable and rational. Saddam Hussein had gassed his neighbors, abused his people, and was continuing in that mode, becoming an imminently dangerous threat to his neighbors and to us -- except that none of his neighbors or Israel felt this was the case. Saddam Hussein had harbored al-Qaida operatives and offered and probably provided them with training facilities -- without mentioning that the suspected facilities were in the U.S./Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was pursuing and had WMD of the type that could be used by him, in conjunction with al-Qaida and other terrorists, to attack and damage American interests, Americans and America -- except the intelligence didn't really say that. Saddam Hussein had not been seriously weakened by war and sanctions and weekly bombings over the past 12 years, and in fact was plotting to hurt America and support anti-American activities, in part through his carrying on with terrorists -- although here the intelligence said the opposite....

Kwiatkowski details the changes made to assignments when experienced intelligence officers kept insisting on using the supported facts that they had, rather than the political speculation and fearmongering that was desired of them. There were times when Kwiatkowski heard statements on TV from politicians' mouths which had no basis in the information intelligence officers like herself had access to, and while she wished to assume they were based on facts unavailable to her, that wasn't necessarily the case.

Some bullets were softened, particularly statements of Saddam's readiness and capability in the chemical, biological or nuclear arena. Others were altered over time to match more exactly something Bush and Cheney said in recent speeches.

Yes, you read that right: the intelligence reports had to be changed to reflect what speechwriters were putting into administration speeches, rather than the other way around.

This is a short review of a very long article, but I recommend that you go to Salon and read an insider's view of the Bush Administration's failure to use the intelligence community and its skills in favor of a pre-existing political agenda to manipulate public opinion.