19 November 19
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19 November 19
FOCUS: Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain | The Iran Cables: From the Rubble of the US War in Iraq, Iran Built a New Order
Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
Excerpt: "About a month before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's most trusted comrades, sat in his office in Baghdad in an olive green uniform, cigar in hand, wearing house slippers."
Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
Excerpt: "About a month before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's most trusted comrades, sat in his office in Baghdad in an olive green uniform, cigar in hand, wearing house slippers."
EXCERPTS:
“The U.S. can overthrow Saddam Hussein,” said Aziz, an Iraqi Christian and one of the most senior figures in Saddam’s government. “You can destroy the Baath Party and secular Arab nationalism.” But, he warned, “America will open a Pandora’s box that it will never be able to close.” The iron-fisted rule of Saddam, draped in the veneer of Arab nationalism, he argued, was the only effective way to deal with forces like Al Qaeda or prevent an expansion of Iranian influence in the region.
When the U.S. invaded, Aziz was the eight of spades in the card deck the Pentagon created to publicize its high-value targets. He was ultimately captured, held in a makeshift prison at the Baghdad airport, and forced to dig a hole in the ground to use as a latrine. He died in custody of a heart attack in June 2015. But Aziz lived long enough to watch exactly what he warned of come to pass, accusing U.S. President Barack Obama of “leaving Iraq to the wolves.”
The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq marked the moment when the U.S. lost control of its own bloody chess game. The chaos unleashed by the U.S. invasion allowed Iran to gain a level of influence in Iraq that was unfathomable during the reign of Saddam. Secret documents from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, obtained by The Intercept, give an unprecedented picture of how deeply present-day Iraq is under Iranian influence. The sovereignty once jealously defended by Arab nationalists has been steadily eroded since the U.S. invasion.
The Disaster of De-Baathification
A little over a decade before George W. Bush decided to overthrow the Iraqi government, his father’s administration had taken a very different path. After mercilessly destroying Iraq’s civilian and military infrastructure in a bombing campaign during the 1991 Gulf War, George H.W. Bush was persuaded that it would be too dangerous to march on Baghdad. Not because of the potential human costs, or deaths of U.S. soldiers in combat, but because Saddam was a known quantity who had already proven valuable in the 1980s when he attacked Iran and triggered the brutal Iran-Iraq War. During that eight-year conflict, the U.S. armed both countries but overwhelmingly favored Baghdad. More than a million people died in trench warfare reminiscent of World War I. Henry Kissinger put a fine point on the U.S. strategy in that war when he quipped that it is “a shame there can only be one loser.”
Even after the war had ended, the American fear of Iran outweighed any appetite for regime change in Iraq. So Saddam remained.
Bush’s son took a different view. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, high-ranking figures in his administration began falsely connecting Saddam’s regime to Al Qaeda. In reality, the religious extremists were mortal enemies of the Baathists. But the process for Saddam’s removal had already been determined by neoconservatives who had been bent on waging war against Iraq years before 9/11.
For more than six decades, the U.S. has played a central role in fomenting disasters that have destroyed the lives of entire generations in Iraq and Iran. Any criticisms of Iran’s role today cannot efface this ugly record. How Iraqis respond to the information about Iran’s secret dealings in their country is their business. Perhaps there are international organizations and countries whose advice and counsel would be welcome. But given its atrocious legacy in Iraq, the United States should not be among them.
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