Yesterday, while Tony Blair squirmed, the Turks delayed, and the Pentagon alternately fumed and threatened (both the Turks and implicitly the Brits), Congress began to fume too. As Jim Lobe reports in today’s Asia Times (Bush’s ‘morning after’ headache), the unforthcoming nature of this administration when it comes to the costs of making war on and occupying Iraq, none of which is yet budgeted or even publicly estimated, is finally driving some in Congress to strong words. Lobe reports:
“That frustration boiled over into anger on Tuesday when the Pentagon at the last minute cancelled the scheduled appearance before the Senate foreign relations committee of General Jay Garner, who has been tapped to lead the office of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance that will effectively administer Iraq in the immediate aftermath of any war.
“‘I pushed, we all pushed [the administration] to give us some sense of [the potential costs of the war and post-war efforts],’ said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel after Garner failed to show up. ‘No answers. The administration chose not to have witnesses today. No answers. The president was asked in his news conference the other night. No answers. And I think the best that they have come up with is, “well, you’ll know about it when we bring up the supplemental [appropriation bill].” I don’t think that’s a good way to do this.””
The Senators, as Lobe indicates, are aware that the United States may be able to make war by itself, but what passes for peace will be another matter entirely and, if the Pentagon’s version of foreign policy alienates one more ally, we may be left with a postwar coalition-of-the-willing-to-reconstruct consisting of Bulgaria, Rumania, and Latvia.
Yesterday, the Boston Globe published an article on the latest that is known about planning for postwar occupied Iraq (see below). The plan, such as it is, focuses on avoiding “having large numbers of unemployed residents in the country,” and interesting enough, the goal evidently is to enlist the Iraqi army as a force in reconstruction. So much for demilitarization along post-World War II Japanese or German lines. Of course, the unnamed “senior officials” quoted in the report come from the Pentagon and the major quoted senior official is Don Rumsfeld. All policy — and policy statements — these days seem to emerge from the Pentagon. (Has there been a Colin Powell sighting recently? He’s always said to be manning the phones somewhere — possibly in the basement of the Pentagon. He’s now the UFO of this administration.)
Take the time, then, to consider a piece in the most recent issue of the Boston Review, a quiet but remarkable interview with the historian John Dower, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Embracing Defeat, on why occupying Iraq will bear no comparison to occupying Japan after World War II. Forget, for a moment, that unlike in 1945, the United States, as he points out, lacks all moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world, the men who plan on bringing liberation and democracy to Iraq, unlike the New Dealers who flooded Japan in 1945, do not believe in democracy (except in the abstract). It matters, after all, who brings you democracy and it helps if they are democrats (small d) with a vision, not imperialists with a vision. (By the way, don’t miss the chilling final paragraphs of the interview on what might be compared — the way the “rationality” of Japanese strategists of the 1930s spilled over, almost unnoticed, into “madness.” Sound familiar?)
For a clearer view of the occupation, there’s a recent piece in the Guardian, Cheney is still paid by Pentagon contractor, in which Julian Borger and Robert Bryce report that our VP is still receiving annual payments of “deferred compensation” of up to $ 1 million a year from Haliburton, the Texas company he ran, whose subsidiary, Kellog, Brown & Root just received a contract from the Pentagon to control oil fires, should Saddam Hussein order the Iraqi oil fields to be burned. They go on to say,
“‘I pushed, we all pushed [the administration] to give us some sense of [the potential costs of the war and post-war efforts],’ said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel after Garner failed to show up. ‘No answers. The administration chose not to have witnesses today. No answers. The president was asked in his news conference the other night. No answers. And I think the best that they have come up with is, “well, you’ll know about it when we bring up the supplemental [appropriation bill].” I don’t think that’s a good way to do this.””
The Senators, as Lobe indicates, are aware that the United States may be able to make war by itself, but what passes for peace will be another matter entirely and, if the Pentagon’s version of foreign policy alienates one more ally, we may be left with a postwar coalition-of-the-willing-to-reconstruct consisting of Bulgaria, Rumania, and Latvia.
Yesterday, the Boston Globe published an article on the latest that is known about planning for postwar occupied Iraq (see below). The plan, such as it is, focuses on avoiding “having large numbers of unemployed residents in the country,” and interesting enough, the goal evidently is to enlist the Iraqi army as a force in reconstruction. So much for demilitarization along post-World War II Japanese or German lines. Of course, the unnamed “senior officials” quoted in the report come from the Pentagon and the major quoted senior official is Don Rumsfeld. All policy — and policy statements — these days seem to emerge from the Pentagon. (Has there been a Colin Powell sighting recently? He’s always said to be manning the phones somewhere — possibly in the basement of the Pentagon. He’s now the UFO of this administration.)
Take the time, then, to consider a piece in the most recent issue of the Boston Review, a quiet but remarkable interview with the historian John Dower, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Embracing Defeat, on why occupying Iraq will bear no comparison to occupying Japan after World War II. Forget, for a moment, that unlike in 1945, the United States, as he points out, lacks all moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world, the men who plan on bringing liberation and democracy to Iraq, unlike the New Dealers who flooded Japan in 1945, do not believe in democracy (except in the abstract). It matters, after all, who brings you democracy and it helps if they are democrats (small d) with a vision, not imperialists with a vision. (By the way, don’t miss the chilling final paragraphs of the interview on what might be compared — the way the “rationality” of Japanese strategists of the 1930s spilled over, almost unnoticed, into “madness.” Sound familiar?)
For a clearer view of the occupation, there’s a recent piece in the Guardian, Cheney is still paid by Pentagon contractor, in which Julian Borger and Robert Bryce report that our VP is still receiving annual payments of “deferred compensation” of up to $ 1 million a year from Haliburton, the Texas company he ran, whose subsidiary, Kellog, Brown & Root just received a contract from the Pentagon to control oil fires, should Saddam Hussein order the Iraqi oil fields to be burned. They go on to say,
“Halliburton is one of five large US corporations – the others are the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp, Parsons Corp, and the Louis Berger Group – invited to bid for contracts in what may turn out to be the biggest reconstruction project since the Second World War. It is estimated to be worth up to $900m for the preliminary work alone, such as rebuilding Iraq’s hospitals, ports, airports and schools.
“The contract winners will be able to establish a presence in post-Saddam Iraq that should give them an invaluable edge in winning future contracts. The defence department contract awarded to the Halliburton subsidiary, Kellog, Brown & Root (KBR), to control oil fires will put the company in an excellent position to bid for huge contracts when Iraq’s oil industry is rehabilitated.”
The Los Angeles Times similarly reported yesterday (see below) on oil industry expectations that in the wake of a successful Iraqi war, the Iraqi “playing field” will be “leveled” for US and British oil firms (though the Brits have taken note of the fact that only large US firms have been invited to bid on the “reconstruction” of Iraq).
What one LA Times interviewee predicts will be a “a Wild West, frontier rush” for Iraqi oil reserves — and a vast infusion of dollars into the American petro-military-industrial complex (along with the gainful employment of the Iraqi army) — gives us, I think, a sense of what occupied postwar Iraq might be like, and that’s if everything actually goes well, an unlikely prospect. But inside a White House primed for war, Joe Klein of Time magazine tells us in The Poker Player in Chief, optimism of an unrelenting sort is the order of the day. He writes:
“When the President and his advisers peer a month or so into the future, they see only good news: the world a safer and better place without Saddam; the French and Russians, hat in hand, hoping to become part of the postwar reconstruction; the Democrats, suitably daunted, ready to do the President’s bidding in Congress; the stock market heading toward the stratosphere; businesses investing and consumers spending; and the thugs of the world cowering, having absorbed a lesson about American resolve. Talk to a Bush supporter, and you hear giddy things.”
It takes a strong constitution — and I’m not thinking about the drafts of one the American New Dealers of 1945 wrote for the Japanese — to swallow this vision of the new Middle East and the world. Tom
Blueprint For Baghdad
US to finance early postwar Iraqi regime, officials say
By Robert Schlesinger
The Boston Globe
March 12, 2003WASHINGTON — The United States plans to finance the Iraqi government and military in the first months after removing Saddam Hussein from power, employing Iraqi soldiers to help rebuild the country, Defense Department officials said yesterday.
Two senior defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, provided the most extensive glimpse yet of US plans for rebuilding Iraq. The blueprint focuses on maintaining order and stability by trying to avoid having large numbers of unemployed residents in the country.The officials described the plans as an initial phase lasting a few months until an international administrator or an organization such as the United Nations could be found to take over the transition. The officials said that the source of financing for the reconstruction — from repairing infrastructure to paying the wages of bureaucrats and soldiers — has not been determined, and they declined to attach a dollar total to the project.
To read more of this Boston Globe piece click here
Warning From History
Don’t Expect Democracy in Iraq
By John Dower
Boston Review
March 9, 2003Starting last fall, we began to hear that U.S. policymakers were looking into Japan and Germany after World War II as examples or even models of successful military occupations. In the case of Japan, the imagined analogy with Iraq is probably irresistible. Although Japan was nominally occupied by the victorious “Allied powers” from August 1945 until early 1952, the Americans ran the show and tolerated no disagreement. This was Unilateralism with a capital “U” — much as we are seeing in U.S. global policy in general today. And the occupation was a pronounced success. A repressive society became democratic, and Japan — like Germany — has posed no military threat for over half a century.
The problem is that few if any of the ingredients that made this success possible are present — or would be present — in the case of Iraq.
John W. Dower is Elting E. Morison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His recent book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize.
To read more Dower click here
Gauging Promise of Iraqi Oil
Ousting Hussein could open the door for U.S. and British firms. Chinese, French and Russian rivals would lose their edge.
By Warren Vieth and Elizabeth Douglass
Los Angeles Times
March 12, 2003WASHINGTON — Maybe it’s a coincidence, but American and British oil companies would be long-term beneficiaries of a successful military offensive led by the United States and Britain to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Industry officials say Hussein’s ouster would help level the playing field for U.S. and British firms that have been shut out of Iraq as Baghdad has negotiated with rivals from other countries — notably France, Russia and China, three leading opponents of war.
A post-Hussein Iraq also would be a bonanza for the U.S.-dominated oil-services industry, which is in the business of rehabilitating damaged infrastructure, reversing declining output from aging fields and providing essential support work to drillers and explorers. A leader in that industry is Halliburton Co., where Dick Cheney was chief executive before becoming vice president.