-- Donald Rumsfeld March 21, 2003
In 1979, the year of the Iranian hostage crisis, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq as a member of the ruling Ba'ath party, which the CIA had propelled to power in 1963. The following year, Iraq invaded Iran and the eight year Iran-Iraq war ensued. The cost was one million lives. Before Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, the Carter administration had listed Iraq as a nation which sponsored terrorism. Despite this, and despite the knowledge within the US intelligence community that Iraq had been building an arsenal of chemical weapons (WMDs) since the mid 1970's, Reagan began supporting Iraq and Hussein in the war against Iran. Under Reagan, Iraq was no longer an "official" sponsor of terrorism and quickly became a clandestine strategic ally of the United States, with full eligibility for American economic and military aid waiting in the wings. The US started funneling weaponry to support Hussein?s' war effort through third parties like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and by 1983 was selling conventional arms directly to Iraq.
In 1983, US envoy Donald Rumsfeld paid a personal visit to Hussein and restored diplomatic relations, which had been cut during the 1967 Arab-Israel War. America?s rulers resumed relations with Iraq despite their knowledge that Hussein had used chemical weapons against Iran only a few months before. They also knew that Hussein was building manufacturing facilities to produce more WMDs. Rumsfeld, one of the strongest advocates of the removal of Hussein from power under Bush II, was a strong proponent of the relationship with Hussein under Reagan. By 1984, both the US State Department and European doctors had confirmed that Iraq was using nerve gas against Iranians. After digesting this information, the US Aristocracy decided to initiate a program which forgave $5 billion worth of agricultural loans to Iraq between 1983 and 1990, freeing up more cash for Hussein to fund his war machine.
Hussein's relationship with the United States came into full bloom in 1985. Protecting the flow of US weapons and money to Saddam, the Reagan administration pressured a member of Congress to drop a proposed resolution that would have reclassified Iraq as a supporter of terrorism. The US Commerce Department began a five year pattern of approving sales of US computers to Iraq for use in weapons labs. 1985 marked the advent of the Reagan administration supplying Hussein with biological weapon precursors like botulism and anthrax. By 1988, the US had made 70 shipments of these precursors to fuel Saddam?s WMD program.
Perhaps the most egregious example of the hypocrisy of the US Oligarchs in Iraq occurred in 1988. In March, Hussein launched a poisonous gas attack and killed 5,000 Kurds in the Iraqi town of Halabja. In July, one of the Corporatacracy's own, Bechtel (Secretary of State George Shultz?s' company), won a contract to build a petrochemical plant, which Hussein could use to manufacture more WMDs. Besides continuing to support Iraq and to enable its corporate darlings (like Honeywell, Rockwell, Hewlett Packard, and DuPont) to profiteer from the war, the Reagan administration crushed a Congressional attempt to sanction Hussein for committing genocide against Iraqi Kurds.
Fall from grace
Saddam Hussein committed political suicide in 1990 when he invaded Kuwait. With the Iran-Iraq conflict over, our ruling elite no longer needed Hussein. Having the chutzpah to violate international law, which America's leaders hold to be sacrosanct when it suits their purposes, Hussein gave the US a justification for starting a war with him. The Gulf War served several purposes for the US Aristocracy. It enabled them to flex their military might as the Soviet Union, the world's other super-power, was collapsing. The victory over Saddam erased the American public?s memory of the embarrassing defeat in Vietnam. Most importantly, it enabled the Plutocracy to reap the bountiful harvest of corporate profits fueled by a war. America?s ruling elite class knows the true bounties of war, particularly if the opponent is relatively weak and hapless.
Estimates vary widely, but hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died during the Gulf War and the period of harsh economic sanctions which followed. On August 6, 1990 (shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait), the United Nations Security Council, led by the United States, imposed "comprehensive" economic sanctions on Iraq. These sanctions remained in place after the US-led coalition forces drove Hussein from Kuwait a year later. Before the Gulf War, Iraq was one of the most highly developed countries in the Middle East, offering a majority of its people electricity, potable water, free education, sewage treatment, and according to the World Health Organization, access to health care. Since the UN originated the use of economic sanctions in 1945, Iraq was the first (and only) nation to suffer under comprehensive sanctions, in which the UN controls virtually all of the exports and imports of a nation. The US, as the most powerful member of the UN Security Council, was instrumental in delaying or choking off imports of food, medicine, and other necessities. Again, estimates vary, but anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the economic sanctions. The mortality rate for children under five tripled between 1989 and 1997. From 1990 to 1995, the infant mortality rate doubled. Safe drinking water availability was down 50% from pre-Gulf War levels. Malaria and other diseases became epidemics. School enrollment for Iraqis from ages 6-23 dropped by 53%. While some of the statistics and numbers are subject to debate, what is indisputable is that the severe economic sanctions (spear-headed by the United States) resulted in suffering, misery and death for many innocent civilians, while Saddam Hussein, the target of America's wrath, continued to prosper.
It is worthwhile to note that while Iraqis were suffering under brutal economic sanctions driven by the US, Dick Cheney (a poster child for America's ruling Plutocracy) was the CEO of Halliburton Corporation (from 1995 to 2000), and was prospering nicely. When he left to become Vice President, they bestowed him with a parting gift of $34 million. The Washington Post reported that during Cheney's tenure as CEO, Halliburton sold $73 million worth of services and equipment to Iraq to rebuild its oil infrastructure. Cheney, a true capitalist, was not about to let Hussein?s enemy status stand in his way of making a profit.
The business of America WAS business?.now it is war
When Bush II assumed office in 2000, US leadership took its obsession with Hussein and Iraq to a new level. Surrounding himself with men like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, three Neocons who were veterans of the reign of Bush I, Bush crafted the "Bush Doctrine". Under the Bush Doctrine, the United States proclaimed its indisputable right to engage in pre-emptive war against those they deemed to be terrorists or rogue states, and asserted the US right to act unilaterally (without regard for international law or the UN). Two other aspects of this hubristic, bellicose, machismo-driven set of principles included the US intent to keep its "military strengths beyond challenge" and the US objective that it would actively seek to promote "democracy and freedom in all regions of the world". The members of America?s military industrial complex were elated. America was (and still is) the largest war machine in the history of humanity. To ice their cake, the profit hungry Capitalists now had publicly-stated policy that its government partners were going to ?unleash the beast? on the world. After seeing the "democracy and freedom" the US Oligarchy helped perpetuate in Iraq when Hussein was our ally (not to mention numerous similar examples in Latin America), do Americans really need to ask why many in the world hate us?
Lies and consequences?..
The weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had created with materials supplied by the US under the Reagan administration had been destroyed or rendered harmless under UN supervision by 1996. However, for over a year prior to the March, 2003 invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq, the Aristocracy governing America bombarded the ?commoners? with a stream of propaganda designed to prey on fears fostered by 9/11. With little to support their pathetically flimsy arguments that Saddam Hussein (their own creation and former ally) had somehow amassed a cache of WMDs after his disarmament in 1996, and that Hussein (a secular leader) had formed close ties with Osama bin Laden (a radical Muslim), they utilized the power of the herd mentality to gain popular support for the war they craved. Growing bodies of evidence, including the absence of WMDs in US-occupied Iraq, the findings of the 9/11 Commission, and the Downing Street Memos, indicate that the US Oligarchs lied to Congress and to the American people to garner support to launch their war (in defiance of the UN).
As of 8/4/05, 1,827 US soldiers had died in combat and 13,559 had been wounded. Estimates of civilian casualties caused by the US invasion vary from 25,000 to the 100,000 reported in the reputable British medical journal, The Lancet. Discrepancies aside, an obscene number of innocents have been slaughtered. Human Rights Watch notes that a significant number of the civilian casualties resulted from the decision of the US military to use cluster munitions in highly populated areas, a violation of international humanitarian laws of war. These laws oblige armed forces to "refrain from attacks that are indiscriminate or where expected civilian harm exceeds the military gain." America entered the war in defiance of the UN and riding on Congressional and public support based on the lies of the Bush Administration. Thousands and thousands of people have died. They have wasted billions of dollars. American leaders have defied international law by using cluster munitions and torturing prisoners of war. What was that question again? Why do they hate us?
Get on the gravy train??
Now that the military industrial complex has torn Iraqi infrastructure down, someone will need to rebuild it. Who could possibly be up to such a task? With an estimated price tag of over $100 billion to rebuild post-war Iraq, the Corporatacracy is lining up for the contracts. Bechtel was at the head of the line as they received a $680 million contract in April of 2003. As Dick Cheney continues to receive deferred compensation from Halliburton at the rate of $1 million per year, Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root secured a 10 year contract (with an open-ended budget) to provide support services to the US military starting in 2001, and is heavily exercising that contract in Iraq. The US government paid KBR $3.6 billion in 2003 and $5.4 billion in 2004 for Iraq-related work. As the number two US contractor in Iraq, Bechtel's war-related revenue was over $4 billion in 2004. Halliburton is under investigation for charges of over-billing to the tune of $1 billion, while Bechtel has been plagued by problems related to shoddy work. While flag waving propaganda may fool some Americans into believing the war in Iraq is "making the world safe for democracy", many in the rest of the world see the profit motive that has led to so much human suffering. I cannot imagine what could possibly motivate detestation of the Red, White, Blue, and Green(backs).
In 1979, the year of the Iranian hostage crisis, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq as a member of the ruling Ba'ath party, which the CIA had propelled to power in 1963. The following year, Iraq invaded Iran and the eight year Iran-Iraq war ensued. The cost was one million lives. Before Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, the Carter administration had listed Iraq as a nation which sponsored terrorism. Despite this, and despite the knowledge within the US intelligence community that Iraq had been building an arsenal of chemical weapons (WMDs) since the mid 1970's, Reagan began supporting Iraq and Hussein in the war against Iran. Under Reagan, Iraq was no longer an "official" sponsor of terrorism and quickly became a clandestine strategic ally of the United States, with full eligibility for American economic and military aid waiting in the wings. The US started funneling weaponry to support Hussein?s' war effort through third parties like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and by 1983 was selling conventional arms directly to Iraq.
In 1983, US envoy Donald Rumsfeld paid a personal visit to Hussein and restored diplomatic relations, which had been cut during the 1967 Arab-Israel War. America?s rulers resumed relations with Iraq despite their knowledge that Hussein had used chemical weapons against Iran only a few months before. They also knew that Hussein was building manufacturing facilities to produce more WMDs. Rumsfeld, one of the strongest advocates of the removal of Hussein from power under Bush II, was a strong proponent of the relationship with Hussein under Reagan. By 1984, both the US State Department and European doctors had confirmed that Iraq was using nerve gas against Iranians. After digesting this information, the US Aristocracy decided to initiate a program which forgave $5 billion worth of agricultural loans to Iraq between 1983 and 1990, freeing up more cash for Hussein to fund his war machine.
Hussein's relationship with the United States came into full bloom in 1985. Protecting the flow of US weapons and money to Saddam, the Reagan administration pressured a member of Congress to drop a proposed resolution that would have reclassified Iraq as a supporter of terrorism. The US Commerce Department began a five year pattern of approving sales of US computers to Iraq for use in weapons labs. 1985 marked the advent of the Reagan administration supplying Hussein with biological weapon precursors like botulism and anthrax. By 1988, the US had made 70 shipments of these precursors to fuel Saddam?s WMD program.
Fall from grace
Saddam Hussein committed political suicide in 1990 when he invaded Kuwait. With the Iran-Iraq conflict over, our ruling elite no longer needed Hussein. Having the chutzpah to violate international law, which America's leaders hold to be sacrosanct when it suits their purposes, Hussein gave the US a justification for starting a war with him. The Gulf War served several purposes for the US Aristocracy. It enabled them to flex their military might as the Soviet Union, the world's other super-power, was collapsing. The victory over Saddam erased the American public?s memory of the embarrassing defeat in Vietnam. Most importantly, it enabled the Plutocracy to reap the bountiful harvest of corporate profits fueled by a war. America?s ruling elite class knows the true bounties of war, particularly if the opponent is relatively weak and hapless.
Estimates vary widely, but hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died during the Gulf War and the period of harsh economic sanctions which followed. On August 6, 1990 (shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait), the United Nations Security Council, led by the United States, imposed "comprehensive" economic sanctions on Iraq. These sanctions remained in place after the US-led coalition forces drove Hussein from Kuwait a year later. Before the Gulf War, Iraq was one of the most highly developed countries in the Middle East, offering a majority of its people electricity, potable water, free education, sewage treatment, and according to the World Health Organization, access to health care. Since the UN originated the use of economic sanctions in 1945, Iraq was the first (and only) nation to suffer under comprehensive sanctions, in which the UN controls virtually all of the exports and imports of a nation. The US, as the most powerful member of the UN Security Council, was instrumental in delaying or choking off imports of food, medicine, and other necessities. Again, estimates vary, but anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the economic sanctions. The mortality rate for children under five tripled between 1989 and 1997. From 1990 to 1995, the infant mortality rate doubled. Safe drinking water availability was down 50% from pre-Gulf War levels. Malaria and other diseases became epidemics. School enrollment for Iraqis from ages 6-23 dropped by 53%. While some of the statistics and numbers are subject to debate, what is indisputable is that the severe economic sanctions (spear-headed by the United States) resulted in suffering, misery and death for many innocent civilians, while Saddam Hussein, the target of America's wrath, continued to prosper.
It is worthwhile to note that while Iraqis were suffering under brutal economic sanctions driven by the US, Dick Cheney (a poster child for America's ruling Plutocracy) was the CEO of Halliburton Corporation (from 1995 to 2000), and was prospering nicely. When he left to become Vice President, they bestowed him with a parting gift of $34 million. The Washington Post reported that during Cheney's tenure as CEO, Halliburton sold $73 million worth of services and equipment to Iraq to rebuild its oil infrastructure. Cheney, a true capitalist, was not about to let Hussein?s enemy status stand in his way of making a profit.
The business of America WAS business?.now it is war
When Bush II assumed office in 2000, US leadership took its obsession with Hussein and Iraq to a new level. Surrounding himself with men like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, three Neocons who were veterans of the reign of Bush I, Bush crafted the "Bush Doctrine". Under the Bush Doctrine, the United States proclaimed its indisputable right to engage in pre-emptive war against those they deemed to be terrorists or rogue states, and asserted the US right to act unilaterally (without regard for international law or the UN). Two other aspects of this hubristic, bellicose, machismo-driven set of principles included the US intent to keep its "military strengths beyond challenge" and the US objective that it would actively seek to promote "democracy and freedom in all regions of the world". The members of America?s military industrial complex were elated. America was (and still is) the largest war machine in the history of humanity. To ice their cake, the profit hungry Capitalists now had publicly-stated policy that its government partners were going to ?unleash the beast? on the world. After seeing the "democracy and freedom" the US Oligarchy helped perpetuate in Iraq when Hussein was our ally (not to mention numerous similar examples in Latin America), do Americans really need to ask why many in the world hate us?
Lies and consequences?..
The weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had created with materials supplied by the US under the Reagan administration had been destroyed or rendered harmless under UN supervision by 1996. However, for over a year prior to the March, 2003 invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq, the Aristocracy governing America bombarded the ?commoners? with a stream of propaganda designed to prey on fears fostered by 9/11. With little to support their pathetically flimsy arguments that Saddam Hussein (their own creation and former ally) had somehow amassed a cache of WMDs after his disarmament in 1996, and that Hussein (a secular leader) had formed close ties with Osama bin Laden (a radical Muslim), they utilized the power of the herd mentality to gain popular support for the war they craved. Growing bodies of evidence, including the absence of WMDs in US-occupied Iraq, the findings of the 9/11 Commission, and the Downing Street Memos, indicate that the US Oligarchs lied to Congress and to the American people to garner support to launch their war (in defiance of the UN).
As of 8/4/05, 1,827 US soldiers had died in combat and 13,559 had been wounded. Estimates of civilian casualties caused by the US invasion vary from 25,000 to the 100,000 reported in the reputable British medical journal, The Lancet. Discrepancies aside, an obscene number of innocents have been slaughtered. Human Rights Watch notes that a significant number of the civilian casualties resulted from the decision of the US military to use cluster munitions in highly populated areas, a violation of international humanitarian laws of war. These laws oblige armed forces to "refrain from attacks that are indiscriminate or where expected civilian harm exceeds the military gain." America entered the war in defiance of the UN and riding on Congressional and public support based on the lies of the Bush Administration. Thousands and thousands of people have died. They have wasted billions of dollars. American leaders have defied international law by using cluster munitions and torturing prisoners of war. What was that question again? Why do they hate us?
Get on the gravy train??
Now that the military industrial complex has torn Iraqi infrastructure down, someone will need to rebuild it. Who could possibly be up to such a task? With an estimated price tag of over $100 billion to rebuild post-war Iraq, the Corporatacracy is lining up for the contracts. Bechtel was at the head of the line as they received a $680 million contract in April of 2003. As Dick Cheney continues to receive deferred compensation from Halliburton at the rate of $1 million per year, Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root secured a 10 year contract (with an open-ended budget) to provide support services to the US military starting in 2001, and is heavily exercising that contract in Iraq. The US government paid KBR $3.6 billion in 2003 and $5.4 billion in 2004 for Iraq-related work. As the number two US contractor in Iraq, Bechtel's war-related revenue was over $4 billion in 2004. Halliburton is under investigation for charges of over-billing to the tune of $1 billion, while Bechtel has been plagued by problems related to shoddy work. While flag waving propaganda may fool some Americans into believing the war in Iraq is "making the world safe for democracy", many in the rest of the world see the profit motive that has led to so much human suffering. I cannot imagine what could possibly motivate detestation of the Red, White, Blue, and Green(backs).
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