During 2000, Lindauer began her efforts to cultivate Iraqi contacts for better relations with the U.S. She described an extraordinary opportunity that might have changed the entire direction of U.S. - Iraq relations. As the secular dictator of an Arab state, Hussein was not fond of Islamic terrorists. Lindauer reported to her U.S. contacts that the Iraq government would welcome an F.B.I. taskforce into Baghdad. She reported further, that “The F.B.I. would be able to interview witnesses and make arrests.” Further, she says that:
Iraq also offered banking records and proof of financial transfers that would prove Middle Eastern involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing and the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
The program met with a frosty reception from the newly installed Bush administration. Lindauer said, “I was told that the new administration was evaluating its position on Iraq, in light of collapsing international support for sanctions.” There was no action on the plan. In fact, based on what we know now, improved relations with Iraq were not on the agenda from the beginning of the Bush-Cheney era.
This leads to the second phase of her activities regarding Iraq, the events that ended with Lindauer’s arrest, indictment, and incarceration at FMC Carswell, Ft. Worth, Texas.
Cassandra
A year before the invasion, in March 2002, Lindauer took a trip to Iraq to meet with government officials. She smiled broadly as she affirmed the value of that mission: “It would be regrettable if the US government lied about its knowledge of this trip.” She paused and smiled again, “We can prove their total awareness.”
Lindauer sent 11 letters to Card staring in 2001 leading her to pose this question: “If he wanted to discourage me to stop talking to the Iraqis, all he had to do was say so.”
In the final letter sent to Card, Lindauer delivered her accurate prediction of the results of the invasion she worked to avoid – a disaster in Iraq fueling resistance groups hostile to the U.S. along with a revival of al Qaeda.
She accurately estimated the true value of the exile groups cultivated by the Bush administration and, in the case of Ahmed Chalabi, used almost exclusively by New York Times writer Judith Miller as the basis for her discredited claims in New York Times that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Once U.S. bombing starts, the Iraqi exiles will have no credibility as leaders. None whatsoever. They will be hated as pawns of the United States, and my God, let me tell you Arabs can hate. A U.S. victory will never be sweet for long. Lindauer letter to Card, January 6, 2003*
She argued passionately, with dramatic emphasis, that there was a deep well of hostility towards the U.S. as a result of deaths caused by U.S. supported U.N. sanctions from 1990 through March 22, 2003. This is a story not well covered in the U.S. press but one with palpable results for the people of Iraq.
That hatred has kindled deeply because of the sanctions, Andy. Sanctions have killed 1.7 million human beings, including almost one million little children. Stop and think. What would an American father do to the man who killed three of his children, once that father could finally lay hands on the aggressor? Would he throw candy in the streets? No, he’d beat him to death and stab him 100 times until his arms were sore. And then he’d look for the next man, stalking until the right moment. In Baghdad, I met a man who lost 8 members of his immediate family in one year. That’s right, eight dead in ONE year. Multiply that by 20 million people.” Lindauer letter to Card, January 6, 2003*
While the Department of Justice questions Lindauer’s role as a cooperator with U.S. Intelligence and a question was raised about her ability to “influence anybody,” there can be little doubt about her analysis and predictions concerning post-war Iraq. Just in this final letter, she nailed down the myth of the exiles and their role in building a new Iraq, the extreme hostility of Iraqis toward the U.S. presence and personnel, and the resurrection of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Whatever her sources and inspiration, Susan Lindauer is truly an American Cassandra.
* Susan Lindauer’s last letter to Andrew Card, January 6, 2003
Special thanks to Jeff Tiedrich, Publisher, SmirkingChimp.Com, for enabling the contact with Susan Lindauer. MC
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