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after all these years…

Posted on Monday 17 March 2008


"If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavor … and it has been well worth the effort…I was last in Baghdad 10 months ago and I sense, as a result of the progress that has been made since then, phenomenal changes in terms of the overall situation." … "It would be a mistake now to be so eager to draw down the force that we risk putting the outcome in jeopardy, and I don’t think we’ll do that."  Dick Cheney March 17, 2008
By Fred Kaplan
Friday, Sept. 7, 2007

… Bremer is right about one thing: It wasn’t him. Though he wouldn’t be so self-demeaning as to admit it, he was a mere errand boy on this point. He arrived in Baghdad on May 14, 2003. The next day, he released CPA Order No. 1, barring members of the Baath Party from all but the lowliest government posts. The next day, he issued CPA Order No. 2, disbanding the Iraqi army. In his memoir, published last year, Bremer wrote that he was handed the orders—and told to announce them as soon as possible—by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. "We’ve got to show all the Iraqis that we’re serious about building a new Iraq," Feith reportedly told him. "And that means that Saddam’s instruments of repression have no role in that new nation."

Feith was a messenger, too, reporting directly to Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and ultimately to Secretary Rumsfeld. Did Rumsfeld write the order? Bob Woodward, in State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, quotes Rumsfeld as saying that the order came from elsewhere. Does that mean it came from the White House? My guess is it came from Vice President Dick Cheney, if only because his is one of the most leakproof offices in Washington. Had the order originated someplace else, that fact would have leaked by now. It’s like the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes story; unbarking dogs in this administration, especially at this late date of decrepitude, tend to be the hounds in Cheney’s kennel.

But where did Cheney get the idea? A good guess here is that it came from that familiar meddler of the era: the Iraqi exile, chief neocon guru, and suave banker-mathematician, Ahmad Chalabi…
In this article from September last year, Fred Kaplan mentions the big five monsters of the Iraq War within a few sentences. Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Chalabi. The first and last, Doug Feith and Amhad Chalabi have been neutralized. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld are still around, but out of any position of power. But Dick Cheney is still there, speaking in his deep voice, sounding like the mouthpiece for God. Of all of them that should be out of any position of authority, he’s the prime candidate. No decision that he’s been involved in has stood the test of time. While shutting down the Iraq Army was a colassal error, it was no worse than starting the war in the first place, or outing a C.I.A. Agent, or saying today "it has been well worth the effort" which is absurd by any parameter. I wonder if he knows how destructive he is? I doubt it. Paranoid people have a sense of rightness that transcends any trivial confrontation by reality.

At issue, Why did they disband the Iraq Army? I expect all five of them were well aware that having a strong military would interfere with their grand plans. For each, it was different. Wolfowitz and Feith might as well sit on the Israeli Cabinet, so their motives were likely Israeli Defense. Chalabi wanted to be king of Iraq and probably saw the Iraq army as an enemy of his ascendency to the throne. Rumsfeld is a dolt, who has followed Cheney from the early days when he used to be his boss under Nixon. And Cheney, CEO of Halliburton, was after oil for his corporate buddies. Even Halliburton is gone – moved to Dubai. So only Dick Cheney remains for 308 days to perpetuate and justify the biggest crime in America’s history.

It hasn’t been worth the effort, Mr. Cheney. Not even for you…

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