“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.
Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men… The people of Baghdad shall flourish under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws.”

British Lieutenant-general Stanley Maude, March 1917, in his “Proclamation to the People of the Wilayat of Baghdad” after entering Basra with his Anglo-Indian Army of the Tigres.

Although we are constantly bombarded by information, real understanding of the issues which we face requires a further look below the surface.

As I indicated last week, Bob Woodward’s recent book and the PBS Frontline special provides some depth into the evolution of US policy regarding Iraq. Providing further information on this subject is the article this week in Time magazine: “First Stop, Iraq”.

As with Woodward’s book and the Front Line documentary, this article also traces the evolution of thought and policy regarding the current war in Iraq to the First Gulf War.

I have found one site on the history of Iraq that seems to be relatively unbiased and up-to-date.

Of particular interest to me are events which have occurred beginning with the the fall of the Ottoman Empire during WWI. British forces were involved in fighting the German-allied Turks in Mesopotamia” and wound up occupying Baghdad in 1917. In 1920 the League of Nations placed Mesopotamia under British rule. The British Mandate eventually resulted in the borders that currently define Iraq, Kuwait, Jordon, etc.

Since 1920, there doesn’t seem to have been many significant periods in Iraqi history that we could describe as peaceful. Rather the country’s modern history seems to be defined through a series of coups, wars, and instability. Saddams participated in several of these coups but there were many others, particularly during the 60’s and 70’s.

In 1920, the League of Nations provided Britain with a Mandate to establish a “responsible” Arab government in the territory which is now Iraq according to a league-approved timetable. Clearly that effort failed.

Iraq’s turbulent history suggests that the current US/UK goal of fostering a democratic and peaceful post-Saddams Iraq may not be an easy nor readily-achievable task.

I just completed the book “Bush at War” by Bob Woodward. After having the book on request from the local library for several months, it finally became available with the foreboding due date of March 17.

The book, which was completed by Woodward last fall, details how the die was cast on September 12, 2001 for the current attack on Iraq and removal of Saddam.

Immediately after 9-11, some in the “war cabinet” were in favor of going after Iraq first, even before pursuing al Queda. However, it was determined that this sequence of events would result in the loss of the extensive coalition that stood with the U.S. immediately after the Towers fell. Therefore it was determined that Iraq would
be dealt with later, with the early acknowledgement that when the US did pursue this course that it would likely be with only one major ally: Britain.

The anatomy and evolution of our current defense policy are further delineated in the PBS Frontline documentary: “The Long Road to War” which was shown last night.

Paul Wolfowitz and other neo-conservatives drafted the policy of preemption rather than containment of the use of weapons of mass destruction in 1992.

George W. Bush was educated in this new paradigm by the neo-cons during his presidential campaign and many of these people became members of the Bush administration and/or advisors to the President after the 2000 election. (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol).

But the hawks were balanced by the diplomats like Colin Powell and the pre-emption paradigm did not gain traction until 9-11 when it almost instantly become policy.

The pre-emption policy, now the Bush Doctrine, was coded as official U.S. Policy in the document entitled the National Security Strategy (NSS) which was released on September 17, 2002.

The PBS Frontline website states:
“The document says that America will exploit its military and economic power to encourage “free and open societies.” It states for the first time that the U.S. will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged as it was during the Cold War. And the NSS insists that when America’s vital interests are at stake, it will act alone, if necessary.

Policy analysts note that there are many elements in the 2002 NSS document that bear a strong resemblance to recommendations presented in the controversial Defense Department document authored by Paul Wolfowitz back in 1992, under the first Bush administration.

The Woodward book and the Frontline documentary sure laid out for me the anatomy of America’s current policies and the tide of events and thinking that led us to March 17, 2003.

President Bush has called for a decade of additional research on global warming, but needs more time to decide which decade it will be, assistants to the president announced today. So far, 2060-2070 “looks nice,” said one insider, though other decades have not been ruled out. “We don’t want to pick just any old decade,” the source continued, perspiration beading on his forehead. “Finding just the right decade for this type of in-depth climate research might take as long as 10 years.”

Privately the White House expressed regret that the decade from 1790 to 1800 is past, and thus not able to be a part of their plans.