Author: David Krieger

There are always lessons to be learned after a war. Often governments and pundits focus only on lessons having to do with military strategies and tactics, such as troop deployments, engagement in battles, bombing targets and the effectiveness of different weapons systems. There are, of course, far bigger lessons to be learned, and here are some of the principal ones from the Iraq War.

1. In the eyes of the Bush administration, the relevance of international organizations such as the United Nations depends primarily upon their willingness to rubberstamp US policy, legal or illegal, moral or immoral.

2. The Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War may be employed against threats that have no basis in fact.

3. The American people appear to take little notice of the “bait and switch” tactic of initiating a war to prevent use of weapons of mass destruction and then celebrating regime change when no such weapons are found.

4. A country that spends $400 billion a year on its military, providing them with the latest in high-tech weaponry, can achieve clear military victory over a country that spends 1/400th of that amount and possesses virtually no high-tech weaponry.

5. Embedding journalists with troops leads to reporters providing only perspectives sanctioned by the military in their reports to the public. It is analogous to the imprinting of ducklings.

6. The American people can be easily manipulated, with the help of both embedded and non-embedded media, to support an illegal war.

7. An imperial presidency does not require Congress to exercise its Constitutional authority to declare war; it requires only a compliant Congress to provide increasingly large sums of money for foreign wars.

8. It is far easier to destroy a dictatorial regime by military might than it is to rebuild a country as a functioning democracy.

9. If other countries wish to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, they better develop strong arsenals of weapons of mass destruction for protection against potential US aggression.

10. In all wars it is the innocent who suffer most. Thus, Saddam Hussein remains unaccounted for and George Bush stages a jet flight to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, while Ali Ismaeel Abbas lies in a hospital bed without his parents and brother, who were killed in a US attack, and without his arms.

The most important lessons of the Iraq War may be as yet unrevealed, but there is a sense that American unilateralism is likely to continue to alienate important allies, while the triumphalism of the Bush administration is likely to taunt terrorists, making them more numerous and tenacious in their commitment to violent retaliation.
*David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).
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I must however caution you on any suggestion that Iraq didn’t have WMD. I’m 100% confident they will eventually be found….even if they have to be planted by US special opps. Personally, from all I’ve read and followed prior to 9-11 and Iraq war I have no doubt that Saddam was developing biological weapons throughout the 90’s. When you suggest Iraq didn’t or doesn’t have them you risk losing credibility. You got too many other important and accurate points to make. I’d hate to think others will discredit you or your ideas because of one factual error.

Chuck, Washingotn DC

Author’s Reply: I appreciate your comments and concern. The administration did seem fairly certain before the war that they could identify where the weapons were, which has proven to be bogus. If the US were to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq I don’t think that should be discrediting. Best regards. David
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I think there will be an 11th lesson: that in an era of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of non-governmental militias like al Qaeda and many others, there is no deterence nor is there any defense against them without addressing them respectfully to negotiate a cease-fire, like the UK did with the IRA. To learn this lesson, I fear the U.S. public will require losses orders of magnitude larger than 9-11 . . . likely what Japan or Germany had to endure during WWII . . . unless there is another way for the public to learn that we just increased, in the attack on Iraq, the likelihood of nuclear/radiological attacks against U.S. cities. Any ideas? (I’m looking but don’t know any.)

Kelly, USA
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I found your Ten Lessons of the War quite apt. However, I think item #4 is a bit ambiguous. The experience of the Vietnam war suggests that while it is true, as you write, that “a country that spends $400 billion a year on its military, providing them with the latest in high-tech weaponry, CAN achieve clear military victory over a country that spends 1/400th of that amount and possesses virtually no high-tech weaponry,” victory is not necessarily a foregone conclusion!

Walter, USA

Author’s Reply: You are right. I wonder, though, whether the high-tech weaponry of today along with strategies of “decapitation” might not have changed the conditions of the Vietnam War. I’m not sure. I was surprised, though, by how quickly the Iraqis capitulated.

Ali is 12 years old. He is in Kindi hospital in Baghdad with both of his arms blown off by a missile. His mother, father and brother were killed in the attack. His mother was five months pregnant. Ali asks the reporter from Reuters, “Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands?” It is heartbreaking.

The reporter for Reuters, Samia Nakhoul writes, “Abbas’ suffering offered one snapshot of the daily horrors afflicting Iraqi civilians in the devastating U.S.-led war to remove President Saddam Hussein.”

Or, take this report which appeared in The Guardian in London: “Unedited TV footage from Babylon Hospital, which was seen by the Guardian, showed the tiny corpse of a baby wrapped up like a doll in a funeral shroud and carried out of the morgue on a pink pallet. It was laid face-to-face on the pavement against the body of a boy, who looked about 10.”

The report continued, “Horrifically injured bodies were heaped into pick-up trucks, and were swarmed by relatives of the dead, who accompanied them for burial. Bed after bed of injured women and children were pictured along with large pools of blood on the floor of the hospital.”

At the hospital, a stunned man said repeatedly, “God take our revenge on America.”

But on American television we see none of this. The newscasters chatter endlessly about strategy and victory, and engage in inane ponderings about whether Saddam is dead or alive. Their human-interest stories are about American or “coalition” casualties. There is virtually nothing about the victims of the war, including children like Ali.

We need a new way of understanding war, in terms of children, not strategy. We need to understand war in terms of its costs to humanity rather than in terms of victory alone.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have our newscasters talking to pediatricians as well as political pundits, to professors of international law in addition to retired military officers? Wouldn’t it be meaningful to have reporters speaking to us from Baghdad’s hospitals as well as from their positions embedded with our military forces?

Ali Ismaeel Abbas told the reporter who visited him, “We didn’t want war. I was scared of this war. Our house was just a poor shack. Why did they want to bomb us?”

Lying in his hospital bed, Ali told the reporter, “If I don’t get a pair of hands I will commit suicide.” Tears ran down his cheeks.

The next time you hear our newscasters, our political leaders or our pundits celebrating our “victory,” think about 12 year old Ali in his hospital bed. He is only one of potentially thousands of children who have paid the price in life, limb and loss of parents in what Dick Cheney calls “one of the most extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted.”
* David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time (Capra Press, 2003), and author of Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway Press, 2002).
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How easy it is to detach oneself from all this horror even for us who are in the peace movement, how easy to go to bed and forget. and yet I force myself to read over and over again about this little boy who lost both his arms, and I think of my own boy who runs and plays without a care. What is there that makes this world so full of mean spirited men like Bush and the deplorable Powell and company? I know that hate is not a good feeling but when I read this I hate until it makes me sick.

Grace, USA

At the risk of seeming like a sentimental slob (when the scope of this tragedy is so wide and so deep)—is there any way we could get some medical and financial help to this unfortunate child? (and be sure it gets to him?) i know nothing we do can undo what Rumsfeld et al have done to him and countless others, but i feel we should make a real effort to reach out to the victims, not just en masse, but individually, so they know that we do not share the lack of values that characterizes our leaders. thanks for your wonderful piece.

Daniel, USA

“Day by day we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day we are moving closer to victory.”

–George W. Bush, March 31, 2003
With these words, Mr. Bush sought to reassure the American people that his war plan is working, moving us closer to “victory.” As the United States continues its heavy and unrelenting bombing of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, inflicting death and suffering on the Iraqi people who we are supposedly liberating, we would do well to explore the meaning of victory. Thus far, few journalists, at least in the corporate mainstream US media, appear ready to do so. Those concerned with the path the war is taking might have added the following observations to Bush’s statement.

Day by day we are killing more Iraqi civilians. One day US forces bomb a marketplace, killing 62 civilians. Another day a car carrying women and children is fired on by US troops, killing seven. An Iraqi mother describes watching her young children’s heads severed from their bodies. According to news reports, some 500 to 700 Iraqi civilians have died thus far, and many more Iraqi soldiers have been slaughtered.

Day by day the “untold sorrow” mounts. One Iraqi man, whose family was killed by US bombing, cries out in pain, “God take our revenge on America!”

Day by day more of our young soldiers are dying and being maimed in battle and military accidents. Between US and British troops, more than 60 coalition soldiers are dead. Is this our victory, killing more of “them” than they kill of “us”?

Day by day we are spending more of our wealth on instruments of war as we relentlessly bombard Iraqi cities. Bush has asked for supplementary budget approval of $75 billion as a down payment on this war. This is in addition to the $400 billion already allocated for our military forces.

Day by day we are destroying more of the infrastructure of Iraqi cities that we are already allowing US companies to bid on to rebuild. Perhaps we should return to less deadly ways of transferring taxpayer wealth to favored corporations.

Day by day we are becoming more hated in the Middle East. Middle Eastern newspapers are printing these headlines, “Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad” (Jordan), “Dreadful massacre in Baghdad” (Egypt), and “Yet another massacre by the coalition of invaders” (Saudi Arabia). Egyptian novelist Ezzat El Kamhawy writes, “This war is affecting civilians primarily. I did not expect to see civilians bombed and I feel exceedingly angry.” Throughout the Middle East, the people don’t seem to be celebrating our presence or our war, let alone our “victory.”

Day by day we are creating more terrorists intent upon attacking the US and American citizens. “When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences,” says Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek. “Instead of having one [Osama] bin Laden, we will have 100 bin Ladens.” Does this fit with Mr. Bush’s concept of “victory”?

Day by day we are seeing the arrogance of the rush to war by the Bush administration. We have yet to see the Iraqis surrendering in large numbers and greeting the Americans as “liberators,” as the administration boldly claimed would happen. Perhaps Mr. Bush, so focused on victory and so lacking in historical perspective, has forgotten the US experience in Vietnam and the potency of nationalism in the defense of one’s country from outside invaders.

Day by day the Bush administration is continuing to alienate most of our key allies. The members of the “coalition of the willing” that have actually provided troops in Iraq consist of only the UK, Australia, Poland and Albania in addition to the US. Not even the three countries whose leaders have vocally supported the war–Spain, Italy and Bulgaria–are providing military support.

Day by day polls throughout the world are showing overwhelming opposition to the US invasion of Iraq, even in most of those countries where the governments are nominally supporting the US.

Day by day we are watching the erosion of our constitutional system of government. Congress has shirked its constitutional responsibility to declare war, and it seems poised to give the president all the funds he is requesting for his war.

Day by day, laws pressed by the Bush administration, such as the misnamed USA Patriot Act and planned supplements to this legislation, are undermining our Bill of Rights.

Day by day Americans are being misled by our mainstream corporate media, which seems comfortable acting as cheerleaders for the war. When veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett said on Iraqi television what he took to be the obvious truth, that the US timetable was falling by the wayside in Iraq, he was summarily fired by NBC.

Day by day Americans are expressing their support, but also their ignorance about the war. The polls inform us that 72 percent of Americans support the war, but at the same time 51 percent of Americans believe that Iraq attacked the World Trade Center, which is not true. Sixty-five percent of Americans cannot find Iraq on a map.

Day by day we are ignoring other serious problems in the world, including the dangerous potential for war on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of North Korea’s further nuclear proliferation. The Bush administration ignores North Korea’s pleas for negotiations with the US and its constructive proposals for a mutual security treaty.

Day by day we are using nuclear-tipped shells in this war to attack tanks and other armored vehicles. The “depleted uranium” in these munitions is transformed into fine dust particles upon impact, and the inhalation of these particles is thought to be responsible for the “Gulf War Syndrome” that has afflicted so many of our troops from the first Gulf War in 1991.

Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon’s depleted uranium project, has argued, “There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction – yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves. Such double standards are repellent.”

Day by day we are moving closer to using nuclear weapons, the real ones. The Bush administration has promulgated a doctrine of reserving “the right to respond with overwhelming force – including through resort to all of our options – to the use of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” The reference to “all of our options” is meant to obliquely send the message that nuclear weapons use is an option.

We don’t know whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but we have no reason to believe that they would not use chemical or biological weapons as a last resort if they did. And we have no reason to believe that the Bush junta would not follow through on their threats to use “all of our options,” including nuclear weapons.

Day by day the US economy is faltering. Since Bush came to office, the US has moved from large budget surpluses to large budget deficits. The stock markets have followed one major trend, downward, and the war seems to be exacerbating this trend.

Day by day funding is being cut for education, health care, head start programs and other important social programs so that we can pay for war. In 2001, 41.2 million Americans had no health insurance. There has been a 43 percent rise in unemployment since Bush took office. Pell grants, which have funded college educations particularly for worthy minority students, are being cut back from covering 84 percent of the costs to 42 percent of the costs. While important social programs are being cut back or eliminated, Bush is pressing for a $700 billion tax break for the wealthiest Americans.

Day by day the Bush administration is failing America’s veterans. The House of Representatives recently voted approval of a 2004 budget that will cut $25 billion over ten years from veteran’s health care and benefit programs. This came just one day after Congress voted overwhelmingly to “support our troops.”

Day by day the most respected moral leaders in the world are speaking out against a war they find to be immoral and lacking in legitimacy. These leaders include The Pope, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

The Pope has repeatedly insisted that a preventive war has no legal or moral justification, and has called the war “a defeat for humanity.” Nelson Mandela has called Bush’s actions in Iraq “a tragedy.” “What I am condemning,” Mandela said, “is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”

As if to underline Mandela’s insights about him, Bush, according to Time magazine, told three US Senators as far back as March 2002, “F–k Saddam. We’re taking him out.”

As we race toward the “victory” that Mr. Bush seems so confident will be achieved, what are the consequences likely to be?

— There will be greater instability in the Middle East as the US attempts to occupy Iraq.

— The US will be roundly hated in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world.

— Terrorism against the US will increase, including terrorism in the US.

— Our guaranteed freedoms in the US Bill of Rights will continue to be reduced.

— The US economy will be in shambles, with few social programs left intact.

— US alliances of long duration will be difficult, if not impossible, to rebuild.

— The likelihood of nuclear weapons proliferation and use will increase.

Former US marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has doubts about Bush’s “victory”: “We find ourselves…facing a nation of 23 million, with armed elements numbering around seven million – who are concentrated at urban areas. We will not win this fight. America will lose this war.”

But Mr. Bush tells us, “Day by day we are moving closer to victory.” General Tommy Franks, the commander of the US war effort, tells us, “The outcome is not in doubt.” In all likelihood, however, it will not be the outcome that Mr. Bush and his administration are anticipating, but one far worse for all of us. It is past time for the American people to wake up to the meaning of “victory.”
* David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway Press, 2002) and editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003).