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“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

In The Iraq Inquiry I,  I discussed the chaotic shape Iraq has taken following the arrival of American troops, Bremer’s CPA and its two unstudied orders, and the inconsistencies of the American and British governments. This article broadens the analysis to examine the genesis of the armed resistance, disagreements between generals, and White House controversies in times of deceit.

Clash of the generals and birth of the insurgency

When the two orders that had forever changed Iraq were first published, General Tommy Franks, the Head of US Central Command, resigned. This decision was driven by countless attempts to convince Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his envoy Paul Bremer of the flaws of de-Baathification as well as the dismantling of the Iraqi army. Of the 140,000 American troops stationed in Baghdad, Francks had planned to send 110,000 back to the US leaving only one Corp (ca. 30,000 soldiers) in Iraq. The basis for this idea was the notion that there would be cooperation between the US and Iraqi armies and that the US could use the invaded nation’s army to better secure state structures due to its superior intel. That the country’s most important institution, its military, would be dismantled by the US seemed inconceivable to him. Returning troops to the USA was now no longer an option: the army was there to stay and the war would continue.  Franks’ Deputy, Gen. Michael DeLong, summarised the process as follows:

“All the recommendations that we were making weren’t being taken by Bremer or Rumsfeld. So that’s when Franks said, “I’m done.” They said, “Well, you can be chief of staff of the Army.” He said, “No, I’m done.”

Former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Street fighting erupted after the military was disbanded. Looting turned into violent confrontations. During the summer of 2003, one attack followed another and it was obvious that the primary targets were the US invaders. A car exploded on 7 August 2003 in front of the Jordanian embassy killing 11 people and wounding at least 65 in the deadliest attack since the start of the invasion. Just two weeks later, the Canal Hotel which served as the UN operations centre came under attack when a truck bomb exploded resulting in the deaths of 22 people, including top UN envoy Sergio Vieira De Mello. On 23 October, 5 police stations across Baghdad as well as a Red Cross centre were attacked leaving around 40 people dead. These are not the only attacks that happened during this period, but they are the ones I want to focus on. This is because they all have something in common: all of the targeted institutions were ones that in some way aided the invasion. The times of roses and petals were now gone, and the people were angry. On 3 July, George W. Bush stood in the lawn of the White House and addressed the multiple attacks on American soldiers in Iraq:

“There are some who feel like that, uh, if they attack us, that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don’t understand what they’re talkin’ about if that’s the case. . . Let me finish. Um, there are some who feel like, that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring ‘em on! We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.”

Not only was this a provocation to insurgents but it also fueled the fire of what would become an all-out insurgent campaign against American soldiers. Instead of concentrating on the identification of the terrorists behind the attacks, their financiers or their trainers, the US President seemed to endorse the fighting. It is especially not in times of deceit when such phoney and macho declarations should be shared. It does not differ much from a young adolescent screaming that his big brother will come do his fighting for him.

Abu Ghraib: not a prison to break

The main issue here is that back when the White House claimed that the orchestrators of these gruesome attacks were Saddam loyalists, they did not really know much about the insurgency. Where did these insurgents come from? What were their tactics? What kind of weapons did they have? And more importantly, how should we fight this insurgency? These were questions posed by Rumsfeld to his Lieutenant General, Ricardo Sanchez when he visited Iraq. Sanchez was the leader of all US forces in Iraq yet Rumsfeld was surprised that he had little to no intelligence about the enemy as the CIA’s main priority was to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction. America had strongly condemned Iraq for their supposed existence and built the case for the war on this false intelligence.

In order to collect data and information about the enemy, Rumsfeld proposed to re-open the Abu Ghraib prison, operational during the Saddam era. The prison would serve as an interrogation centre and prison for agitators and suspected terrorists. The campaign of mass arrests started, in search for answers on the rising insurgency.

Prison guards secure the main gate of the newly named Baghdad Central Prison in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib February 21, 2009. Mohammad Ameen/REUTERS

When General Aguba released the Aguba Report as ordered by his superior, Ricardo Sanchez, the world was shocked to see what had happened in this detention centre. It was as if Saddam had never left, if not worse. Aguba stated that: “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force”. When 60 Minutes released pictures and documentation of the inhumanity inmates at Abu Ghraib had experienced, Janis Karpinski was removed from her position as Commander of Iraqi Prisons by Sanchez. During the investigation Karpinski claimed that Abu Ghraib was better than many Iraqi homes, sarcastically claiming that she was more worried that inmates wouldn’t want to leave.

The invasion and all of the injustices that have not been fully uncovered has created a new generation of fanatics and extremists. Abu Ghraib is nothing but a by-product of the invasion and is arguably a contributing factor to today’s ISIS.

New Orders for Bremer

With the situation getting out of hand and countless scandals arising, Rumsfeld’s new strategy was to give Iraq back to the Iraqis as soon as possible. The best way to do this swiftly was to end the occupation and remove US troops from the country. Rumsfeld’s famous line at the time was:

“When are you going to wrap all this up?”

The plan was to hand sovereignty back to the Iraqis as soon as possible, the CPA therefore created a governing council. They chose people from different sects to represent the different perceived groups within society but Bremer, the man who had chosen the members, did not trust the group. He claims that he told Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that the governing council could not make any decisions but Wolfowitz’s only response was that it was time for them to get out of there. Wolfie, known as the architect of the invasion, had understood that it was time to leave, preferring to transition power to the incompetent rather than be associated with the largest military failure in modern history.

On December 13th 2003, Saddam was arrested. Many people thought that this would calm the insurgency down, yet things didn’t go as expected. Four months later, a group of American contractors from the private military company Blackwater USA, were ambushed and attacked. The four men were murdered, dragged and hung from a bridge in Fallujah. Enraged, the president ordered marines to retaliate, leading to the destruction of Fallujah and the creation of a war zone. The battle in Fallujah was one of the most violent since Vietnam, with many innocent civilians losing their lives in the process. Mosques and hospitals were targeted as insurgents hid inside. The military victory did not automatically reflect a political achievement. Quite the contrary, the Iraqi governing council lost legitimacy for allowing such a massacre and the US army’s image further deteriorated in the eyes of the Iraqi population.

One year after his arrival in Iraq, Bremer was dismissed. It was under his leadership that Iraq has seen the deterioration of the state. But enough fingers have been pointed at that man and it is time to focus on the superiors of the presidential envoy: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice-President Dick Cheney, US President George W. Bush, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had not only endorsed the invasion of Iraq based on false intelligence but also extended the lie of countering an insurgency (which will be discussed in the final part of The Iraq Inquiry series). The US claimed it wanted to spread democracy and establish a representative democracy in Iraq yet was unable to unite factions and had no cultural sensitivity to the position of the Sunni minority who feared a vendetta by the Shia majority which was heavily oppressed under Saddam. The invaders have proved themselves incapable of managing the international situation, as pressures mount on finding nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the controversies of treating prisoners and inmates in the same exact way Saddam treated them, if not worse. The invader is no longer here to help build the nation as it promised, the invaded thinks. It is here to oppress us and we will make sure to make their stay a nightmare and humiliate them on the day they leave.

We have covered the first year of the eight-year invasion. Quoting “Early Days in Iraq: Decisions of the CPA” a book written by Bremer, and two senior RAND executives: Iraq provides an object lesson in the costs and consequences of unprepared reconstruction. And for the first time, I actually agree with Bremer. He was unprepared and so was the intelligence body and the executive branch of the state.

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