Why Iraq Matters

Also published in https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-iraq-matters-scot-faulkner?trk=prof-post




Why is Iraq relevant? Specifically, why is the decision to fight the second Iraq War relevant to the 2016 Presidential election?


It is about more than just having another Bush running for President.  Ramadi falls, Iraqi military units flee before ISIS, and Iran extends its reach in the region. What a Republican President did back in 2003 has become a crucible on which the next generation of Republican leaders and their advisors must be tested.


The Second Iraq War is relevant because the senior policy advisors who embraced pre-emptive war and led America and the Middle East over a cliff are still around and serving in the inner circles of Jeb Bush and most other Republican Presidential candidates.


This generation of inept, incompetent, policy players did everything except slink away in shame.  They landed high paying and prestigious jobs in think tanks, lobby firms, and corporate boards.  They are the talking heads who kibitz on cable news and write columns second guessing everyone but themselves.  It is the old Washington game of unaccountable power – as long as you make the right friends and go to the right cocktail parties your actual track record is irrelevant.


For America to move forward in the Middle East it must demand that Republican candidates rid themselves of those who ignored intelligence, cherry-picked facts, were oblivious to a millennia of history & culture, bungled the war, bungled the occupation, were complicit in crony capitalist scams that steered nearly a trillion dollars through questionable sole source contracts, dismissed blatant corruption, embraced the wrong factions, and refused to make amends or apologize for what they did.


In early 2003, Bush advisors met with foreign policy experts who served Ronald Reagan.  The strategists who brought down the Soviet Empire unanimously opposed Bush’s plan to invade Iraq.  They listed dozens of reasons.  They correctly reminded the Bush team that Iraq had served as the counter-balance to Iranian aspirations since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.  Taking out Saddam Hussein, especially without a clear alternative, would leave chaos and a vacuum.  This would open the door for Iran to challenge Sunni hegemony in the region and lead to a sectarian conflict that would devastate the region.  The Bush team scoffed.


Why was the Bush team so fixated on going back into Iraq no matter the facts or the consequences? The story lies deep within a sequence of largely unreported events that put America and the region on a path to our current predicament.


At 4:00 a.m. “Saudi time” on Sunday, February 24, 1991 the U.S. launched a brilliantly designed and executed ground war into Iraq as part of “Desert Storm”. This end run around Iraqi forces in Kuwait (Operation Deep Strike) stands along side Austerlitz and Chancellorsville as one of the great battle maneuvers in history.


Only a handful of military and intelligence officials admit to what happened next. Several of them have confirmed these details to me and they are verified on a few websites.


Desert Storm’s original plan was to completely encircle and destroy the Iraqi Republican Guard units defending Basra [ http://www.hoskinson.net/gulfwar/dstorm13.html ].


On Tuesday, February 26, at 7:00 p.m. “Saudi time” the final armored units required for this encirclement entered Iraq and sped toward Basra. At that same time U.S. air strikes were obliterating retreating Iraqi forces along Route 80 near the town Al Jahra. These strikes destroyed 1,400 vehicles and killed thousands of Iraqi soldiers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death ].


As Wednesday February 27 dawned, CNN and other news organizations ran extensive video of the Route 80 carnage, now christened the “Highway of Death”. Some reporters and commentators began to question whether the “Highway of Death” was a gratuitous killing spree. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was disturbed by the “shooting gallery” scenes and by the negative turn of news coverage. He shared his concern with President Bush and key White House advisors.


Debates raged in the White House about finishing the job of encircling the Republican Guard at Basra or “cutting losses” regarding negative media coverage. One staffer suggested that a compromise might be to end the ground war the next day (Thursday, February 28) at noon “Saudi time” as that would be exactly the 100-hour mark. This was immediately embraced as a “great number for the history books”. At 9:00 EST that evening a cease fire was announced to take effect nine hours later (4:00 a.m. EST or noon “Saudi time”).


Ground commanders, including Desert Storm commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, were shocked at the news. Lead armor units were less than 20 miles from completing their encirclement of the Republic Guards near Basra. The cease fire halted their advance leaving a strategic gap through which the Guard units resupplied and reformed under the U.S guns. A provisional ceasefire was formally signed three days later on March 3, 1991.


Unfortunately, this provisional ceasefire allowed the Iraqi military immediate use of their airspace and required U.S. forces to begin their withdrawal from Iraqi territory. [http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/ghosts-of-1991.html ]


Then matters got worse. On February 15, 1991, President George H. W. Bush issued statements calling on the Iraqi people to overthrow President Saddam Hussein. It was hoped that Iraqi generals and key Sunni leaders would use the war as their opportunity for an uprising.


On March 3, 1991, the same day as a provisional ceasefire was signed, uprisings did occur, but among the Kurds in the north of Iraq, and the Shiites in the south. Bush officials were concerned that the Kurdish uprising might ignite Turkish fears of a greater Kurdistan and the Shiite uprising might trigger Iranian intervention. U.S. officials decided the best policy was to stand by and watch as Iraq brutally suppressed both revolts, killing over 100,000 civilians. Iraqi armored units and supply convoys moved with impunity while Iraqi helicopters flew by U.S. forces on their way to strafe rebelling Shiites.


Bush officials were concerned that the Kurdish uprising might ignite Turkish fears of a greater Kurdistan and the Shiite uprising might trigger Iranian intervention. U.S. officials decided the best policy was to stand by and watch as Iraq brutally suppressed both revolts, killing over 100,000 civilians. Iraqi armored units and supply convoys moved with impunity while Iraqi helicopters flew by U.S. forces on their way to strafe rebelling Shiites.


Many myths arose from the 1991 war including the “big lie” that we considered taking Baghdad. This masks the disastrous decision to arbitrarily end the war and allow the Republican Guard units to be resupplied and reform under U.S. guns. It masks the inane provisional ceasefire that prematurely reopened Iraqi airspace for military operations. And it masks the miscues of the Bush administration encouraging revolt only to watch thousands of civilians get slaughtered


When George W. Bush, entered the White House, many in his inner circle, including Vice President Cheney, wanted a “do over”. Their priority was to find an excuse, any excuse, to finish off Saddam. The attacks on 9-11 gave them the pretext for a return to Iraq.


Americans need to remember these events as Republican candidates grapple with questions about the second Iraq War.


We must remember history and vow to learn from

The Real Reason we are in Iraq

Why did the U.S. invade Iraq if September 11, 2001 was led by Saudi Bin Laden, planes were hijacked by Saudis, and Saudi Wahhabism inspired the terrorism?

March 19 marks the five-year anniversary of America being in Iraq. It has also been just over seventeen years since a sequence of largely unreported events put us on a path to our current predicament.

At 4:00 a.m. “Saudi time” on Sunday, February 24, 1991 the U.S. launched a brilliantly designed and executed ground war into Iraq as part of “Desert Storm”. This end run around Iraqi forces in Kuwait (Operation Deep Strike) stands along side Austerlitz and Chancellorsville as one of the great battle maneuvers in history.

Only a handful of military and intelligence officials admit to what happened next. Several of them have confirmed these details to me and they are verified on a few websites.

Desert Storm’s original plan was to completely encircle and destroy the Iraqi Republican Guard units defending Basra [ http://www.hoskinson.net/gulfwar/dstorm13.html ]. On Tuesday, February 26, at 7:00 p.m. “Saudi time” the final armored units required for this encirclement entered Iraq and sped toward Basra. At that same time U.S. air strikes were obliterating retreating Iraqi forces along Route 80 near the town Al Jahra. These strikes destroyed 1,400 vehicles and killed thousands of Iraqi soldiers [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death ].

As Wednesday, February 27, dawned CNN and other news organizations ran extensive video of the Route 80 carnage quickly renamed the “Highway of Death”. Some reporters and commentators began to question whether the “Highway of Death” was a gratuitous killing spree. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was disturbed by the “shooting gallery” scenes and by the negative turn of news coverage. He shared his concern with President Bush and key White House advisors.

Debates raged in the White House about finishing the job of encircling the Republican Guard at Basra and “cutting losses” regarding negative media coverage. One staffer suggested that a compromise might be to end the ground war the next day (Thursday, February 28) at noon “Saudi time” as that would be exactly the 100-hour mark. This was immediately embraced as a “great number for the history books”. At 9:00 EST that evening a cease fire was announced to take effect nine hours later (4:00 a.m. EST or noon “Saudi time”).

Ground commanders, including Desert Storm commander General Norman Schwarzkopf , were shocked at the news. Lead armor units were less than 20 miles from completing their encirclement of the Republic Guards near Basra. The cease fire halted their advance leaving a strategic gap through which the Guard units resupplied and reformed under the U.S guns. A provisional ceasefire was formally signed three days later on March 3, 1991.

Unfortunately, this provisional ceasefire allowed the Iraqi military immediate use of their airspace and required U.S. forces to begin their withdrawal from Iraqi territory. [ http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/ghosts-of-1991.html ]

Then matters got worse. On February 15, 1991, President George H. W. Bush issued statements calling on the Iraqi people to overthrow President Saddam Hussein. It was hoped that Iraqi generals and key Sunni leaders would use the war as their opportunity for an uprising. On March 3, 1991, the same day as a provisional ceasefire was signed, uprisings did occur, but among the Kurds in the north of Iraq, and the Shiites in the south.

Bush officials were concerned that the Kurdish uprising might ignite Turkish fears of a greater Kurdistan and the Shiite uprising might trigger Iranian intervention. U.S. officials decided the best policy was to stand by and watch as Iraq brutally suppressed both revolts, killing over 100,000 civilians. Iraqi armored units and supply convoys moved with impunity while Iraqi helicopters flew by U.S. forces on their way to strafe rebelling Shiites.

We need to remember these events as we mark the fifth anniversary of the current Iraq war. Many myths arose from the 1991 war including the “big lie” that we considered taking Baghdad. This masks the disastrous decision to arbitrarily end the war and allow the Republican Guard units to be resupplied and reform under U.S. guns. It masks the insane provisional ceasefire that prematurely reopened Iraqi airspace for military operations. And it masks the miscues of the Bush administration encouraging revolt only to watch thousands of civilians get slaughtered.

When we ponder why the current administration is so obsessed with Iraq, realize that it may have something to do with Bush 43 and Vice President Cheney (who was Secretary of Defense during Desert Storm) wanting to correct the mistakes of Bush 41. We are all paying the price for the mistakes of 1991 and may for many more years to come. 

The 9-11 attacks, along with the earlier support against the Soviets in Afghanistan, was part of Bin Laden’s goal to lure infidel governments into “long wars of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender”. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the infidels, by "bleeding" them dry.  Bin Laden outlined his strategy of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy" in a 2004 tape released through Al Jazeera.

Unfortunately, Bin Laden’s strategy worked.  His attacks on September 11, 2001 pulled America into two endless wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) that have cost $6.4 trillion dollars, 14,681 killed, and 52,272 wounded. 

A Hundred Years in Iraq

On Thursday, January 3, Senator John McCain admitted that he would not be surprised if America remained in Iraq “for a hundred years”. He defended his statement on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, January 6. In both cases, McCain cited South Korea and Europe where U.S. forces are posted decades after hostilities ended.

It would be more instructive had Senator McCain reached further back to a more applicable precedent – the Philippines.

In 1898, President William McKinley used questionable intelligence about the sinking of the Battleship Maine to go to war with Spain. Linking Spain and its colonies to what later proved an accidental coal dust explosion in a ship moored in Havana, Cuba is very much like the arguments linking Iraq to 9-11 and Al-Qaeda.

Just like with the Iraq War, President McKinley’s military advisors secretly prepared for war long before formal Congressional approval. A declaration of war against Spain was passed on April 19, 1898, and Admiral George Dewey attacked Manila Bay on April 30. Just like Iraq, superior U.S. technology and planning quickly bested the foe and conventional warfare soon ended.

Just like in Iraq, the U.S. assumed that they would be welcomed as liberators as they were ending centuries of brutal Spanish colonial rule. The U.S. even transported Philippine independence leader Emilio Aguinaldo from his exile in China to help rally local forces against the Spanish. However, relations soon turned sour as Aguinaldo and his independence forces wanted immediate self-rule, not an interim U.S. occupation.

Instead of “mission accomplished” the U.S. found itself fighting insurgents for four years. The capture of Aguinaldo on March 9, 1901 did not end the struggle as other leaders emerged. In fact, even though the U.S. declared a formal end to the “Philippine-American War” on July 2, 1902, various insurgent groups sporadically arose to fight Americans until 1913. There were nearly 7,000 American military casualties. Over 20,000 insurgents were killed along with 200,000-1.5 millian Philippine civilians. U.S. forces caused the deaths of more Filipinos in fifteen years of fighting than the Spanish had during their 300 years of colonial rule.

The U.S. remained a major presence in the Philippines governing it first like a territory and then as a commonwealth until driven out by the Japanese in 1942. Once U.S. forces defeated Imperial Japan policy shifted to promoting independence. The first free elections in a fully independent Philippines were held in April 1946, forty-eight years after the U.S. invaded the country.

The U.S. continued to maintain major military bases in the Philippines, including the Subic Bay naval base. The eruption of the Mount Pinatubo on April 2, 1991 buried much of the naval base and led to the U.S. ceding its last military outpost to the Philippines’ government in December 1992, ninety-four years after the U.S. invaded the country.

It is somewhat ironic that McKinley is President George W. Bush’s and Karl Rove’s favorite President. It is unfortunate that they decided to re-enact his Philippine venture in Iraq. Also, there are no volcanos in Iraq to help us close-out our presence in the year 2103. At least not geological ones…

Building a Better Budget

This was published in The Washington Times

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/feb/5/20070205-101459-5025r/

Every American is affected by the federal budget, but only a chosen few can do anything about it. As Congress and the administration begin their yearly struggle over spending, it is time to explore new ways to build a better budget.

Government remains the most inefficient method of addressing public problems. My 30-plus years reviewing and administering federal spending have shown American taxpayers receive an average of 24 cents of tangible value out of every public dollar spent. That means 76 percent of federal funds disappear into inefficient and ineffective operations, inflated overhead costs, poor administration, questionable procurements, and an array of fraud and abuse.

The exposure of the mind-boggling wastes of public funds in rebuilding New Orleans and Iraq are mere tips of the iceberg of what really happens with our tax dollars. The main beneficiaries of this 76 percent are unaccountable officials, lobbyists and contractors. Politicians also benefit by issuing news releases showing how much more money is being spent to address a particular issue. These same politicians rarely follow up to see if the money has actually done any good.

The first step in making government more efficient and accountable is giving everyone timely and meaningful information on the federal budget. While some small incremental steps have been taken in this direction, they all suffer from after-the-fact reporting procedures that allow public officials to still game the system. Real reform means anyone could search and review the entire federal budget. Real reform means an accounting system for the federal government that is up to private sector standards, including automatic data capture of all transactions and the real time, or monthly, display of those transactions in meaningful and understandable formats. No more funny money, accounting games and hidden boondoggles.

Such a system is possible, but the governing elite of Washington refuses to do it. Think of what would happen if everyone became his own Government Accountability Office (GAO). Conservatives would pore over welfare and regulatory spending. Liberals would pore over defense spending. The media, the blogs and the Congress would unleash millions of citizen “deputy sheriffs,” auditors and investigative reporters demanding the enforcement of legislative mandates and exposing waste, fraud and abuse. There would be a revolution in the way government operated, as everyone would be able to find out and expose how public funds are squandered with impunity.

The American people should also have the right to fully participate in the budget process in a meaningful way. This means more than just writing their Members and watching lobbyists swarm the Appropriations Committees. It is time to have a national referendum on spending.

Many have mused how people get mad about government on April 15 because it is tax day, but have no way to vent their frustrations until Election Day in November. What if there was a way to merge the two days in a unique way?

Tax day is the one day we all feel the impact of the federal government. Imagine if tax day also became budget day? The Internal Revenue Service could provide everyone with a budget form that listed all major federal programs. Each taxpayer would be given a hypothetical $100,000 to allocate for these programs. Details about minimum allocations and the expansiveness of the program list would need to be worked out. The budget forms would be submitted with the tax returns. In essence, there would be a nationwide referendum on spending every April 15.

The allocations would be totaled and the percentages of that total would be applied to the actual federal budget moving through the Congress. For the first few years this public input would be only advisory. As the kinks were worked out and people became savvier about how to allocate their $100,000, the advisory referendum could evolve into actually directing the spending priorities of the federal government.

For example, require a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress to allocate more or less funds than were allocated by the referendum for a particular line item. National disaster assistance and declared wars could be exempted.

Over time, the April 15 “Budget Day” spending referendum would become as important as Election Day. Instead of spending their time swaying 435 House and 100 Senate members, the special interests and federal agencies would have to persuade the 132 million people who file tax returns. This would revolutionize the way government operates and fully engage everyone in how our money is spent.