With the date for US forces to be fully withdrawn from Iraq fast approaching, it is important to remind ourselves how we got into that long and deadly war in the first place, to recognise that this conflict is far from over, and to hold accountable those who are responsible for the horrors they created during the past eight years.
In a word, the road to Baghdad was paved with “lies”. I don’t just mean the fictions of “WMDs” or of “Saddam’s connection with Al-Qaeda” that were used by the Bush Administration to justify their case. In both instances, the White House and its minions throughout the government worked overtime, relying on embellishment, distortion, and outright fabrication to make their arguments for war.
More insidious still, were the subtle and seductive lies that were used along the way to war. These were the lies that led too many Americans, including much of the mainstream media, to conclude, in the words of one Bush apologist, that the war would be “a cakewalk”.
When pressed by Congress or the public for answers, administration officials and their supporters would argue that the war would last but a week; that it would require less than 100,000 US troops who would only need to stay in Iraq for six months; that the entire effort would only cost the US Treasury about two billion dollars; that Americans would be greeted in Baghdad as liberators with flowers in the street; and that with the dictator gone, Iraq would become a “beacon of democracy” lighting up the entire Middle East.
Moved by the exaggerated ‘threat’, and lured by the supposed ‘relative ease’ of the war, America went marching off to Iraq. Those who attempted to remind then-Secretary of State, Colin Powell, of his “Powell Doctrine”, or who questioned the wisdom of going to war in a country about whose history and culture and people little was known, were silenced. No one in government, back then, wanted to hear of “unintended consequences”.
Eight years later, we leave Iraq with: thousands of Americans dead; hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives lost; millions driven into exile; and a trillion dollars spent. The politics of Iraq can be described as fragile, at best, with the country remaining a sectarian/ethnic tinderbox that can explode in an instant, with the added danger of dragging the neighbourhood into a broader conflict. And to all of this must be added the damage done to America’s standing in the region and the world resulting from the recklessness of the war, and its excesses and abuses. US troops will leave, but the scars of this conflict and its still open wounds will remain.
Listening to the current overheated rhetoric in vogue today in US political discussions about what should be done to confront Iran and Syria, it appears that lessons have not been learned. Those who cavalierly argue for a US military response in either country all too often ignore the consequences of such actions. When they chide the President for not being more aggressive in taking the lead against the brutal regime in Syria, proposing military action, or when they flippantly suggest that the US should support an Israeli military strike against Iran (or that we should do it ourselves) it is as if nothing has been learned from the tragic disaster of the immediate past.
One main reason for this sorry state of affairs is our lack of accountability. Because we have not, and, it appears, will not, “call on the carpet” those who justified torture, fabricated the case for war in Iraq, and sent thousands of young men and women into a country we did not know in order to engage in a conflict with no good end in sight, this same cast of characters are still polluting the policy debate. From their lofty perches at universities, “think tanks” and as advisers to candidates for higher office, they are recognised as “experts” calling for more wars that will only make a bigger mess, while the mess they created has still not been cleaned up.
It makes sense to us when we hear Arab Spring protesters in Tunisia and Egypt demanding that those who were complicit in the crimes of the past governments in which they served should be called to account for their misdeeds. It makes sense that we apply the same measure of accountability here at home. Those who abused the public’s trust and who lied us into a war that took so many lives and cost us all so dearly should be called to account for what they have done. To let them “off the hook” is both wrong and dangerous.
The writer is President of the Arab-American Institute.
A very well written note. The amount spent on war against terrorism would have been much more than enough to make the internal security of United States and it's allies strong and fool proof. The underlying motives of the Iraq war are still unclear and nothing comes to mind except the OIL. Major portion of responsibility lies with citizens of USA who are so goof that they let their government do such things. Perhaps the third world is not as much educated as the western world is but this is for sure that third world is far more updated and fact knowing than the western world.
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