September 16, 2007
by Robert Fantina

The old cliche, 'figures don't lie, but liars figure,' seems to be evident in Washington D.C. today. Even before the General Accounting Office (GAO) releases its mandatory report on Iraq, President Bush and his fawning yes-men in and around the nation's capital are playing with the figures in order to dupe the eminently dupable U.S. public. Testifying before Congress, General David Petraeus stated that troop withdrawals can now begin, bringing the total number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq down to 130,000 by next summer.

This statement has the key words that many people have been seeking, but none of the meaning. 'Troop reduction' and 'next month' would be music to the ears of many Americans and most Iraqis, but the math that undergirds them is deceptive. This should not be surprising coming from one of Mr. Bush's hacks.

By next summer, Mr. Petraeus tells us, troop levels will be back to where they were prior to Mr. Bush's disastrous 'new way forward.' So the number of troops was increased so it could then be decreased to appear that Mr. Bush is listening to America and the world, and is doing his part to end the war in Iraq.

Not so, as the numbers show. One hundred and thirty thousand dedicated U.S. soldiers invaded and occupied Iraq, and now we are told that the number of U.S. soldiers occupying Iraq in 2008 will be 130,000.

Mr. Petraeus, in sharp contrast to the findings of the GAO, stated that the escalation had, "in large measure," met its objectives.

As it becomes painfully apparent that the war will continue, that Mr. Bush will not present or agree to any plan for a reasonable departure of U.S. troops from Iraq's civil war, it seems important now to look back at the original reasons for his immoral invasion of Iraq, at least those that were given to the world. They may be somewhat difficult to find through the fog of four years of war, but they are there.

Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell all looked the world squarely in its skeptical eye and said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) aimed at the United States. While most nations simply snickered at such naïve notions, the American public in general, and the U.S. Congress in particular, accepted these completely unsubstantiated charges as gospel.

If that was not enough, members of the Bush administration continually raised the idea, in contrast to all the evidence, even that presented by the U.S. government, that Iraq was somehow involved in the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001.

Coupled with the WMD scare and the Iraq-Sept. 11 lie was Mr. Bush's mandate for 'regime change.' The centralized government of Iraq was to be destroyed and, following a period of U.S. occupation, the Iraqi citizens would vote, a democratically-elected president would be inaugurated, centuries old rivalries would immediately dissolve and the people of Iraq would live happily ever after.

This was the happy plan; the annihilation of two birds with one murderous stone: the 'imminent' threat to the U.S would be eliminated, and the people of Iraq would achieve self-government, whether they wanted it or not. Before one could say 'Iraqi oil reserves,' 130,000 American soldiers, and a few from some other countries, had overrun Iraq.

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Perhaps when Mr. Bush and his neocon yes-men were hatching this fantastic plan he was busy reading My Pet Goat, the storybook he was immersed in, and continued to read to a second grade class at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, when hijacked jetliners were being slammed into the World Trade Center. Whatever he was doing, he was certainly ignoring the input of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, who had been searching every corner of Iraq for six months for those illusive and, as it turned out, non-existent weapons of mass destruction. He was also paying no attention to Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush, Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command for U.S. forces in the Middle East, or Richard Clarke, former chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council during the closing years of the Clinton Administration and the first part of the Bush Administration. These gentlemen, all recognized experts in their fields, opposed the invasion of Iraq.

But Mr. Bush is not solely to blame. Most of the members of the U.S. Congress, seeking to strengthen their 'defense of America' credentials (somewhat more difficult now that they no longer have Communism, that ideological monster so effectively kept in the forefront of every defense budget proposal by several presidents during the Cold War period, to banter around), gave impassioned speeches, and deadly votes, allowing him to proceed with his ill-advised (if any advice was either given or received) plan for Iraq.

Today, some of these same politicians have apologized for their vote. Some are even seeking to be president. One has to question their judgment: why did they not see what millions of Americans who opposed the war before the first soldiers set foot on Iraqi ground, clearly saw? Why did they not see that, with 130,000 troops at Iraq's border, there could not possibly be any threat to the United States, and that the IAEA inspectors should have been allowed to complete their work?  Why was it so clear to so many U.S. citizens that an invasion of Iraq would only increase the hatred of that nation's people toward the United States? As Mr. Bush & Co, along with their eager accomplices, most members of Congress, told an unbelieving world that this invasion would reduce the terrorist threat to the United States, why was it so clear to the common citizen that such an invasion would only spawn a new generation of terrorists?

Since the war, Iraq has been awash in blood. An estimated three-quarters of a million Iraqi citizens have died. Millions of citizens who have managed to survive have fled the country, and over a million more have left their homes for less dangerous parts of Iraq. People who once took electricity and running water for granted now have access to these life-sustaining gifts for only a few hours a day, if at all.

In the United States, since the war began, its arrogant and incompetent author was reelected. As America's patience with the war has worn thin, the Republicans were booted out of power and the Democrats given a mandate to end the war. However, in true 'meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss' style, the newly-empowered Democrats have failed at every turn. They continue to fund the war, they will say, in order to support the troops, thereby assuring that they will remain in mortal danger for an indefinite period of time. This twisted logic has become their mantra, and an excuse for their spinelessness. Who can fault them, they may wonder? They are only 'supporting the troops.'

The war in Iraq was created in the greedy, corrupt minds of heartless neocons who see only their bank account as important. It was then built on a series of lies: WMD, and an Iraq-9/11 link. This enabled a populace still confused and in pain from the September 11 attacks to permit the violent lashing out by America's forces against an alleged but innocent perpetrator.  The war has been continued on the incomprehensible logic that the best way to show support for the unfortunate soldiers bleeding out their lives amid civil war is to assure that more of them will be killed and injured. Now progress will be shown by reducing the number of soldiers terrorizing Iraqis to its original total, for a net reduction of zero. And the world will watch in 'shock and awe' as pro-war Republicans and peace-espousing Democrats all say that progress is being made, and as both sides of the Congressional aisle proclaim victory. Black is white, and white is black, at least in the world of U.S. politics.

How long this travesty will drag on is anyone's guess at this point. No presidential candidate believed to have a chance of winning has stated any clear means of leaving Iraq. Only Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has recommended a twelve point plan, has done so. The Kucinich plan, which is a reasonable, workable blueprint for peace and stability in the Mideast is, for reasons that are unfathomable, ignored. Why it is not embraced and echoed by all the Democratic candidates says much about their sincere intentions for ending U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Politicians will talk; military personnel will continue to direct fighting soldiers and if they disagree with Mr. Bush they will be replaced; Iraqi citizens will oppose the occupying U.S. soldiers with their lives and hundreds of thousands more will die. American soldiers will continue to do their best in a needless, unwinnable war caused by the American president to satisfy his oil lust and perhaps, in some way, to assuage his feelings of American failure in the war he avoided, Vietnam. U.S. citizens will continue to be without health care as money that could provide it is dumped down the endless drain of the Iraq War.

Mr. Bush continually proclaims that the U.S. must achieve victory in Iraq. Victory, by any definition, is unachievable for the U.S. in this war. His original goal of a democratic Iraq that would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East was a hopeless fairy tale from the start; while he may see that working in the U.S. as he ignores the growing poverty rate, the shrinking middle class and the overall inequality in the distribution of the nation's wealth, it is not something the people of Iraq have ever desired, and they have proven unwilling to have it forced upon them. How long they will have to suffer the terror of the U.S.'s attempts to do so is anyone's guess. For those outside of Iraq, it is an armchair exercise. For that country's citizens, it is a matter of life or death.

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Robert Fantina [send him email] is a long-time activist for peace and social justice. He has worked with the Coalition for Peace Action in New Jersey. Following the 2004 presidential election, he moved to Canada, where he now resides. Robert is the author of Desertion and the American Solder: 1776-2006.