Bush & Blair: The Iraq fantasy

[seafan]

Bush & Blair: The Iraq fantasy

By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 05 November 2006

"When does the incompetence end and the crime begin?" asked an appalled German Chancellor in the First World War when the German army commander said he intended to resume his bloody and doomed assaults on the French fortress city of Verdun.
The same could be said of the disastrous policies of George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq. At least 3,000 Iraqis and 100 American soldiers are dying every month. The failure of the US and Britain at every level in Iraq is obvious to all. But the White House and Downing Street have lived in a state of permanent denial. On the Downing Street website are listed 10 "Big Issues" affecting the Prime Minister, but Iraq is not one of them.

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In the first year of the occupation it could be argued that Bush and Blair were simply incompetent: they did not understand Iraq, were misinformed by Iraqi exiles, or were simply ignorant and arrogant. But they must know that for two-and-a-half years they have controlled only islands of territory in Iraq. "The Americans haven't even been able to take over Haifa Street though it's only 400 yards from the Green Zone," a senior Iraqi security official exclaimed to me last week.

But the refusal to admit, as the British army commander Sir Richard Dannatt pointed out, that the occupation generates resistance in Iraq, means that no new and more successful policy can be devised. It is this that is criminal. And it is all the worse because the rational explanation for Mr Bush's persistence in bankrupt policies in Iraq is that he has always given priority to domestic politics. Holding power in Washington was more important than real success in Baghdad.

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There was a spurious series of highly publicised turning points in the war, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the return of sovereignty to Iraq and the recapture of Fallujah in 2004, the elections and referendum on the constitution of 2005.

In each case reality was always different.

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The fantasy picture of Iraq purveyed by Mr Bush and Mr Blair is now being exposed. The Potemkin village they constructed to divert attention from what was really happening in Iraq is finally going up in flames.

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The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn has just been published by Verso


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