Antony Loewenstein writes Webdiary’s Engineering Consent column on the workings of the media. See also last night’s devastating Lateline interview with the former U.S. head of counter terrorism Richard Clarke.
Joseph C. Wilson IV was the acting US ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War. Soon after Saddam invaded Kuwait, Wilson was in Baghdad protecting more than 100 US citizens in the homes of US diplomats and meeting with an Iraqi leader threatening to kill anybody caught housing foreigners. Wilson famously talked to journalists wearing a hangman�s noose instead of a tie, and later commented in The Washington Post that his signal to Saddam was, “If you want to execute me, I�ll bring my own fucking rope.”
Wilson was the U.S. diplomat catapulted onto the front pages in 2003 when he revealed that the Bush administration had fabricated evidence over Iraq�s WMDs. He had conducted the official investigation into claims that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger and dismissed them, yet Bush then repeated the claims in his State of the Union address to the American people in January, 2003.
After breaking his silence in July in The New York Times, his wife, Valerie Plame, was exposed as an undercover CIA agent by a right wing columnist. Wilson believes this was payback for his suggestion that the US Government had an agenda other than WMD for invading Iraq.
During a conference at Berkeley University in March analysing the role of the US media in promoting Bush�s agenda on Iraq, Wilson was scathing about the unquestioning mood in America in the run-up to the Iraq war. He spoke on the long-term fallout of the Bush doctrine of pre-emption over Iraq – “instead of having a thoughtful debate, we insulted our allies” – and criticised the media�s acceptance of suspect WMD �evidence� and disregard of the war�s effects on the Iraqi people: “What we didn�t get was the point of view of those who were shocked and awed. We ignore at our peril the effects of our actions on those in other societies.”
These views were familiar to CBS journalist, Dan Rather, who commented in May 2002 that post 9/11, �patriotism ran amok� in the US and reporters were afraid to ask the tough questions of their government. �It’s unpatriotic not to stand up, look them in the eye, and ask the questions they don’t want to hear,� he said.
Wilson told Webdiary this week that Bush and his “cabal” are responsible for an invasion and occupation that has increased America�s risk of a terrorist attack:
By not gaining international will against Saddam and enforcing UN resolutions, such as 1441, we have failed. The mess that will be left is our mess.
To President Bush�s recent statement that he hoped �the good Lord protects those of our troops overseas�, Wilson said Iraq has not been an �enemy� of the United States for many years:
US armed forces were not conceived for George Bush. The American military and the American military doctrine provide that they serve in the defence of the United States against a sworn enemy. When most people signed up to the military, it was for fighting a real enemy.
A number of neo-conservative architects of the Iraq invasion, including former Pentagon policy adviser Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, have promoted the overthrowing of Saddam for many years. In the mid 1990s, Perle was the brains behind a document written for the Israeli Likud party called A Clean Break, A New Strategy for the Realm. Wilson now believes the Bush administration has adopted the Perle doctrine:
It strongly made the argument that the best way to secure Israel�s long-term security (was to) conduct regime change in many Middle Eastern countries, starting with Iraq, but continuing with Iran and Syria.
Wilson argues that America has a duty to protect Israel and its interest, but not at the expense of the Palestinians “as expressed through Ariel Sharon�s recent visit to Washington” (see Top diplomats to Blair: stop Bush’s policy of war without end):
The US has now sent a message to the world that we don�t care about the fate of the Palestinians.
He also has strong views on Israel�s recent killing of Hamas� spiritual leader Sheik Yassin, and its effects on Middle East peace:
It was an abomination. There was no excuse for America to provide Apache helicopters to kill an 80-year-old paraplegic who could have been arrested. Certainly prior to Iraq, the single most glaring failure of US foreign policy was the peace process and the willingness to make Sharon drive the whole situation.”
In an article written for the San Jose Mercury News in September 2003, Wilson offered a disturbing explanation for the �shock and awe� campaign of the US administration in Iraq:
A more cynical reading of the agenda of certain Bush advisers could conclude that the Balkanization of Iraq was always an acceptable outcome, because Israel would then itself be surrounded by small Arab countries worried about each other instead of forming a solid block against Israel. After all, Iraq was an artificial country that had always had a troublesome history.
Wilson appreciates the need for occasional military force to dismantle dictatorial regimes:
I think the President was right to go back to the United Nations in the aftermath of 9/11, but if I was President of the United States, I would have insisted our Security Council partners had done more. I would have put an intelligence umbrella over Iraq to monitor all of Saddam�s moves, which our Deputy Chief of Staff says we are perfectly capable of doing.
If we had to use military force and we were impeded in doing our duty [of weapons inspections] I would have launched a massive strike against those inspection sites where they may have been evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I would also have taken out command and control centres and made life very difficult for Saddam.”
One of the most damning indictments of the Bush doctrine in Iraq, coming hot on the heels of books by Bush�s former Treasury Secretary Paul O�Neill and former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke, is the occupation phase. More than one year after invasion, with roughly 724 American casualties, 4200-wounded and an estimated 10,000 Iraqi dead and thousands more injured, Wilson said America should not be “owning Iraq”:
Saddam and his old men posed little threat to the world and very little threat to the United States. I am suggesting covert action would have been more appropriate if we really wanted to overthrow Saddam.
With an American Presidential election six months away, Wilson said he�d never felt a more “poisonous” atmosphere in Washington:
The election campaign is already riddled with anger, vitriol and outright lies. The mischaracterisation of John Kerry�s background [Wilson is advising the Democratic candidate] is frankly unprecedented.
Wilson’s new book is The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity.