BCT Editorial – 4/2/06

This page was last updated on April 2, 2006.

Blind into Baghdad; Editorial; Beaver County Times; April 2, 2006.

This is another editorial trying to convince us Iraq is in a civil war.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Sectarian violence in Iraq should not have come as a surprise to the president

“President Bush is being disingenuous when he says that former dictator Saddam Hussein is responsible for the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq.

“Bush knew it - or should have known it - and his administration blew it.

“In a speech last week, the president said Saddam was a tyrant who used violence to exacerbate divisions within Iraq to keep himself in power.

“Bush’s it’s-news-to-me approach to the violence is another example of this administration’s spinning information in an attempt to absolve itself of its multiple failures in Iraq.

“The reason sectarian violence might be news to Bush is because he relied on the ideologues he has surrounded himself with to spoon feed him information of their choosing - and which conformed to his limited world view - to the detriment of other points of view.

“To anybody who was paying attention before the United States invaded Iraq, the sectarian violence taking place there is no surprise. Warning signs were flashing all over the place, but the Bush White House couldn’t or wouldn’t see them because of the get-Saddam-at-all-costs blinders it had put on.

“Prior to the invasion of Iraq, State Department and Pentagon officials expressed their concerns about keeping the peace between Shiite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds and Arabs. They were backed up by foreign policy experts outside of government and a chorus of columnists and editorial writers who warned about the danger of not preparing for the sectarian and ethnic strife Saddam’s ouster could cause. (For a great summary of this administration’s pre-war blindness, check out ‘Blind into Baghdad’ in the January/February 2004 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.)”

[RWC] ‘Blind into Baghdad’ is so good it’s posted on Al-Jazeerah’s website. Of course, the Times probably doesn’t want us to know that.

Regarding the column’s author, James Fallows, it’s possible he leans to the left. Mr. Fallows was President Carter’s chief speechwriter for two years and taught journalism at the University of California – Berkeley in 2001/2002. I could be wrong, but I believe Berkeley has a shoot first and ask questions later policy regarding conservatives on campus. <g>

“They stressed over and over again that the United States should be ready to take control of the situation from the start to avoid Iraq’s descent into anarchy because of the vacuum Saddam’s overthrow would create.

“And Bush, Rumsfeld and the neo-cons who created the administration’s post-invasion fantasy world ignored them.”

[RWC] I wonder if the author knows what a “neo-con” is, or if he just likes the sound of the word?

“So when Bush stands up in front of an audience and acts as if the outbreak of sectarian violence was a revelation to him, it’s only because he has chosen to surround himself with people who only tell him what he wants to hear and keep all others as far away as possible.

“Because of this administration’s blinders, the United States stumbled into Iraq, the results of which are all too evident in the mounting toll of wounded and dead and the continued violence.

“The questions now become: What didn’t the president know and why didn’t he know it?”

[RWC] Other than an exercise in Monday morning quarterbacking, the editorial has a fatal flaw.

For the editorial to be relevant, the vast majority of violence in Iraq must be of the so-called “sectarian” variety. It isn’t. The vast majority of violence in Iraq comes from two sources.

The first source of violence comes from Saddamists who lost their power and prestige. They are doing everything they can to prevent formation of a democratic government in hopes they can regain their power. One of their tactics is to get Shiites and Sunnis fighting each other. Though most of these “dead-enders” are Sunni, they don’t represent Sunnis.

The second source of violence comes from predominantly foreign terrorists led by al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. Their goals and tactics are exactly the same as for the dead-enders except they want the power for themselves.

The third source of violence comes from the bordering countries of Iran and Syria. They contribute by providing arms and allowing terrorists safe passage into Iraq.

Is there sectarian violence in Iraq? Almost certainly. You can’t have oppression of the kind Iraq saw for so long and not expect some residual feuding. Is sectarian violence not stoked by Saddamists and terrorists the primary source of violence? Almost certainly not.