Colonizing Iraq?

Will President Bush share with the
American people the reason he is planning a long term
American military occupation of Iraq?

You ask, “Isn`t the occupation
scheduled to end on June 30 when we hand rule over to a
provisional government? “

Not on your life!

On April 23 General Richard Myers,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters
that the US occupation of Iraq will last a very long
time:

“Decades is probably not unreasonable,” said
General Myers.

With 4,600 dead and wounded
American soldiers as of April 24 (the first year of the
occupation), and with Republican Senator John McCain
calling for President Bush to send more

divisions to Iraq, shouldn`t Bush first tell us why
US troops will be occupying Iraq for decades?

Indeed, isn`t it time for President
Bush to tell us the real reason he ordered the Iraq
invasion in the first place?

“Weapons of mass destruction” was the first
reason Bush gave for invading Iraq. Now that it has been
proven beyond all doubt that Iraq had no such weapons,
why does the US need to occupy Iraq for decades?

Removing Saddam Hussein was the second reason Bush
gave. Now that Saddam is gone, why do we need to remain
one more day?

Bringing Iraqis “freedom and
democracy” was the third reason Bush invented. Why
then did Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Marc Grossman tell Congress last week that the US
military occupation force and the new American
ambassador would be the real rulers of Iraq for the
foreseeable future?

If the US is gifting democracy and
freedom to Iraqis, why did Mr. Grossman

tell Congress that the handover of “sovereignty” on
June 30 was just a device for putting an

“Iraqi face” on the American occupation?

Asked what would happen if the
make-believe Iraqi government attempted to exercise real
sovereignty, Mr. Grossman indicated that it would not be
tolerated.

How can a decades-long US
occupation of Iraq be the same as bringing “freedom
and democracy” to Iraqis?

Many Iraqis already know that they
are occupied, not liberated, and others will discover it
soon after June 30. Will Iraqis submit to American rule?
If not, insurgency will increase, and more of our troops
will be killed and wounded. Why?

Gen. Myers justified the long-term
occupation as part of the “war against terrorism.” But,
of course, there were no terrorists in Iraq until we
invaded. We brought terrorism and terrorists to Iraq.
Every day that we stay, we create more terrorists. How
do we fight terrorism by creating more terrorists?

Until last week, the Bush
administration blamed Iraqi insurgency on remnants of
Saddam`s Baath Party. Now the US plans to bring back the
banned

Baathists, install them in the new puppet government
and make them the generals in the Iraqi security force.
Obviously, the US plan is to rule through the Baathists
of Saddam`s regime, a regime Bush claims to have
overthrown in the name of “democracy.”

The commitment for US troops to
occupy Iraq for decades has not been explained to the
American people. A commitment of this magnitude must be
debated by foreign policy experts and examined in
congressional hearings. President Bush never told us
that he intended to occupy Iraq for decades. We were
promised a “cakewalk” and troops home by Thanksgiving.

Why hasn`t Democratic presidential
candidate Senator John Kerry asked Bush this most
obvious of all questions: Why are we still in Iraq and
planning to stay for decades?

Where is the American press corps?
The “watchdog” burnt itself out in its opposition to the

Vietnam War in the 1960s and to

Reagan in the 1980s. Today the media functions as a
public relations office for the Bush administration. Fox
News is the Ministry of War Propaganda.

President Clinton did Bush the
favor of establishing the convention that it is no big
deal for an American president to be caught in lies.
Sex, war, what does it matter?

September 11 has made Americans fearful that they
live in dire danger from terrorists. This fear causes
Americans to accept whatever the government does in the
name of “fighting terrorism.”

The American people are far more
quiescent than Iraqis in accepting Bush`s unexplained
policy of converting Iraq into a permanent American
base. Unless Iraqis become as accepting of this mad
enterprise as Americans, or unless Americans become as
unaccepting of it as Iraqis, the blood and treasure thus
far squandered in Iraq is but a drop in the bucket to
what we will be forced to pay.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS
SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul
Craig Roberts was Associate Editor of the WSJ editorial
page, 1978-80, and columnist for “Political Economy.”
During 1981-82 he was Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Economic Policy. He is the author of



Supply-Side Revolution: An Insider`s Account of
Policymaking in Washington.