Iraq dominatrix
The US retreat from Iraq silently under cover of night says it all. But there are painful lessons, wholly contrary to the spin, which Western opinion (and particularly US opinion) needs to learn but will find hard to swallow. For almost everything about this catastrophe was wrong from start to finish – from its cause to its management to its consequences.
George Bush declared war on Iraq because Saddam Hussein had taken part in 9/11. He had nothing to do with it whatever. Bush’s real motive for the invasion was to build a lasting military platform in the Middle East (since the continued presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia had become untenable) to secure permanent control over the oil.
Blair made out he dragged Britain into the invasion to rid the world of Saddam’s WMD. There weren’t any, and the intelligence services (David Kelly and others) had made clear to him they had already guessed as much. But he went ahead, 10 months before the invasion without any prior consultation, because his overriding motive was to make Britain (and himself) close partner with the US as the world’s leading power.
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