Carolina Civic Voice

                             Winter 2005-06  Vol.  5, No 4

The Anatomy of War:

Facts and Controversies in the U.S.

Campaign in Iraq

A CCV Special Report

 

Editor’s Note: The report that follows was based on information that was for the most part still current as of early December 2005. Since that time, some new information has been made available, though the debate about Iraq War origins has made little progress in the public press, where for the most part a kind of mental numbness continues to be apparent, as typical of a patient under the effects of a general anesthesia. Look for an updated version of this report to be made available by CCV sometime over the next two weeks.

 

In May of 2003, with the United Nations Security Council deeply divided over the question, US President George W. Bush issued an ultimatum to Iraq, demanding disarmament and the abdication of Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Citing concern over US security, Bush claimed that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, maintained alliances with the 9-11 terrorist group, al-Qaida, and either possessed or nearly possessed nuclear weapons that might be used against the United States. Drawing together a coalition of thirty-two member nations in a “Coalition of the Willing,” US military forces then spearheaded the invasion of Iraq, beginning on March 20, 2003. A twenty-one day period of sustained combat operations resulted in the removal of the Hussein regime, but the war of occupation in Iraq has continued to this day.

The following report, compiled by CCV, is an itemization of facts and controversies surrounding the war. It is intended merely to outline some of the most important considerations resulting from the war in order to provide overall perspective. It is not intended to be exhaustive.

 

Iraq Death Toll. As of Tuesday, December 4, 2005, the official US death toll in Iraq broke the 2,131 mark, and proceed to climb quickly thereafter. At least 1,638 died as a result of hostile action, including military civilians.

Civilian Casualties. Recent estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq place the number at somewhere between a maximum of 30,863 and a minimum of 27,354. "A Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq, 2003-2005" is the first detailed account of all non-combatants reported killed or wounded during the first two years of the continuing conflict. The report, published by Iraq Body Count in association with Oxford Research Group, is based on comprehensive analysis of over 10,000 media reports published between March 2003 and March 2005. According to the report, 24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years; women and children accounted for almost twenty percent of all civilian deaths, and Baghdad alone recorded almost half of all deaths. US led forces killed thirty-seven percent of the civilian deaths, and over half of all civilian deaths involved explosive devices, with air strikes causing sixty-four percent of these. At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded. Available at http://www.iraqbodycount.org/background.htm#top.

Troop Numbers. As of the fall of 2005, over 300,000 U.S. troops have served in Iraq all totaled since the beginning of the war. British troop strength in Iraq, as of November, remained at 8,500. By September of 2003, U.S. forces in Iraq totaled over 140,000, with an additional 10,000 in Afghanistan, and 34,000 in Kuwait. Of the initial thirty-two-nation coalition, which supported the operation, the US provided the overwhelming majority, topping 150,000 by mid-2005. After the UK, South Korea was third largest, at 3,600. Italy was fourth, at 3,100, followed by Poland, at 2,400. A considerable list of supporting nations originally providing troops have either withdrawn their forces or announced their intention to do so in 2006. These include Spain, Poland, Norway, New Zealand, Honduras and many others. Britain announced a phase withdrawal of its troops in March, to begin after the first of the year, and South Korea is also planning to withdraw about a third of its forces.

According to information provided by Lawrence J. Korb and Nigel Holmes, May 23, 2005 of the Center for American Progress, the average age of US soldiers killed in Iraq is twenty-five years for enlisted men, and thirty-one for officers. 72.5% of those killed were white; 11.5% were Hispanic; 10.9% were black; 2.5% of those killed were women. This is out of a total of 1,512 killed as of that date.

Public Opinion. A poll taken by ABC News and the Washington Post one day after the attack was launched in 2003, found seventy-two percent supported the war. But over half of those polled didn't expect "significant U.S. casualties" (eighty-five percent also thought we'd be in Iraq for less than a year). Over seventy percent supported the war in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken four days after the invasion. But wording of the poll showed that the public held reservations: almost ninety percent of respondents thought that a thousand or fewer troops would lose their lives. The headline in a March 7 CBS poll, just two weeks before the invasion, found that sixty-nine percent approved of "military action to remove Saddam." But by a 48-27 margin respondents said that their primary concern wasn't democracy building or regime change, but "making sure that Iraq is disarmed." 

In more recent times, on March 15, 2005, a poll announced by ABC News/ Washington Post, showed that seven out of ten respondents called the level of U.S. casualties in Iraq unacceptable, and fifty-three percent said the war was not worth fighting.

In November, a poll conducted by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade, showed that by a margin of fifty-three to forty-two percent, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq. The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,200 U.S. adults from October 29 through November 2. The poll found that fifty-three percent agreed with the statement: "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

Cost of the War. The National Priorities Project, a nonprofit, non-partisan information website established by thirteen contributing foundations, including the Carnegie Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust, estimates that the Iraq War currently costs the US in the neighborhood of $10,000 every four to five seconds. The total cost of the war is at $222 billion and counting. According to NPP, the dollar estimate is based on Congressional appropriations. Access the site at http://nationalpriorities.org/.

Costs to North Carolina. North Carolina’s share in the war is estimated by NPP to cost in excess of $5.3 billion. North Carolina could have hired an additional 92,503 school teachers for this amount of money, or constructed an additional 48,061 units of public housing.

Bush Budget for 2006. NPP estimates that according to the President’s budget requests for the fiscal year of 2006 would cut total spending on discretionary domestic services by seven percent, (excluding domestic security). The budget proposal in NC includes $198.8 million in cuts for discretionary grants for state and local services, including, $62.8 million for community and economic development; $4.3 million for low-income home energy assistance; $7.0 million for Clear Water State Revolving Fund. Nationwide, Bush programs in education constituting the federal No Child Left Behind Act, established under Bush leadership, will be under funded again in 2006 by $13.1 billion. In North Carolina the program will be under funded by $282.1 million.

Iraq War Decision Controversy. As the war got under way in 2003, United Nation’s weapons expert Hans Blix insisted that there was little or no evidence that Saddam possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, insisted that Iraq had destroyed most of these weapons years ago, and accused Bush and the US Pentagon of orchestrating a smear campaign to discredit him. After months of effort searching for WMD all over Iraq at a cost of more than $300 million, US weapons inspectors announced that they were unable to locate the so-called WMD that had been the basis of the U.S. invasion.

A string of revelations then followed. In March of 2004, California Congressman Henry Waxman produced a report providing an analysis of over 200 false and misleading public statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Chaney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Collin Powell, and National Security advisor, Condoleezza Rice. The statements in each case are a part of the rationale for the war in Iraq and included the fundamental themes of the Bush war cry: that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the US due to its possession of weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and the ability to deliver their destructive potential against the U.S., that Iraq already had existing ties to 9-11 terrorist group al-Qaida and was in effect operating in collusion with this infamous group responsible for 9-11, and that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger, posing a threat so dire that America ran the risk having the “smoking pistol” turn out to be “a mushroom cloud.”

Then, on January 30, 2004, the Bush administration effectively admitted for the first time that Saddam Hussein might never have held stocks of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. National security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, one of President Bush's most trusted lieutenants and a strong advocate of the invasion of Iraq, made the concession during a series of interviews on major American news programs.

Mired in controversy over the U.S. response to early warnings of al-Qaida operatives plotting terrorism in the US prior to the 9-11 “attack on America”—US national security advisor Condoleeza Rice admitted that the Bush administration did not take action because President Bush was “tired of just swatting flies”. President Bush believed that an all-out military campaign was the only solution to the problem of terrorism.

In more recent times, Russ Baker, a former Bush campaign biographer, has stated that Bush wanted to invade Iraq long before 9-11. A variety of other sources confirm a series of statements dating from the 1999-2000 presidential campaign which show that Bush tended to see himself in the shadow of his father, and saw military aggression as a way to define his presidency. Bush was and remains convinced that the image of a decisive leader as commander-in-chief holds the key to a successful presidency. Baker, who held many conversations with then-Texas governor in preparation for a planned autobiography, has stated that as early as two years prior to 9-11, Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq.

9-11 Investigation.  On June 16 2004 the commission investigating the 9-11 attacks announced that it found "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida, contradicting President George Bush's assertion that such a connection justified the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Later, according to the National Journal Web Edition, November 25, 2005, ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the US intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al-Qaida, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter. The White House has refused to hand over the briefing memo and other highly classified materials to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Spoils Of War.  From the beginning of the war, critics have asserted that the professed US objectives of ending terrorism and bringing freedom to Iraq are superficial and misleading, and that the real motives of Bush have more to do with the control of Iraqi oil. A few days prior to the US led invasion, the Pentagon awarded a no-bid, single source contract to Kellogg Brown and Root, a division of Halliburton Inc. to restore Iraqi oil fields. The contract was worth as much as $7 billion, for putting out oil-fires, transporting fuel to Iraq, and other services. But according to the Washington Post, on June 6, 2004, an Army Corps of Engineers e-mail recovered by the Post showed that the award had been "coordinated" with the office of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton's former chief executive. Spokesmen for the V.P. denied that he had been involved in the decision.

Special units of the US military were assigned the objective of securing the Iraqi oilfields from the outset of the invasion, and on May 10, with the initial military campaign completed, the U.S. and Britain laid out their plan of occupation before the UN Security Council, announcing themselves as “powers of occupation”. The plan indicated that they would control Iraqi oil, and the United Nations would have only a limited, advisory role in the occupation. In more recent times, on 22 November 2005 according to the Independent Online Edition, a UK publication, Iraq faces the prospect of losing up to $200 billion of the country’s oil wealth if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an “old colonial trap” if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report confirms suspicion that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure that its oil came under Western control. Article by Philip Thornton available at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article328526.ece.