Happy National Sovereignty Day, Iraq. Sorry About The Mess

"They clearly don't want us there anymore, so why stay?" That's what someone told Air America intern Leah Wawro today in New York's City's Union Square Park when she asked about the US troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities. As I recall, however, they never wanted us there.

There's no need to go back to the early 90s. Let's rewind to August 2002. Remember when then White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, speaking about the possibility of a war in Iraq, told a New York Times reporter, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

I'll never forget that statement, because I owned a publishing house at the time and I was possessed by the strong desire to use it to fight what seemed inevitable: another massive invasion of Iraq.

Within weeks and with a lot of help from Chelsea Green publisher Margo Baldwin, Derrick Jensen, and my trusty sidekick Trevor Bundy, we put together a book. William Rivers Pitt conducted an interview with former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Jensen turned it into his own peculiar brand of Q&A magic. Six weeks later the book was in stores.

War On Iraq was almost instantly a New York Times bestseller. Within months, long before the invasion, the book was an international bestseller.

I sent copies to every member of the Senate via Federal Express to ensure delivery before the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 rubber-stamped Bush's idiotic dreams of a latter-day crusade in the Middle East. I got one letter back. Former Republican Senator Don Nickles sent a handwritten thank-you note. That's it.

War On Iraq was a paltry 96 pages. Will Pitt lovingly referred to it as a "beer coaster." Still, everything in that book turned out to be correct. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There were no centrifuge parts. The bio-weapons were past their expiration date. Saddam Hussein had no connection to al-Qaeda (they hated him). Oh, yeah. There was also that part about how removing the Iraqi president from power would plunge that nation into civil war and ethnic division the likes of which it had never seen. Stay tuned.

It's all in that little beer coaster of a book (you can still find used copies online) and it was all a matter of public record before we invaded and further destroyed an already largely US-destroyed nation.

You know what else was a matter of public record? George W. Bush's comment about Saddam Hussein: "This is the guy who tried to kill my dad." Remember that one? Was that the reason we attacked Iraq? Of course not. But if you've read this far, you're dwelling in the truth of the matter. We attacked Iraq. We were the aggressors. We invaded a weak nation and sent it spiraling out of control.

And yet liberal New Yorkers think it suffices to mention that they want us to leave? Sweetheart, they never wanted us there in the first place. Our presence is an ongoing affront to democracy and human dignity, and yet now that the damage is done, everyone's stuck between that rock and a hard place, and it's not going to get better forever and a day.

Thanks, George W. Bush. Thanks, 107th United States Congress. Thanks, Judith Miller. Good work, America. Be proud.

from Air America

Follow Beau Friedlander on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BeauFriedlander

Comments

[-0013]

Great article - not even one item remotely suggesting a solution to getting out of Iraq.

What's next rehashing the 2000 election?

[toldya]

Ya know, it feels like we are crying over spilt milk. Can't change the past. Regardless of whether one believes we should have sent our military to Iraq or not, the fact is we did. Now, looking to the future, we have. and have had. an obligation to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, its not as simple as breaking out the brawny paper towels.

Solutions and not complaints should be our collective focus.

[JDM73]

I still remember those days, and the pointless, preventable hysteria still sticks in my craw like a big, ugly bone. Thanks for the article, Beau--I'm glad that someone is willing to talk about the Iraqi debacle six years later.
What bothers me about the current situation in Iraq is how everyone just assumes that Obama has honored his campaign promise to remove all combat brigades--that "we" really are leaving the country, and Iraq is in the hands of Iraqis now. It isn't. 35,000 to 50,000 combat troops will remain behind...they just won't be called "combat troops".

We're still in Iraq, and we'll be there for a long, long time to come.

[ikez78]

Saddam did have some links to al Qaeda. They were not on the same page on all issues but did cooperate against the U.S. in some instances. Not that this means a war was necessary but saying Saddam wasn't linked to al Qaeda is just not true.

Saddam and terrorism, www.regimeofterror.com

[jhamm1]

That's it?

A simple re-hash of the meeting in Prague which has long since been discredited as proving any prospective links between Saddam and al Qaeda?

Unsubstantiated testimony by three or four Sunnis and a few conservative commentators who allege links without citing specifics?

The alleged "confirmation" of these alleged links as supposedly gained by prisoners at Guantonimo Bay (most likely under the influence of torture)?

It seems like even in the face of the isolated ramblings of an obscure conservative website, the conventional wisdom continues to hold true

[noneIn2008]

Good to see Iraq thank us for the use of our kids and the 5,000 American lives sacrificed so they could simply rearrange the dictator chairs.