HOME
DV NEWS
SERVICE ARCHIVE SUBMISSIONS/CONTACT ABOUT DV
PAUSE-WAR
Not
Shock And Awe, But Stop And Pause As The US Tries To Prompt Military Coup In
Iraq
by
Milan Rai
Dissident Voice
March
22, 2003
(20 March 2003)
THE 'NUDGE, NUDGE' ULTIMATUM
Roula
Khalaf, well-informed columnist at the Financial Times, reports: 'With his
ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq or face war, President
George W. Bush appeared to be encouraging a last minute coup more than the
Iraqi leader’s departure from Baghdad, diplomats and analysts said yesterday
[18 Mar.] ... Western diplomats in the region said the ultimatum was designed
to raise the internal pressure on insiders in the regime to move against the
Iraqi leader. "A number of messages are being passed to Baghdad from Arab
and other countries telling them [Saddam and his family] to spare the country
and the region and step aside. That doesn't seem to be working but exile might
be read as another form of exit," said a senior diplomat in the region.'
(Financial Times, 19 Mar., p3)
‘Iraqi exiled opposition figures in
London yesterday said they hoped that the deadline set by President Bush for Mr
Hussein to quit Iraq might help provoke a coup against him. "There is a
possibility that a faction of the regime will move against Saddam," said
Zuhair Al-Naher of the Iraqi Islamic Dawa party.' (FT, 19 Mar., p. 3)
So,
the last few days have seen the US issue a coded call for a military coup in
Baghdad (early Tues. GMT) and a US missile-strike assassination attempt against
the Iraqi leader (early Thurs. GMT). Some regime change.
MIXED MESSAGES
Roula
Khalaf notes that:
“[P]olitical analysts said the
administration's hope for a coup were undermined by mixed messages. Mr Bush appealed
to Iraq's military commanders and included only Mr Hussein's sons in his
ultimatum, but US officials have referred to the ‘senior leadership’ that would
have to leave Iraq. The White House yesterday also indicated that the list of
officials who would have to leave Iraq was longer than the Iraqi President's
immediate family. Mr Bush made no mention of any amnesty offer, either to the
Hussein family or to other insiders who might be tempted to remove the Iraqi
leader.
"’Clearly the message is that if the
three are gone everything is up for grabs. But there is also the message that
US troops would still be there and possibly that there would still be an
occupation. This muddies the waters,’ said Raad al-Kadiri, a political analyst
at The Petroleum Finance Company in Washington.” (FT, 19 Mar., p. 3)
The
issuing of an amnesty offer to the Iraqi leader seems to have been entrusted to
the British Foreign Secretary. In response to a totally unrelated (friendly)
question from Jim Dowd MP, Jack Straw said, “We have done all that we can to
secure a peaceful resolution to the crisis. It is still possible, let me say,
for it to be resolved peacefully by Saddam Hussein's agreeing to go into exile.
Should that be the case, as I have said on a number of occasions, we would
support a United Nations Security Council resolution to provide Saddam Hussein
with immunity from prosecution so that he could go into exile and enjoy a
retirement of the kind that he has denied to so many of his own people. I am
willing to accept that terrible compromise to try to avoid a war. I hope and
believe that the whole House would also do that.” (Hansard, 17 Mar., Cols.
710-711) Another blow to the 'moral case' for war.
As
for the threat that US occupation would follow even in the event of a coup,
“The White House said last night [18 Mar.] that US forces would enter Iraq to
search for weapons of mass destruction even if President Saddam complied with
the deadline to leave.” (Independent, 19 Mar., p. 6) Not mentioned in President
Bush's original ultimatum. Some weapons of mass destruction must be found, in
order to provide a retrospective justification for the war - and it is the US
military that must find the smoking gun, it seems.
THREE/FOUR/FIVE STAGE WAR
As
noted in a previous briefing,
Patrick Bishop, Telegraph reporter in Kuwait, reported a few days ago, “The war
in Iraq is expected to be a two-stage operation with a pause to allow time for
Saddam Hussein to be toppled by his own people... Allied planning appears
heavily weighted towards an incremental strategy that applies mounting pressure
and allows time for Saddam’s henchmen to decide their self-interest lies in
risking a move against him. ‘This is all about getting someone to tip him
over,’ said the source.” (Telegraph, 15 Mar., p. 10)
The
first night's bombardment of 40 cruise missiles was a pinprick in comparison to
the plans for “shock and awe.” The second night's bombardment also appears
limited at the time of writing (21.20 GMT), proceeding on a stop-start basis
completely different from the all-enveloping 'shock and awe' tactics that had
been threatened. “A senior [US] defense official with direct knowledge of the
operation said the attack included sea-launched cruise missiles fired at
Special Republican Guard strongholds in Baghdad. But two [US] officials,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said the night strikes were not the
beginning of the massive air assault that Pentagon plans to unleash.” Rear Adm.
Barry Costello, commander of the USS Constellation, said the air strikes were
part of a "transition period" in which U.S. planes "continue to
prep the battlefield, to clear a path for further air strikes and ground
operations." (Associated Press newswire, 20 Mar., 3:57pm, US time)
RUMSFELD DROPS A HINT
Time
for another brusque Rumsfeld intimidation session: "What will follow will
not be a repeat of any other conflict", Rumsfeld told reporters at a
Pentagon briefing, the first after the United States and coalition forces
launched a "decapitation attack" against Iraq. "It will be of a
force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before. The
Iraqi soldiers and officers must ask themselves whether they want to die
fighting for a doomed regime or do they want to survive, help the Iraqi people
in the liberation of their country and play a role in a new free Iraq?"
(www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/20/sprj.irq.pentagon/index.html)
This
seems to be another broad hint to the military leadership in Iraq to do
Washington's dirty work.
REGIME
STABILISATION NEEDS A MILITARY FOUNDATION
“According
to US officials, military intelligence from the field suggests 75 to 85 per
cent of Iraq's regular army will surrender.” What will happen to these
footsoldiers of Saddam? “[T]he regular army will be paid by the US and put to
work rebuilding the country on tasks such as road construction and demining.”
That isn't all. “There is another idea that officials so far have not said much
about: turning the Iraqi army into policemen. ‘Our plan is basically to put
them into a constabulary force. We are not going to make them POWs,’ says a
senior US official.” (FT, 19 Mar., p. 4)
“This
idea is more fraught than it sounds: occupying powers are governed by the
Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and troops cannot be made to fight their own
people.” (FT, 19 Mar., p. 4) A hint there of the real meaning of the term
“constabulary force.” In other words the US is preparing for a re-run of 1991,
with Iraqi forces putting down insurgent popular movements with US support
(last time it was tacit and discreet - see my War Plan Iraq Chapter VII - this
time it could be overt and directive).
There
are precedents for all this. In Vietnam after World War II, the British and US
ordered the Japanese occupation forces to continue in government and to disarm
the Viet Minh anti-fascist resistance, and used Japanese troops to enforce a
curfew in Saigon. (Peter Dunn, The First Vietnam War (1985), pp. 132,
173)
Elsewhere,
after the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Allies “explicitly ordered the Japanese
to maintain the status quo in Indonesia before the arrival of Allied troops.”
(Robert J. McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War (1981), p. 85) Lord Mountbatten,
commander-in-chief of the region, noted in his diary after a visit in April
1946, “I, of course knew that we had been forced to keep Japanese troops under
arms to protect our lines of communications and vital areas in Sumatra, for
which the British Indian troops did not suffice; but it was nevertheless a
great shock to me to find over a thousand Japanese troops guarding the nine
miles of road from the airfield to the town, and to find them drawn up in
parties of 20, presenting arms, the officers saluting with swords which long
since should have been our war souvenirs.” (cited in Oey Hong Lee, War and
Diplomacy in Indonesia 1945-50 (1981), p. 82)
In
fascist Japan itself, General Charles Willoughby, head of intelligence in the
US Occupation government, said that the bloodless invasion of Japan was
accomplished by “the shatteringly simple formula of utilising the existing
Japanese Government, the person of the Emperor, and the psychic force of
tradition. No other formula was practicable.” [Charles Willoughby and John
Chamberlain, MacArthur 1941-1951 (1956), p. 291] The equivalent of the
Emperor is to be removed from the scene, but otherwise the US appears to be
applying the same shatteringly simple formula of regime stabilisation.
DESPERATE PAUSES
This
halting series of attacks is not “shock and awe.” This is stop and pause. This
is not about “regime change.” This is about a military coup - achieving “regime
stabilisation and leadership change” without the use of massive force by the US
and UK, and without any risk of being drawn into urban warfare.
It
takes real discipline to miss this interpretation of the otherwise mystifying
turn of events, and the non-appearance of “shock and awe” in the much- touted
“critical” opening 48 hours of conflict. The mass media is rigorously oblivious
to US intentions, and to the non-liberatory strategy being attempted (thus far
unsuccessfully) by Washington and London.
This
is not a war. This is the most costly, dangerous and reckless assassination
attempt in world history.
Milan Rai is author of War
Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War (Verso, 2002) and a member of Active Resistance to the
Roots of War (ARROW). He is also
co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness UK, which has worked for the lifting of
UN sanctions in Iraq.