Let's Send Rumsfeld
and His Hawks
to War Instead
By
Robin Cook
This was meant to be a quick, easy war. Shortly before I resigned a
Cabinet colleague told me not to worry about the political fall-out.
The war would be finished
long before polling day for the May local elections.
I just hope those who expected
a quick victory are proved right. I have already had my fill of this
bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home
before more of them are killed.
It is OK for Bush to say
the war will go on for as long as it takes. He is sitting pretty in
the comfort of Camp David protected by scores of security men to keep
him safe.
It is easy to show you are
resolute when you are not one of the poor guys stuck in a sandstorm
peering around for snipers.
This week British forces
have shown bravery under attack and determination in atrocious weather
conditions. They are too disciplined to say it, but they must have asked
each other how British forces ended up exposed by the mistakes of US
politicians.
We were told the Iraqi army
would be so joyful to be attacked that it would not fight. A close colleague
of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld predicted the march to Baghdad
would be "a cakewalk".
We were told Saddam's troops
would surrender. A few days before the war Vice-President Dick Cheney
predicted that the Republican Guard would lay down their weapons.
We were told that the local
population would welcome their invaders as liberators. Paul Wolfowitz,
No.2 at the Pentagon, promised that our tanks would be greeted "with
an explosion of joy and relief".
Personally I would like to
volunteer Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz to be "embedded"
alongside the journalists with the forward units.
That would give them a chance
to hear what the troops fighting for every bridge over the Euphrates
think about their promises.
The top US General, William
Wallace, has let the cat out of the bag. "The enemy we are fighting
is different from the one we'd war-gamed".
War is not some kind of harmless
arcade game. Nobody should start a war on the assumption that the enemy's
army will co-operate. But that is exactly what President Bush has done.
And now his Marines have reached the outskirts of Baghdad he does not
seem to know what to do next.
It was not meant to be like
this. By the time we got to Baghdad Saddam was supposed to have crumpled.
A few days before I resigned I was assured that Saddam would be overthrown
by his associates to save their own skins. But they would only do it
"at five minutes past midnight". It is now long past that
time and Saddam is still there. To compensate yesterday we blew up a
statue of Saddam in Basra. A statue! It is not the statue that terrifies
local people but the man himself and they know Saddam is still in control
of Baghdad.
Having marched us up this
cul-de-sac, Donald Rumsfeld has now come up with a new tactic. Instead
of going into Baghdad we should sit down outside it until Saddam surrenders.
There is no more brutal form of warfare than a siege. People go hungry.
The water and power to provide the sinews of a city snap. Children die.
You can catch a glimpse of
what would happen in Baghdad under siege by looking at Basra. Its residents
have endured several days of summer heat without water.
In desperation they have
been drinking water from the river into which the sewage empties. Those
conditions are ripe for cholera.
Last week President Bush
promised that "Iraqis will see the great compassion of the US".
They certainly do not see it now. They don't see it in Baghdad. What
they see are women and children killed when missiles fall on market
places. They don't see it in Basra. What they see is the suffering of
their families with no water, precious little food, and no power to
cook. There will be a long-term legacy of hatred for the West if the
Iraqi people continue to suffer from the effects of the war we started.
Washington got it wrong over
the ease with which the war could be won. Washington could be just as
wrong about the difficulty of running Iraq when the fighting stops.
Already there are real differences between Britain and America over
how to run post-war Iraq.
The dispute over the management
of the port of Umm Qasr is a good example. British officers sensibly
took the view that the best and the most popular solution would be to
find local Iraqis who knew how to do it. Instead the US have appointed
an American company to take over the Iraqi asset. And guess what? Stevedore
Services of America who got the contract have a chairman known for his
donations to the Republican Party.
The argument between Blair
and Bush over whether the UN will be in charge of the reconstruction
of Iraq is about more than international legitimacy. It is about whether
the Iraqi people can have confidence that their country is being run
for the benefit of themselves or for the benefit of the US.
Yesterday there was a sad
and moving ceremony as the bodies of our brave soldiers were brought
back to Britain.
The Ministry of Defense announced
that they were to be buried in Britain out of consideration for their
families. We must do all we can to ease the grief of those who have
lost a husband or a son, cut down in their prime.
Yet I can't help asking myself
if there was not a better way to show consideration for their families.
A better way could have been
not to start a war which was never necessary and is turning out to be
badly planned.
Robin Cook, former Leader
of the UK House of Commons (previously Foreign secretary), who resigned
over the Iraq invasion.