ZNet | Iraq
Noam Chomsky Interviewed
by Noam Chomsky and MIchael Albert; April 13, 2003

(1) Why did the U.S. invade Iraq, in your view?

These are naturally speculations, and policy makers may have varying
motives. But we can have a high degree of confidence about the answers given
by Bush-Powell and the rest; these cannot possibly be taken seriously. They
have gone out of their way to make sure we understand that, by a steady dose
of self-contradiction ever since last September when the war drums began to
beat. One day the "single question" is whether Iraq will disarm; in today's
version (April 12): "We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass
destruction -- that is what this war was about and is about." That was the
pretext throughout the whole UN-disarmament farce, though it was never easy
to take seriously; UNMOVIC was doing a good job in virtually disarming Iraq,
and could have continued, if that were the goal. But there is no need to
discuss it, because after stating solemnly that this is the "single
question," they went on the next day to announce that it wasn't the goal at
all: even if there isn't a pocket knife anywhere in Iraq, the US will invade
anyway, because it is committed to "regime change." The next day we hear
that there's nothing to that either; thus at the Azores summit, where
Bush-Blair issued their ultimatum to the UN, they made it clear that they
would invade even if Saddam and his gang left the country. So "regime
change" is not enough. The next day we hear that the goal is "democracy" in
the world. Pretexts range over the lot, depending on audience and
circumstances, which means that no sane person can take the charade
seriously.
The one constant is that the US must end up in control of Iraq. Saddam
Hussein was authorized to suppress, brutally, a 1991 uprising that might
have overthrown him because "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be
"an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" (by then an
embarrassment), which would rule the country with an "iron fist" as Saddam
had done with US support and approval (NYT chief diplomatic correspondent
Thomas Friedman). The uprising would have left the country in the hands of
Iraqis who might not have subordinated themselves sufficiently to
Washington. The murderous sanctions regime of the following years devastated
the society, strengthened the tyrant, and compelled the population to rely
for survival on his (highly efficient) system for distributing basic goods.
The sanctions thus undercut the possibility of the kind of popular revolt
that had overthrown an impressive series of other monsters who had been
strongly supported by the current incumbents in Washington up to the very
end of their bloody rule: Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu, Mobutu, Suharto, and
a long list of others, some of them easily as tyrannical and barbaric as
Saddam. Had it not been for the sanctions, Saddam probably would have gone
the same way, as has been pointed out for years by the Westerners who know
Iraq best, Denis Halliday and Hans van Sponeck (though one has to go to
Canada, England, or elsewhere to find their writings). But overthrow of the
regime from within would not be acceptable either, because it would leave
Iraqis in charge. The Azores summit merely reiterated that stand.
The question of who rules Iraq remains the prime issue of contention. The
US-backed opposition demands that the UN play a vital role in post-war Iraq
and rejects US control of reconstruction or government (Leith Kubba, one of
the most respected secular voices in the West, connected with the National
Endowment of Democracy). One of the leading Shi'ite opposition figures,
Sayed Muhamed Baqer al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), just informed the press that "we understand this
war to be about imposing US hegemony over Iraq," and perceive the US as "an
occupying rather than a liberating force." He stressed that the UN must
supervise elections, and called on "foreign troops to withdraw from Iraq"
and leave Iraqis in charge.
US policy-makers have a radically different conception. They must impose a
client regime in Iraq, following the practice elsewhere in the region, and
most significantly, in the regions that have been under US domination for a
century, Central America and the Caribbean. That too is well-understood.
Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to Bush I, just repeated the
obvious: "What's going to happen the first time we hold an election in Iraq
and it turns out the radicals win? What do you do? We're surely not going to
let them take over."
The same holds throughout the region. Recent studies reveal that from
Morocco to Lebanon to the Gulf, about 95% of the population want a greater
role in government for Islamic religious figures, and the same percentage
believe that the sole US interest in the region is to control its oil and
strengthen Israel. Antagonism to Washington has reached unprecedented
heights, and the idea that Washington would institute a radical change in
policy and tolerate truly democratic elections, respecting the outcome,
seems rather fanciful, to say the least.
Turning to the question, one reason for the invasion, surely, is to gain
control over the world's second largest oil reserves, which will place the
US in an even more powerful position of global domination, maintaining "a
stranglehold on the global economy," as Michael Klare describes the
long-term objective, which he regards as the primary motive for war.
However, this cannot explain the timing. Why now?
The drumbeat for war began in September 2002, and the government-media
propaganda campaign achieved a spectacular success. Very quickly, the
majority of the population came to believe that Iraq posed an imminent
threat to US security, even that Iraq was involved in 9-11 (up from 3% after
9-11) and was planning new attacks. Not surprisingly, these beliefs
correlated closely with support for the planned war. The beliefs are unique
to the US. Even in Kuwait and Iran, which were invaded by Saddam Hussein, he
was not feared, though he was despised. They know perfectly well that Iraq
was the weakest state in the region, and for years they had joined others in
trying to reintegrate Iraq into the regional system, over strong US
objections. But a highly effective propaganda assault drove the American
population far off the spectrum of world opinion, a remarkable achievement.
The September propaganda assault coincided with two important events. One
was the opening of the mid-term election campaign. Karl Rove, the
administration's campaign manager, had already pointed out that Republicans
have to "go to the country" on the issue of national security, because
voters "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of...protecting
America." One didn't have to be a political genius to realize that if social
and economic issues dominated the election, the Bush administration did not
have a chance. Accordingly, it was necessary to concoct a huge threat to our
survival, which the powerful leader will manage to overcome, miraculously.
For the elections, the strategy barely worked. Polls reveal that voters
maintained their preferences, but suppressed concerns over jobs, pensions,
benefits, etc., in favor of security. Something similar will be needed for
the presidential campaign. All of this is second nature for the current
incumbents. They are mostly recycled from the more reactionary sectors of
the Reagan-Bush administrations, and know that they were able to run the
country for 12 years, carrying out domestic programs that the public largely
opposed, by pushing the panic button regularly: Libyan attempting to "expel
us from the world" (Reagan), an air base in Grenada from which the Russians
would bomb us, Nicaragua only "two-days driving time from Harlingen Texas,"
waving their copies of Mein Kampf as they planned to take over the
hemisphere, black criminals about to rape your sister (Willie Horton, the
1988 presidential campaign), Hispanic narcotraffickers about to destroy us,
and on and on.
To maintain political power is an extremely important matter if the narrow
sectors of power represented by the Bush administration hope to carry out
their reactionary domestic program over strong popular opposition, if
possible even to institutionalize them, so it will be hard to reconstruct
what is being dismantled.
Something else happened in September 2002: the administration released its
National Security Strategy, sending many shudders around the world,
including the US foreign policy elite. The Strategy has many precedents, but
does break new ground: for the first time in the post-war world, a powerful
state announced, loud and clear, that it intends to rule the world by force,
forever, crushing any potential challenge it might perceive. This is often
called in the press a doctrine of "pre-emptive war." That is crucially
wrong; it goes vastly beyond pre-emption. Sometimes it is called more
accurately a doctrine of "preventive war." That too understates the
doctrine. No military threat, however remote, need be "prevented";
challenges can be concocted at will, and may not involve any threat other
than "defiance"; those who pay attention to history know that "successful
defiance" has often been taken to be justification for resort to force in
the past.
When a doctrine is announced, some action must be taken to demonstrate that
it is seriously intended, so that it can become a new "norm in international
relations," as commentators will soberly explain. What is needed is a war
with an "exemplary quality," Harvard Middle East historian Roger Owen
pointed out, discussing the reasons for the attack on Iraq. The exemplary
action teaches a lesson that others must heed, or else.
Why Iraq? The experimental subject must have several important qualities. It
must be defenseless, and it must be important; there's no point illustrating
the doctrine by invading Burundi. Iraq qualified perfectly in both respects.
The importance is obvious, and so is the required weakness. Iraq was not
much of a military force to begin with, and had been largely disarmed
through the 1990s while much of the society was driven to the edge of
survival. Its military expenditures and economy were about one-third those
of Kuwait, with 10% of its population, far below others in the region, and
of course the regional superpower, Israel, by now virtually an offshore
military base of the US. The invading force not only had utterly
overwhelming military power, but also extensive information to guide its
actions from satellite observation and overflights for many years, and more
recently U-2 flights on the pretext of disarmament, surely sending data
directly back to Washington.
Iraq was therefore a perfect choice for an "exemplary action" to establish
the new doctrine of global rule by force as a "norm of international
relations." A high official involved in drafting the National Security
Strategy informed the press that its publication "was the signal that Iraq
would be the first test, but not the last." "Iraq became the petri dish in
which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew," the New York Times
reported -- misstating the policy in the usual way, but otherwise accurate.
All of these factors gave good reasons for war. And they also help explain
why the planned war was so overwhelmingly opposed by the public worldwide
(including the US, particularly when we extract the factor of fear, unique
to the US). And also strongly opposed by a substantial part of economic and
foreign policy elites, a very unusual development. They rightly fear that
the adventurist posture may prove very costly to their own interests, even
to survival. It is well-understood that these policies are driving others to
develop a deterrent, which could be weapons of mass destruction, or credible
threats of serious terror, or even conventional weapons, as in the case of
North Korea, with artillery massed to destroy Seoul. With any remnants of
some functioning system of world order torn to shreds, the Bush
administration is instructing the world that nothing matters but force --
and they hold the mailed fist, though others are not likely to tolerate that
for long. Including, one hopes, the American people, who are in by far the
best position to counter and reverse these extremely ominous trends.
(2) There is some cheering in the streets of Iraqi cities. Does this
retrospectively undercut the logic of antiwar opposition?
I'm surprised that it was so limited and so long delayed. Every sensible
person should welcome the overthrow of the tyrant, and the ending of the
devastating sanctions, most certainly Iraqis. But the antiwar opposition, at
least the part of it I know anything about, was always in favor of these
ends. That's why it opposed the sanctions that were destroying the country
and undermining the possibility of an internal revolt that would send Saddam
the way of the other brutal killers supported by the present incumbents in
Washington. The antiwar movement insisted that Iraqis, not the US
government, must run the country. And it still does -- or should; it can
have a substantial impact in this regard. Opponents of the war were also
rightly appalled by the utter lack of concern for the possible humanitarian
consequences of the attack, and by the ominous strategy for which it was the
"test case." The basic issues remain: (1) Who will run Iraq, Iraqis or a
clique in Crawford Texas? (2) Will the American people permit the narrow
reactionary sectors that barely hold on to political power to implement
their domestic and international agendas?

(3) There have been no wmd found. Does this retrospectively undercut
Bush's rationales for war?

Only if one takes the rationale seriously. The leadership still pretends to,
as Fleischer's current remarks illustrate. If they can find something, which
is not unlikely, that will be trumpeted as justification for the war. If
they can't, the whole issue will be "disappeared" in the usual fashion.
(4) If wmd are now found, and verified, would that retrospecitvely
undercut antiwar opposition?
That's a logical impossibility. Policies and opinions about them are
determined by what is known or plausibly believed, not by what is discovered
afterwards. That should be elementary.
(5) Will there be democracy in Iraq, as a result of this invasion?
Depends on what one means by "democracy." I presume the Bush PR team will
want to put into place some kind of formal democracy, as long as it has no
substance. But it's hard to imagine that they would allow a real voice to
the Shi'ite majority, which is likely to join the rest of the region in
trying to establish closer relations with Iran, the last thing the Bushites
want. Or that they would allow a real voice to the next largest component of
the population, the Kurds, who are likely to seek some kind of autonomy
within a federal structure that would be anathema to Turkey, a major base
for US power in the region. One should not be misled by the recent
hysterical reaction to the crime of the Turkish government in adopting the
position of 95% of its population, another indication of the passionate
hatred of democracy in elite circles here, and another reason why no
sensible person can take the rhetoric seriously. Same throughout the region.
Functioning democracy would have outcomes that are inconsistent with the
goal of US hegemony, just as in our own "backyard" over a century.
(6) What message has been received by governments around the world, with
what likely broad implications?
The message is that the Bush administration intends its National Security
Strategy to be taken seriously, as the "test case" illustrates. It intends
to dominate the world by force, the one dimension in which it rules supreme,
and to do so permanently. A more specific message, illustrated dramatically
by the Iraq-North Korea case, is that if you want to fend off a US attack,
you had better have a credible deterrent. It's widely assumed in elite
circles that the likely consequence is proliferation of WMD and terror, in
various forms, based on fear and loathing for the US administration, which
was regarded as the greatest threat to world peace even before the invasion.
That's no small matter these days. Questions of peace shade quickly into
questions of survival for the species, given the case of means of violence.
(7) What was the role of the American media establishment in paving the way
for this war, and then rationalizing it, narrowing the terms of
discussion, etc.?
The media uncritically relayed government propaganda about the threat to US
security posed by Iraq, its involvement in 9-11 and other terror, etc. Some
amplified the message on their own. Others simply relayed it. The effects in
the polls were striking, as often before. Discussion was, as usual,
restricted to "pragmatic grounds": will the US government get away with its
plans at a cost acceptable at home. Once the war began it became a shameful
exercise of cheering for the home team, appalling much of the world.
(8) What is next on the agenda, broadly, for Bush and Co., if they are
able to pursue their preferred agendas?
They have publicly announced that the next targets could be Syria and Iran
-- which would require a strong military base in Iraq, presumably; another
reason why any meaningful democracy is unlikely. It has been reliably
reported for some time that the US and its allies (Turkey, Israel, and some
others) have been taking steps towards dismemberment of Iran. But there are
other possible targets too. The Andean region qualifies. It has very
substantial resources, including oil. It is in turmoil, with dangerous
independent popular movements that are not under control. It is by now
surrounded by US military bases with US forces already on the ground. And
one can think of others.
(9) What obstacles now stand in the way of Bush and Co.'s doing as they
prefer, and what obstacles might arise?
The prime obstacle is domestic. But that's up to us.
(10) What has been your impression of antiwar opposition and what ought to
be its agenda now?
Antiwar opposition here has been completely without precedent in scale and
commitment, something we've discussed before, and that is certainly obvious
to anyone who has had any experience in these matters here for the past 40
years. Its agenda right now, I think, should be to work to ensure that Iraq
is run by Iraqis, that the US provide massive reparations for what it has
done to Iraq for 20 years (by supporting Saddam Hussein, by wars, by brutal
sanctions which probably caused a great deal more damage and deaths than the
wars); and if that is too much honesty to expect, then at least massive aid,
to be used by Iraqis, as they decide, which will be something other than US
taxpayer subsidies to Halliburton and Bechtel. Also high on the agenda
should be putting a brake on the extremely dangerous policies announced in
the Security Strategy, and carried out in the "petri dish." And related to
that, there should be serious efforts to block the bonanza of arms sales
that is happily anticipated as a consequence of the war, which will also
contribute to making the world a more awful and dangerous place. But that's
only the beginning. The antiwar movement is indissolubly linked to the
global justice movements, which have much more far-reaching goals, properly.
(11) What do you think is the relationship between the invasion of Iraq
and corporate glboalization, and what should be the relation between the
anticorproate globalization movement, and the peace movement?

The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by the main centers of corporate
globalization. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, opposition
was so strong that Powell was practically shouted down when he tried to
present a case for the war -- announcing, pretty clearly, that the US would
"lead" even if no one followed, except for the pathetic Blair. The global
justice and peace movements are so closely linked in their objectives that
there is nothing much to say. We should, however, recall that the planners
do draw these links, as we should too, in our own different way. They
predict that their version of "globalization" will proceed on course,
leading to "chronic financial volatility" (meaning still slower growth,
harming mostly the poor) "and a widening economic divide" (meaning less
globalization in the technical sense of convergence). They predict further
that "deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural
alienation will foster ethnic, ideological and religious extremism, along
with violence," much of it directed against the US -- that is, more terror.
Military planners make the same assumptions. That is a good part of the
rationale for rapidly increasing military spending, including the plans for
militarization of space that the entire world is trying to block, without
much hope as long as the matter is kept from the sight of Americans, who
have the prime responsibility to stop it. I presume that is why some of the
major events of last October were not even reported, among them the US vote
at the UN, alone (with Israel), against a resolution calling for
reaffirmation of a 1925 Geneva convention banning biological weapons and
another resolution strengthening the 1967 Outer Space Treaty to ban use of
space for military purposes, including offensive weapons that may well do us
all in.
The agenda, as always, begins with trying to find out what is happening in
the world, and then doing something about it, as we can, better than anyone
else. Few share our privilege, power, and freedom -- hence responsibility.
That should be another truism.

More articles by Chomsky on Iraq
</CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/noam_chomsky.htm>
More ZNet interviews On Iraq
</CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/interviews.htm>

Quote:To "free" the people of Iraq. . .by KILLING them!

That's right, Bush is just a blood/oil-thirsty bastard. How do you explain all those liberated Iraqis dancing with joy in the streets?...no wait, they aren't dancing with joy - they're really squirming in agony and trying to signal for help. :rolleyes:


I swear, you liberals would rather see the Bush administration and the US military fall flat on their faces (which will not happen) than shutting up and supporting what is going to happen whether you like it or not.

That was probably, at least partly, the rationale that Benedict Arnold used.

<a href='http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030415/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_war_us_mosul_030415151253' target='_blank'>Dancing In The Streets With JOY!</a>

I'm guessing Joe is one of those guys out there in the middle of the street protesting with the President laughing at them.

We won. We did free the Iraqi people. Have you not watched ANY news? They are happy(the people of Iraq). All you can come up with is speculation. The TRUTH is what counts. None of those reasons apply. We came to kill/capture Saddam, whom has threatened the people of Iraq and Israel, along with neighboring countries. Since you oppose war, wouldn't you want the U.S. to stop Saddam before another World War?

You're ascribing motives to me that I don't have. I don't like war, only an idiot would, but they sometimes become necessary.

I thought that we went there because they threatened us with WMD?

So, you looked up my name. Ooo, you know I'm "Joe". Are you the b i t c h that changed my avatar, too? Do you feel like you've struck a blow for freedom by abusing your "power" against someone who disagrees with you? Typical. :rolleyes:

Hey!!!!!!! Maybe you guys can go be human shields!!!!!!!!!!

Dancing In The Streets With JOY!
Betcha the bullet wounds are in their backs.....

Actually, I'm no admin and don't have the power to "look you up"

But thanks for the info! :laugh:

And...

I never said I liked war, but when the time comes, its necessary.

Notice the sign in the back saying "we want a new government as soon as possible to ensure the security and peace"

techfan4 Wrote:And...

I never said I liked war, but when the time comes, its necessary.

Right, war is not the worst possible thing.

I won't even vote in that poll, maybe your a wise guy or gal, but I for one don't find it comical! There is actually a myriad of reasons which have been discussed on this board for several weeks. Thank god there are still people of action in this nation, Im sure my great grandkids will appreciate us, and yours probably will too.

:D

Did anyone read that post! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

People apposed going to war with Hitler too.

Maybe we should have given appeasement and blind prayer another shot.

Quote:People apposed going to war with Hitler too.

Maybe we should have given appeasement and blind prayer another shot.

Oh, yeah, there's a valid comparison.

Hitler:

1. Annexed Austria in March, 1938 in violation of the Treaty of Versailes
2. Annexed the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland later that year with a nod from England's Neville Chamberlain and France's Edouard Daladier after the two met with Hitler behind the back of Czech head of state Eduard Benes.
3. Marched into the balance of Czechoslovakia in early 1939.

Saddam Hussein? The steadfast embargo and no-fly zones had rendered him so pathetic he couldn't even stop free elections from occurring in his own country (Kurdistan). UN weapons inspectors, meanwhile, were sniffing about the country at will.

Yeah, that's appeasement. :rolleyes:



<!--EDIT|RochesterFalcon|Apr 15 2003, 09:27 PM-->

[quote="Oddball"]So, you looked up my name. Ooo, you know I'm "Joe". Are you the b i t c h that changed my avatar, too? Do you feel like you've struck a blow for freedom by abusing your "power" against someone who disagrees with you? Typical.

Saddam does not harbour terrorists.............. :rolleyes:

U.S. Eyes Options After Abbas Capture
1 hour, 29 minutes ago

By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - American officials have several options for handling Abul Abbas, the terrorist mastermind captured in Iraq (news - web sites): hold him at a military base, transfer him to another country or bring him to the United States for possible prosecution.





U.S. officials would not disclose their plans for Abbas, captured by American special operations forces Monday night during one of several raids in and around Baghdad. The raids on hideouts of Abbas' Palestine Liberation Front also nabbed other suspects and turned up weapons including rocket-propelled grenades, passports from Yemen and Lebanon and other documents, military officials said.


U.S. officials view Abbas' capture as a major win in the war on terrorism and a vindication of President Bush (news - web sites)'s charge that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime in Iraq was harboring terrorists.


No matter where they take Abbas

A large group of Iraqi soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand dune. "One United States Marine is better than ten Iraqis!"

The Iraqi commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune, whereupon a gun battle breaks and continues for a few minutes, then silence..

The voice then calls out "One United States Marine is better than one hundred Iraqis!"

Furious, the Iraqi commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge firefight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again silence.

The American voice calls out again "One United States Marine is better than one thousand Iraqis!"

The enraged Iraqi Commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune. Cannons, rockets and machine guns ring out as a huge battle is fought.

Then silence. eventually one wounded Iraqi fighter crawls back over the dune and with ! his dying words tells his commander, "Don't send any more men, it's a trap. There's two of them!"

JoltinJacket Wrote:

Quote:To "free" the people of Iraq. . .by KILLING them!

That's right, Bush is just a blood/oil-thirsty bastard. How do you explain all those liberated Iraqis dancing with joy in the streets?...no wait, they aren't dancing with joy - they're really squirming in agony and trying to signal for help. :rolleyes:


I swear, you liberals would rather see the Bush administration and the US military fall flat on their faces (which will not happen) than shutting up and supporting what is going to happen whether you like it or not.

dumb*** Dubya is an international terrorist. The Iraqis are probably dancing because they don't want to be SHOT by their new boss (same as the old boss).

So do want to answer the question now, Francis?

Why are we bombing Iraq? Why are we spending billions of dollars destroying a country WE propped up in the first place? Do you have ANY idea that Saddam was trained by our guys? That he was our favorite pet until he invaded Kuwait? Do you think the parents of the estimated one million dead Iraqi children are dancing for joy?

Bush has never even gotten off the ground enough to FALL flat on his face. Have you checked the economy lately? Have you checked how FAR off the radar screen America is from world opinion?

Never mind. Just save it, dude. If I want a dose of official state propaganda, I'll to Foxnews.com. :stupid:

p.s. you moving everybody's political posts to the "spin zone" or just the ones you don't agree with?

yeah, that's kinda what i thought. :rolleyes:

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:People apposed going to war with Hitler too.

Maybe we should have given appeasement and blind prayer another shot.

Appeasement? You mean like when he invaded Kuwait and we politely escorted him back to his border? Or when he gassed the Kurds that we incited (and we watched while thousands died)? Can you address the question posed?

Isn't there a bbs rule about whoever brings up Nazis first automatically loses the argument?