BEHIND THE WAR ON TERROR

In 1948 the US State Department's policy planning unit, then headed by George Kennan, produced a top-secret report - now declassified - on the essential structure of world order envisages by the US Government. It began by observing that they then had about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of world population. This is bound to give rise to resentment and envy, so how could the US 'devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security'? The report then recommends ditching sentimentality and 'the luxury of world-benefaction' in order to 'deal in straight power concepts'. So the aim becomes economic domination, implying control over world resources including, crucially, oil. The phrase 'pax Americana' crops up even then, and the security interests of the US are extended to include regions 'necessary for world control'. The strategy also required a permanent threat to civilisation to justify military interventions. This used to be communism, but has now transmuted into the 'war on terror'. Kennan himself is quoted as saying that the image of Russia poised to attack the West 'was largely a creation of Western imagination' (p. 8) The point is that it creates a climate of fear that makes repressive measures like the recent Patriot Act easier to implement. Freedom is curtailed in the name of protecting freedom. We now know that the strategy deployed after 9/11 had been extensively prepared through the 1990s by the group working on the Project for a New American Century that includes many of the key members of the current Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The book goes back to the carve-up of the Middle East during and immediately after the First World War, the essence of which was to curb Arab nationalism and install compliant governments to ensure continued Western access to oil supplies. The author documents the role of the CIA in bringing to power both the Shah of Iran and the Ba'ath Party in Iraq. Following the Iranian revolution of 1979, Iraq and Saddam Hussein became the new 'guardians' ('the West's policeman'), and were supported throughout the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-1988. During this period the US and others armed Iraq with weapons (including chemical weapons) and turned a blind eye when these were used against the Kurds. Strategic interests prevailed over any professed ideals of human rights and democracy. The book moves on to perhaps its most interesting section in describing the build-up to the 1991 Gulf War. The end of the Cold War provided an opportunity for a 'peace dividend' in the form of reduced military expenditure but this would have caused major and disruptive restructuring within the US economy, so contingency plans were drawn up for a possible invasion of Iraq - indeed by January of 1990 (seven months before Saddam's incursion into Kuwait), massive quantities of weapons, equipment and supplies were sent to Saudi Arabia. The author shows how Kuwait had behaved with extraordinary intransigence with respect to Iraq by stealing oil from the Rumaila oilfield beneath the border. Then by violating OPEC quotas and sending the price of oil plummeting from $21 to $11 a barrel, thus depriving Iraq of $14bn a year at a time when it was trying to recover financially from the war with Iran. During that war the Kuwaitis had illegally extended their border northwards to incorporate 900 square miles of the Rumaila oilfield. Moreover, this loss of revenue made it hard for the Iraqis to service their $30bn debt to Kuwait. Meanwhile the US was encouraging the Kuwaitis not to offer any compromise and made it clear to them that they would intervene in the event of an Iraqi invasion. However, in public, they maintained a policy of neutrality, leading Saddam Hussein to suppose that the Americans would not intervene if he invaded Kuwait. Saddam was even repeatedly assured by the US ambassador that they had no defence agreement with Iraq. So, as French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson remarked, he 'walked into a trap'. Former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark provides a succinct analysis of the whole episode, concluding that 'the evidence that this assault was planned for years before Iraq invaded Kuwait cannot be doubted'. In the ensuing decade, the US has sold $43bn worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and a further $16bn to other Arab states. It need hardly be observed that if the region were more stable, such sales would not have been feasible. The book now turns to the grim story of the UN sanctions, which exacerbated the already appalling damage to infrastructure caused by the war. Moreover, the toxic radioactive residues of depleted uranium weapons are associated not only with birth deformities and increased cancer incidence among the indigenous Iraqi population but also with Gulf War syndrome, the causes of which the US and UK governments have so far succeeded in obfuscating. Some readers may know that the scientist in charge of the US cleanup of DU weapons - Doug Rokke - is himself a victim of DU radiation and even warned the governments of the probable effects: 'they disregarded our warnings because to admit any correlation between exposure and health effects would make them liable for their actions wherever these weapons have been used'. This includes Bosnia and now, for the second time and in much greater quantities, Iraq again. As US Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich observes, use of these weapons is a crime against humanity and contravenes the Geneva Convention. They are nuclear weapons by any other name. The author then brings the story up to date, showing how the policies pursued at the beginning of the 1990s have been followed through and how the pretexts for further intervention were manufactured. Interestingly, the US refused to support an earlier Kurdish-Shi-ite rebellion against Saddam because they feared that it would simply lead to a Shi-ite regime similar to Iran. They are wrestling with the same issues even now. It is important to stress that the book's thesis is backed by the use of official sources, from which its more detailed arguments naturally follow. The broad outline is consistent with other commentators such as John Pilger, William Blum and Gore Vidal, making it essential reading for those who want to understand the political and economic power dynamics of the region. Ahmed strips away the high-minded rhetoric to reveal the priority of US (and UK) perceived strategic interests as the real drivers of policy.