After World War I, the British tried to “civilize” the Arab world, and bring democracy there. The result, in Iraq at least, was a long chain of quite undemocratic arrangements, culminating, after decades of forced monarchy, in the coup that began Saddam Hussein’s rise to power.
In other words, history repeats itself.
Ex-Army Boss: Pentagon Won’t Admit Reality in Iraq
By Dave Moniz
USA Today
Tuesday 03 June 2003
WASHINGTON � The former civilian head of the Army said Monday it is time for the Pentagon to admit that the military is in for a long occupation of Iraq that will require a major commitment of American troops.
Former Army secretary Thomas White said in an interview that senior Defense officials “are unwilling to come to grips” with the scale of the postwar U.S. obligation in Iraq. The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and recently announced that the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s stay there has been extended indefinitely.
“This is not what they were selling (before the war),” White said, describing how senior Defense officials downplayed the need for a large occupation force. “It’s almost a question of people not wanting to ‘fess up to the notion that we will be there a long time and they might have to set up a rotation and sustain it for the long term.”
The interview was White’s first since leaving the Pentagon in May after a series of public feuds with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld led to his firing.
Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz criticized the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require “several hundred thousand troops.” Wolfowitz called Shinseki’s estimate “wildly off the mark.”
Chafing at Authority in Iraq
Firing of Council In Basra Upsets Middle Class
By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 30, 2003; Page A01
BASRA, Iraq, May 29 — In the first weeks after the war, British and U.S. occupation forces hailed their appointment of a city council here in Iraq’s second-largest city as an important first step toward self-rule for the country. In the past week, however, they have dumped the mayor and his council, concluding that the interim government was composed mostly of unpopular tribal sheiks with ties to former president Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party.
Occupation authorities have thus decided that Iraqis here are not yet ready to govern themselves — at all. Instead, Basra leaders will serve as appointed technocrats and advisers with no executive authority.
The move has alienated many educated Iraqis from the middle-class professions, who say they are being treated like children by the occupation forces and denied true liberation. They say the Americans and British have spoken often of freedom and democracy, but have failed to find a way to meaningfully integrate Iraqis into decision-making positions.
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