Running the War in Iraq, by Major General Jim Molan

Major General Jim Molan was asked to go to Iraq in 2004 by then Chief of the Australian Defence Force, Peter Cosgrove.

Strangely enough, he was sent there without any real mission in mind, not even to work with the Australian soldiers. Hence Molan was in the unusual position of trying to find something to do in Iraq. Of Molan’s unemployment dilemma in Iraq, he writes, "A further complication for my aspiration to find an honest job was that I still didn’t have access to the highest level of US intelligence. Furthermore, I had to find something worthwhile, or I might as well go home."

There’s no real explanation in the book as to why this bizarre situation arose in the first place. In the end, he puts himself forward and eventually scores a job as Chief of Operations. Is this how wars are really run?

This is a rather strange and unsettling memoir. Maybe because the events it describes are still so close to ‘the fog of war’. Who knows?

Molan comes across as a simple, straightforward high level soldier, a ‘practical’ man (Molan’s self description). He strikes you as an old fashioned, conservative type. In fact, Molan seems like a kind of boring yet idealised cut out from a pre-war generation. As I read, the milieu of Barry Humphries’ Sandy Stone character kept coming to mind.

Contrast this character description against the awesome and terrifying war technology that Molan was using to kill insurgents, and unfortunately, the civilians that happened to be in the way. Molan was in charge during the controversial battle of Fallujah. The author describes how he can direct all of this bombing of insurgents from a comfortable office while enjoying a cup of tea.

‘This decision about collateral damage is no different in law from the decision made by a lieutenant platoon commander crouched down on the side of a road calling for an air strike on a position from which the enemy are firing at him and his troops. I just did it in a much more comfortable place while drinking Steve’s tea."

The book is full of those annoying acronyms that the American military uses. The worst though is what’s known as a ‘CDE’, which stands for collateral damage estimate. This is where the soldier tries to weigh up how many civilians could be killed by a strike.

Molan is quite dismissive of those who criticise the coalition for killing innocents. Yet as the acronym CDE shows, killing innocent people is something that is factored into the assessments for carrying out bombings.

Molan likes to highlight how the military agonises over the legality of what it does, having to consider key factors like, ‘proportionality, humanity, discrimination and necessity’, but I wasn’t so convinced. Then again, it’s easy for me to say so sitting here from my desk, with no experience of what soldiers experience in Iraq. Then again, if that’s how the debate is to be conducted, then only people with first hand experience should be allowed to comment on the war in Iraq, as it is fought.

Also of interest in the book is Molan’s attitude to the media.

"For many months now I had seen daily examples of the information war running in a parallel reality to the actual war. The information fight required less physical courage and sacrifice, but was just as important as the combat on the ground. Brigadier General Erv Lessel, who headed the strategic communications section in my operations branch, often reminded us of the dictum that ‘public information turns tactical success into strategic victory.’ I liked to look at it from the reverse: there is little point in winning the fight if no-one knows, cares or believes what you say."

You get the strong impression that Molan would really like to control the media and hence get rid of sniping journalists who are always disseminating lies, falsehoods, pre-conceived ideas and biases.

This is a book that tries to simplify horrific war conditions into an uncomplicated, straightforward narrative. Maybe this is what you have to do so as not to go mad. Whatever the case, Major General Jim Molan remains a creepy character for me after having read this memoir. His mix of simple, unaffected soldier and cold-blooded technocrat left me feeling very spooked.

This article by Jim Molan on Afghanistan is of interest:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/end-the-pussyfooting-in-afghan-war/story-e6frg6zo-1111118870890

The Three Trillion Dollar War, by Linda Blimes and Joseph Stiglitz

The title of this book sounds a bit callous or sensationalist but it’s actually a very humane and sympathetic look at all the costs – human, social and economic – that the war in Iraq has cost the United States and the world.

Surprising, the authors Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Blimes say that the three trillion dollar price tag they give to the Iraq war is a conservative estimate, and that in the long run the war will very likely cost many more trillions of dollars.

Perhaps the most heart wrenching part of this book is the description of the poor treatment Iraq war veterans get on their return home. They are made to jump through hoops to get their rightful entitlements, endure a slack attitude to their health problems, and are just generally not well looked after.

It is these future costs, health and medical for returned soldiers, that are so overlooked in the price tag for the Iraq war. As the book states, the US is still paying entitlements to returned soldiers from the First World War (there are three of them). So you can see how far these war costs can stretch into the future.

Critics of Blimes and Stiglitz could argue that the authors were against the war from the beginning, and so of course they would write a book like this. While they do admit being against the war, and seeing it as a terrible waste, this book is a good eye opener on all of the unthought of costs that war brings. They just spread out and seep into everything. Blimes and Stiglitz even take into account the extra administrative costs involved in paying veterans' claims.

Then there are the costs to the other economies of the world. The jump in the price of oil due to the Iraq war has cost the world trillions.

This is a humane book that takes a unique look at the hidden and overlooked human and financial costs involved in running a long, unpopular and unsuccesful war. It will sadden you deeply.

The Occupation of Iraq, by Ali A. Allawi

Originally titled The Incoherence of Power, Ali A. Allawi’s sweeping study of the invasion and occupation of Iraq chronicles the perils of a superpower launching a war upon a country whose culture, history and internecine power struggles it was largely ignorant of. The plan to invade Iraq, in Allawi’s opinion, was the magic thinking of a group of neo-cons who believed that dreaming a democratic Iraq would make it so. Reality crashed through on fantasy, and Plato’s Republic soon made way for a nightmare Hobbesian state.

Born in 1947 to a prominent Shi’a family, Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi left Iraq in November 1958 and eventually became a part of the Iraqi exile community in London. He was appointed Minister of Trade and Minister of Defense for the Iraqi Transitional Government between 2005 and 2006.
Allawi opposed the war at the outset, even though he himself was involved in numerous opposition conferences, seminars and meetings with the British and US governments in the days leading up to the war. Once it appeared that war was inevitable, Allawi described himself as going along with the war, but ‘with great ambivalence’.

The Occupation of Iraq is an insider’s story, a book written from an Iraqi’s point of view, watching with obvious angst as his country plunges into murder and mayhem. In it he describes the bewilderingly complex relationship between Iraq’s three major groups, the Shi’a, Sunnis and Kurds, and further, the factions within those groups.

Just as one example, he discusses the rising influence from Saudi Arabia of Wahhabism on Iraq’s Sunnis. Writes the author: ‘What used to be a slanging match between Wahhabism and Shi’ism – and in some ways containable – developed into one between an increasingly radicalized Sunni Islam and the Shia. The Shi’a resurrected the term nawasib (those with a particular hatred for the Prophet’s household) to attach to extreme insurgents.’

It was these kinds of subtleties that the coalition did not plan for when deciding for war, hence the book’s original title. The Occupation of Iraq gives a comprehensive, often staggering, picture of US cultural ignorance and insensitivity. Even the most basic tool for communication and relationship building– language – was paid scant attention.

The text of the draft for the Transition Administrative Law (TAL) that was supposed to guide the transitional process and the constitutional framework was written in a style alien to Arabic. According to Allawi, ‘Even its preamble was worded in stirring terms, reminiscent of permanent constitutions – and utterly alien in construction and phraseology from the Arabic language and Iraqi experience…..It talked about pluralism, gender rights, separation of powers and civilian control over the armed forces – none of which were even remotely familiar terms in Iraq. The TAL embodied western, specifically American notions, and was carefully supervised by the CPA. Each significant point had been pre-cleared with the NSC in Washington.’

To further illustrate the topsy-turvy thinking on Iraq, the American Christian Right was even pushing on turning Iraq into a proselytizing mission. Kyle Fisk, the executive administrator of the National Association of Evangelicals, said, ‘Iraq will become the centre for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to Iran, Libra, throughout the Middle East….A free Iraq also allows us to spread Jesus Christ’s teachings even in nations where laws keep us out.’ Allawi claims the CPA had a number of middle-level staff who were ‘fundamentalist Christians and who played a part in formulating the legal structures that were designed to thwart the creeping Islamisation of the state.’

The most amazing chapter of the book details the fraud that allowed some $1 billion to vanish out the Ministry of Defence, leaving the Iraqi army with second-rate weapons with which to confront the insurgency. Writes Allawi:

‘The optimistic assessments by General Petraeus concerning the equipping and training of Iraqi forces clashed with the huge squandering of the Ministry of Defence’s resources and the abysmal and inappropriate equipment purchases for its rapid deployment forces. The latter, supposed to be the vanguard of the Iraqi commitment to the counter-insurgency effort, found that their much-vaunted helicopters were either inoperable or unavailable for eighteen months. They were driving right-hand steering vehicles, firing knock-offs of American machine guns, with bullet proof vests that fell apart, and wearing toy helmets. Ministers who were chosen for their supposed technocratic prowess and competence ended up on the run from the law under serious indictment of fraud, embezzlement and theft. The military procurement budget was handed over to unscrupulous adventurers and former pizza parlour operators.’

There are some success stories amongst the ruins, despite the book’s over all bleakness. Paul Bremer’s order to establish a Public Integrity Commission is cited as a notable achievement which helped to tackle the country’s corruption. The CPA’s Financial Management Law is applauded as an important economic and financial reform, setting a framework for writing balanced budgets, with public accountability for government expenditure. Australian personnel working in Iraq get an honourable mention for their high professionalism and competence.
This is a book sure to be read avidly by both sides of the Iraq war debate. (The Australian’s Greg Sheridan has called it the ‘definitive’ account of the war.) It is written in a learned, cultured style, with every page steeped deep in irony.

Indeed, reading Allawi’s prose all I could think of was Dostoyevsky’s The Devils, a novel about a ‘gang of five’ who plot various disturbances which they hope will culminate in the toppling of the state. Four of the five murder one of their own who they fear will squeal on one of them. The unrelenting menace of Dostoyevsky’s novel, with the incoherent, contradictory, confusing behaviour of his characters, seemed to mirror the behaviour of the main Iraq players.

Allawi sees the situation in Iraq now as critical, with the Iraqis themselves at a ‘near terminal breaking point’. In January of this year he wrote a blueprint for peace (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2125419.ece) .

In it, he wrote, ‘The first step must be the recognition that the solution to the Iraq crisis must be generated first internally, and then, importantly, at the regional level.’

And, ‘No foreign power, no matter how benevolent, should be allowed to dictate the terms of a possible historic and stable settlement in the Middle East.’

The democratic framework set up by the coalition of the willing must be preserved.

‘The Iraqi government that has arisen as a result of the admittedly flawed political process must be accepted as a sovereign and responsible government. No settlement can possibly succeed if its starting point is the illegitimacy of the Iraqi government or one that considers it expendable.’

For those seeking an insider’s account of the occupation of Iraq, its triumphs and many tragedies, will find a patient and thorough going guide in Dr Allawi’s book.

War In Iraq, by John Keegan

John Keegan is Britain’s pre-eminent military historian, and has received a swag of military honours for his troubles. He was approached to write this ‘history’ (I use inverted commas, as the Iraq war continues apace) of the second gulf war.

The most interesting parts detail Iraq’s early and pre-Saddam history. Although this has been covered numerous times recently, so I’d say its the material which is interesting, not the author’s presentation.

The sections that deal with the lead up to the Iraq war take the view that the West was right to intervene in Iraq. Thus, there is much that people will disagree with in Keegan’s analysis.

Two very dull chapters go into the actual war part of the invasion of Iraq, with lots of laudatory notices for the efficiency and superior quality of the British and American armies. Why is pro-war writing always so incredibly turgid?

The philosophical upshot of the book is that might is right, with a disdain for ‘law making or treaty writing’. He calls those who argue for the UN and other similar processes as Olympians, floating far above the on-the-ground reality.

From the author:

‘Liberal opinion, dominant throughout the European media and academia, strong also in their American equivalents, was outraged by the spectacle of raw military force supplanting reason and legality as the means by which relations between states are ordered.’

A superficial and self-congratulatory book from an esteemed and decorated author.

War on Iraq, by William Rivers Pitt and Scott Ritter

This is a short pamphlet (75 pages), written in 2002 by William Rivers Pitt. Mr Pitt is an expert on the Middle East, an activist and a Democrat. Scott Ritter gets equal billing as there are some fifty pages of interview material with him, done by phone.

There are two little intro chapters. One basically going over Ritter’s military career, and another which gives a wonderfully concise history of Iraq. We forget that Iraq can’t really be considered a construction of Middle East politics. It was ‘created’ by the British after the first world war, when they defeated the Ottoman Empire. The British ordained an Iraqi royal government for the country. Trouble ensued.

The interview part makes for compelling reading, as Ritter has lots of inside information. His knowledge of weapons technology sure is an eye opener.

This little book is probably a little dated now, with all we now know. But it’s worth a read, to compare Ritter’s claims with what’s happening today in Iraq.

Frontier Justice, by Scott Ritter

Shakespeare said in Hamlet that one in ten thousand men were honest. I feel Scott Ritter may be one of those few honest men. Of all who have argued against the war in Iraq, his is the most compelling case.

Why I say that, primarily, is because Ritter is from the military. He’s a former Marine intelligence officer; he also served in the Gulf War. This guy is no Michael Moore, he doesn’t push that sort of agenda. What motivates him is a solid belief that his government is simply lieing in order to implement the ‘vision’, if you can call it that, of a small group of neo-cons, more specifically the group pushing their Project for a New American Century, or PNAC. Indeed, Ritter constantly rails against this group throughout the book, calling them a posse, with ‘Sheriff Bush’ as their ringleader.

Everyone of course knows that Ritter worked as a weapons inspector in Iraq, under the United Nations. He quit when Australian Richard Butler took over, taking issue with what he believed were directions coming from the US government on how the inspections should be proceeding, when it was the UN that was in charge of the inspections.

With his extensive and deep experience with weapons inspection in Iraq, Ritter takes us though all the obvious dodgy intelligence that was used to take us to war, and blames a docile and compliant media in not taking the Bush administration to task. The right questions were just not asked.

The most alarming aspect of this book, besides the lies that we were told about weapons of mass destruction, is the dim future Ritter sees for his country, and by extension, the rest of the world. He believes democracy is rotting and the American Constitution is at risk of being undermined.

On the American Constitution he writes:

‘The constitution defines the United States as a nation of law, a civilized society functioning as a democratic republic that guarantees each citizen the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Inherent in this social model is the concept of deomocratic representation, where government officals are elected by, and held accountable to, the free will of the people.’

Ritter is straight to the point on the dangers of disengagement from the political process:

‘When citizens stop actively participating in democracy, they run the risk of ceding control to power elites who may not have the best interests of the republic in mind. Such power elites – corporate entities, special interest groups, political ideologues, and others – often seek to maintain their influence by convincing the citizenry that the well-being of the collective is best decided by handing power and influence to a few, and trusting in these few to do right by the majority. Power elites sometimes exploit feat and ignorance as a means of selling a given policy. In this manner, power elites seek to wrap the citizen in a cocoon of comfort and security, promising a life journey of relative peace and prosperity if the citizen agrees not to rock the boat.

‘But this is not citizenship – it is consumerism, and consumerism at the expense of citizenship represents the death of the American democratic republic.’

The last chapter is a doozie. Ritter firmly believes that the US is on the road to fascism, and drastic steps – by that I mean drastic democratic steps by citizens – need to be taken. He compares the new neo-con dream, the Project for a New American Century, as being very close to the ideology of Mussolini and Nazism. He spells right out that Americans need to confront this:

‘Americans need to come to terms with two words – oligarchy and fascism.’

I’m not one for comparing George W. Bush to Hitler, but when Ritter does it, with such conviction, I’m willing to listen:

‘It is our responsibility as citizens to be ever vigilant in defence of our society. This means we should be honest in our evaluation of what is transpiring around us in the name of government. Bush as Hitler? You’re damn right. For Americans, Bush is worse than Hitler. Hitler never came close to destroying the American way of life; Bush is accomplishing that objective in spades. Hitler dreamed of global conquest; Bush is doing his utmost to achieve it.’

I wonder what Scott Ritter would be doing with himself if his work as a weapons inspector had not exposed him to the abuses of American power? He writes so well and so convincingly of the responsibilities of democracy. He’s certainly put himself on the line for what he believes in, and has been demonised and ridiculed by the Fox network, only to have events prove him right.

Chalmers Johnson has written the American empire is in a state of inexorable decline. Gore Vidal thinks the same thing. Norman Mailer has long thought the US is lurching towards fascism. A lot of great minds seem to be calmly accepting such a state of affairs as inevitable.

Frontier Justice is a must read book. Ritter’s predictions have so far been proven right. It’s in our best interests to pay more attention to him.

Travels in American Iraq, by John Martinkus

Assiduous television news watchers may remember a story about Australian journalist John Martinkus being kidnapped by insurgents late last year in Iraq. He was later released, because he could prove he was a journalist. His kidnappers fed his name into google and up he popped. Later he said, 'google saved my life'. Alexander Downer later castigated him for being irresponsible, then Martinkus shot back that Downer owed his an apology.

Obviously, his book Travels in American Iraq was about that trip he had just returned from. For seven weeks he toured Iraq. For dramatic effect he starts the book off with a description of the scene after a bombing. It's utterly revolting, as you'd expect. There are descriptions of body pieces everywhere. Then he feels his foot sliding on something gooey - human brains. Later that day, he dreads looking at the bottom of his boot, because he knows there may be bits left stuck (as indeed there are).

The book is a short one, 200 pages, and you can read it in a day or two. It has a sad, heart wrenching tone. Your heart just sinks as you read about the relentless suffering of the Iraqi people, who for the most part just want to get on with a better life.

The 'take away' I got from the book was the different attitudes, wildly different in a lot of cases, between occupied and occupier. Some of the conspiracy theories from your average Iraqi in the street were (from my point of view anyway) completely loopy. It seemed that so many Iraqis were clearly desperate and starved for real information on what was happening to their country, that they'd grasp at the most far fetched explanations. As for the American occupiers, you get the impression of an official line being repeatedly spouted, despite the reality on the ground. Both sides misunderstand each other, and for American soldiers, they'd obviously prefer to be home than fighting this dirty war.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush is planning a 40 million dollar party to celebrate his inauguration.

This is a very sobering read.

Quarterly Essay: Mission Impossible, by Paul McGeogh

I picked up Paul McGeogh's Quarterly Essay on Iraq from the library yesterday, titled Mission Impossible. Lousy title, but a very informative essay. It's not like anything else I've read on the subject.

I think McGeogh has been in the country for at least a year. There's quite a bit of local colour. It's refreshing to read of Muslims as civilised people, instead of the usual barbaric terrorist line we are fed about them. Mosques, food, manners and culture are nicely described.

The premise of the essay is that the Americans have not done enough homework about the political realities of Iraq - the tribal system that predates Islam. No one in Iraq thinks in terms of the nation state, like we do. People are loyal to their tribe.

These political complexities - Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and their competing interests - have not been thought about deeply enough by the Bush administration. Not to mention the enormous insensitivities - or just downright ignorance - to Iraqi culture.

What is the answer to the myriad of problems facing Iraq? The US must start appealing to the Sheiks - where most of the real power lies - for help. Democracy can't be just imposed from top down onto an ancient Arab culture. Nor can it be done in some 12 months.

Mc Geogh isn't too optimistic about the future for Iraq. He thinks there will inevitably be much more bloodshed in the future, leading who knows where.