Plan Iraq ----- Permanent Occupation

Plan Iraq - Permanent Occupation

By Stephen Lendman

Created Jul 16 2007 - 9:21am

Congress is back from its July 4 break and with it more bluster and

political posturing on changing course to keep things the same, including

everything not working in place. It's the same old scheme, back again, to

fool enough of the people all the time and most all of them long enough to

move on to the next change of course mission shift starting the whole cycle

over again. Even the blind can see the hopelessness of staying the course in

Iraq. Aside from its lawlessness and immorality, pushing on with a failed

effort qualifies as a classic definition of insanity - continuing the same

failed policies, expecting different results.

The only sensible, honorable option is a full, speedy withdrawal along with

providing multi-billions for Iraqis to rebuild what we destroyed and have no

intention restoring now or ever beyond what's needed for permanent

occupation. The only other honorable option is owning up to what no one in

Washington or the major media will do - that the Iraq and Afghan conflicts

are illegal wars of aggression making those responsible for them in the

administration and Congress war criminals warranting prosecution for their

crimes.

That won't happen nor will the administration and Congress do anything more

substantive than say one thing and do another. It's been an unbroken pattern

since 9/11, and especially on Afghanistan and throughout the run-up to the

Iraq invasion. Both wars were sold through lies and deceit. They're based on

a fictitious "outside enemy" threat without which no "war on terrorism"

could exist, and no imperial foreign wars could be waged.

They're possible only by scaring the public enough to believe the threat is

still real, and "Enemy Number One" Osama bin Laden (recruited through

Pakistan's ISI as a CIA asset in the 1980s) and Al-Queda represent it. So

with Saddam gone and no WMDs found, staying the course is vital to the

nation's security even when, in fact, the truth is the opposite, crying

wolf's wearing thin, and selling snake oil solutions get harder to do. But

schemers keep trying with complicit Democrats as much part of the scam as

Republicans and Bush loyalists, dwindling down to a precious hard line few

but still around in key positions making noise.

With "the walls of Jericho" crumbling around him as the world's most hated

man and the ship of state listing badly, a pathetic caricature of a

president keeps pleading for more time. He claims it's needed to head off

the threat of "mass killing on a horrific scale" in Iraq and plenty at home

as well. He then continues using the same timeworn line that the war can be

won, the "surge" is working, give it a chance, and withdrawing will be

disastrous. Be more patient, and we'll know more in September we're told.

The Iraqi puppet government gets blamed for what's gone wrong with no one in

Washington pointing the finger where it belongs. George Bush can do no

better than keep asking Congress and the public "to give (generalissimo)

David Petraeus a chance to come back (September 15) and tell us whether his

(unworkable) strategy is working, and then we can work together on a way

forward (further over the cliff)."

At his July 12 news conference, he never mentioned and attending shameless

journalists never pressed him on CIA Director Michael Hayden's earlier bleak

assessment of things on the ground. He called the Iraqi puppet government

"unable to govern" and its inability to do it "irreversible." Also not

discussed was the July UN refugee agency's plea for doubling its Iraq

funding to $123 million for the growing humanitarian needs of an estimated

2000 people fleeing uncontrollable violence in the country daily (60,000 a

month) and an estimated four million or more displaced refugees within and

outside the country.

No comment or questions were raised either on what journalists Chris Hedges

and Laila Al-Arian (daughter of US political prisoner Sami Al-Arian)

reported in the July 30 issue of The Nation. Based on interviews with 50

returning Iraq combat veterans (ranking from privates to captains), they

wrote about "disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops" and an

indiscriminate use of force (with pictures to prove it) amounting to a

"depraved enterprise." Mentioned were accounts of American troops

gratuitously killing Iraqi civilians, including children, that these actions

are common, go unreported, are rarely investigated, and almost always go

unpunished.

George Bush's comments (and most others) ignore as well that over 7 in 10

Americans favor a force withdrawal, over 60% say the war was a mistake, only

one in five believe the "surge" improved things, and new polls keep showing

the numbers getting worse the longer the conflict continues. It's got the

president's approval rating barely above the lowest ever registered since

polling began with Richard Nixon, Harry Truman, during the unpopular Korean

war, Jimmy Carter, briefly in 1980, and his own father sharing bottom

honors.

Maybe George Bush is kept above rock bottom through some creative

manipulation of the data or the result of what questions were asked, to

whom, the phrasing used, and the order in which they were presented. It

seems likely for the most despised, distrusted and disgraced US president

ever. Even clever pollsters, however, can't salvage Dick Cheney's rating. At

a bottom-scraping 12% reported, it's the lowest number scored for a

president or vice-president ever, by far and then some.

The reason is simple. A decisive majority in the country think the war's

unwinnable, was a mistake, want it ended, and know it was based on lies.

People resent being had. Even through heavily filtered mainstream news

reports, they know the situation on the ground is out of control and an

appalling US-inflicted crime against humanity atrocity of enormous

proportions.

No one in Iraq is safe anywhere, even in the heavily secured, fortress-like

Green Zone becoming more like a embattled one daily with regular attacks on

it causing damage, injuries and deaths. Few are reported, but one on July 10

was with two to three dozen katyusha rockets and mortar rounds striking

inside the world's "ultimate gated community" killing at least three persons

and wounding 25 or more. Throughout the country, violence long ago spiraled

out of control, and since the "surge" began in February, even the Pentagon

admits things are worse, not better, in its quarterly April - June report to

Congress.

It contradicts generalissimo Petraeus' claim of "astonishing signs of

normalcy" in Baghdad overall and "breathtaking" progress even though he (and

others high up) earlier said repeatedly there's no military solution to the

conflict. The only thing "breathtaking" about Petraeus is his inconsistency

and that he's either more incompetent than Custer at the "Little Bighorn" or

a man who'll say anything to please George Bush. On the ground, in fact,

civilian deaths are higher than ever. They number well over 5000 a month

known about and countless others never reported, the claimed June numbers

notwithstanding that are too low to be believed and should be discounted and

ignored as meaningless. In addition, US forces are sustaining more attacks

and suffered the highest level of listed fatalities and injuries in the

latest three month April - June period since the war began.

Nearly everyone outside the administration and Congress knows the war is

lost, but no one's brave enough to admit it or do anything about it. So

shifting mission means "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" with the

dominant media always in tow to shape the facts on the ground to fit the

policy. Admiral Farragut would be proud.

Now it's back to the political drawing board with a repackaged new scheme

certain to end up little different from the last one. Ideas floating promise

a substantial drawdown of troops leaving behind what's claimed is needed to

maintain security for the Iraqi people that's killing thousands of them

every month. All NATO combined can't contain the hate and growing opposition

in both war zones matched against any size occupying force put in place to

contain them. Iraq and Afghanistan have a long history of resisting

occupiers and a successful record of ousting them in the end. It will be the

same this time as earlier after many more lives are lost in a futile effort

to prove otherwise.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the struggle for liberation is on the ground. At

home, shifting mission is being concocted by scared politicians up for

reelection in 2008. They'll face millions of angry voters fed up with wars

they want ended and ready to throw out the bums who won't do it. So it's

back to political posturing (again) with Democrats and Republicans trying to

convince voters this time they mean it, and what they say is what they'll

follow through on. It's the same old repackaged scam in the nation's capitol

where nothing can be taken on its face. It's high time the public realized

the criminal class there is bipartisan, and nothing short of a new breed of

uncorrupted officials will change things. And that won't happen until enough

fed up voters elect them.

For now it's business as usual, and summer battle lines have the "intrepid"

Democrat-led Congress and a few nervous Republican defectors facing off with

the Bush administration on the FY 2008 DOD budget. It calls for an

astonishing $648.8 billion plus an additional $142 billion war supplemental

likely to end up topping $800 billion when the dust settles and usual pork

is added in. Debate will play out the same as last year with Democrats in

the end failing to use the one constitutional power Congress alone has - the

appropriation authority to cut off funding and end the Bush administration's

imperial adventurism once and for all. No money, no wars, that simple.

It's apparently too simple, and all that's likely ahead is more disingenuous

posturing over restricting troop deployments and setting an open-ended

timetable for an unspecified partial withdrawal at the discretion of the

administration taking full advantage to do as it pleases. And if that

doesn't work, George Bush promises to veto any legislation setting timelines

for withdrawal he'll ignore even if overridden. On July 10, he repeated his

earlier statements that Iraq troop levels "will be decided by our commanders

on the ground (obeying White House orders), not by political figures in

Washington, DC" (except him, Dick Cheney and their hard line cronies.

The president has no more to fear from "opposition" Democrats and

"defecting" Republicans than he had before, but he's quivering anyway. Their

posturing (and his) is as phony now as immediately post-9/11 in selling the

Afghan war and enacting police state laws. It's as bad as in pre-March,

2003, last year's budget debate, and this spring's agreement to continue

funding through September with George Bush certifying (on his word alone)

progress is being made and Iraqis are carrying their share of the burden

that's impossible because the world's only superpower can't handle its own.

But note Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's compromising language with a

September 15 administration/Pentagon accountability report upcoming: "The

war is headed in a dangerous direction, and Americans are united in the

belief that we cannot wait until the administration's September report

before we change course in Iraq." His next statement shows he's not

preaching pullout but only says "We cannot ask our military to continue to

fight without a strategy for success (never mind there is none short of

full, unconditional withdrawal), and we certainly cannot ask them to fight

before they are ready to do so."

He's referring to deployment lengths (unchanged after July 11 Senate

amendments were blocked) and concern for a broken military the Pentagon

already admits to. The likely outcome of current debate will be the same

quick fix as before, save for a few dubious amendments achieving nothing. In

the end, the compromise solution will be to kick the can down the road and

throw lots more money at the problem hoping it will go away. It'll only get

worse. No amount can salvage a lost war, lawmakers and the Pentagon know it,

but solutions like last year and this spring are coming with bloated budgets

getting more bloated.

Ignore meaningless party line votes like the one the House passed July 12

for withdrawing most combat troops by April 1, 2008. Not while this

administration's in power, and so far, the Senate's going nowhere. It can't

get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican promised filibuster, and

votes cast in both Houses are to deceive voters, not get action. They're

made knowing they're safe with George Bush promising to veto any change of

course and can make it stick.

The wars will thus continue to progress in an endless cycle of more spending

with no results beyond growing deficits, intensifying public anger, greater

violence on the ground, and defeats getting worse as the conflicts drag on.

George Bush calls it "progress. I know we can succeed in Iraq, and I know we

must" he said on July 12. Incredibly, he claimed it on eight trivial

military benchmarks under US control, blaming eight more important political

failures on the Iraqi puppet government in charge of little more than

cleaning daily rubble and dead bodies off streets. He added results to date

are a mixed bag and overall it's too early to pass judgment - after over

four disastrous years of failure and a conflict longer in duration than WW

II when war raged on three continents against formidable enemies, and it was

no simple task beating them.

It again proves this man is unchallenged as a world champion serial liar. By

now, he may believe some of his own lies the way writer Alex Cockburn said

Ronald Reagan believed his. "Truth (for the great fabricator) was what he

happened to be saying at the time. He (and Bush) went one better than George

Washington in that he couldn't tell a lie and he couldn't tell the truth,

since he couldn't tell the difference between the two."

There is a difference, however, between the two deceivers. During his first

term at least, Reagan (as a former actor, albeit a B-rated one) did a

reasonable job impersonating a president. He could find his "mark" and read

his lines. George Bush never rose to that level even as Texas governor or

any other time in his life, and when it comes to lying, he can't stop doing

it even when he knows the difference. He proved it July 12 in his ludicrous

portrayal of the true state of things in Iraq. It's part of his desperate

effort for new congressional funding in even greater amounts. To get it, he

ignores growing public disenchantment and deep revulsion about a criminal

lost cause enterprise launched and continued on the basis of lies.

That notwithstanding, Reid and other Democrats have their grandiose notions

of mission shift. It's to avoid "a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq" with

legislation he'll propose calling for permanent occupation forces on the

ground for the spurious notion of "conduct(ing) counterterrorism operations,

protect(ing) our assets (meaning oil) and train(ing) Iraqi forces." Senate

Armed Services Committee chairman, Carl Levin is on board with him. He'll

support a limited troop withdrawal by late year, an end to combat operations

on the ground by April 30, 2008 with Iraqi forces taking over, and a large

remaining permanent occupation force hunkered down inside fortified

super-bases. Never mind what Iraqis want that excludes our presence in their

country. And the same is true for the Afghans.

Voices from the administration, Pentagon, Congress and the dominant media

assure they'll be disappointed as the top goal is salvaging America's

imperial adventurism and mission shifting current operations into a workable

permanent occupation. Here's why. The Afghan and Iraq wars are for

resources, primarily oil, and in the parts of the world where more than

four-fifths of proved reserves are located. Canadian journalist and author

Linda McQuaig explains the grandest of grand prizes is "hidden in plain

sight" in Iraq. It's the country's oil treasure - the planet's last

remaining bonanza of easily harvested "low-hanging fruit" with more

potential reserves than Saudi Arabia, the great majority of them untapped.

It makes the country "the most sought after real estate on the face of the

earth" according to one Wall Street oil analyst she quoted. Even with dated

information on its potential, it's known Iraq has at least 10% of dwindling

world reserves. But it's potential was "frozen in time" with no new

development in over two decades because of intervening wars in the 1980s,

economic sanctions following the Gulf war in 1991, and the current war

ongoing since March, 2003. If the country's potential doubles or triples, as

Saudi Arabia's did in the last 20 years, it would, in fact, have the world's

largest (mostly untapped) proved reserves making Iraq too rich a prize for

America and its Big Oil allies to pass up. It's worth trillions of dollars

and immense geopolitical power at a time of peak oil in the face of future

dwindling supplies, except in this resource-rich country the US won't ever

leave as long as there's enough of them in the ground and region to justify

staying.

It's why the country is being turned into a giant permanent military base

protecting the ocean of oil beneath it Washington intends to control for its

Big Oil friends and to have veto power over who gets it, who doesn't, and at

what price. To understand what's happening, consider Korea. The US arrived

in the country in 1950 following Harry Truman's committing American forces

to help the South after Washington's instigated civil war began there on

June 25 that year. Fifty-seven years later, around 37,000 troops still

remain with no intention to leave. Washington has the same thing in mind for

Iraq. The Pentagon set up shop there and intends to stay.

Below is shown, as best we know, how far advanced we've come toward

militarizing the country for permanent occupation no matter how debate plays

out in Congress. It's all bluster providing cover for administration policy

both parties support.

Plan Iraq - Permanent Occupation

Drawdowns, withdrawal, timelines, mission shifting, building democracy and

all the other current and long-standing phony rhetoric aside, America is in

Iraq to stay as a conqueror and occupier - that is, until Iraqis finally

kick us out as they will in time in a part of the world long a graveyard for

foreign invaders. But it won't happen quickly or before countless more

thousands die, are injured, suffer immeasurably, are displaced, and lose

everything. This is the ugly dark side of imperialism, nurtured on conquest,

unchallengeable control, and keenly focused on destroying and permanently

occupying the cradle of civilization now smashed and planned for

dismemberment.

In the meantime, a new "peace candidate" will become president in January,

2009 on the strength of distant echos of Richard Nixon's "peace with honor"

1968 campaign and hopes history would call him a "peacemaker." Instead,

there were five and one-half more years of intense war, thousands more

American deaths, and one to two million more Southeast Asian victims in

Vietnam and the secret wars in Cambodia and Laos.

Whatever little, if anything, a new president does at home, the occupation

of Iraq and Afghanistan will remain with plans for Iraqi forces eventually

to do most of our killing and dying for us. If or when they're up to it, the

scheme involves US troops staying hunkered down inside their super-bases,

used as needed outside them, with massive air power deployed freely to

slaughter innocent victims on the ground whenever they resist what no one

should ever have to endure. For now, Iraqis have no choice but to bear up

and fight back because it's their misfortune to have an ocean of "our" oil

beneath their sand we laid claim to.

Already discussed is Iraq's importance as the planet's last remaining

"low-hanging fruit" bonanza of mostly untapped oil riches worth trillions of

dollars as the key reason America came to stay. The US military arrived in

March, 2003 and dug in for the long haul with fixed military installations

around the country. Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton, got most of

the huge no-bid contracts, worth many billions, to war-profiteer and build

them, irrespective of its outlandish record of waste, fraud and abuse.

As of May, 2005, US forces were operating out of 106 bases around the

country from an original estimated 120 sites. They range in size from the

huge Main Operating Base (MOB) Camp Victory complex near Baghdad airport

where thousands of American troops are stationed to smaller ones known as

Forward Operation Sites (FOS) that are still major installations. In

addition, there are many Cooperative Security Locations (CSL) that are small

outposts for as few as 500 personnel, a number of prisons and detention

facilities, and an original dozen sites given to Iraqi military or police

units that now likely number many more.

Reports vary, and much remains secret, about the administration and

Pentagon's current and future construction plans for Iraq. What is known is

$18 billion earlier was allocated for in-country work that includes base

installations, the US Embassy and whatever other occupation facilities are

intended. The current figure is likely much higher. It's also known US

engineers are focusing on building 14 large "enduring bases" for extended

encampments for the tens of thousands of US forces there now and future

replacements.

Professor Emeritus Jules Dufour of the University of Quebec, Canada

discussed "The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases" in his July 1, 2007

article posted on Global Research.ca. It included detailed information plus

maps and much more on what he called "the Worldwide development of US

military power (in place) to view the (entire) Earth surface as a vast

territory to conquer, occupy and exploit (for giant US corporate behemoths

it's in league with)." He characterizes the scheme as a process of

"Humanity....being controlled and enslaved by this Network of US military

bases." He and Chalmers Johnson believe they number 1000 or more that,

according to Johnson, were in 153 countries as of September, 2001 and now

likely in 160 or more. There are also many other secret, espionage, and

other bases jointly used in many countries with their hosts.

Dufour says post-9/11, the US built 14 new bases in the Persian Gulf region.

It's also involved "in construction and/or reinforcement of 20 bases (106

structured units as a whole) in Iraq" plus others in Afghanistan and other

Central Asian former Soviet bloc countries and elsewhere to encircle and

control both regions' strategic resources, mainly oil, and the pipeline

routes needed to transport it.

Iraq bases are located or are being built around Baghdad, Mosul, Taji,

Balad, Kirkuk, Nasiriyah, Tikrit, Fallujah and Irbil. There are also plans

to rebuild and improve Baghdad, Mosul and other airfields as well as rebuild

roads and other essential infrastructure strategically needed for

occupation. There are no plans to help the Iraqi people left on their own.

They have the barest of essential services, and infrastructure to provide

them, like functioning hospitals, medications, electricity, clean water,

safe food to eat, fuel, schools, and most everything else.

Most important for the planned long haul will be four to six or more

super-sized bases on the order of small towns with their own neighborhoods

and kinds of amenities found in typical US ones. Inside them, it's hard

distinguishing between Iraq and America unless more sophisticated and better

aimed rocket and mortar rounds strike nearby that's becoming more common.

The biggest of these bases so far is the huge Balad one. It houses the major

Air Force operation in the country, including its new spacious, state of the

art, "Kingpin" air traffic control center dividing the country's airspace

into "kill boxes," called the Common Grid Reference System. The largest Army

logistical support center is here as well, and it's also where thousands of

civilian contractors, in neighborhoods known as "KBR-land," are based with

all the comforts of home for them and military personnel when it's quiet

inside. The so-called secret Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force

(CJSOTF) is also at Balad. It's kept behind "especially high walls" for

privacy and seclusive separation from other operations based there.

The al-Asad airbase is the largest marine encampment in the country located

in western Anbar province where resistance to US occupying forces has been

stiffest. It, too, has a hometown feel with similar amenities to the

country's other major bases intended to be permanent. While the Pentagon

won't admit it, four super-bases were operating last year with plans likely

for at least two more. In addition, it was planned, but now not certain,

that British forces would maintain a permanent military presence in the

south around Basra where it's now based. If Britain pulls out, as its public

demands, the Pentagon will move in and likely expand the facilities with at

least another super-sized one for that strategically oil-rich part of the

country. They'll need it as the Brits are no more in control there than US

forces anywhere else. Their 2006 Operation Sinbad flopped with militias on

the ground in full control.

Nonetheless, America came to Iraq to stay as long as the Middle East is

resource-rich and the greatest untapped portion by far is in Iraq. But

history shows the best-laid plans don't always work out as intended.

Occupiers aren't welcome anywhere with Iraq and Afghanistan particularly

adept at expelling earlier ones that tried and failed, including the British

from both countries who should know better. Journalist Felicity Arbuthnot

notes on Global Research.ca July 14 that on this day in 1958, "the Iraqi

army toppled the British (post WW I-imposed) royal regime, which had opened

the door wide for Western monopolies to plunder the country's oil wealth

under unjust concession." Her message to modern-day plunderers: "Listen to

history."

Permanency may only be in the eyes of the beholder and may end much sooner

than planned. Our super-bases, with all their size, security and comforts of

home, may become no more permanent than their mega-predecessors in Danang,

Cam Rahn Bay and the Saigon embassy (a miniature compared to the

Vatican-sized behemoth in Baghdad's Green Zone) where the last remnants of

US presence in Vietnam were helicoptered from its rooftop in defeat and

humiliation. It forced us to give up what we intending keeping unchallenged

with visions as conquerors no different than today.

In the end, we abandoned them because we were beaten and had no other

choice. What a determined third-world Asian country did 30 years ago to the

world's strongest superpower, Middle East and Central Asian ones are doing

today to the only remaining one slipping fast and running out of excuses

why.

It's just a matter of time before history repeats with the same result.

Iraqis and Afghans believe it and intend to prove it again. Too bad

Washington hard-liners know little history and haven't figured it out. One

day they will. They're just slow to catch on. Ruling empires never see the

tide turning and that they're swimming against it. George Bush's America is

no different. It bit off more than it can swallow and will end the same as

others wrecked on the shoals of their own hubris.

The scene is playing out in the graveyard of other imperial powers in the

Middle East and Central Asia. It just remains for the final chapter to be

written ending rest in peace unless Americans locate their cajones and write

their own version first. It has to reject corrupted power politics; remove

the criminal class; restore the rule of law; place the rights of humanity

and democratic values above wealth and privilege; and end forever the

hellish wars fought for them.

_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson