Adrian Blomfield went to
Baghdad as a strong believer in regime change. Now he thinks
that Bush has messed up in Iraq — and should be booted out of
the White House
My stint as a reporter in Iraq showed me where America went
wrong. Listening to his closest advisers — Donald Rumsfeld, Dick
Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith — President Bush went into
Iraq not with a postwar reconstruction plan but with a theory. Iraq
was to be an experiment in imposing unfettered capitalism on what
had effectively been a socialist command economy. Taxation and
tariffs were more or less abandoned. Unable to compete, Iraqi
businessmen watched as Bechtel, Halliburton and their kind took
over, and invested instead in the insurgency. Iraqi doctors and
engineers, who could expect no more than $200 a month, watched in
disbelief as foreigners were brought in as drivers on $10,000 a
month. Where once most Iraqis could at least find casual work, now
nearly 60 per cent are unemployed. Proconsul Paul Bremer disbanded
the Iraqi army, though it was from its ranks that most of the
assassination attempts on Saddam and his execrable sons were
launched. Many soldiers have since joined the rebels. Most of the
civil service was given the heave-ho too, including 12,000 teachers
who would have been useful in those refurbished schools. Mr Bush
deployed only half the number of troops his commanders asked for. As
a result, he has exposed the men who are in Iraq to further danger,
while robbing them of any realistic chance to stymie the insurgency
.
But that does not explain everything. Whitehall often made the
most idiotic decisions during the first half of the last century,
but the Empire held together, largely because of the work of
district officers in remote locations. I am continually astounded,
when venturing out into northern Kenya or southern Sudan, by the
wizened half-naked gentlemen who approach me to reminisce about the
young white man who lived among them for three years, spoke their
tribal tongue and dispensed Her Majesty’s justice.
The young men sent out from America are not cast in the same
mould. Do not get me wrong: they are, by and large, incredibly
brave. But because of their poor education and an American tendency
towards parochialism, they have little understanding of any culture
other than their own. Most are terrified of the Iraqis and
bewildered by the lack of gratitude of the people they believe they
liberated. While embedded with the US marines outside Fallujah, I
saw these young men kick Iraqis to the ground during interrogation,
stomp across prayer mats in their boots, eye up women in their homes
and routinely humiliate the Iraqi guardsmen they are supposedly
working with.
Their behaviour is in some ways understandable. Forbidden from
entering Fallujah until after the US elections (for fear that
civilian casualties could cost votes) the marines launch pointless
raids outside the town that rarely uncover anything. In the meantime
remotely detonated mines, suicide bombings and mortar attacks claim
more of their colleagues’ lives.
The ‘cowboy up’ school of politics has been given a chance. It
has failed. Whether the unimpressive-looking John Kerry will do any
better is beside the point. The cowboy has messed up in Iraq, the
policy on which he has centred over half his reign. Americans should
punish him accordingly.
Adrian Blomfield is eastern and central Africa correspondent
of the Daily Telegraph.
