Reaction Paper #3

Readings  - Descent into Chaos – Ahmed Rashid, Up to Chapter 3

                Descent into Chaos begins by telling the story of Hamid Karzai. He was an easygoing seeker of compromise, which meant he never fit it (nor desired to fit in) with the fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan at the time. Instead he joined the National Liberation Front led by Mujaddedi and became his foreign policy advisor. When Mujaddedi became president of the new Islamic Republic of Afghanistan after the soviet withdraw, Karzai became his deputy foreign minister. When America pulled out under George H.W. Bush the political vacuum resulted in civil war – not unlike what would happen in Iraq ten or so years later. Out of the civil war, the Taliban emerged. Karzai points out that they were initially good people, but the tragedy of the Taliban was that they were taken over by the ISI and were merely a proxy. Whether or not this is true is fundamentally another issue, but it is interesting that Karzai admits to supporting them in the beginning.[i]

                The Taliban were young and easily influenced, making them an easy target for first the ISI and then Al Qaida. It was only after Bin Laden had a real ideological and monetary influence that the Taliban began to think of global jihad. The Americans refused to put any real effort into the region, and even when Al Qaida bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the US response was small and ineffective.[ii] Rashid argues that he and Karzai both tried to warn western governments, especially the united states, but they didn’t respond. It is always easier to see these things in hindsight though and they couldn’t possibly know what was coming, so it is difficult to tell if this is a valid point or not. Eventually the world began to take notice, but it was too late. They were already powerful enough to be ignoring UN resolutions. At this point Karzai chose to join Masud and the Northern Alliance. Masud was murdered two days before 9/11.

                Pakistani cooperation seemed necessary in order to get Bin Laden, and on 9/11, the US gave Pakistan an ultimatum: Either they were with the US or they would be taken down along with the terrorists.[iii] Needless to say, they agreed. Most of Pakistan’s reasoning lied in its refusal to allow a US/India alliance. In some sense, Pakistan’s problem was originally caused by the US who began covertly funding the Pakistani military to the tune of $500 million per year as part of their cold war agenda in 1957. The military has maintained control over the government since with the exception of the reigns of Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir.[iv] Either way, it was impossible to trust Musharraf.

                Musharraf, who nearly plunged the world into nuclear war, was now the chief executive of the Pakistani military and therefore the government. He was viewed internationally as unstable and easily influenced. He was educated in the western tradition, and seemed to be fairly secular by all accounts, only joining the military for its glamour. He even trained at Fort Bragg in the US. Sharif made him military chief because he assumed Musharraf would never gain too much power. Instead he overthrew him. Now Musharraf was attempting to completely support the US on paper, while in reality not ever ending support for Al Qaida or the Taliban. This was a mistake that would never be forgiven by many Afghan people. His popularity didn’t last long. He fell down the same hole as all other disliked military dictators. He kept restricting freedom and becoming more corrupt until the UN was forced to get involved. By 9/11 he was ignoring UN sanctions and continuing to champion the Taliban.

Viewings  -  Bush’s War[v]

                The Frontline Documentary “Bush’s War” paints an interesting and very informative picture of the events immediately after 9/11 throughout Bush’s presidency. Though 9/11 was a product of Al Qaida and everyone in the government seemed to know it was Al Qaida, A plan for an invasion of Iraq had already been sketched out. 9/11 was the perfect opportunity to put the plan into motion. Nevertheless, President Bush decided that Afghanistan would be his first priority. At the time, there were two major coalitions in Washington, vying for the President’s notice and favor. On one side was Vice President Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense. On the other side were Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. These two schools of foreign policy would battle each other for the remainder of Bush’s presidency.

                The first time was over who would be in charge in Afghanistan. Originally power was given to the CIA who already had attack plans in the Middle East under leadership of Cofer Black, but Rumsfeld pushed hard enough to convert a large portion of the power to Department of Defense. Since the DOD had plans in Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, managed to convince the President that Iraq was a threat. It seems that he needed any excuse possible to bring Iraq into a potential war. To capture and hold to terrorists, and to use the interrogation techniques they wanted, they needed to go around the law. They were able to thanks to their Yes-Man in the justice dept, John Yoo. He drafted memos that effectively gave the president wartime power to an unprecedented and probably illegal extent. It’s key to mention that congress actually refused to grant Bush these permissions, but he just bypassed congress with the justice department and took the power anyway. The Taliban was easy to dismantle, and Bush used his newfound power, to torture high profile terrorists captured in Afghanistan to obtain actionable intelligence. Some of this information would later be proved false, which is not too surprising considering the information was given under extreme pressure.

                The real question, however, was what to do with the scores of other prisoners in Afghanistan. This problem was solved by Cheney when he convinced Bush to sign a document stating that the prisoners could be tried by military tribunals, without the knowledge of and foreign policy advisors. At this point, President Bush’s approval rating was near 90%. Once the topic of Iraq came up, the two factions in Bush’s cabinet began warring again.  Added to Colin Powell’s side this time was Tony Blair. At this point, Rumsfeld began pushing people around, and under his and Cheney’s influence he determined to go into Iraq, first under the premise of toppling a rogue regime, but later weapons of mass destruction would be cited as the main reason for going into Iraq. Colin Powell and Tony Blair managed to convince Bush that he was obligated to go to the UN first to obtain a resolution to search for WMDs in Iraq. But here, Blair signed his own political death order by agreeing to support Bush if afterwards the US did determine to mount a military operation in Iraq. What Blair didn’t know is that Wolfowitz and Chalabi, an Iraqi exile and part of the Iraqi National Congress, were campaigning behind closed doors to invade regardless of what the UN concluded. Their Agenda involved toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime and installing a government that would be controlled by the Iraqi National Congress. Even still, the CIA could find no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Al Qaida, so invasion could not be justified under the existing US foreign policy. This is where Cheney brought up the point of WMDs. It’s really astounding how much influence Cheney had on Bush, considering the fact that vice presidents have historically been comparatively powerless. It makes Bush look almost child-like, with the grownups (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, Rice) making the key moves on either side. Neither Rumsfeld or Cheney trusted the State department or the CIA , so Rumsfeld establish his own intelligence agency called the Office of Special Planning, with the single goal of finding (or even fabricating) evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

                With the large influx of prisoners in custody, it posed the problem of where to put them all. Rumsfeld, on his own, decided that they would go to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He had convinced Bush that the Geneva conventions concerning the treatment of POWs did not apply in this case. Powell very strongly disagreed , but was completely undercut by the rest of the administration. At Guantanamo, the conditions were terrible and no actionable intelligence was coming out of the interrogations. As a result, Rumsfeld authorized the harshest interrogation techniques ever allowed in the United States Military. The bottom line leading up to the Iraq war was that Administration was fitting the facts to its policy instead of the other way around, despite the fact that most of America’s allies did not agree.  Especially when the UN did not find any evidence of WMDs.

                 In March of 2003, combat operations in Iraq began. Their Shock and Awe tactics lasted only 3 weeks, and Saddam Hussein disappeared as his statue fell in Baghdad. But in its place, there wasn’t freedom, only anarchy. The original plan was to hand Iraq over to the Iraqi National Congress Immediately and pull out troops.  This plan failed. Eventually L.Paul Bremer III was given control of the aftermath of Iraq. He immediately dismantled the remnants of the Iraqi government and disbanded the Iraqi army, both of which were rather obvious mistakes. All the senior military officials in Iraq quit in protest.  By this time all the control of Iraq was held by ridiculously inexperienced people. Now they were stuck in Iraq for the long haul, despite Rumsfeld claiming otherwise. From the anarcy of a collapsed Iraq rose an insurgency, on both the Sunni and Shi’ite sides, some partially funded by Iran. The US desperately needed intelligence in order to combat the insurgents, and thus Abu Ghraib  happened. The US military began arresting everyone in order to get actionable intelligence, Rumsfeld decidied they needed to be tougher as they had in Guantanamo, and with approval by Sanchez, Abu Ghraib became a torture prison.

                Not too long before re-election, Saddam Hussein was found near the Sunni stronghold of Falluja. The Battle of Falluja was a US failure and only served to strengthen the Insurgency. After bush won re-election, he replaces Colin Powell with Condoleezza Rice. Cheney had refused to let Bush fire Rumsfeld instead. The government still managed to hold elections by this point and millions had turned out to vote, but the Sunnis boycotted. When the Photos from Abu Ghraib leaded and Senator McCain  questioned Rumsfeld in congress, Bush lost a lot of respect for Rumsfeld, and Rice began to be the more powerful advisor to the President. Her Finish the Job Rhetoric and Clear, Hold, Build strategy would soon become the official strategy of the military.  At this point, the battle with the Shi’Ites was mostly over, but the Sunnis posed a major security threat even before Al Qaida attacked the most famous Shi’ite mosque and effectively started a civil war in Iraq that undermined the remaining plans of the US military.  Now the US was forced to “Stay the Course” or else all their Middle East plans would be completely derailed. This happened right before the 2006 midterm elections, where the democrats would reclaim majority in the House of Representatives. At this point, Rumsfeld became too big a risk and he was asked to resign. He was replaced with Rice’s nomination, Robert Gates.  Bush was powerless to stop the fighting in Iraq and military presence would continue until Obama’s presidency.

                This documentary really characterized bush as an ineffective an incompetent leader that just did whatever his advisors said, and listened to whoever he liked best at the moment. It is difficult to pinpoint what could have been changed to prevent the Iraq war, which historically can probably be considered a failure. The major issue I believe was Dick Cheney’s role as Vice President. He had an unprecedented and extraordinary influence on the President along with a very strong friendship with Donald Rumsfeld. Together they could bully anyone in Washington to get what they wanted. Had Cheney not been Bush’s vice president, diplomacy would have taken a stronger role instead of the Department of Defense, which could have prevented war, and therefore the ridiculous spending of taxpayers dollars.

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[i] Rashid, 13

[ii] Rashid, 16

[iii] Rashid, 28

[iv] Rashid, 37

[v] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/