OT:OT:OT:NO MS:NO HURT USA:come clean


Published on Thursday, January 5, 2006 by the Financial Times
End This Evasion on Permanent Military Bases in Iraq
by Gary Hart

It has been the dream of Republican neoconservatives at least since
1998 - and probably years before - to overthrow Saddam Hussein and to use
the new client state of Iraq as the US's military and political base from
which to pacify the complex and troubled Middle East. Leaving aside the
plausibility of this notion, it is not one with which the great American
leaders of history would have identified and certainly not one they would
have attempted to carry out in secret.

Having failed in this enterprise, as some of us predicted, the
question is: what now? There is still the possibility that a central remnant
of this secret scheme may yet be salvaged. Surprisingly, the trick has drawn
little attention from the American audience. It is to help install at least
the semblance of a "democratic" government in Baghdad, even one that in
author Fareed Zakaria's perceptive term is an illiberal democracy; to
construct permanent US military bases at strategic points throughout the
country and then persuade the new "democratic" government to invite us to
stay.

So, now that the debate has finally turned not on whether to stay or
to go but on how soon and under what conditions we should leave, it would be
a mistake of epic proportions to assume things are that simple. There is an
old movie line my friend Frank Mankiewicz, the veteran political adviser, is
fond of quoting: "These are desperate men and they will stop at nothing."
This he said during the Watergate years and we all knew what he was talking
about, but it also applies today. For those of us who warned against kicking
a Middle East hornets' nest, to assume that now it is simply a question of
timing would be to assume that the neo-con Houdinis who gave us
Vietnam-in-the-desert are out of tricks.

Any attempt to find out whether the US is, or is not, constructing
permanent military bases meets with frustration. The few who have attempted
to get a direct answer to this question are met with evasion and purposeful
confusion over what is or is not "permanent". But this is the ultimate test
of true Bush administration intentions in Iraq. If we are, in fact,
constructing permanent bases, "leaving" simply means a reduction of forces
and the permanent stationing of US brigades in Iraq. If this "compromise"
solution appeals to you, you might wish to refresh your memory about the
disastrous French experience in Indochina or even certain phases of the
British occupation of Iraq.

Under circumstances where Congress was performing its constitutional
oversight responsibilities, and where the press was less intimidated by
power, it would be a straightforward exercise to determine whether a final
neoconservative trick is afoot. Congressional committees would have senior
civilian and uniformed Pentagon and State department officials answer direct
questions about US plans. "Mr or Madame secretary, are we, or are we not,
constructing permanent military bases in Iraq and, if so, for what purpose?"

But this Congress has made clear it is a purely partisan institution,
not a separate branch of government, and that it has no intention of
fulfilling its duties to oversee the executive branch and inform the
American people. Obviously, reporters could do the same with the White House
press secretary (with no serious hope of an honest answer) or, even better,
the president.

And to forgo predictable semantic sleights of hand, let us define
"permanent" as: fixed, solid, durable and lasting. In practical terms, that
means pouring concrete and welding steel, not tents and ditch latrines.

It is a shame for any American to distrust the veracity of his or her
leaders. But the current crop has given us more than enough reason to do so.
So when the president says: "When they [Iraqis] stand up, we will stand
down," it cries out for an explicit definition of what "stand down" means in
practice. Otherwise, "stand down" will quickly join "stay the course" and
"support the troops" as rhetorical substitutes for policy and the equivalent
of the scarves magicians use to obscure the concealment of an ace up the
sleeve.

The art of deception does not require outright lies. It may simply lie
in refusing to reveal the truth, the art of the trick. Given all the
purposeful obfuscation, deception and card-shuffling that went on during the
run up to the Iraq war, and the shuck-and-jive since things turned ugly,
does anyone seriously believe the neoconservative magicians are out of
tricks?

Gary Hart, a former US senator, was twice a contender for the
Democratic presidential nomination. His new book, The Shield and The Cloak:
The Security of the Commons, is out this month (Oxford University Press)

© 2006 Financial Times

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