Chomsky Q&A on the Iraq War:

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=9215

1. On Reconstruction

Anthony DiMaggio: The "humanitarian reconstruction" of Iraq has been acknowledged to a large degree as a failure in the corporate press. It's interesting, though, to see the reasons given for why: the resistance is hampering reconstruction, there wasn't perfect foresight by the Bush administration in the reconstruction coordination planning process, the excessive "rapid personnel shifts" of those Americans involved in rebuilding, American money has "necessarily" gone to "pacification" instead of rebuilding, etc. What seems to be systematically omitted here is any real responsibility placed on the Bush Administration for its failure to make humanitarian reconstruction a high priority.

Chomsky: The excuses also overlook the fact that the insurgency was created by the brutality of the invasion and occupation -- which is, in fact, one of the most astonishing failures in military history. The Nazis had less trouble in occupied Europe, and the Russians held their satellites for decades with far less difficulty. It is difficult to think of an analog. A few months after the invasion, I met a highly experienced senior physician with one of the leading relief organizations, who has served in some of the worst parts of the world. He had just returned briefly from Baghdad, where he was trying to reestablish medical facilities, but was unable to because of the incompetence of the CPA. He told me he had never seen such a combination of "arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence," referring to the Pentagon civilians in charge. In fact, it was monumental. They even failed to guard the WMD sites that had been under UN supervision, so that they were systematically looted, handing over to someone -- probably jihadis --high-precision equipment suitable for producing missiles and nuclear weapons, dangerous bio-toxins, etc., which had been provided to their friend Saddam by the US, UK and others. The ironies are almost indescribable.

Another fact overlooked, though it is finally beginning to leak, is the immense corruption under the CPA, beside which anything attributed to the UN pales in insignificance. Plenty of information has been readily available, but only tidbits were reported here.
One can go on. But the major and crucial point overlooked is the judgment of Nuremberg, declaring that aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." All of the "accumulated evil." Also overlooked are the stern words of the US Chief Counsel Justice Jackson: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us... We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well." Until at least this is recognized, all other discussion is merely footnotes, and shameful ones.