| |
War On Truth Still Rages
|
|
|
War On Truth Still Rages
|
|
by Haroon Siddiqui
|
| |
|
Iraq is as sovereign and has as much legal custody of Saddam Hussein as it had weapons of mass destruction, or collaborated with Al-Qaeda, or posed a threat to the United States.
The week's farce — the "handover" of power, the "transfer" of Saddam — is part of George W. Bush's ongoing war on truth.
The only brush with reality came in the historic judgment by the U.S. Supreme Court that the Bush administration cannot continue to operate above the law. It must grant due process to both citizens and foreigners ensnared in its war on terrorism.
The rebuke, a long time coming, restores a modicum of faith in a nation led by a president so deceitful on so many fronts that he cannot go abroad without drawing massive protests, as seen in recent days in Ireland and Turkey, or eliciting derision for his catastrophic failures in Iraq.
Iraqi "self-rule," proclaimed in secret in Baghdad before a handful of people guarded by U.S. troops is as real as the flowers showered on the "liberators" last year.
American rule of Iraq is over; long live the American rule. American viceroy Paul Bremer has departed; John Negroponte, master of American intrigue in Nicaragua in the 1980s, has arrived as the pasha of the largest American embassy in the world.
The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council is out; a U.S.-named new regime is in. It is led by Iyad Allawi, a paid CIA puppet for a decade and, before that, a Baathist servant of Saddam.
Looking for a patina of local legitimacy, the discredited secular Shiite invoked Allah and the Prophet Muhammad, and cursed the growing army of insurgents as "infidels."
He also arraigned Saddam in court on charges conceived by the U.S. justice department on evidence gathered mainly by the CIA and the FBI.
The show trial, a poor substitute for hauling Saddam before a special international war crimes tribunal, serves Allawi and, especially, Bush in the presidential election this fall.
But it may undermine the credibility of the legal process essential to the justice and reconciliation the Iraqis need.
They are not fooled by Allawi's claims to being his own man.
The number of U.S. troops is to increase, not decrease, from 140,000. An undetermined number are to stay " a good number of years," according to Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary. His assertion contradicts Bush's that Americans will depart the moment Iraqis ask.
Allawi is also operating under nearly 100 sweeping edicts put in place by Bremer. These include immunity for American soldiers and civilians from local laws, lax foreign ownership rules, and wide latitude for American corporations.
Last year, Bush announced four goals: Establish security, restore essential services, create economic development and foster democracy. Fifteen months and $145 billion later, not one has been fulfilled.
Electricity and other services in many areas are not yet up to pre-war levels, sub-standard to start with, given the decade-long U.S.-led sanctions.
Unemployment in some regions is at 60 per cent, while U.S. contractors fly in American cooks at $60,000 (U.S.) a year.
Of the 2,300 promised construction projects, only 140 are underway, and only half the $9 billion planned contracts finalized, says the New York Times.
Many of the 206,000 Iraqi security forces rushed through training bolt at the first sign of trouble, or join the insurgents.
The insurgency has gone from targeting Americans to killing "collaborators," foreign and local, and sabotaging infrastructure, including oil installations.
Despite their avowed mission of winning Iraqi hearts and minds, the occupiers have managed, through monumental incompetence and racist heavy-handedness, to fan resistance, radicalism and terrorism.
NATO nations continue to refuse to contribute troops, despite Bush's newly adopted conciliatory tone. They have agreed only to "encourage members to contribute to the training of Iraqi armed forces." Canada and Germany are already doing so — but away from Iraq, in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates respectively.
Bush continues to lecture the Arabs on democracy, which they do need badly. But he's doing so while eroding democracy and ignoring the rule of law, at home and abroad.
Besides abrogating unprecedented powers to the executive branch, he has been systematically obstructing congressional and independent inquiries into 9/11, the Iraq war and Abu Ghraib abuses. On the latter, his officials have been hiding International Red Cross reports, dating back to last fall.
The administration has also been dishonest in arguing that the sadistic occurrences at the jail were the work of a few bad apples.
The administration had long held that the Geneva Convention did not apply to terrorist suspects. It turns out that justice department lawyers had put forth the disingenuous argument that "the infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture." And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had approved the use of dogs to gather information.
This is why last week's Supreme Court rulings are so welcome.
It said that citizens branded "enemy combatants" have a right to challenge the designation in court. They cannot be held indefinitely for the purpose of extracting intelligence.
In a separate case, it held that the 600 or so foreigners from 40 nations held at Guantanamo Bay also have a right to be heard. By inference, that right may apply to the undetermined number of people being held in secret locations abroad.
The rulings offer a ray of hope in these despairing times.
Said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: "A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."
Added Justice John Paul Stevens: "If this nation is to remain true to the ideals symbolized by its flag, it must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the forces of tyranny."
Haroon Siddiqui =is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus.
© Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
###
|
 Printer Friendly Version
E-Mail This Article
|
|
|
