Why there was no exit plan

[n2doc]

Why there was no exit plan
Lewis Seiler, Dan Hamburg
Monday, April 30, 2007



There are people in Washington ... who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they're looking for 10, 20, 50 years in the future ... the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region, and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that 10 years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq.
-- former President Jimmy Carter, Feb. 3, 2006
For all the talk about timetables and benchmarks, one might think that the United States will end the military occupation of Iraq within the lifetimes of the readers of this opinion editorial. Think again.
There is to be no withdrawal from Iraq, just as there has been no withdrawal from hundreds of places around the world that are outposts of the American empire. As UC San Diego professor emeritus Chalmers Johnson put it, "One of the reasons we had no exit plan from Iraq is that we didn't intend to leave."
The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130 countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose of defending the economic interests of the United States, what is euphemistically called "national security." In order to secure favorable access to Iraq's vast reserves of light crude, the United States is spending billions on the construction of at least five large permanent military bases throughout that country.
A new Iraq oil law, largely written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is planned for ratification by June. This law cedes control of Iraq's oil to western powers for 30 years . There is major opposition to the proposed law within Iraq, especially among the country's five trade union federations that represent hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United States is working hard to surmount this opposition by appealing directly to the al-Maliki government in Iraq.
The attack upon, and subsequent occupation of, Iraq can be seen as a direct result of the 2001 National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as vice president Cheney's energy task force) that was comprised largely of oil and energy company executives. This task force -- the proceedings of which have been kept secret by the administration on the grounds of "executive privilege" -- recommended that the U.S. government support initiatives in Middle Eastern countries "to open up areas of their energy sector to foreign investment." As Antonio Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International wrote last month in the New York Times, "One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve."
The people of the United States have indicated, in the national election last November and in countless polls, that they no longer support the Bush administration's war. The Scooter Libby trial revealed that top administration officials, including the vice president, "cherry-picked" and distorted intelligence in order to sell a "pre-emptive" war to a spooked public. The squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars, some billions of which, according to Seymour Hersh writing in the New Yorker, is being siphoned into "black-ops" programs being run out of Cheney's office (a stunning redux of Iran-Contra carried out by many of the same actors), has also strained the patience and credulity of the American people.

more:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/04/30/EDG3JPH50O1.DTL

[GreenArrow]

1. seems rather obvious

there's no exit plan because there was/is no plan to exit.

[lapfog_1]

2. Duh... all you have to do is read the PNAC papers

where were online, to see that there will be NO plan to ever leave. The whole idea was to establish "forward leaning" military bases in strategic locations... especially one sitting on top of the third (or is it second) largest oil reserve.

[Stephanie]

3. And of course there's the World's Largest Embassy & the Enduring Bases

Which I'd like the candidates to be questioned on - especially our Dems. More info here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x767367

[Toots]

4. More than fourteen PERMANENT military bases have been built

Or as they are worded "enduring" bases. Do we not understand the meaning of the word permanent ? Democratic members of Congress know about those bases and they know the US has no intention of leaving Iraq. That is why none of their bills ever have any teeth. They can shrug their shoulders and tell the people they tried.. Kucinich knows better and so do I...

[blm]

15. Kerry pounded on the 'permanent bases' issue throughout the campaign and media IGNORED it

and would not consider it an important issue to judge Bush's credibility.

Even during the debates when Kerry brought it up AGAIN, the media took a pass on dicussing it.

[Dhalgren]

5. 9/11 in perspective. This is what makes the whole episode feel

so much like an inside job. These criminal fucks were setting this up from the get-go, yet we are to believe that 9/11 was just serendipitous? Right...

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. Shhhhh

This is too personal to look at...

[paparush]

9. 9/11 was thier "catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor"

The incredibly enormous coincidence, is just, well, coincidental....

[Dhalgren]

13. I usually don't buy serendipity - when it looks like serendipity, it

usually isn't...

[laheina]

14. Well said. nt

[Igel]

6. There *was* an exit plan.

But it collapsed shortly before day 1 of the occupation. And you had to listen carefully to hear it. It was mentioned, and seldom disputed. The main debate was not about after the war, but the motivation for the war and the war itself. WMD, yes or no? Terrorist ties, yes or no? Others debated casualty figures, time-lines, and the rest, with some folk saying 'cakewalk' and some saying casualties would surpass 50k.

The little bally-hooed plan was that they would remove the top few folk in each branch of the Iraqi government: Saddam, and one or two layers down. The top military folk would go, the top security folk, etc., etc. Everybody else would stay. There would, in effect, be a brain transplant, with the top-most Baathists replaced by non-Baathists. It would be smooth, it would be orderly, and the US military would be vestigial within a month or two.

If you assume this idyllic and utopian scenario, there was no need for further planning. The police would maintain order. The oil ministry would continue with oil. Whoever was in charge of electricity would continue to run the plants. There would be time to do an assessment on how to upgrade the infrastructure, a brief time for political parties to organize and campaign, etc., etc.

It was so unrealistic that fairly quickly people stopped talking about it. It was not serious post-war planning, and prevented such planning.

[Dhalgren]

8. Chalabi and his group were supposed to step into power,

but his whole operation was just a criminal sham...

[TheWraith]

10. Bing!

It's not that there wasn't an exit plan, or that the intention going in was "war without end." It's just that their idea of what would happen afterwards was as grossly unrealistic as every other aspect of their "plans." They really thought it would be a cakewalk, and that they'd be through Iraq in a few months, and on their way to Syria.

[tabasco]

11. Exxon just made 9 billion dollars.

They would like to do that for many more years.

If the Iraqis control their own oil, it won't be possible.

[annabanana]

12. And THIS fact is the big, stinking elephant in the room. . the thing

they will not talk about or admit.

And yet, cognizant human beings all around the world can acknowledge to each other. . ."Yes, Of Course!... "It's the only thing that makes sense". . .