10/27/10 – Robert Parry – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio.
We're on chaosradioaustin.org, lrn.fm, antiwar.com, slash radioanomalyradio.com, and God knows what else.
Here's my recommendation to you, because I think it's important.
You go check out consortiumnews.com.
That's the home for the journalism of, well, a few favorites, but most especially Robert Perry.
He's the author of Neck Deep, the Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.
And I forget the rest of his books off the top of my head, but welcome back to the show.
Bob, how are you doing?
Good, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Oh, here we have Secrecy and Privilege, the Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, Lost History, Contras, Cocaine, the Press, and Project Truth.
And I guess maybe most of you guys know, or hopefully, Bob did the groundbreaking work on Iran-Contra in the 1980s for the AP and for Newsweek, and really probably is the nation's expert on especially GOP criminality over the last generation and a half or so.
So I really appreciate you joining us here, Bob.
Thanks for having me.
And now, I also really appreciate the fact that you have the spotlight article on antiwar.com today, Records Cast Doubt on Iraq's Surge.
I suppose you've been digging through the WikiLeaks.
Well, there are a lot of them, so a lot of documents.
So it's a little hard for us to do them all.
But I have been going through some and, of course, reading what has also been available based on them.
All right, so now, I guess I don't mind beating this dead horse because it seems to me like the slogan, the surge is working, the surge is working, and then the surge worked.
The surge worked, was beaten into everybody's head as much as it could have possibly been by the Pentagon, a.k.a.the media, or I'm not sure where you draw the line in there, Bob, but that's the slogan.
And if the surge worked, it certainly worked as a slogan, as a brand name that was sold to the American people, sort of like Barack Obama.
But I wonder, it seems from your analysis here, you don't really buy that the slogan actually portrays reality, huh?
Well, no, and I think the Wikileaks documents tend to show there were a number of factors that fed into the gradual decline in violence in Iraq, which is a view that we reported on previously, based on our own reporting, and that people like Bob Woodward uncovered when he was doing his book that dealt with the surge period, that many inside the US Pentagon, even, were saying that this was not the case, that a lot of factors were involved, including the things that predated the surge.
If you remember, the view of Petraeus' predecessors, Abizaid and Casey, were that by maintaining a smaller US footprint, yet being aggressive in certain other ways, like going after some of the al-Qaeda leadership, that things would be brought under control.
There was also the sectarian violence, which is now clear, was also fading, really, by the time the surge got going, in the sense that there had been a sort of effectively ethnic cleansing that had occurred in Iraq.
So the two sects, the Shiites and the Sunnis, had been rather very messily separated.
There had also been success in going after the al-Qaeda leadership.
Zarqawi was killed in June of 2006, if you remember.
And so you had a number of factors that were setting the stage for a decrease in violence, and they weren't always obviously good ones.
There was an awful lot of simple wearing down of the Iraqi population through this endless violence that the Bush administration had unleashed on their country.
There was a real desire among many Iraqis, as reflected in these new documents that have come out, for finding some kind of way to tamp down the violence themselves.
So this whole myth that because George Bush courageously, in January and February of 2007, ordered up the surge, and that General Petraeus went in with the extra 30,000 or so U.S. troops and suddenly brought everything under control, has always been a myth.
It was always a PR campaign, mostly, and it was a way for the neocons, who had of course been a big part of the invasion and all the happy talk that preceded it, the cakewalks and how the U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, etc., that they used the surge through their prestige positions inside the Washington media to say, gee, we've been vindicated.
See, we were right.
And then frankly, Barack Obama, who had opposed the surge as a senator, was then pounded during the 2008 campaign by the media demanding that he admit that John McCain was right about the surge.
And Obama at first would say, no, it's more complicated than that, which is sort of the right answer.
But with George Stephanopoulos and Katie Couric baiting him and being constantly harassed, showing, I guess, some of the things we've gotten to know of him as president, thought that it was better to just give in and say, yes, the surge worked beyond our wildest dreams.
So you had kind of this imposed false reality, which one might say, well, gee, why does that matter at this point?
But the surge was then used to justify what's happened in Afghanistan.
That is the escalation, and secondly, another surge in Afghanistan with General Petraeus, who was declared the hero and the great victor in Iraq, put in charge of Afghanistan.
So we're seeing there are real results and consequences when a false analysis is imposed.
Obviously, we saw one back in 2002 and 2003 with a certainty about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
But in a way, the surge was another phase of that, where a misleading or incomplete or false reality was imposed on the American public, and it's had its consequences.
Well, now, you think it might be a fair analysis to say that when Petraeus talked about part of his mission being adding time to the Washington clock, that maybe that was really just the mission, that you had the Baker Commission and all this were even, you know, that was really the establishment.
Sandra Day O'Connor and James Baker, the third and Vernon Jordan and all these people.
And they were saying, let's get out by spring 08.
And the American people had elected the Democrats yet right to the House and the Senate in order to force an end to the war in 2006.
The American people were really sick and tired of it, and he needed to find a way to make it OK to stay forever.
That was basically what the surge was about, wasn't it?
Well, I'm not sure the US will stay forever.
I think the Iraqi people.
Yeah, that wasn't the question.
The question was whether that was what the Pentagon and the surge architects were up to.
Sure.
I do think that was it was part of the the real fear of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was that that they would leave office, the perceived clear cut losers having lost a war in Iraq, and they didn't want that.
And they needed to sort of stretch things out so they could let some of these other factors which had begun, for instance, the Sunni, the Sunni awakening of turning against Al-Qaeda was occurring also in 2006 with the payments from the US and, of course, the Saudi and the Shiite militias did a unilateral ceasefire.
So there are a lot of factors that were that that were already in play or going into play when the surge was was half was starting, but it was a way to buy time, and to change the narrative.
And I think that changing the narrative was very important to the to the neocons in particular, because they needed to reestablish themselves as the experts on national security in Washington, which they had somewhat lost with the with problems that the Iraq war had brought on.
So I think you had a number of factors going there.
But yeah, I think the idea was, how do you get this game to go longer?
And how do you keep the American people engaged?
Now, there's the music plans, we're gonna have to go out to this break.
But I want to ask him when we get back about the Sunni based insurgencies attempt to make a deal.
And I don't remember all the articles anymore.
But I think one time, Bob, I went through and showed with different pieces of journalism from different times that the Sunnis had tried to make the same ambar awakening type deal, the entire war 2003, four, five, and six, and finally, it was accepted in Oh, seven, we'll be right back with Bob Perry after this.
Alright, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti war radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and I'm talking with the great Bob Perry from consortium news.com.
We're talking about the surge history, the Iraq war, especially around 2007.
But can you verify for me?
Am I right?
Do you remember?
Is that right that really the what became didn't start out this way, but quickly became the predominantly Sunni based insurgency in Iraq, that they had tried to make a deal with the Americans that look just patrols or let us patrol our own neighborhoods and stop killing us and we'll stop killing you.
In the summer of Oh, 30405.
And finally, in Oh, six, the general started to decide to accept their offer after the Civil War was lost, basically.
Well, there were elements of this of the Sunni side of Iraq that that you're right, were that were was eager to to figure out some way to deal with the Americans after Saddam Hussein was ousted.
However, as you as you remember, there was this very imperious approach taken by the the neocon led us occupation, which was going to essentially remake Iraq in some free market, the neocon desired image.
And that's what sort of created this, this other dynamic where it became clear that the interests of the Iraqis were going to be essentially overridden.
And that did push some of the Sunnis into into greater and greater resistance.
And it was only after the, the occupation had essentially failed, that there was this sufficient rebellion among the Iraqis and then spreading from the, not just the Sunnis, but into some elements of the Shiite population, that the the US commanders essentially said, we're not going to push this extreme political ideological agenda, we're going to try to work something out.
And that's where you had Generals Casey and Generals Abizade beginning to reach out and accept some of these these peace overtures from the from the Sunnis.
And effectively, they were given money and allowed to patrol patrol their own areas, in exchange for rejecting al Qaeda.
And, and that's, that's began to lead to at least some relative relative peace in in the western part of Iraq.
Obviously, there was also during this phase, because of the rivalries that were unleashed by the US occupation between the Sunnis and the Shiites, the civil war followed, and you had this horrible mess, this nightmare situation across the country.
Eventually, that was also burning out for because of the separation of the two sides.
And that's why when when when Bush came in with the surge, the surge, whether it was a slight help, I mean, I think it might have actually been a harm because by adding additional US troops and, and being more aggressive in the use of counterinsurgency approach, which we saw most dramatically in that in that WikiLeaks released video of the attack on those that group of Iraqi men, including two Reuters newsmen, just eventually slaughtering them for no particular reason.
That was sort of a symbol or an indication of what the ground reality really was in Iraq, this kind of utter brutality, and indiscriminate violence.
But that was part of what the surge brought to so eventually, it calmed down.
But to then credit the surge is the big mistake, because much of this would have happened, I think, whether the surge occurred or didn't occur.
And in fact, the surge may have made things worse, and even delayed the delayed the more peaceful situation that ultimately prevailed.
Now, there's so many things.
I mean, it's a giant years long war.
But, you know, as long as you mentioned that collateral murder video, I talked to two guys from that brigade, or battalion or whichever, I, I don't know all these things, because I'm not a vet.
But anyway, they both said that their boss, Lieutenant Colonel Kozlarich, who, along with General McChrystal was involved in the Pat Tillman cover up.
And well, any other things anyway, but the point is this, they both told me on this show, that they heard him specifically, both of them from him to them not pass through a sergeant or something.
They heard him instruct their group, that if there's an IED attack, you just shoot 360 degrees kill anything that moves that can possibly be around how a lot of them disobey the order and would just shoot up in the air, things like that.
But he was ordering them to commit war crimes 360 degree rotational fire.
And then I'll add one more thing to that.
It's the entire team is described in their time in Iraq is described in the book The Good Soldiers by David Finkel.
And as we were talking about with Gareth Porter on the show yesterday, at no time does anyone in this entire brigade, including Lieutenant Colonel Kozlarich seem to understand that as they're fighting the soldiers, they're in the middle of, or at least they just finished fighting a civil war basically on behalf of Muqtada al-Sadr and his allies in the Iraqi National Alliance.
And here they are, as Gareth Porter put it, they just need an excuse to fight the war, the war against the Sunni insurgency was over, they had to fight somebody.
So here they're fighting this guy who's an integral part of the government that we installed in power there and is obviously the guy who more than even Sistani, it looks like will be inheriting the power, at least from Baghdad to Basra when we finally go, Bob.
Well, I think all those points are well taken.
I think the collateral murder video does give you a sense of that there was this attitude, which was part of the surge approach, but it preceded it as well, to basically kill the so called ma'ams, military age males, there was almost a, if you had any excuse, you could do it.
And that's clear from a number of cases that have been brought, where, where there were times where courts martial were held against soldiers for excessive violence.
But in almost every case, the soldiers simply said we were following the rules of engagement.
And they were, and they were essentially vindicated, they were let off.
Sometimes they'd be nailed for something like lying to their superiors or planting a weapon on a victim.
But in terms of the actual killing of the people, that was just part of the rules of engagement.
And they were extremely loose.
And and during the surge, they seem to have gotten even looser, where, where there was this kind of encouragement to just basically take out people.
And, and I think any, any country that suffers under that, as much as we may think all that, that people want to rebel and stand up against it.
But terror does, as tyrants have learned across time, in history, they, terror at some point works, that you can you can intimidate a population through violence, to such a level that eventually, they don't want to continue anymore.
And that was kind of what happened here.
That was another element of the of the ending of this, at least the worst phases of the, of the war in Iraq.
But I think overall, that that is quite a dismal and horrible situation that that we tend to ignore.
We tend in this effort to sort of declare victory in Iraq, this unseemly effort that we saw a cover of Newsweek some months ago, victory in Iraq, finally.
And, and the celebrations of the neocons in Washington saying they were finally vindicated and shown that they were right all along.
It ignores the fact that there were substantial war crimes committed by the United States, by the Bush administration, most, most, most directly, but involving large numbers of American troops, involving now the, to some degree, the Obama administration, in the continuation of some of this.
So it's, it's, it's not by simply declaring victory, it's, it's, it's, it's one of those situations where you have to think that this, that this was an immoral and, and rather disastrous experience, and should be seen like that for all involved and not, not with this group, jumping around saying that they had won, they were that they've been proven to be right all along, and that the surge worked.
Yeah, well, and even I guess, when Woodward's book came out about all this, it came out that really, it was General Keene and these others who had come up with a surge strategy.
And I guess they just brought fat neck Fred Kagan and the AEI crew along for the ride in order that the neocons could get some credit, even though really, they just came in to put their name on it at the end.
And that right, give me a yes or no there, because we're almost out of time.
Well, I don't know.
I'm not sure all the details.
But that's true.
Those two people certainly were involved.
Keene had the idea.
Yeah, and Kagan helped sell it.
All right.
Now, there's a couple more things here.
Real quick.
There are reports that look, oh my god, weapons of mass destruction were found after all, but isn't it the case that all those were simply weapons that had been declared by Iraq and turned over to the international inspectors, UNSCOM and UNMOVIC and the IAEA, etc.
And were under seal.
And we're just sitting there and are doing nothing in Iraq, left in Iraq by the UN.
And they didn't get in the hands of anybody to do any fighting with until the US invaded and destroyed the security system in that country, right?
There were no caches of WMD discovered.
There were some residual, there were some residual weapons that, you know, mustard gas and so forth that were found in a few places.
But these were not part of any, any weaponry that the that the Iraqi military was going to use.
Yeah, I saw on in Wired, on the danger blog, they talked, they had these quotes from these people, they didn't seem to highlight the significance of the soldiers saying, yeah, we came to the store place and the seals had been broken.
I mean, the UN seals, just like that story about some yellow cake was removed a few years back, but it was under UN seal the whole time.
And I guess we don't have time to address the Afghan surge metaphor.
But suffice to say, we're not fighting for the majority in Afghanistan.
And they won't be able to say the surge worked there, Bob.
Thanks, Scott.
See you, man.
Everybody, that's Bob Perry, ConsortiumNews.com.
Here's more anti-war radio after this.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai