THE IRAQ WAR DECEPTION AND ITS AFTERMATH

The acclaimed Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC’s documentary entitled, “HUBRIS – Selling the Iraq War”, is based on a book by highly regarded investigative journalists, David Corn and Michael Isikoff. Both journalists have been responsible for several well researched stories that have had proved spot on and have thus had profound effects on modern American history. Corn, for example, broke the Romney story where the latter wrote off 47% of the electorate and with that wrote off any chance he might have had of becoming President while Isikoff broke the Monica Lewinski story that nearly broke the Clinton Presidency. So what they have to say is not to be taken with a pinch of salt.

There are two aspects worth noting with regard to Maddow’s documentary; firstly it capsulated the naked deception, that the GOP establishment, perpetrated on the American people and secondly, Jay H. Ell believes, that this deception is the final nail in the coffin of the Republican establishment. Whatever respectability or credibility they had left has been drained by this episode.

THE DECEPTION.

The documentary shows that every piece of evidence used by the Bush establishment to justify their preemptive war on Iraq turned out to be bogus and that the decision to attack Iraq had been a priority long before even 9/11. What is more the 9/11 tragedy was also cynically manipulated to bolster the arguments for the war.

The rationale for the Iraq war is dispassionately and systematically broken down by objective evidence provided to Maddow by Corn and Michael. The Bush regime had no concrete evidence whatsoever that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or that he was cooperating with Al Quaeda. Worse was that the evidence they offered was either bogus or so unsubstantiated that it was criminally negligent to use it to embark the United States in a war that resulted in 4,500 American deaths, 30,000 Americans disabled, 100,000 Iraqi deaths, 3 trillion dollars in cost, millions overpaid to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton company in non compete contracts and the ensuing chaos it has left Iraq in to this day  - not to mention that it has thrown the Iraq government into the arms of the Iran regime.

The evidence obtained that Saddam was building a nuclear program, had mobile chemical weapon production units, had other weapons of destruction and was cooperating with Al Quaeda was considered by members of the CIA and governmental agencies to be unreliable and suspect. For example Saddam and Osama Bin Laden were at odds. Osama also regarded the secular, Scotch drinking womanizer Sadam as an infidel and is said to have been grateful that the Americans, by their actions, saved him the trouble of “taking him out”. Yet the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Wolpowitz axis soldiered on and bullied, shamed and embarrassed Congress, in the post 9/11 milieu, to give them a blank check to wage war.

Powell went to the UNO organization and fed them the party line, even though he had expressed the gravest reservations to his Undersecretary of Defense.

WHY?

Why did everybody cave into this obvious garbage and why did the Bush establishment do this?

The time period was the post 9/11 era. Americans were angry, humiliated and fearful. What was more comforting than linking the unashamed admitted 9/11 perpetrators, Al Quaeda, with Saddam Hussein. The latter was part of the trilogy of evil and Hussein was evil incarnate. So the facts that he was harboring weapons of mass destruction and trying to assemble nuclear weapons was a recipe made in heaven to rally the country. The Democrats were wary, with an election in the offing, to appear “unpatriotic”, - Dick Gephardt, Democratic leader of the House was preparing for a presidential run and Tom Daschle, Democratic leader of the Senate caved in on the smear that the Democrats were soft on terror. Even Hillary Clinton folded and gave Bush the go ahead.

The media cruised along accepting explanations without question. Lead by the liberal New York Times, the overwhelming majority of the fourth estate gave their go- ahead. They too were wooed in the context of the patriotism and the understandable paranoia that the 9/11 attack had engendered.

The Bush establishment had other objectives. Iraq was still an unresolved issue after Bush 41’s “Dessert Storm”. There was Saddam, with all that oil. alive and well and flourishing and leading Iraq after his Kuwait adventure. Wolpowitz, the chief establishment apologist had told Congress this was not going to cost the US much. All that Iraqi oil would pay for it. So in the absence of any other rational explanation this was nothing but naked imperialism and a desire to control all that oil. Not to mention that there was a settling of old scores on a despot who had threatened daddy Bush with assassination.

THE AFTERMATH – THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TEA PARTY AND THE DEATH OF THE ESTABLISHMENT.

When Bush went to war there was no Tea Party. One of the major reasons for the formation of the Tea Party was that Bush was spending like a drunken sailor. They were for small government and Bush had left the “tax and spend” liberals in the shade. The Tea Party’s "Contract with America" emphasized that Government had grown too big, too arrogant and too spendthrift. (Blogs: The Tea Party, The New Congress, - All You Need To Know and The Tea Party – The New GOP?).  Obama was elected and the Tea Party blossomed, as they saw no difference between him and Bush. To this day the Tea Party would have a tough time choosing between Bush and Obama on government size and spending. Bush is persona non grata. No Republican in any race would ask him for his endorsement and with the demise of Bush, Jay H. Ell believes, we have had the demise of the Republican Party as we know it.

Now Bush was THE ESTABLISHMENT. Besides being daddy Bush’s son with all the patronage that came with that, it was the establishment that pressured him to stand. There was a procession to Crawford Texas prevailing on “dubbayu” to bear the party standard. Even Kissinger was brought out of cold storage to prevail on him.

Now in the Iraq fiasco the cream of the establishment were involved. There was Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice all right in the thick of it. When it was obvious that their credibility was suspect they threw the last Republican establishment hope under the bus in the form of Colin Powell. No one else other than the respected Powell could have sold UNO that bill of goods. Powell was fed the garbage and in spite of his reservations, like the good soldier he was, impressed the world of the urgency of intervention. In so doing Powell was rendered impotent as the obvious future standard bearer of the Establishment.

None of the Bush establishment has been much in evidence to defend the war. When they have, they appear to have changed the narrative as to the reasons for the war. There is not much offered on weapons of mass destruction but rather bluster on the democracy they have brought to the Middle East.

So who is the Republican establishment today? What new blood can lead the Party as it was known in the twentieth century? There are Boehner and McConnell and Jed Bush who is defending “dubbaya”. In fact there is no- one. Christie is the only non tea party candidate around but he can hardly be called establishment. The Republican National Chairman can bleat about the message but in fact it was the arrogance, the hubris that killed the Establishment. What can be more arrogant than to mislead a country into a war to fulfill your own agenda?

So these revelations have to repulse the most sober minded Republicans. The establishment is literally an “old boys club” with a few doddering souls left with some respectability like James Baker 111. Of course one could always bring back Bob Dole….

SO WHO CAN OPPOSE HILLARY IN 2016?

Hillary was one of the first victims of the Iraq fiasco. Obama slammed it down her throat that she had voted for the war and he had opposed it. But much has happened since and remember she was duped and did not do the duping. The Republicans are already running against her, and cannot stop blaming her for the death of the four Americans in the Benghazi Embassy. (Blog: Stopping Clinton in 2016 Starts in Benghazi). All of that is pretty rich in the light that none of them have come out to criticize the deception and or negligenc resulting in tens of thousands of Americans wounded or killed in Iraq.

So assuming that Karl Rove and company can do what they did in the last Republican Primary and produce an establishment candidate, whom will it be? (Romney The Grand Old Party’s Last Hoorah). Jay H Ell would like to venture a guess as to who they must be working on  - Condi Rice. 

Rice is highly intelligent, likeable and articulate. She has written an autobiography cataloging her struggle to reach the top. -great stuff and yet another example of the elusive American dream. She is also a she and an African American, two of the constituencies that the Republicans are way behind on. Rove and company will first have to persuade her to run, get her elected in the Primary over Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Mark Rubrio and the like and then the hardest part of all, get her elected to the Presidency.  

Under normal circumstances Condi would be the best candidate to run against Clinton. However, these are not normal circumstances and Jay H. Ell believes her central role in the Iraq fiasco would be front and center in any run she might make. Even in the Republican Primaries she would get flak from the Tea Party types.
The Iraq deception will go down as the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Establishment.