What if Rumsfeld wasn't crazy or stupid?

    What if chaos in Iraq was the plan all along?                                
    Before you decide that I've totally gone off the rails, please consider a few things in light of Occam's razor: The simplest explanation that fits the available facts is probably true.
    First, all those juicy no-bid contracts handed out to Halliburton, KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) and other well connected contributers.
    Second, oil has been above $50 a barrel for some time now - how convenient for the president from big oil.
    Third, the unseemly haste to announce that US firms would handle oil exploration and development.
    Fourth, the conduct of the war itself and it's aftermath - that one I'll examine on the flip side.

    A confession: I would have voted to authorize the use of force - as a negotiatiating tactic.  It was working too.  That authorization plus the troop buildup forced Saddam to make concessions to inspection and progress was being made.  When Bush decided to invade anyway, I figured that it was a personal vendetta against Saddam for the attempted assasination of his father years ago.  I still believe that was the major factor as far as Bush himself was concerned.  Cheney and Rumsfeld are another matter.  Bear with me just a little longer.                                        

    I'm the kind of sports fan who knows a little about football and basketball from watching my home teams - definitely not enough, though, to claim any kind of expertise.  I have kind of a rule of thumb about coaches.  If they make one bonehead move after another and I can see it, they have no business coaching.  With that in mind, the first thing that made me sit up and take notice was in the very beginning of the invasion when we bypassed or failed to adequately guard one ammo and  weapons dump after another.  Couldn't spare the soldiers?  Hmmm - I understand that the army is very good at blowing up things it doesn't like.  Do we really have field commanders that stupid?  All of em?  Generals in other armies have been taken out and shot, post conflict, for lesser mistakes.
    Then there's the Iraqi army.  We just fired em.  Some were disarmed, but if there was any comprehensive effort to disarm and demobilize them en masse, I missed it.
    Then the police.  We fired them too - along with every competant bureaucrat in the country.  When looting and mayhem resulted, we stood aside and let it happen - "Stuff happens."  (Timeline a bit off there - but you get the point)  This diary would take days to write if I documented every inexplicably boneheaded decision made by the occupation - but you were watching too - you saw it happen.    
    For some time now and more and more lately we've hearing about huge secret bases being built, a complete waste if we're ever able to leave, but if chaos reigns, we'll have to stay indefinitely.  If there is a stable democratic government they will undoubtedly order us to leave.  Immediatly.  That is the one thing upon which both sides of the Sunni-Shia divide seem to agree.  Any representitive government we installed in the immediate aftermath would have done the same thing.  The attempt to install Chalibi and his minions immediatly after Saddam's government fell was an obvious attempt to forstall that and entrench US forces in the region.      
    I now believe that there really is a plan for Iraq, one that can't be articulated because of the universal condemnation it would receive.  That plan is to continue visible but ineffective efforts to resolve various conflicts as a screen while the important project - to secure the oilfields and pipelines for permanent exploitation by US firms - continues behind a cloak of secrecy.  The more conflict and bloodshed that occurs in Bagdad, other parts of Iraq, even Afganistan, the better - it distracts attention from the true plan.
    Veiwed in this light, the decision to allow Bin Ladin's escape from Tora Bora and put his pursuit on the back burner with the rest of Afganistan begins to make sense.  No oil in Afganistan and Bin Ladin/Zawahiri can be counted on at a future date to provide the excuse for further adventures.  
   Beside the oil, the occupation has provided huge opportunities for good, old fashioned graft and corruption, kept as we have recently learned, in the Republican family.  Billions are unaccounted for.  I am so looking forward to the soon to commence oversight hearings.
   In writing this diary, I realize that I have raised many questions and answered few.  Only the US congress through vigorous pursuit of it's oversight function can get the answers I seek.    
   When the war began, I paid scant attention to dark assertions that we went to war to steal Iraqi oil - I knew the American people had no such intent and would never countenence such a thing.  But the oil is flowing - who is profiting from that?  Can't wait to find out.

•  Flames?

  Notice how I cleverly disguise my true intent.

  by UneasyOne on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:07:08 AM PDT

  •  You are Right None of them R Dumb

    "First I will preface my rant with If your to Young to Remember Nixon forget about it you will Understand what I am saying"

    Now I’m going to throw in my Tinfoil Hat and walk down crazy road.  George the second is not Dumb, he is sly, cunning, and ruthless. He was born into a life of privilege and took advantage of those privileges.

    He received the best education money can buy- These are people that play chest and understand strategy, they are taught how to use reason. He learned Greek and Latin at prep school. He went on to Yale and Harvard and he Graduated.

    I come form a middle class back ground. I am a Graduate of Columbia University, and my life experience shows me, that the privilege gives you a leg up. It is easier to gain admittance and most play harder then their fellow classmates. But they cannot buy their diploma. They know how to push everything to the line, but few cross over it, and those that do are out.    

    He also had the advantage of watching his father’s presidency. And let me remind you George the First was not a loved President, respected but not loved.

    Reagan was Loved. Reagan had a Ranch and Spoke Plan. He wore cowboy boots, slept a lot, avoided the press by acting like he couldn’t hear them, he made unbelievably stupid statements. And more import America Believed Him When He Told them He Didn’t know about Iran Contra. He was the Teflon President.  

    Sound Familiar?

    Well George the second didn’t buy his converted hog farm until after he decide to run for president. He may Dress like a Rancher but you will never see him on a horse, you wont find an old picture of him in Cowboy Boots.  

    This is a man spent his life behind the safety of a gated community and is into High Speed Mountain Biking.

    He worked for his fathers campaign and just because "They Tell" us The family isn’t close. History shows us this is "Close nit Family" that holds a grudge and gets even. G.W. Bush and company are playing Chess-
    ...Just because I don’t understand their strategy or motives, doesn’t mean they don’t one!

    I am sorry UneasyOne this Rate turn out to be a take our- please forgive?

    by npbeachfun on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 10:20:11 PM PDT

•  Occam's Razor

  actually leads to the conclusion that Rumsfeld & Bush are stupid.  It is the simplest explanation for the disaster there.  The issues you raise actually complicate it.

  by GTPinNJ on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:09:06 AM PDT

  •  You're forgetting Bonewits' Caveat ...

    ...to Occam's Razor: Seemingly simple explanations that hide complex assumptions aren't really simple.

    Why would the Power Elite allow stupid and incompetent people to rise to power? An Idiot King can be permitted, they are easier to control as history has shown over and over again. But they are always surrounded by clever (if not wise) advisors and deputies who do the real ruling.

    Americans have a hard time accepting that the President is just another kind of ruler and that historical patterns from other nations can apply here.

    In this case, the assumption being hidden is that the Power Elite would have allowed the "stupid and crazy" behavior to continue if it wasn't somehow profitable for them. That requires a much more complex explanation than the more simple one of sheer evil on the part of the Bush crime cartel.

    by ibonewits on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 12:12:51 PM PDT

•  if you see this administration's goal as

  stuffing as much loot into their pockets as they possibly can - you can recognize the iraqi debacle as a way of misdirecting people's attention away. pretty common method among pickpockets.

  by rasbobbo on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:18:52 AM PDT

  •  Hey! Don't belittle pickpockets.

    Rodney Dangerfiels said once that "I wouldn't have a sex life if it wasn't for the pickpockets".

    by Asinus Asinum Fricat on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:40:12 AM PDT

•  I am convinced that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld

  really did believe their own propaganda: that once Hussein was defeated and toppled that all would be over and that the Iraqis really would welcome us and allows us to occupy them and, as well, steal their oil.
  I suspect that they never thought that the situation would turn out as it actually has - not because they're crazy/stupid, but because they're ignorant/arrogant and cannot believe the world (and other peoples) are not the way they wishfully imagine them to be.

  by Lepanto on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:19:32 AM PDT

  •  I have to agree

    with Lepanto, but I also see them all as opportunists as well. Look at Bush - he can't admit he was ever wrong about anything and has a way of twisting the "facts" to fit his latest goal. If you believed him, you'd know that history will show how everything went according to the master plan.

    by Phil N DeBlanc on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:31:52 AM PDT

  •  Cheney didn't believe it during the Gulf War

    why would he now?

    by ohiolibrarian on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 12:52:13 PM PDT

    •  Tom Ricks asks that very question in "Fiasco"

      I'll see if I can find the page reference. If I recall correctly Ricks conjectures that Cheney had a personality change (from pragmatic to ideological) as a result of his heart condition...
      I'm in no position to make a judgment on this...

      by Lepanto on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 01:43:29 PM PDT

•  Continuous war was the plan, but...

  ...the neo-cons wanted to start with Iraq, thinking it would be easiest, and then use the justification of how well the Iraq War went to justify war against Iran and North Korea. Hence, the Axis of Evil.

  Unfortunately, Bush may bomb Iran regardless.

  Congress should pass a law against a president attacking Iran without Congress passing a future use of force authorization.

  by Eric J in MN on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:28:51 AM PDT

  •  I agree with your intent

    But I doubt that such a law would have much practical effect beyond providing another ground for impeachment if he went ahead and did it anyway.

    by UneasyOne on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:32:29 AM PDT

    •  It would affect the perception of the attack...

      ...if it were clearly illegal.

      by Eric J in MN on Thu Dec 28, 2006 at 02:24:33 PM PDT

  •  Here's where I'm confused.

    I thought that Congress was the body that had to declare war?

    by Phil N DeBlanc on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:32:46 AM PDT

  •  Declare war

    Congress ought to reclaim their constitutional right to declare war and repeal the war powers act along with all AUMFs ever passed.

    by smokeymonkey on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:33:04 AM PDT

•  Yes, the mayhem was planned

  after the plan for the fourteen bases that the Pentagon was prepared to set up didn't fly as expected.
  Indeed, it was the permanent American military presence on the edge of the Persian Gulf and the southern edge of Asia which was what Saddam Hussein was supposed to grant in exchange for the assistance he was given in dealing with the Kurds and Iran.  But, instead, he got greedy and insisted on Kuwait and greater access for Iraq to the Gulf and so they lowered the boom and showed him who was boss.  Still  Saddam didn't give in, even when bribes turned to threats and sanctions.  Somehow, he came to suspect that an American presence in Iraq was not going to be a pleasant experience--even if, as Rumsfeld explained, the technicians servicing the radar and satellite download and missile defense installations were going to be on short rotations and would not be bringing their families as they did to Germany for the last fifty years.

  The real fly in the ointment was the UN determination that the provisional government of Iraq would not be able to grant leases and sell resources and enter into contracts that the world financial community would recognize.  For such transactions to be considered valid, they would have to be entered into by a sovereign government chosen by the Iraqi people themselves.  That was the impetus for the election and for the drafting of a new Constitution which assigned to the central government to make disposition of ALL the country's resources (mineral, water, forest products and land).  

  Thereupon a new wrinkle arose.  Some Iraqi factions insisted that the Constitution would only be approved if there was a provision to amend those dispositional provisions soon.  That's what they are wrangling about now. The new oil law still hasn't passed, but it's my guess that base leases are also on the table.

  Anyway, although the fourteen bases have been reduced to five mega installations (some the size of the island of Manhattan), necessitating the relocation of some tribal populations, plus the 104 acre embassy compound in the middle of Baghdad and very subject to being shelled by mortals and shoulder-carried missiles, the plan to set up a super spy network connecting the bases with fiber-optic cable and coming together in the self-sustaining and sovereign embassy/N.S.A. east compound is still on track.  Indeed, GWB may have spoken true when he said that Gates was going to come in regardless of the election results.  Gates, the former super-spook would seem ideal to supervise the installation of all the electronic spying equipment that's supposed to "monitor the region" and insure stability with the threat that any country that steps out of line will just be nuked.
  Of course, in order to carry through on that, we'll have to rejuvenate our nuclear weapons, but that's already underway.  There was 5.8 billion in the budget for that last year.
  Does GWB know what he's doing?  Who cares.  Somebody obviously does and, as General Pace said not too long ago, "it's going fairly well."
  Now it's just a question of what the meaning of "it" is.

  by hannah on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:38:49 AM PDT

  •  You should have been my co-diarist

    excellent comment!

    by UneasyOne on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 11:45:21 AM PDT

•  I think he knew it might very well go bad

  Probably getting dire warnings and what not from Pa. An inside joke inserted before the event? The clip is of Bush, speaking to reporters about the situation in Iraq (note the dead on look and enunciated speech).

  Source: Federal Document Clearing House, "President George W. Bush Delivers Remarks Regarding POWS," April 13, 2003

  by moodyx on Wed Dec 27, 2006 at 07:26:59 PM PDT

  •  I mean before it became catastrophic. (n/t)

     

    by moodyx on Wed Dec 27, 2006 at 07:28:56 PM PDT