Addiction and Painful Withdrawal
GW Bush in Iraq

By most reports GW Bush is a recovering alcoholic. Common treatment for this addiction is intentionally to substitute another addiction emotionally, usually in the form of spiritual solace found in the born again evangelical tenets. Amen, GW Bush accepted this course of treatment; he stopped drinking okay, but his cure took a bizarre turn: he now makes war, because God tells him to do it. HALLELUJAH! Withdrawal from his Iraq War for him is an intense personal crisis, the same faced by any hooked addict forced to confront the denial of his abused substance.

Last week Eric Edelman, an under secretary for policy in Bob Gates' Pentagon, responded to Senator Hillary Clinton's request for information on troop withdrawal planning for Iraq with a bombastic, vitriolic statement impugning Senator Clinton's patriotism for asking such questions. Senator Clinton, apart from being Bill's wife, and is aggressively pursuing the Democratic party's nomination for president, is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. So it was a legitimate question, especially since the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff botched every other aspect in the Iraqi War. You have to wonder whether these defense planners would get their reluctant retreat from Iraq right without turning it into another deadly incompetent operation.

Eric Edelman is really a cookie full of arsenic. He served as one of VEEP Cheney's make war pistoleros before he was planted in the Pentagon. He is one of the tormented pro Israel neocons that infested the Pentagon under Rumsfeld – part of the Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, and Shulsky tribe that has sowed disaster for America. I was surprised to learn that Gates would keep such an obviously discredited individual on in an important position. Especially since he sought to change course at Defense. Edelman has certainly played to his dim neocon profile. Perhaps Gates is just too timid to return Dick Cheney's gift Trojan Horse... SecDef Gates is a promoter of the surge; so far he has permitted the Pentagon to run him rather than the other way around. He acts more as Elmer Fudd than Captain Courageous. His recent lachrymose public performance over American war dead is not a substitute for a withdrawal policy.

Apart from accusing Senator Clinton of being soft on Terrorism, Edelman drew painful historical parallels with US defeats in Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon – that all these military ventures were defeats, there is no question. Equally important, like the Iraq war, is that they were all ill conceived, but unlike now, the US had the leadership finally with sense to cut and run. Neocons adore using historical examples that never really work: every so often they give us the Hitler metaphor – you remember Hitler Saddam and now Hitler Ahmadinejad. How otherwise can you explain the nitwit term Islamo Fascist for a Jihadist? They seemed buried in WWII, especially in the Third Reich, unable to project much past it – some believe they are still dented by the horrors of the holocaust. They gave us the Axis of Evil despite the fact Iran and Iraq hated each other, and sent GW Bush to Latvia in 2005 pointlessly to attack Russia ex post facto over Yalta and the Iron Curtain. They are one weird, obsessive troop way outside the US mainstream.

Withdrawal in Iraq is complicated mainly because Bush never believed he would have to leave. He set up elaborate house keeping, and planned long term cohabitation with the Iraq people who generally despise him. GW Bush's sometimes friend Maliki said the American occupation forces do not respect the Iraqi people. They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion. Add failed security, the bloody events at the Sunni village of Haditha and the squalid US conduct at Abu Gharib, and you understand the intense hatred; there is also the issue of detaining thousands of Iraqis without due process. Occupations are always dirty. The Huns succeeded, but they decimated the nations they conquered with fire and sword. You do what you have to do in these situations, but the military, trying to do its best, is a blunt instrument that is designed to destroy the enemy. In Iraq, nearly everyone is the enemy. After 5 years of massive US effort, there are very few US trained and equipped Iraq security forces that will reliably support US interests. The scary thing is that they may oppose them.

Retreat is a retrograde military maneuver, always dangerous under fire. The US has to withdraw its regular forces, the military equipment that is not deadlined, try to get over 100,000 general contractors out over which it exercises little control, and protect those Iraqis that cooperated with US forces. Maybe a truce can be arranged. Or some of those richly paid private contractors might fight a rear guard action. This is a daunting task and it will not be pretty under any circumstance. The Americans remember the panic departure from Vietnam. The Russians were stopped from a staged ground evacuation in Afghanistan by remorseless attacks and finally had to airlift their forces out. The day US forces depart, the Green Zone will fall to the Iraqi militias who may not protect US personnel. So it is no wonder Mr. Edelman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will not willingly face the issue. More importantly, GW Bush does not want to face even more chaos in office, so he is desperately trying to keep the forces in Iraq until he leaves office. Meanwhile American troops die pointlessly.

On Monday US Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad requested officially that all Iraqis employed by the US Government in Iraq be granted US visas. He did not give a number. The ambassador believes that these Iraqis fear for their lives and will flee unless they have a visa immigration outlet to the US. What does that say for the tense mood in the Green Zone? Not exactly a confident one when escape is a main concern. Crocker also has problems with staffing from the State Department that can not find enough diplomats willing to go Iraq.

Richard Perle, High Priest on the neocon Sanhedrin, was quoted saying after the invasion of Iraq, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK. The Pentagon already has spent billions of dollars on permanent bases in Iraq. The base complex at Balad is the largest and has a 13 ft security fence that goes on for 14 miles; it has internal roads and a self sufficient infrastructure; it is designed as the strategic air center for the whole region. Another is an airbase near Nasiriya where it is planned to have mess facilities for 6,000 troops. There are others as well. The planned US embassy in Baghdad is the largest the world; it has been reported it covers an area larger than the Vatican with an independent infrastructure that includes over 21 buildings and is surrounded by 10 ft deep perimeter walls. It is planned to be a complete separate city with all the creature comfort amenities, although it still remains incomplete. Believe GW Bush intended this monster fortified enclave to be his Second Rome in his misguided Great American Empire – all this remarkably for the postwar period in a war that has not been won. These indefensible extravagances took place while the American people slept and their senators and congressmen quietly rolled over and over and over. Perle may be right – although it would be for the first time in this war.

Now you understand why GW Bush is addicted to Iraq and does not have the character or will power to withdraw from his consuming substance abuse. He has fed the Dragon intensely (over $500 billion) for five years, and is driven to continue to be an imperial power junkie. Only way to kick his habit is to make him go cold turkey. Cut funding for his foolish war, now! Colonel Robert E Bartos USA RET

*Photograph: Etching by Francisco de Goya