GEORGE W. Bush consciously misled Congress and the public during the propaganda campaign preceding the war against Iraq, Pentagon and CIA veterans told a University audience last Monday. Lt. Col. Karen Kiatkowski and Army veteran and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern visited the University to discuss the war against Iraq. McGovern and Kiatowski, accompanied by several peace activists, testified that the government for which they worked consciously fabricated lies in order to rationalize the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
That is old news. Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, Alberto Mora and a host of other insiders have described in detail the crimes of the Bush administration, with respect to both invading Iraq and torturing "terrorists." Citizens who do not desire permanent occupation of Iraq now have the responsibility to propose strategies by which we can pay reparations to Iraq while returning political control to the Iraqi populace.
It is clear that Bush has committed impeachable offenses -- principally deceiving Congress and the public while creating the case for the invasion. Likewise, it is obvious that Bush should be tried before a war crime tribunal. Waging a war of aggression is the most egregious violation of international law, according to McGovern. Bush should be impeached because his lies have led directly to the death of over 1,500 American soldiers. He should be tried for war crimes because tens of thousands of civilians have died as a result of his attack on Iraq.
However, impeaching Bush would not extricate us from the quagmire in Iraq. Neither McGovern nor Kiatkowski offered a plan for withdrawal from Iraq. An abrupt and hasty exit would be less destructive than continuing occupation -- nowarlord could murder as effectively as the American military industrial complex. Yet it would be irresponsible for American citizens to tolerate the destruction and subsequent abandonment of Iraq.
We have bombed and continue to bomb countless schools in Iraq, according to journalist Eman Ahmad Khamas, who also spoke at the forum on Monday and works with Occupation Watch.
We must finance the reconstruction of Iraq's educational as well as its transportation infrastructure. We have crippled countless civilians and now have a responsibility to provide medical care and economic support to them for the rest of their lives.
We may have the responsibility to oversee this type of reconstruction. However, as the past three years have indicated, the junta currently enthroned demonstrates no concern for the well being of Iraqi citizens.
The Bush administration has murdered and tortured Iraqi citizens. It has laid waste to countless cities and continues to do so. Given the administration's current and past behavior, it is illogical to assume that this administration will carry out reconstruction in the interest of the Iraqi populace.
Instead, an international body, separated from multinational oil companies, should be in control of funneling money to Iraqi reconstruction. Working under the auspices of the United Nations, politicians have that capability.
A fundamental virtue of the UN is that its missions are unlikely to be motivated by imperial goals, due to conflicts of national interest within most coalitions. By distributing both power and responsibility, the UN has the capacity to engage in well-intentioned reconstruction. It could only undertake such a massive reconstruction project with U.S. funding.
The Bush administration, according to The New Yorker's Jane Meyer, hasgiven no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars to Halliburton, even as governmental accounting agencies reveal systematic price inflation by the corporate con-men. The Bush administration will leave Iraq's oil fields under the control of Exxon, Shell and the other oil companies; the administration has no interest in improving the lives of the Iraqi people, whereas it owes a debt to the oil companies, which have proven quite generous during the campaign season.
Interest dynamics within the administration as well as the Republican-dominated Congress make benevolent reconstruction impossible, as the last three years of carnage attest. Now it is our national responsibility to fund Iraqi reconstruction through a disinterested international coalition while devolving political control unto the Iraqi populace. Such foreign policy goals necessitate the expulsion of the Bush cabal.
Zack Fields' column usually appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at zfields@cavalierdaily.com.
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