Why didn’t they listen?

The Catholic Church has from the outset been opposed to the invasion of Iraq, warning the United States, Britain and their allies of the folly of an elective war and the many problems its aftermath would produce. Recent events serve to underscore the validity of the Church’s warnings.

In April last year we reported an Iraqi bishop as saying that the US-led coalition would win the war in his homeland, but lose the peace.

Bishop Ibrahim N Ibrahim’s assessment was not particularly startling: critics of the decision to invade Iraq were sounding similar warnings. This newspaper, which makes no claims to exceptional prescience, pointed out at the time that the coalition had shown surprisingly few signs of being prepared, with no coherent strategy in mind, and little idea of what to expect in its occupation of Iraq.

One need not the benefit of hindsight to be startled at the fancy of US-led forces who believed that they would be hailed by the Iraqi population as liberators.

They did liberate Iraq from a tyrant, Saddam Hussein. Alas, the invasion of Iraq opened the way for another tyranny: political chaos and associated terror.

Even now, it seems, the occupying powers are improvising. With just a few weeks to go before the formal return of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30, the US and Britain still seemed at odds over the nature of the transition of power.

The chances of democracy in Iraq are exceedingly slim. The new Iraqi governing will likely enjoy no legitimacy among those it has been appointed to govern. By cooperating with the coalition, its members will undermine the notion of moderate politics in Iraq. Meanwhile, rival factions of Islamic fundamentalists and ethnic groups are already jostling for position in preparation for the eventual withdrawal of coalition troops (a process insurgents and other terrorists are hoping to accelerate by adding to the death toll of coalition soldiers).

It is not too pessimistic an expectation that civil war seems inevitable. Far from instituting a neat democracy in Iraq, President George W Bush and Prime Tony Blair will have destabilised a country, a region, and indeed the world at large. Neither man can take refuge in excuses of ignorance, or continue to blame subordinates. Both are guilty of having ignored warnings prior, during and after the war.

The well-documented abuse in the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad is one example of warnings dismissed, at an incalculable cost.

As we report this week, Cardinal Francis Stafford, an American, cautioned last year that Mr Bush’s war on terror implicitly endorsed the use of torture. Yet, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the US administration protested ignorance and expressed indignant outrage.

Cardinal Stafford rightly calls the politicians outcry over the torture by US troops deceitful in light of the silence that took place when torture was being talked about in 2001, 2002 and 2003. It is indeed astonishing that the guardians of US security and intelligence should claim unawareness about the reality of torture in Iraq when a Churchman like Cardinal Stafford could see it coming a long time ago.

Indeed, knowing now that the US and Britain motivated for an invasion of Iraq on a false premise the weapons of mass destruction canard only the most naive observers would place unreserved trust in the Bush administration’s protestations of incognisance.
And this breakdown of trust revives the question: why did the United States and Britain start the war in Iraq?