Images and Symbols -- Deconstructing the Iraq War

March 20 marks the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq

“Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is not a distraction from the war on terror; it is absolutely crucial to winning the war on terror.” - Dick Cheney

The President answered:” The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."

Bush reiterated that the administration never said that "the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

President Bush, having repeatedly linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorist organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said yesterday, ”there is no evidence that the deposed Iraqi leader had a hand in those attacks”.
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After three years of war in Iraq, it is now extensively accepted that Iraq or Saddam Hussein never had any relationship with Al-Qaeda nor did Saddam or Iraq have any hand in terrorist attacks on the US soil on 9/11/2001. Yet the US administration has persistently been telling the world and its American constituents that there is a relationship between Iraq and 9/11.

Is this contradictory? Was the US administration flat out untruthful when it insisted on an Iraq and 9/11 relationship?

Parse the US Administrations various statements carefully and it comes out that they were claiming that Iraq had a connection with 9/11 but the Iraq government or Saddam Hussein never really had anything to do with 9/11.

What was that relationship? What was the Iraqi connection with the terrorism on 9/11?

A brief look at history of Islamic terrorism may determine whether the US admin was mendacious or Iraq did have a connection with the terrorism, which was widely cited as the reason for the US attack on Iraq by the US administration.

Two Events

In the late 70s, two significant events occurred: the overthrow of the Shah in Iran and a leftwing coup in Afghanistan.

The Shah of Iran for years had suppressed the liberal or democratic elements in Iran. While doing that, he allowed the parties to the right of his government to gain more influence. Changes in Iran were eventually led by the religious elements, though the liberal democrats in Iran provided most of the street muscle.

The situation in Afghanistan initially did not have much impact on Afghanistan politics or the economy. In the tribal culture of Afghanistan, Kabul’s influence over the countryside was minimal.

The biggest impact of Afghan coup was felt in Pakistan. A military regime that was dependent upon the religious parties for political support ruled Pakistan. The leftist regime in Kabul was considered a threat to the reactionary policies of the military regime. They sought the support of religious elements to counter the secular and anti tribal impact of the afghan communist coup.

The Pakistani Army regime and it cohorts in the religious parties such as the Jamaat Islami developed the message. Considering that the Afghan or the Pushtoon tribes already leaned towards religious orthodoxy, the battle cry was simple: Non-believers were ruling Afghanistan and all believers should join in to defeat them. The battle was between the non-believers (kafr) and the believers. Soon the battle cry started attracting zealots from the faraway lands and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also pitched in to uphold the faith.

The US joined the efforts to continue its policy of communism containment and declared the Afghan fighters the first line of defense against communism. With US support and material help, the recruitment of Muslim militants from several Muslim countries moved into high gear. Soon tons of people showed up in Pakistan and Afghanistan to save God and the religion. The extremists within the rightwing gained access to modern weapons and, for almost ten years, they carried those weapons as badges of honor. These extremists got modern guerrilla-warfare training, learned somewhat exclusive methods of motivation, and generally were ready to give whatever they had to the cause. Having access to money and after learning to motivate the cadre through modern means, allowed some of these organizations to begin recruitment drives all over the Muslim world.

Motivational messages were developed to prepare a core group of fighters later known as the Jihadis. Nobody gives up life easily but the Jihadi leaders assembled groups of people in isolated regions and routinely showed them videotapes of alleged brutalities of the Kafirs -the Soviets and the communists in Afghanistan- against the Muslims. Those barely educated were exposed to the motivational speeches, indoctrinated in religious concepts of Jihad and a continual reading of the religious books about martyrdom. The indoctrination had an effect. There was not any resistance in the cadre to stand up to this onslaught anyway. They bought the rhetoric lock, stock and barrel and were completely conditioned to lay their lives for the cause.

The Impact

The tumultuous changes in the Soviet Union ended the Afghan war. Jihadis rejoiced in their victory but were left rudderless after the war. The United States, a major sponsor of the Afghan fighters and the religious zealots in Afghanistan lost interest after the Soviet Union pull out from Afghanistan.

While the Afghan fighters busied themselves in fighting each other for power in Afghanistan, the Arabs and the hardcore elements in Afghanistan were not sure of the next mission. Jihadis needed enemies to survive and to continue recruiting. The first Gulf War arrived at a good time. The US had already abandoned Jihadis in Afghanistan and they were not happy about it. Now the US attacked a Muslim country – Iraq – with some sacred monuments and placed its forces in the most sacred of all Muslim land, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The US attack on Iraq rejuvenated the Jihadis. This group of people had no goals nor had anything left for motivation. The Gulf War in 1991 turned the whole thing around for them.

The roots of Gulf War II took shape in Gulf War I. The Iraqi move into Kuwait scared the Saudi Arab regime. The United States, too, saw the opportunity to strengthen its position in the area. Saudis were terrified of the growing Iraqi influence in the area. They sought support and the protection for the House of Saud, and agreed to allow the US army to build bases in Saudi Arabia for protection from the internal or the external threats.

The US attack on Iraq in 1991 was a major media event. Television crews from all over the world descended in the region and beamed the war on television screens all over the world. The Tomahawks and cruise missiles blasted from the sea flew over the sacred cities in Iraq, dismantling civilian buildings and military infrastructure in Iraq and killing innocent Iraqis. It was a ghastly sight. Arab newspapers reported approx 150,000 dead Iraqis. Planes flying from one sacred land Saudi Arabia, to another suggested to Jihadis that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia too had abandoned Muslims, that it has joined forces with Satan, who intended to destroy the Muslims after having destroyed its dangerous enemy, the Soviet Union, with the help of the Muslims. Iraq was the first Muslim country attacked by the US. Betrayal caused despair and Jihadis in Afghanistan and elsewhere called for revenge.

The Offensive

The US had sent enough signals through the Gulf War I, that it was assumed that the US and its partners in the region would remain unchallenged. Palestinians and Israelis came to the table and the US felt that it had somehow positioned itself to counter any threat to US corporate interests in the area.

Within a short while, Somalia showed up on the radar. It was a humanitarian problem aggravated by the feuding warlords. The US fresh from its victories in Iraq, and to prove its position in the new world order, decided to go in Somalia to take out the warlords and support the UN humanitarian efforts. Jihadis took that as another offense against a Muslim country after Iraq and chafed at the US attacks on Muslim countries. Jihadis vowed resistance and rushed to Somalia. They found an easy success. The US quickly retreated out of Somalia. Jihadis then moved to complete their victory in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s victory was a major boost to the Arab Jihadis.

Images and Symbols

In 1993, the failure of an amateurish attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in New York to revenge the destruction of Baghdad showed to the Jihadis that they needed to plot and plan better, if they were to have an impact on the US.

In Lebanon and later in Palestine, the success of the suicide bombing model showed them a perfect vehicle to attack the US and its interests wherever possible. Jihadis needed a state from which they could plot and sketch the war against the US and the House of Saud. Afghanistan provided them the haven they needed to develop a response and to train the cadre for a long war ahead of them.

The first attack came in Africa. The US embassies, after the attacks, resembled the tattered up Baghdad buildings after the first Gulf War, and so replaced the earlier television images of the torn Baghdad buildings with the destroyed US-owned buildings. The most powerful state in the world really had no answer to that.

Jihadis and the US were at war. The US, initially failing to correctly assess the Jihadis intentions and capabilities, found out that it had an enemy from the Middle East that would not back off and could not be taken down without the use of massive force.

The next attack was on the USS Cole, a US warship similar to those that fired the Tomahawks and Cruise missiles on Baghdad. The Cruise missiles sent by the US in response, hit the empty Afghan training barracks without any success. However, the damaged USS Cole stayed in the Gulf for all to see.

The US meanwhile was fighting its own demons. The political in-fighting in Washington over the impeachment left a lame-duck President even more handicapped. Still, there was not enough in the US hands to counter-attack Jihadis. It needed something bigger. Something that could convince the US public opinion that Jihadis were more than a law and order problem and that taking on this enemy was essential before they would bring down any US ally in the Middle East and thereby control a vital commodity.

The neo-cons and Kissinger argued that it would take another Pearl Harbor to convince the US public opinion to take on Jihadis.

Jihadis roar

By early 2001, all major secret services were reporting heightened activity and expected attacks on the US positions. Some major international spy agencies reportedly warned the US of likely terrorist activity against the US interests. The CIA was fully aware of those warning and knew something was brewing. Did the CIA have any clues as to where and when terrorist action would occur? The answer is still unknown. In the meantime, all the US could do was to bait and wait patiently. During the first nine months of 2001, the US administration pretended that it was not paying attention to Jihadis and was not interested in going after them, as the outgoing Clinton administration had suggested.

9/11 was meant to replace some more symbols. In the first Gulf War, The Tomahawk and cruise missiles were displayed on television with great fanfare all over the world as they flew over Iraq. The US bombers and fighter jets dominated the news and war reports on the television. Those were the symbols of the US military prowess. The US public and International audience saw an awesome display of the US firepower.

The attacks on the morning of 9/11 replaced those symbols with the US-owned planes crashing into the US financial center in the biggest US metropolis and its most fortified federal building in the Capital, killing the US citizens the way the US planes had killed Muslims in Baghdad. Television images now were displaying different emotions and different pictures. The US was the target of precision bombing for the first time in its history and its failure to protect its own borders was a major embarrassment to the US administration. Red faced US officials were scrambling to find undisclosed sanctuaries and the US President rummaged around for a safe hideout. Jihadis had inflicted the revenge on the US for destroying and attacking an Arab and a Muslim country.

Settling of scores

On September 12, 2001, Secretary Rumsfeld proposed bombing Iraq, not Afghanistan, "because it (Iraq) has better targets."

The US had to find a way to punish the perpetrators and Iraq was the chosen symbol of the forceful response. Afghanistan really did not have any historical links to the Arab attackers. It was just a sanctuary. Bombing a sparsely populated and undeveloped Afghanistan was not satisfying nor did it strike a blow in the Arab world.

During the second Gulf War, the US avoided displaying the bombing and missile attacks on television. They were extremely careful about the religious symbols. The US forces entered Baghdad as quietly as possible, even allowing Saddam the opportunity to escape from Baghdad. They had embedded journalists showing localized encounters and as soon as the main battle in Iraq was over, the US announced the withdrawal of its forces from Saudi Arabia.

The destruction and control of Iraq was essential in shattering the Jihadi spirit and to stop the cycle of revenge let loose after the first Gulf war. Three years later, Iraq’s destruction is almost complete. The obliteration of the US buildings in the United States has been avenged. The US forces are preparing for the final assault and a retreat from Iraq in the near future is in the cards.