Lessons Kenya can learn from the misguided military foray into Iraq

Iraqi special forces deploy as they secure a district in west Baghdad on June 18, 2014. Saudi Arabia has warned of the risks of a civil war in Iraq with unpredictable consequences for the region, after Sunni militants seized large areas from Shiite-led government forces. PHOTO | SABAH ARAR  AFP

In Summary

• Iraq lies in ruins, its once superior infrastructure destroyed and its people divided
• What started as a war against Al-Shabaab appears to have become an occupation

By Rasna Warah
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In 2003, The EastAfrican ran a startling story on its front page that clearly illustrated that the war in Iraq was the result of a disinformation campaign that had begun months before the first bombs were dropped on Baghdad.

 

The story recounted how, during a crucial four-month period leading up to the attacks on Baghdad, US and British officials had falsely accused Saddam Hussein’s government of trying to buy huge quantities of uranium from Niger, one of the poorest countries in Africa.

An article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published in the New Yorker revealed that the documents used to support the uranium link between Iraq and Niger were fake. In fact, one letter dated July 2000 even bore an amateurish forgery of the signature of Niger’s President.

Analysts suggested that the forgers assumed that it would be much more credible to implicate a poor African country rather than the three other leading exporters of uranium oxide, namely, Canada, Australia and Russia, who would have convincingly been able to defend themselves against charges of helping Iraq build nuclear weapons.

FACTS SUPPRESSED

By the time the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, discredited these accusations, it was too late: Washington had already begun marching towards Baghdad.

At any other time, this story would have taken on Watergate proportions. But the war in Iraq was unique in the way it handled the truth.

Although it is generally acknowledged that the truth is the first casualty of war, this war showed that even journalists, the so-called defenders of the truth, actively colluded in suppressing the facts, thereby becoming part and parcel of the military campaign of the US and British coalition forces.

As an editorial in Kenya’s Daily Nation on April 1, 2003, lamented, “What is dreadful is that during ‘peace’, these same media bombard the world with holier-than-thou sermons about objectivity, truth and fairness, whereas in war, they are the first to trample these principles underfoot.”

The other big lie propagated by US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

CONSEQUENCES OF LIES

An elaborate scheme was orchestrated to convince the world that the US and Britain were saving Iraq and the Arab region from catastrophe. This lie was then used to justify these countries’ invasion of Iraq.

Ten years later, we are seeing the consequences of those lies. Iraq lies in ruins, its once superior infrastructure destroyed and its people divided. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have died since 2003 and millions are living in more fear than they did during Saddam’s time.

The country is shattered, and Al Qaeda — which dared not enter Saddam’s Iraq — has found a foothold there and is wreaking havoc on the population through the ISIS, a terrorist organisation that has unleashed the most horrific violence on Iraqis.

One lesson we can learn from the Iraq war is that when an invading force becomes an occupying force (as the US and Britain did in Iraq), the backlash can yield even more sinister forms of terrorism that are harder quash.

We are told that Kenyan forces are liberating southern Somalia from Al-Shabaab. However, we are not being told what they are doing at Kismayu, or where the revenue collected from the port is being deposited.

FROM WAR TO OCCUPATION

What started as a war against Al-Shabaab appears to have become an occupation. How can Kenya hold the moral high ground in Somalia when it cannot account for its activities there?

The other lesson Kenya can learn from Iraq is that lies can have serious consequences and can lead to actions or reactions that may not be appropriate or desirable.

For instance, despite plenty of evidence that the massacres in Mpeketoni were the work of Al-Shabaab, the government insists they were ethnically and politically motivated.

Making such a statement before carrying out a thorough investigation is highly irresponsible and can fuel the kind of ethnic violence we experienced in 2008. It also sends a message to the perpetrators that Kenya is not really on top of its security situation.

rasna.warah@gmail.com