George S. Hishmeh: Chaos, looting takes gloss off U.S. success

Despite the success of the U.S.-led invasion in eliminating the Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq, the Bush administration must be still disappointed with the results, if not the plunder by the audacious looters who went about with their thievery while the American and British soldiers stood by shamelessly. This turnaround has tarnished what has been considered by some as a spectacular victory.

And despite the targeting of some 14,000 sites by the mighty American air force there has yet to be a noteworthy evidence of the dreaded weapons of mass destruction – the declared reason for this unsanctioned war which President Bush lamely justified as posing a direct threat to the American people.

But more significantly the desperate Iraqis, who must have been aware that their days were numbered, did not attempt to use them.

This lends credence to the assertions of Iraq's top scientist, Lieutenant. General Amer Hammoudi Al Saadi, who conducted the talks with the UN inspectors last month.

He once again maintained before television cameras upon his public surrender last week to the American troops that Iraq did not possess any chemical or biological weapons.

But the greatest puzzle of all has been the unexplained disappearance en masse of the Iraqi leadership, whose 55 photos were placed on a deck of cards in the hope that Iraqis would come forth exposing their hideout or burial site.

What must irritate the Pentagon war planners and their cheer leaders from among the neo-conservatives was the refusal of the majority of Iraqis and others in the Arab world to equate the tearing down of Saddam's statue in a major Baghdad square with the historic demolition of the Berlin Wall.

The eye-catching event will be more remembered not for the attempt by an American soldier to place the Stars and Stripes on the head of the overthrown leader but the belated gesture of an Iraqi standing nearby to cover the face with an Iraqi flag.

This incident underlines an important fact: Saddam was overthrown by an invader and not a home-grown uprising, the preferred choice.

"If this is another Berlin Wall, then it is the Berlin Wall being torn down by an outside power, and that's something very different," explained Thomas Carothers, a specialist in democracy-building at the Carnegie Endow-ment for International Peace in Washington. "You don't have the sense of a society participating in its emancipation or galvanised around a central idea or national project," he told the Christian Science Monitor.

The tardiness of the American and British troops in protecting Iraq's priceless archeological heritage from looters was inexplicable if not bewildering, and to say the least agonising to watch, as it became known here that several American scholars, museum directors and art collectors and antiquities dealers had appealed at a meeting before the war with officials at the Pentagon to safeguard the Iraqi museums.

"I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected," McGuire Gibson, an Iraq specialist at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, told the Washington Post. But to no avail. (An item that virtually went unnoticed here was a report by Agence France-Presse that Iraqi Muslims came to the aid of Baghdad's tiny Jewish community last Saturday, chasing out looters trying to sack its cultural centrer in Baghdad).

In the wake of this mayhem, the Bush administration unexpectedly turned its guns, albeit verbally, on Syria accusing it of possessing chemical weapons and harbouring key Iraqi leaders, and threatening possible diplomatic or economic sanctions.

At the start of the war in Iraq, Syria was accused of allowing fedayeen to enter Iraq and help support the Iraqi regime.

The shift in focus has coincided with the scheduled arrival in Washington of two key aides of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a development that is bound to raise suspicions in the Arab world that Israel has a role in this diversionary action.

Israel is known to be unhappy with the "roadmap" that the Bush administration has promised to publish shortly outlining the steps for the establishment of a Palestinian state in two years' time.

An Israeli press report threw some light on the message carried by the Israeli couriers: "The United States should also take care of Iran and Syria because of their support for terror and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Israel will point out the support of Syria and Iran for Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers an important target in the war against international terrorism."

Despite this public campaign against Syria, it remains doubtful that the Bush administration is planning any military action in the near future against the Damascus government at a time when it is fully preoccupied with the events in Iraq which may still turn ugly.

After all Syria was said to be until recently very helpful in the American campaign against operatives of Al Qaida. And the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insisted that all that is needed from Syria is some "assurances" about co-operation with the deposed regime next door.

At this stage, it remains unlikely that the American president would repeat the mistake of his father, who seemed confident of a second term until domestic pressures were instrumental in his downfall.

A weak economy, increased defence spending and general political discontent, particularly over civil liberties, may present an insurmountable challenge to Bush as he stands at the doorstep of a presidential election campaign despite his apparent fascination with his heretofore successful policy of pre-emption.

This is not to dismiss the problems he may face with Iran, who is believed interested in acquiring nuclear weapons, and North Korea, the two remaining members of the "axis of evil."

The writer can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com