Salon.com > Andrew Cockburn

When Rummy tried to nuke Russia

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:59:00 +0000

After George H.W. Bush won the 1988 presidential election, there was, as usual, ill-informed speculation that Donald Rumsfeld would be offered a senior cabinet post. One of those who paid attention to the rumors was Milt Pitts, the longtime presidential barber, who was summoned to give the president-elect a trim soon after the victory. "Pitts had always liked Rumsfeld," a former White House official explained in recounting the ensuing conversation.

"I've heard that Don Rumsfeld might be secretary of defense," said Pitts brightly as he snipped away. "Have you heard that, Mr. Vice President?"

"No, Milt," said Bush in a low, chilly voice. "I haven't heard that."

Rumsfeld himself was ready to settle for something less. Writing to congratulate Bush on his victory, he stated that he would "like to be your Ambassador to Japan." An official in the Bush transition office processing such requests found that the letter had already been reviewed at a high level. Scrawled across it were the words "NO! THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN!! GB."

Rumsfeld was offered no position in the administration of George H.W. Bush.

The rise of the new Iraqi “tough guy”

Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:33:00 +0000

As he left Baghdad, Iraq, for appearances at the United Nations in New York and before a joint session of Congress in Washington, Iyad Allawi was seen on Iraqi TV flourishing a bandaged hand. News quickly flashed around Baghdad that this was not the result of enemy action. Bawling out an underling, Iraq's handpicked "interim" prime minister had bashed his fist so hard on the table that he had broken a bone.

That is not the least of Iyad Allawi's self-inflicted wounds. Accepting the poisoned chalice of appointment by the occupying power as their man in Iraq, he must now live with the consequences of a policy that has already reduced Iraq to ruins.

To those who know Allawi, news that his violence had extended to self-mutilation came as no surprise. While soft-spoken and polite to outsiders, he likes to rain abuse on underlings, cultivating an image of toughness that goes down well both with those Iraqis who nurture nostalgia for the days when Saddam made the electricity work and with his next-door neighbors at the U.S. embassy, who are gratified that they have found a "tough guy," as President Bush calls him, who will do as he is told.

A man for all intrigues

Sat, 29 May 2004 19:31:00 +0000

There could be no more perfect evidence of the desperation among U.S. officials dealing with Iraq than the choice of veteran Baathist and CIA hireling Iyad Allawi as prime minister of the "sovereign" government due to take office after June 30. As one embittered Iraqi told me from Baghdad on Friday: "The appointment must have been orchestrated by Ahmed Chalabi in order to discredit the entire process." He was not entirely joking, given the fact that Chalabi joined the rest of the Governing Council in voting for Allawi despite their long and vicious rivalry.

Though he is Shiite, Allawi was once upon a time an active Baathist, a member of Saddam Hussein's political party, and is thought to enjoy much support among the officer corps of the old Iraqi army, and by extension among many former Baathists and influential Sunni. Indeed, there are reports that the reason Ahmed Chalabi, the neoconservative favorite, urged his friends in the White House to dissolve the army last year -- a decision now acknowledged to be the most disastrous of the occupation -- was Chalabi's fear of the support enjoyed by his rival (and cousin -- everyone in Baghdad is related) within the military.

Ahmed Chalabi’s failed coup

Thu, 20 May 2004 15:22:00 +0000

The U.S. command in Baghdad raided Ahmed Chalabi's home and headquarters in Baghdad at dawn today. U.S. soldiers put a gun to his head, according to his nephew Salem Chalabi, the Associated Press reports. Chalabi aides blame the CIA and Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Why did the Bush administration turn against its former favorite Iraqi? Almost certainly because it realized that Chalabi, maddened by the realization that he was being excluded from the post-June 30 hand-over arrangements, was putting together a sectarian Shiite faction to destabilize and destroy the new Iraqi government. "This all started since [U.N. envoy Lakhdar] Brahimi announced that Chalabi would be kept out of the new arrangement," says an Iraqi political observer who is not only long familiar with Chalabi himself but also in close touch with key actors, including U.S. officials at the CPA and Iraqi politicians.

Raiding Iraq’s piggy bank

Mon, 17 May 2004 17:35:00 +0000

As the occupation of Iraq dissolves further into bloody chaos, the colonial overseers in Baghdad are keeping their eyes fixed on what is really important: Iraq's money and how to keep it. Whatever apology for a "sovereign" Iraqi government is permitted to take office after June 30 -- and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi admits in private that he "has to do" whatever the Americans tell him to do -- the United States is making sure that the Iraqis do not get their hands on their country's oil revenues.

We are talking about big money here: Iraq's oil exports are slated to top $16 billion this year alone. U.N. Security Resolution 1483, rammed through by the United States a year ago, gives total control of the money from oil sales -- currently the only source of revenue in Iraq -- to the occupying power, i.e., the United States. The actual repository for the money is an entity called the Development Fund for Iraq, which in effect functions as a private piggy bank for Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority. The DFI is directed by a Program Review Board of 11 members, just one of whom is Iraqi.

Castles made of sand

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 21:26:00 +0000

Nothing much changes in Iraq. Just before the Shiites rose in revolt against the occupation, a leading member of the occupation authority in Baghdad reported that "the bottom seems to have dropped out of the agitation and most of the leaders are only too anxious to let bygones be bygones."

No, that was not Paul Bremer on CNN, but the British Iraqi expert Gertrude Bell, writing to the local military commander in May 1920. Almost immediately afterwards, most of Iraq erupted in a bloody revolt that inflicted thousands of casualties on the occupation forces. The uprising was enthusiastically supported by both Shiite and Sunni, who held joint prayer services in each other's mosques in support of the rebellion.

There is no sign that anyone in the vast fortress that is Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in the heart of Baghdad, isolated from Iraq and Iraqis by concrete ramparts and triple canopy razor wire, has any knowledge of or interest in awkward precedents like the great 1920 revolt. Nor is there any sign that any of the 3,000 officials (even excluding the high percentage of Republican Party hacks) allegedly governing Iraq understands quite why the occupation is collapsing in blood and flames.