Letter to the Editor: I look forward to George W. Bush’s dialogue with President Helble

There were two words missing in my university colleague’s — Dean Caivano’s –- letter criticizing Lehigh’s invitation to former President George W. Bush. 

Saddam Hussein.

For 24 years, Saddam ruled as a dictator in Iraq. He started two international conflicts when he ordered the Iraqi military to invade Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. The former war led to more than 500,000 deaths with millions more wounded. The Kuwait invasion was on a smaller scale with “only” 20,000 deaths. 

Excluding these two wars, how many Iraqis died at the hands of Saddam’s military and police? 

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Iraq was rocked by revolts against his tyranny that were savagely oppressed. The oppression was successful — Saddam survived because he was both smart and vicious. 

He spent a great deal of resources to conceal the scale of his murders but a lower bound is that he was responsible for over a hundred thousand deaths of his own people and the upper bound is maybe three times greater. 

Saddam was evil. He considered his international and domestic opposition to be subhuman and therefore every action, no matter how harsh, was justified. This was exemplified in his use of a weapon of mass destruction and torture.

Since the horrors of World War I, nations have sought to eliminate the use of chemical weapons such as poison gas. For decades, poison gas has been considered, along with nuclear and biological weapons, to be a weapon of mass destruction. But Saddam was not constrained by the general abhorrence. He used this weapon of mass destruction to kill both foreigners and his own people. 

In 1986, the UN Secretary General confirmed that Iraq had used poison gas on Iranian forces causing mass casualties including both deaths and chronic lung injuries. 

And, in 1988, Saddam used a mix of mustard gas, sarin gas and nerve agents to attack Iraqis, his own people, in the town of Halabja in Northern Iraq. Since most of the young men of Halabja were away, the estimated 5,000 dead were almost all women, children, and the elderly. 

Saddam ordered his army to clean up the site after the attack so as to be able to claim that any accusations of his use of a weapon of mass destruction could be denied as Western propaganda. 

However, journalist Richard Beeston entered the town the day after the attack, photographed the dead and escaped back to London where his photographs revealed Saddam’s atrocities to the world. 

Saddam’s miliary and secret police were infamous for their use of torture. Over 300,000 people just disappeared from the street, their places of employment or their homes. 

Most were tortured. The means used ranged from the awful such as beatings, hunger, and mutilation to the horrible including the rape of children in the presence of their parents. Army deserters had their ears hacked off. Torture was encouraged by a system of financial incentives. And survivors continued to suffer. Persons that under torture had accused their own family members of being disloyal to Saddam often committed suicide.  

Saddam’s defenders then and now, state that there is little documentary evidence to prove that this torture actually occurred. But as the Washington Post noted in 2003: “In most cases, there are no documents to verify their accounts, only the scars on their bodies and the corroboration of relatives and neighbors.” 

Further evidence has been found in discoveries of mass graves with bodies that show severe abuse.

As previously demonstrated by Hitler, Stalin and Mao, a dictator who was willing to be extremely ruthless can remain in power despite social, political and economic disasters. The multiple revolts against Saddam collapsed and he believed that after his presidency for life, he would be succeeded by his sadistic sons, Uday and Qusay. 

Diplomatic attempts to constrain Saddam were ineffective. 

Attempts by the United Nations to topple Saddam by economic sanctions failed both because of his disregard of the suffering of the Iraqi people and because of severe UN corruption during the “Oil for Food” program. 

Caivano in his Letter to the Editor on Aug. 22, emphasizes the terrible loss of life that resulted from the US led coalition’s 2003 invasion of Iraq which was controversially justified by appeals to UNSCR 678 (1991) and UN Resolution 1441 (2002). 

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died between the US led invasion in 2003 and the present. After the collapse of the Saddam regime, the US led coalition forces supported the Iraqi government in a series of conflicts where casualties were primarily caused by Iraqis killing Iraqis. 

These include the fights against the Al-Qaeda and ISIS insurgencies that had most of their support in the Sunni communities. Also, Iran supported insurgent groups in the Shi’a communities to weaken the US led coalition and the Iraqi government. And finally, there were periodic conflicts with the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military force. 

War is always a waste of blood and treasure, but the cost alone isn’t sufficient to judge an action. 

Saddam was captured, tried and executed by an Iraqi court. And eventually, the violence receded. Al-Qaeda and ISIS were defeated, the Iranian associated militias weakened, and the Iraqi government has achieved a degree of cooperation with the Kurdish provinces. 

Iraq is now governed by an elected parliament that although imperfect, as all democracies are, is much more responsive to the will of the Iraqi people. I doubt there are many Iraqis that would prefer to live today under a dictatorship of Uday and Qusay.

It is foolish to think that U.S. war policy is solely determined by idealism, but equally foolish to think that idealism has no impact on our foreign policy. The U.S. decisions to join WWI and to fight in the European theater of WWII exemplify the idealistic element. 

In 2003, many Iraqis believed that the US had invaded to steal their oil and forcibly collect the Iraqi government’s massive debts owed to Western countries. 

However, the rapid increase in oil export earnings received by the Iraqi government combined with a speedy cancellation of 80% of the country’s foreign debt made the claim of an invasion motivated by US imperialism more difficult to sustain.

Two weeks ago, I was back in Baghdad, Iraq meeting with students, entrepreneurs, government officials, and representatives of NGO. Anyone who knows me knows that I look, dress and speak “American”. And Iraqis are aware that I am a retired US Marine who served 13 months in Iraq in 2005-2006 during the initial stages of the fight with Al Qaeda. 

Everyone I met treated me with openness and consideration. This was probably due in a major part to the Iraq tradition, with its foundation in Islam, of gracious hospitality towards a guest. But I also think there is a recognition that, by deposing Saddam, the US led coalition gave the Iraqi people what Fouad Ajami referred to as the “Foreigner’s Gift” of a better life for the people of Iraq.

I want to be in the audience on Oct. 29 for Compelling Perspectives with President George W. Bush. President Helble has previously done an outstanding job in questioning guests and I hope that there will be valuable insights into Bush’s decision making during difficult times. 

I look forward to the questions from the audience and hope that Bush is responsive. 

However, I hope that Helble is more ruthless than usual in cutting off members of the audience, who rather than asking a question, give interminable speeches!