The New Confusion

As President Bush continues his series of speeches concerning the Iraqi war leading up to the 9/11 anniversary, the Senate Intelligence Committee has found that there is "no link" between Al Queda and the Iraqi government. The committee found that Saddam and Al Queda were of completely different ideological "poles," with the Iraqi government repeatedly refusing requests to meet with any Al Queda representatives. What does this mean? As Tony Snow said, it is "nothing new", perhaps the most self-implicating soundbyte the administration has produced recently. If in fact this conclusion is nothing new to the administration, then Bush has been knowingly misleading the American public by making statements implying that there was in fact a link, and continues to do so across the country. It would seem that trumpeting poor intelligence is perhaps the worst way to honor the 9/11 dead.

One of the most articulate and usually informed neo-con is columnist Cristopher Hitchens. This new finding means that his main justification for the Iraq war over the last few years was predicated on a lie. Hitchen's response may be implied by his recent Slate column, where he shifts focus to Wassim Al-Zahawie, the Iraqi emisary to Niger. In his usual flare, Hitchens boasts of his ability to distill Zahawie's "clouds of verbiage" to give us the facts: that Zahawie met with Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, represented Iraq at the IAEA conference, and went to Hans Blix's WMD conference in Cairo. Hitchens concludes these interesting but not necesarily indicting facts with a crude implication; that Zahawie "stands by his earlier claim, which was that his visit to Niger in 1999 was solely for the purpose of persuading the Niger authorities to break the U.N. embargo on flights to Baghdad." This is the latest article in which Hitchens attempts to undercut the importance of the Wilson leak case, which Hitchens has referred to as "fantasy", despite an independent prosecutor finding the case quite different.

While the argument for Zarkhawie's connection to the Hussein regime grows dimmer, I think Hitchen's emphasis on Zahawie represents perhaps the next phase of Iraqi war justifications we will see in America. Rather then get to the bottom of anything, since if there were evidence to be gathered of Yellow Cake perusal on the part of the Hussein Regime, probably the CIA and not only neo-con pundits would be examining it. But the object of Hitchen's obfuscations on this point are not meant to get to the bottom of anything, but merely present the rhetorical flourish of trying to get to the bottom of things, meanwhile spreading the burden of proof thinner and thinner over the network of ambassadors, terrorists and beaurocrats, in a paranoid vision of culpability which leads endlessly back to an elusive Hussein-born threat to attack the Western world. A new confusion is what neo-cons have in their arsenal, and Hitchen's ultimately ironic article is a cloud of verbiage itself, meant to bewilder the opponents of his flawed and vulnerable ideology concerning this war. In a Zizekian argument, Hitchens would be one of the pathological supporters of this war, whose ultimate determination to "stand, train and kill" in Iraq is justified by the unjustifiable. If the offense Hussein comitted against the United States is so hard to find, at this point it seems wise to allow the possibility, and even probability, that there was no intial, immediate threat at all. Not to apologize for Hussein, but one can only say good riddance in his regard for so long.

The question for Hitchens, and Bush himself, is not whether they believe the war is going well, or is winnable (anyone of sound mind knows "winning" has nothing to do with this war), but how many lives the 9/11 tragedy justifies us to take. As was rightly asked of Muslims angry over the recent Israel/Palestine conflict; why was the outrage so strong over Muslims dying at the hands of Jews, when in nearby Iraq many more Muslims are being slaughtered daily by other Muslims? Is there likewise a cruel gap between a humanitarian vision and the United States (and Britain)'s nationalist ideology when it comes to the balance between Iraq and ourselves? In every war there is some such gap, that fills slowly with faceless, collateral bodies. Is there a point when there is no more room in that gap, when the dead overflow and cannot be ignored?