The Iraq War of 2003

Former Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld, died on June 30. I am told that he was a very nice man personally, though I only met him a few times at our annual Pumpkin Papers Irregular dinners at the University Club in Washington, DC. But I cannot forgive him for lying the United States (and Britain) into the illegal and disastrous War in Iraq. “Rumsfeld-torturer-butcher”  At the end of Juan Cole’s article is a New America Foundation panel on Iraq moderated by Steve Clemons from 14 years ago. Near the end of the video you can hear me make a comment.

A war with Iraq served no U.S. interest, quite the contrary. Iraq balanced the influence of Iran, its traditional enemy. Why would we want to end that? Rumsfeld and Cheney/Bush invented the lie of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as their excuse to attack Iraq despite the refusal of the UN Security Council to endorse such an attack. I highly recommend: “‘Official Secrets’… a 2019 British drama film based on the case of whistleblower Katharine Gun, who leaked a memo exposing an illegal spying operation by American and British intelligence services to gauge sentiment of and potentially blackmail United Nations diplomats tasked to vote on a resolution regarding the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_(film)

Many things can solidify and sustain political leaders in power, but none so well as war. And nothing keeps the tax dollar profits flowing to the military/industrial complex as much as war or the threat of war (real or imagined). And nothing threatens our liberties as much as the perpetual fear of war; the 9/11 war on terror being the premier example.

We are quite good at bombing and fighting but piss poor at governing occupied territories. In my rather considerable post conflict country experiences, Iraq was by far the worst example of imperial American mismanagement. I have written about my experiences in Iraq in https://wcoats.blog/2020/10/11/my-travels-to-baghdad/

Author: Warren Coats

I specialize in advising central banks on monetary policy and the development of the capacity to formulate and implement monetary policy.  I joined the International Monetary Fund in 1975 from which I retired in 2003 as Assistant Director of the Monetary and Financial Systems Department. While at the IMF I led or participated in missions to the central banks of over twenty countries (including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Zimbabwe) and was seconded as a visiting economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-80), and to the World Bank's World Development Report team in 1989.  After retirement from the IMF I was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2003-10 and of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review from 2010-2017.  Prior to joining the IMF I was Assistant Prof of Economics at UVa from 1970-75.  I am currently a fellow of Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.  In March 2019 Central Banking Journal awarded me for my “Outstanding Contribution for Capacity Building.”  My recent books are One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina; My Travels in the Former Soviet Union; My Travels to Afghanistan; My Travels to Jerusalem; and My Travels to Baghdad. I have a BA in Economics from the UC Berkeley and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. My dissertation committee was chaired by Milton Friedman and included Robert J. Gordon. View all posts by Warren Coats