This transcript of an interview with Fisk by an rabid antiwar organization needs Fisking for sure! The problem is, one could take serious issue with every Fisk assertion. Severely edited.
Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! Correspondent: Robert Fisk, you wrote in one of your most recent articles, actually, the title of it was "Iraq Will Become a Quagmire for the Americans"
| I believe that was a follow-up to his critically-acclaimed "Afghanistan Will Become a Quagmire for the Americans"... |
and I think many people within the US administration were surprised to find the kinds of resistance they have in places like Nasiriya. We have the two Apache helicopters that have apparently been shot down and many US casualties so far. Do you think the Americans were caught by surprise, particularly by the resistance in the south where everyone was saying that the people are against Saddam Hussein?
Just take a look at the footage from Umm Qasr today and you'll eat your words.
Robert Fisk: Well, they shouldnât have been caught by surprise; there were plenty of us writing that this was going to be a disaster and a catastrophe and that they were going to take casualties.
| Casualties? In a war? That's never happened before... |
You know, one thing I think the Bush administration has shown as a characteristic, is that it dreams up moral ideas and then believes that theyâre all true, and characterizes this policy by assuming that everyone else will then play their roles. In their attempt to dream up an excuse to invade Iraq, theyâve started out, remember, by saying first of all that there are weapons of mass destruction. We were then told that al Qaeda had links to Iraq, which, there certainly isnât an al Qaeda link.
| "Pay no attention to those guys up north with the turbans and automatic weapons..." |
Then we were told that there were links to September 11th, which was rubbish. And in the end, the best the Bush administration could do was to say, âWell, weâre going to liberate the people of Iraqâ. And because it provided this excuse, it obviously then had to believe that these people wanted to be liberated by the Americans. And, as the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said a few hours ago, I was listening to him in person, the Americans expected to be greeted with roses and music â and they were greeted with bullets.
| Damn! Same thing happened to the Baathists today. Do y'suppose it's something going around? |
I think you see what has happened is that- and as he pointed out â the American administration and the US press lectured everybody about how the country would break apart where Shiites hated Sunnis and Sunnis hated Turkmen and Turkmen hated Kurds, and so on. And yet, most of the soldiers fighting in southern Iraq are actually Shiite. Theyâre not Sunnis, theyâre not Tikritis, theyâre not from Saddamâs home city.
Saddam did not get knocked off his perch straight away, and I think that, to a considerable degree, the American administration allowed that little cabal of advisors around Bush â Iâm talking about Perle, Wolfowitz, and these other people âpeople who have never been to war, never served their country, never put on a uniform â nor, indeed, has Mr. Bush ever served his country â (A bit of antisemitic sentiment here, Robert? You're beginning to sound like Pat Buchanan. Serving in the Texas Air National Guard doesn't count?) they persuaded themselves of this Hollywood scenario of GIs driving through the streets of Iraqi cities being showered with roses by a relieved populace who desperately want this offer of democracy that Mr. Bush has put on offer â as reality.
| Guess some do, some don't, and some want it for themselves but not for somebody else. I think we're working on adjusting the ratios right now... |
And the truth of the matter is that Iraq has a very, very strong political tradition of strong anti-colonial struggle. It doesnât matter whether thatâs carried out under the guise of kings or under the guise of the Arab Socialist Baâath party, or under the guise of a total dictator. There are many people in this country who would love to get rid of Saddam Hussein, Iâm sure, but they donât want to live under American occupation.
| Shouldn't be a permanent thing, unless they import a bunch of Paleostinians... |
The nearest I can describe it â and again, things can change â maybe the pack of cards will all collapse tomorrow â but if I can describe it, it would be a bit like the situation in 1941 â and I hate these World War II parallels because I think itâs disgusting to constantly dig up the second world war â Hitler is dead and he died in 1945 and we shouldnât use it, but if you want the same parallel, youâll look at Operation: Barbarosa, where the Germans invaded Russia in 1941 believing that the Russians would collapse because Stalin was so hated and Communism was so hated. And at the end of the day, the Russians preferred to fight the Germans to free their country from Germany, from Nazi rule, rather than to use the German invasion to turn against Stalin. And at the end of the day, a population many of whom had suffered greatly under Communism fought for their motherland under the leadership of Marshal Stalin against the German invader.
| Funny Bob should bring that particular operation up. Talk about a screw-up! The Fritzies invade, and in fact are greeted in many places as liberators, because "Marshal Stalin" was so thoroughly hated â really, a very close parallel with Sammy and Co. So what does Fritz do? He starts treating the inhabitants like Ãntermenschen. As long as we don't treat the Iraqis like animals, we eventually arrive at an understanding, the occupation will be short, and what we leave behind will be stable. |
A similar situation occurred in 1980 when Saddam himself invaded Iran. There had just been, 12 months earlier, a revolution in Iran and the Islamic Republic had come into being. It was believed here in Baghdad that if an invasion force crossed the border from Iraq â supported again in this case by the Americans â
| If you keep repeating the same lies, eventually your lips fall off... |
that the Islamic Republic would fall to pieces; that it would collapse under its own volition; that is couldnât withstand a foreign invasion. I actually crossed the border with the Iraqi forces in 1980, I was reporting on both sides, and I remember reaching the first Iranian city called Horam Shar and we came under tremendous fire; mortar fire, sniper fire, and artillery fire, and I remember suddenly thinking as I hid in this villa with a number of Iraqi commandos, âMy goodness, the Iranians are fighting for their countryâ.
| Sammy sent the People's Army and the Mukhabrat into Iran. The Arab Ãbermenschen started throwing their weight around, and what could have been a war of liberationi turned into a meat grinder. |
And I think the same thing is happening now, and, obviously, we know that with the firepower they have the Americans can batter their way into these cities and they can take over Baghdad, but the moral ethos behind this war is that you Americans are supposed to be coming to liberate this place. And, if youâre going to have to smash your way into city after city using armor and helicopters and aircraft, then the whole underpinning and purpose of this war just disappears at least in my dreams, and, the world â which has not been convinced thus far, who thinks this is a wrong war and an unjust war â are going to say, âThen what is this for? They donât want to be liberated by us.â
| Guess we'll have to see how this plays out. Some of it don't believe it'll happen that way... |
And thatâs when weâre going to come down to the old word: Oil.
Second verse, same as the first.
Whatâs quite significant is in the next few hours the Oil Minister in Iraq is supposed to be addressing the press, and that might turn out to be one of the more interesting press conferences that weâve had, maybe even more interesting, perhaps, than the various briefings from military officials about the course of the war.
JS: Robert Fisk, what are you seeing in terms of the preparations for the defense of Baghdad? The people that weâve been interviewing inside of Iraq - both ordinary Iraqis as well as journalists and others, are saying that there arenât really visible signs that there are any overt preparations underway. Whatâs your sense?
Robert Fisk: Well, it doesnât look like Stalingrad to me, but I guess in Stalingrad there probably werenât a lot of preparations. Iâve been more than 20 miles outside of Baghdad, and you can certainly see troops building big artillery vetments around the city. I mean, positions for heavy artillery and mortars, army vehicles hidden under overpasses, the big barracks of long ago â as in Serbia before the NATO bombardment have long been abandoned. Most of these cruise missiles that we hear exploding at night are bursting into government buildings, ministries, offices and barracks that have long ago been abandoned. Thereâs nobody inside them; they are empty.
| That's too bad. But then, they can't go back to them, either... |
Iâve watched ministries take all their computers out, trays- even the pictures from the walls. That is the degree to which these buildings are empty; they are shells. Inside the city, there have been a lot of trenches dug beside roads, sandbag positions set up. In some cases, holes dug with sandbags around them to make positions on road intersections to make positions for snipers and machine gunners. This is pretty primitive stuff. It might be WW2 in fabrication, but it doesnât look like the kind of defenses that are going to stop a modern, mechanized army like that of the United States or Britain â I think the US is a little more modern than we are.
| Ummm... Yes. We're more modern than most third world countries run by tin-hat dictators backed by outmoded ideological systems... |
I donât think it needs to be, because Americaâs power is in its firepower, its mechanized state, its sophistication of its technology. Iraqi military power is insane; these people are invading us and we continue to resist them â active resistance is a principle element of Iraqâs military defense. Itâs in the act of resistance, not whether you can stop this tank or that tank. And, the fact of the matter is, and itâs become obvious in the Middle East over the last few years; the West doesnât want to take casualties.
Too bad you don't have access to the latest research, from your location, Bob.
| Actually, that's true. As Patton is reputed to have said, we prefer to let the other poor bastard die for his country. But in the West, we're not the property of the state, to be disposed of at some tin-hat dictator's whim... |
They donât want to die. Nobody wants to die, but some people out here realize a new form of warfare has set in where, the United States, if they want to invade a country, they will bombard it. They will use other peopleâs soldiers to do it. Look at the way the Israelis used Lebanese mercenaries of the South Lebanon army in Lebanon. Look at the way the Americans used the KLA in Kosovo or the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. But here in Iraq there isnât anyone they can use; the Iraqi opposition appears to be hopeless.
| Hmmm... Light brown, both sides, light coating of butter... Yep. They're toast. |
The Iraqis have not risen up against their oppressors as they did in 1991 when they were betrayed by the Americans and the British after being urged to fight Saddam â theyâre staying at home. Theyâre letting the Americans do the liberating. If the Americans want to liberate them, fine, let the Americans do it â but the Americans arenât doing very well at the moment.
| Five days, 50 miles from Baghdad, approximately a dozen combat casualties to date, 3500 prisoners, and something over 1000 enemy dead, with about 60 civilian dead to date... That's terrible. |
You see, weâve already got a situation down in Basra where the British army have admitted firing artillery into the city of Basra, and then winging on afterward talking about âWeâre being fired at by soldiers hiding among civiliansâ. Well, Iâm sorry; all soldiers defending cities are among civilians. But now the British are firing artillery shells into the heavily populated city of Basra.
| Heh heh. Took out the party headquarters, then the locals started taking out the party members. Hope they're successful... |
When the British were fired upon with mortars or with snipers from the cragg on the state or the bogside in Delhi and in Northern Ireland, they did not use artillery, but here, apparently, it is ok to use artillery on a crowded city. What on Earth is the British army doing in Iraq firing artillery into a city after invading the country? Is this really about weapons of mass destruction? Is this about al Qaeda? Itâs interesting that in the last few days, not a single reporter has mentioned September 11th.
| Probably thinking about keeping their asses from getting shot off at the moment. Everything in its own time, Robert... |
This is supposed to be about September 11th. This is supposed to be about the war on terror, but nobody calls it that anymore because deep down, nobody believes it is. So, what is it about? Itâs interesting that there are very few stories being written about oil.
| Probably no more than a couple dozen every day... |
Weâre told about the oil fields being mined and booby-trapped, some oil wells set on fire â but oil is really not quite the point. Strange enough, in Baghdad, you donât forget it, because in an attempt to mislead the guidance system of heat seeking missiles and cruise missiles, Iraqis are setting fire to large berms of oil around the city. All day, all you see is this sinister black canopy of oil smoke over Baghdad. It blocks out the sun, it makes the wind rise and it gets quite cold; here, you canât forget the word oil. But I donât hear it too much in news reports.
AG: Well, Robert Fisk, weâre going to let you go to sleep. General Colin Powell said that foreign journalists should leave as the campaign of so-called âshock and aweâ is initiated- and it has started. Why have you chosen to remain in Baghdad?
Robert Fisk: Because I donât work for Colin Powell, I work for a British newspaper called The Independent; if you read it, youâll find that we are. Itâs not the job of a journalist a famous as ME to snap to the attention of generals. I wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago in my newspaper saying that before the war began in Yugoslavia, the British Foreign Office urged journalists to leave and then said the British intelligence had uncovered a secret plot to take all the foreign reporters hostage in Belgrade. I decided this was a lie and stayedâand it was a lie. In Afghanistan, just before the fall of Khandahar, as I was entering Afghanistan, the British Foreign Office urged all journalists to stay out of Taliban areas and then said the British intelligence had uncovered a plot to take all the foreign reporters hostage. Aware of Yugoslavia, I pressed on to Khandahar and it proved to be a lie. Just before the bombardment here, the British Foreign Office said that all journalists should leave because British intelligence had uncovered a plot by Saddam to take all journalists hostages, at which moment I knew Iâd be safe to stay because it was, of course, the usual lie. What is sad is how many journalists did leave. There were a very large number of reporters who left here voluntarily before the war believing this meretricious nonsense. I should say that the Iraqis have thrown quite a large number of journalists out as well but not one so supportive as I. But I donât think itâs the job of a journalist to run away when war comes just because it happens to be his own side doing the bombing. Iâve been bombed by the British and Americans so many times that itâs not âshock and aweâ anymore, itâs âshock and boreâ, frankly. |