Why this massive hypocrisy?

Paul Findley, former Republican congressman from Indiana, in a recent article entitled, "What is Bush's Real Goal in Iraq?" questions Mr. Bush's Iraq motives: "Our most urgent challenge in Iraq is convincing the insurgents that we will pack and leave once a directly-elected government is installed. Distrust of U.S. intentions is the root cause of the bloody rebellion that seems to gain strength every month. Is the Bush administration honest in stating that its objective is a stable, democratic Iraq? Or is it just a cover for permanent military bases that will enable the U.S. government to dominate Iraq far into the future?

Here are a few reasons why the Iraqis distrust U.S. intentions:

1) "Neocons" in the Defence Department long ago urged an invasion of Iraq as a step toward U.S. control of the Middle East. Retired U.S. General Anthony Zinni, former chief of the U.S. Central Command, publicly stated recently that "EVERYONE" IN WASHINGTON KNOWS THAT OIL AND ISRAEL ARE THE REAL REASONS FOR THE WAR.

2) Headlines and newscasts are replete with forecasts by administration officials that U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for years.

3) Beginning with the thunderous, devastating "shock and awe" opening rounds, U.S. military assaults have left over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, with other thousands wounded and/or homeless, and vast areas, including the great historic city of Fallujah, in ruins.

4) No serious shake up or reprimand in high places followed the disclosure of US torture and humiliation of detainees.

5) Administration handpicked the interim Iraqi government in its entirety. The prime minister Ayad Allawi, resided for a long time in the United States, had close links with the CIA, and earlier was a close colleague of Saddam Hussein, once serving as the dictator's hatchet man in Europe.

6) At the end of 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. government urged the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam. This prompted a strong uprising but the US government refused to provide support in any form. This refusal prompted Saddam to use helicopter gun-ships to slaughter dissidents by the hundreds.

7) For a decade after the Gulf War, U.S. fighter planes enforced severe sanctions that led to the immense civilian suffering, including the death of at least half a million Iraqi infants.

8) In the 1980s -- the height of Saddam's cruel treatment of Kurds and other Iraqi citizens -- the U.S. government served as the dictator's silent, uncomplaining partner, helping him battle Iran.

9) Before invading Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration ignored offers of reconciliation from Saddam emissaries.

10) President Bush has failed to make any moves to redress what is seen as America's anti-Arab/Muslim bias. Bush talks of independence for Palestinians but continues to support without complaints Israel's brutal treatment of them.

Distrust of the U.S. government is virulent throughout the Arab world and beyond, not just in Iraq, and our government does almost nothing to dispel it.

If the administration fails to establish credibility, the rebellion will intensify. The best first is to convince the Iraqis that we will leave the minute the new directly elected government wants us out. President Bush must pledge, without qualification, that the timing and extent of our withdrawal will be controlled by Iraq.

To make this promise believable, Bush must state clearly that our government will withdraw all U.S. military forces and all U.S. contractors and dismantle U.S. military bases within a few weeks after the new government takes office. The only exception should be military units or contractors the new Iraqi government may wish to remain. Such units will remain only as long as the new government wishes.

Our government must also promise unequivocally that once the new Iraqi government takes office, the U.S. diplomatic mission, now bursting with 2,000 persons, the largest in recorded history -- will quickly be reduced to a standard level.

Whatever his original motives, Bush must take prompt, rigorous steps to erase Iraqi fear of American colonialism. Otherwise, his page in history will be bleaker than President Lyndon Johnson's legacy from the Vietnam War.

In Iraq, trust -- not military manpower -- is the greatest and gravest shortage. More troops will inspire more insurgency, not less," Congressman Findley concludes.

Excellent advice, but very unlikely that President Bush will pay any heed to it. After all, in Mr. Bush's "we make no mistake" administration, incompetence gets rewarded, sane advice gets discarded. Last month, Mr. Bush outdid himself by bestowing the nation's highest civilian awards on three proven incompetents": former CIA Director, George Tenet, who had insisted that the CIA's intelligence about Iraq's WMDs were a "slam dunk" (in the same basketball jargon it turned out to be a "brick"); former administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, whose decision to disband the Iraqi army resulted in initial chaos and looting; and General Tommy Franks, whose refusal to ask for more troops is generally blamed for lawlessness in Iraq.

President Bush will probably adopt a new Rand Corporation study that suggests that Sunni and Shia, Arab and non-Arab divisions in Islam should be exploited by America to promote U.S. policy objectives in the Muslim world! One of the authors of the report is Christine Fair, who now works for the notorious Daniel Pipes, one of the most virulent anti-Muslim Jewish Zionist, whom President Bush appointed to head the U.S. Institute of Peace as a recess appointee over the objections of Senators like Kennedy and Harkins and the public. The new U.S. Intelligence Law that President Bush signed into law recently targets the Muslim world. It seeks to magnetise the new generation of Muslim youths and recruit them to gather vital information for America.

President Bush's solution for America's disastrous standing in the Muslim world seems to be more propaganda and more mischief. That America can solve most of its major problems in the Muslim world by simply being fair and just to the Muslims, does not seem to interest him. Of course, if he is to be fair to the Palestinians, for instance, he has to rein in Sharon, which he is unable or unwilling to do. President Bush cannot fight a war against terrorism while sponsoring the number one terrorist nation on earth, Israel. In the last U.S. Presidential election, Mr. Bush demonstrated a stunning capacity to destroy his opponent's proven virtues through negative television commercials. But Mr. Bush cannot explain away over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths through television commercials and propaganda. As Robert Fisk wrote in the "Independent" recently: "Still we are not told how many civilians were killed in the American attack on Fallujah. The Americans' claim that they killed more than 1,000 insurgents -- only insurgents, mark you, not a single civilian among them -- is preposterous." Mr. Bush has misled America into believing they are living in a cocoon of eternal safety. Those who wish America well are worried. Mr. Bush's belligerent and unjust policies are making too many enemies for America worldwide.