OddjobXL
05-08-07, 08:25 AM
May 8, 2007 | Sir Alistair Horne may be the only author in the world whose books have been read and praised by George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon and Robert Fisk. (http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/12/16/fisk/index.html) Not to mention by much of the senior military staff of the U.S. Army, Middle East scholars, State Department policy wonks, and realpolitik statesmen. The distinguished British historian, author of 18 books, became the talk of the U.S. chattering classes when it was revealed that President Bush was reading his classic account of the 1954-1962 Algerian War, "A Savage War of Peace." Indeed, Bush was so impressed with "A Savage War of Peace" that he invited Horne to come to the White House for tea and a talk last Thursday.
I asked Horne if he had a sense of why the Bush administration was so hellbent on this war, even before 9/11. One of the most-discussed issues in America today, I told him, is why did this war happen? Horne said he could lend his own personal experience toward an answer. "In April 2002, I was lecturing to 24 U.S. generals, four-star generals, the top brass in Europe, in France, and it was absolutely clear to me that they were all set to go to war in Iraq," he said. "They were discreet about it, but they pretty well knew what spots they were going into. There was the commander of the 3rd Division, the commander of the 3rd Corps, and it was all set up. That was a year before the war. Then, six months later, I was lecturing at the marvelous VMI, the Virginia Military Academy, where General Marshall graduated. At dinner there were some very bright colonels -- it's colonels who run armies, not generals -- from the Pentagon. One of them said to me, 'Remember what they said about the First World War, "the trains have left the station"'? That was October, and the trains had left the station. Actually, I think they'd pretty well left the station by the April before."
With a roguish glint in his eyes, Horne suddenly asked, "Would you have Tony Blair sent to the Hague for war crimes?"
The question was obviously designed to prompt me to ask him the same question, so I did.
"Yes, actually, I would, I would," Horne replied. "I wonder to what extent the British tail wasn't wagging the American dog. I worked for British intelligence, so I know a little bit about whether it's good or bad. There is a notion that the British secret service is the best in the world. That belief dies hard. I have a feeling we've sold you an awful lot of crap. I may be wrong, this is a pure hunch."
But what would the British motivation be for ginning up this war?
"It's a mystery to me because I always regarded Blair before this as absolutely the original trimmer -- someone who would trim his sails to whatever the media said he should do," Horne replied. "Then suddenly he goes out on a limb on this one thing. To me it's a mystery. It's a kind of zealotry. He is our neocon. I think it's a certain sort of arrogance. He wanted to be liked, he liked the White House. He liked being there with Clinton, liked being there with Bush, liked feeling like he was important. I question whether America would have gone in if the British had said, 'Invade Iraq? No way.' To my mind it's done immeasurable damage to the special relationship, which I value immensely.
"Just quite simply, I think Blair should be impeached for lying. Either he lied or he was lied to and was therefore incompetent. The Iraqi weapons, the yellowcake. I'm being extremely disloyal to my country, but I think we have a lot to answer for. It's infuriating -- it's always infuriating when the French prove to be right," Horne said, laughing. "I had a great friend, Richard Cobb, (http://www.nybooks.com/authors/6200)a historian at Oxford, who used to say, 'Wonderful country, France. Pity about the French.' I don't go that far. I say 'Wonderful country. Pity about the Parisians.'"
I asked Horne what he thought the genesis of the war in America was. "What about the very delicate subject, I hesitate to raise it in Washington, of the Israeli tail wagging the American dog?" asked Horne. "Have you read Tom Ricks' book ['Fiasco']? He discusses the influence of, I don't know what you would call it, Holocaustology. There are three people he cites in that book -- [former third-ranking Pentagon civilian Doug] Feith, [former Undersecretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz and [key neocon strategist Richard] Perle. At some point in Ricks' book, each one cites the Holocaust as being a reason for going into Iraq. 'If we don't go into Iraq, this is going to happen again.'
"Now, it's a very sensitive subject; nobody's more aware of that than me. I've had eight books published in Israel. I know that at least one of them helped Sharon win the '73 war. So I think I can say fairly hard things that other people might shy away from," Horne said. "But it seems to me that to say the Holocaust made the invasion of Iraq essential is rather like the French saying in 1940 we're going to fight this new war with the weapons of 1918. It's simply historically not useful. In practical terms, has it actually pushed a future Holocaust further away or has it brought it closer? I think it's brought it closer. Look at this ghastly war with Hezbollah -- the first war that Israel's lost. Hezbollah had primitive rockets. What's going to happen when there are rockets that can reach every single part of Israel? I think Israel is in a very dangerous position."
Horne then sprung another one of his now-familiar sly rhetorical questions. "Do you think we were enticed into Iraq by Osama bin Laden?"
I replied that Horne had pointed out in his book that it was Insurgency 101 to use terror to make your adversary respond with such disproportionate force that the population goes over to you. "I think we gave him a gift beyond his wildest dreams," I said.
"Yes, we always assume that our adversaries are stronger than they really are," Horne said. "Except when it comes to Germany. Osama is rubbing his hands in glee. Everything's going his way."
I asked Horne how he would rate the Iraq episode historically? One Israeli historian, Martin van Creveld, said that Iraq was "the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them."
Horne laughed. "Chou en-Lai was asked what he thought of the French Revolution and he said, 'It's a bit too early to say.' I think it's too early to say about Iraq. A tactical disaster, yes. Strategic -- maybe. What I worry about, and I don't know if this is a strategic or a policy disaster, is that we're fighting the wrong war in the wrong place."
What would be the right war in the right place? "I think I would have kept out of Iraq altogether and used special operations to track down al-Qaida," Horne said. Then, inadvertently echoing one of Rumsfeld's most infamous lines, he said, "But the trouble with all wars is that you fight them with the weapons you've got, not the weapons you wish you had. Take the British bomber command in WWII. Why did we blast the hell out of German cities? Because it was the only weapon we had. We built these bombers and if we had built attack bombers, light bombers, maybe we would have been much more effective. But this was the weapon we had. In Iraq, the weapon you have is the most efficient air force, the most efficient army. It was brilliantly done from a military point of view. But not a strategic one."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/05/08/alistair_horne/index.html
I asked Horne if he had a sense of why the Bush administration was so hellbent on this war, even before 9/11. One of the most-discussed issues in America today, I told him, is why did this war happen? Horne said he could lend his own personal experience toward an answer. "In April 2002, I was lecturing to 24 U.S. generals, four-star generals, the top brass in Europe, in France, and it was absolutely clear to me that they were all set to go to war in Iraq," he said. "They were discreet about it, but they pretty well knew what spots they were going into. There was the commander of the 3rd Division, the commander of the 3rd Corps, and it was all set up. That was a year before the war. Then, six months later, I was lecturing at the marvelous VMI, the Virginia Military Academy, where General Marshall graduated. At dinner there were some very bright colonels -- it's colonels who run armies, not generals -- from the Pentagon. One of them said to me, 'Remember what they said about the First World War, "the trains have left the station"'? That was October, and the trains had left the station. Actually, I think they'd pretty well left the station by the April before."
With a roguish glint in his eyes, Horne suddenly asked, "Would you have Tony Blair sent to the Hague for war crimes?"
The question was obviously designed to prompt me to ask him the same question, so I did.
"Yes, actually, I would, I would," Horne replied. "I wonder to what extent the British tail wasn't wagging the American dog. I worked for British intelligence, so I know a little bit about whether it's good or bad. There is a notion that the British secret service is the best in the world. That belief dies hard. I have a feeling we've sold you an awful lot of crap. I may be wrong, this is a pure hunch."
But what would the British motivation be for ginning up this war?
"It's a mystery to me because I always regarded Blair before this as absolutely the original trimmer -- someone who would trim his sails to whatever the media said he should do," Horne replied. "Then suddenly he goes out on a limb on this one thing. To me it's a mystery. It's a kind of zealotry. He is our neocon. I think it's a certain sort of arrogance. He wanted to be liked, he liked the White House. He liked being there with Clinton, liked being there with Bush, liked feeling like he was important. I question whether America would have gone in if the British had said, 'Invade Iraq? No way.' To my mind it's done immeasurable damage to the special relationship, which I value immensely.
"Just quite simply, I think Blair should be impeached for lying. Either he lied or he was lied to and was therefore incompetent. The Iraqi weapons, the yellowcake. I'm being extremely disloyal to my country, but I think we have a lot to answer for. It's infuriating -- it's always infuriating when the French prove to be right," Horne said, laughing. "I had a great friend, Richard Cobb, (http://www.nybooks.com/authors/6200)a historian at Oxford, who used to say, 'Wonderful country, France. Pity about the French.' I don't go that far. I say 'Wonderful country. Pity about the Parisians.'"
I asked Horne what he thought the genesis of the war in America was. "What about the very delicate subject, I hesitate to raise it in Washington, of the Israeli tail wagging the American dog?" asked Horne. "Have you read Tom Ricks' book ['Fiasco']? He discusses the influence of, I don't know what you would call it, Holocaustology. There are three people he cites in that book -- [former third-ranking Pentagon civilian Doug] Feith, [former Undersecretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz and [key neocon strategist Richard] Perle. At some point in Ricks' book, each one cites the Holocaust as being a reason for going into Iraq. 'If we don't go into Iraq, this is going to happen again.'
"Now, it's a very sensitive subject; nobody's more aware of that than me. I've had eight books published in Israel. I know that at least one of them helped Sharon win the '73 war. So I think I can say fairly hard things that other people might shy away from," Horne said. "But it seems to me that to say the Holocaust made the invasion of Iraq essential is rather like the French saying in 1940 we're going to fight this new war with the weapons of 1918. It's simply historically not useful. In practical terms, has it actually pushed a future Holocaust further away or has it brought it closer? I think it's brought it closer. Look at this ghastly war with Hezbollah -- the first war that Israel's lost. Hezbollah had primitive rockets. What's going to happen when there are rockets that can reach every single part of Israel? I think Israel is in a very dangerous position."
Horne then sprung another one of his now-familiar sly rhetorical questions. "Do you think we were enticed into Iraq by Osama bin Laden?"
I replied that Horne had pointed out in his book that it was Insurgency 101 to use terror to make your adversary respond with such disproportionate force that the population goes over to you. "I think we gave him a gift beyond his wildest dreams," I said.
"Yes, we always assume that our adversaries are stronger than they really are," Horne said. "Except when it comes to Germany. Osama is rubbing his hands in glee. Everything's going his way."
I asked Horne how he would rate the Iraq episode historically? One Israeli historian, Martin van Creveld, said that Iraq was "the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them."
Horne laughed. "Chou en-Lai was asked what he thought of the French Revolution and he said, 'It's a bit too early to say.' I think it's too early to say about Iraq. A tactical disaster, yes. Strategic -- maybe. What I worry about, and I don't know if this is a strategic or a policy disaster, is that we're fighting the wrong war in the wrong place."
What would be the right war in the right place? "I think I would have kept out of Iraq altogether and used special operations to track down al-Qaida," Horne said. Then, inadvertently echoing one of Rumsfeld's most infamous lines, he said, "But the trouble with all wars is that you fight them with the weapons you've got, not the weapons you wish you had. Take the British bomber command in WWII. Why did we blast the hell out of German cities? Because it was the only weapon we had. We built these bombers and if we had built attack bombers, light bombers, maybe we would have been much more effective. But this was the weapon we had. In Iraq, the weapon you have is the most efficient air force, the most efficient army. It was brilliantly done from a military point of view. But not a strategic one."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/05/08/alistair_horne/index.html