September 5, 2007

Paul Hughes

At one point in the remarkably level-headed and decisively damning documentary on the Iraq Occupation, "No End in Sight," one of the guys in the white hats, Colonel Paul Hughes laments, "There are nights when I don't sleep very well."

In 2003, Hughes, a career military man with a specialty in strategic studies, headed the Strategic Policy Office in Baghdad for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) and later the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Hughes quickly discovered that the post-occupation was being run by a close-knit group of neo-cons in D.C. with no combat experience. None of them spoke Arabic. Hardly any of them had been to Iraq, with the exception of an occasional choreographed PR visit.

Hughes worked desperately to try to keep an organized Iraqi army and police force together, and was perhaps near success. But the orders came down high from the Bush neo-cons in Washington -- led by the demented Rumsfeld and his sidekick in arrogance and delusion, Paul Wolfowitz -- to completely disband the Iraqi Army and to fire all the officials in the Ba'ath Party. A closed group of D.C. based non-military Bush and Cheney loyalists ignored experts such as Colonel Hughes and top brass at the Pentagon. Iraq quickly descended into chaos.

In "No End in Sight," it is clear that Colonel Hughes (along with numerous other specialists on the ground in Iraq) knew there were possibilities of winning the peace in Iraq – and they worked tirelessly to achieve that goal. They were roundly ignored by a group of Bush/Cheney officials who were clearly guilty of criminal malfeasance. It is even more than likely that the looting that destroyed nearly the entire Iraqi governmental infrastructure (with the exception of the oil ministry, which the White House ordered protected) in the weeks following the U.S. invasion was allowed to continue for the purpose of the neo-cons believing that they could rebuild the Iraqi economy and government from the ground up, Milton Friedman, unfettered capitalism style.

Here is a little background on Colonel Hughes, who might have helped save Iraq, were it not for the criminals at work in the Bush Administration: "Before going to Iraq, Col. Hughes had been a senior military fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. His work there focused on weapons of mass destruction and peacekeeping operations. He is a graduate of the Army Command & General Staff College, the School of Advanced Military Studies and the Army War College with two Master of Military Arts & Sciences degrees, concentrating in Development and Training in Theater Operations. He received his undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Colorado."

Hughes is an American of whom we can be proud, the image of the earnest, industrious, knowledgeable, helpful soldier we would like to see around the world.

To the Busheviks, he was just one more impediment to achieving chaos out of which they thought would be borne a dream of unfettered capitalism, with American companies pulling the levers and reaping the profits.

Colonel Hughes, after viewing "No End in Sight," we are honored to present you with this week's BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award.

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