Requiem for Iraq
Lorenzo Matteoli
July 25th , 2003

The execution in Mossul of Saddam’s sons and the subsequent exhibition of the pictures of the mauled corpses confirms, if there was ever any doubt, that the methods by which the war is run by Rumsfeld/Bush/Wolfowitz and their generals are untenable. This is yet another insult to civilisation, intelligence and human decency that will further poison the fragile relationship between the two cultures, between the United States and the civilised World; between the United States and themselves. Another step towards the irreversible catastrophic course that began on the first day of the "liberation" of Baghdad and that we hoped would be avoided - the end of hope of stopping the appalling succession of errors made by the U.S. under the curse of president Bush Jr. and his cabinet.
The execution was clearly a direct order from the top. Future manipulations in order to divert responsibility from the White House and from the president will only add more infamy to the shame.
The question is: For what grim reasons were the two witnesses/criminals silenced with an execution, dishonourably disguised as a military action? What did Usay and Uday Hussein know that could not be revealed in a public trial? What dignity and "moral authority" does the United States now have to be entrusted with the responsibility of "building a nation"? What credibility is left for the "rule of law" that they thought, as liberators, they brought to Iraq?
With the execution/slaughter of the two sons and the anticipated eventual, elimination of Saddam himself, the danger of a possible return of the cursed regime will cease. Thus the present guerrilla warfare will no longer be the hopeless vendetta of the Baathist hangmen, but will officially qualify as the "Iraqi resistance war", with the collateral complications of inter-ethnic conflict (Kurds, Sunni, Shiites) and related ethnic cleansing.
The tragic and bloody American "triumvirate" Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bush is not qualified nor has the competence to solve, in a decent manner, the war that had only one possible justification in the civilised management of the "aftermath".
From here on, it will be body-counting on both sides and the escalation of revenge and retribution to the inevitable epilogue "a la vietnam" - everybody on the roof of the embassy trying desperately to grab the last chopper out.
Nothing will be achieved by the Iraqi "moderates" depicted by Amir Taheri in his articles. They too will be swept away, betrayed by the criminal blindness of a president…"der hat seine Grundrisse verloren." **
American dream? Iraqi dream?
Game over for the next 50 years.

Lorenzo Matteoli

** (who has lost his fundament: i.e. the principle upon which anything is founded ).