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OIL: Signal fire in the
desert
By Ian Urbina
It’s
acronym notwithstanding, Operation Internal Look reveals
little about overall US goals. Officially, the massive
seven-day military exercise taking place at Qatar's
As-Sayliyah base is meant to test the US ability to
rapidly establish a forward command post for invading
Iraq. But less an internal look, the operation is really
an external show, not just for the Iraqis, but even more
for the Saudis, the United Nations and the American
TV-watching public.
In part, the operation is
the first major shot fired in the US psy-op effort to
undermine Iraqi military morale. As Saddam Hussein's
soldiers await their fate, many sit in barracks
alongside rusting Soviet-era hardware with parts
pillaged during 1991 war. Over the next week, these men
will watch the dazzling digital prowess on display,
listening to Pentagon officials brag every chance they
get about the significant improvements made since the
recent victory in Afghanistan.
But most telling
about the operation is what it is not.
It is not
happening in Saudi Arabia, where it belongs. In setting
up shop in Qatar, the US is opting not to use the
state-of-the-art command center at the Prince Sultan Air
Base, which the US spent more than US$1 billion to build
after the Gulf War. The Saudis have suggested that they
will allow the US to use the base to fly sorties into
Iraq only if such an invasion is sanctioned by the UN.
But not everyone has such qualms.
A small
country in a rough neighborhood, Qatar is eager for new
friends, and has put out a welcome mat for the US
military. As accusations of financial links to terrorism
continue to dog the House of Saud, the Bush
administration is sending the message that the US can
move elsewhere if the Saudis do not meet Washington’s
needs. And if the point wasn’t clear enough already, two
senior US politicians, Senator Joseph Biden and Senator
Chuck Hagel, both of whom are members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, made high-profile visits to
Qatar for the opening of the exercises before heading
off to Riyadh to discuss the worsening status of
US-Saudi relations.
In some ways the recent cold
shoulder is representative of one of the larger reasons
for an Iraqi invasion. If the Bush administration
removes Saddam, it can replace him with a friendlier
leader, and restore US access to Iraq’s massive oil
reserves. This would allow the US to wean itself from
its precarious energy dependence on the Saudis.
The operation is also decidedly indiscreet.
During the exercise, officers will direct tens of
thousands of troops, hundreds of tanks, fighter jets and
bombers as well as four aircraft carrier battle groups
now in, or converging on, the Persian Gulf. However, the
whole thing will take place in cyberspace. Surely, had
the US wanted, it could have conducted the operation
beneath the media radar screen since the real exercise
will happen behind closed doors at computer terminals.
But that would have defeated the point.
The
Pentagon invited all the television networks to Doha,
and sent out a press release announcing General Tommy
Franks’ departure from US Central Command in Florida to
Qatar, because it needs to begin reassuring the American
public of the extent of its gadgetry so as to assuage
increasing fears of a drawn-out war that might cost
American lives. Furthermore, if an actual invasion were
to follow closely on the heels of the exercise, it is
not a bad idea, from the Pentagon’s perspective, to have
the media tucked away in one place, where footage will,
much like during the 1991 war, offer images of the
accuracy of smart bombs rather than brutality of
civilian casualties.
Most of all, the operation
is not meant to give the UN much breathing room. It is
hardly coincidental that the exercise is taking place
almost simultaneously with the arrival of the mammoth
weapons report. Were Operation Internal Look to have
occurred later or with less fanfare, the news cycle
would surely have focused exclusively on the course of
weapons analysis, which implicitly would defer full
authority to the UN as the master of Iraq’s fate.
Instead, the US has successfully split the
current focus. Part of the time the news-watching public
is met by UN policy wonks tediously re-stating a
wait-and-see rhetoric against the backdrop of 12,000
pages ploddingly turned. The rest of the time the lead
story covers Qatar’s dazzling digitalized command center
fluttering with activity against a backdrop of fully
loaded military aircraft waiting on the runways. The
irony here is that while the weapons inspectors
painstakingly look through their haystack, the US
continues to brag that it already has the needle in
hand.
Despite the fact that UN Resolution 1441
clearly stipulates that all member countries should
provide any intelligence they have which will help in
the discovery of Iraq’s weapons of destruction, the US
still refuses to ante up its allegedly solid proof.
As an exercise in rapid deployment, Operation
Internal Look will certainly pass muster, but its real
success will be in the realm of media management. In
this sphere, few countries can compete with US
capabilities.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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