An essay on

President George W Bush

by James Roger Brown

HETHER Saddam Hussein is dead or alive, where ever he is he is probably rolling on the floor laughing his posterior off at President George W. Bush, the epitome of the perfect idiot left holding the bag and unaware of being duped. President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld still do not perceive that they are the butt of a cruel joke played upon them by Saddam Hussein, even in defeat at the end, still the master political craftsman superior to the entire Bush Clan.

Bush and Rumsfeld are joined in this state of ignorance by the numerous conservative talk show hosts scoffing at and ridiculing critics of the "War on Iraq" while shouting to the world about the "great victory" of the United States. Their collective ignorance is showing.

In the business world there is a term "poison pill." When a corporation is faced with a hostile takeover, one tactic used is to create a financial situation that would increase the takeover cost and leave the hostile corporation in an untenable situation if they succeed in the acquisition.

Saddam Hussein has successfully used the "poison pill" strategy against Bush, Rumsfeld and Tony Blair. Though his calculated defiance, Saddam manipulated Bush into moving 300,000 plus soldiers half way around the World to seize control of a nation in worse financial condition than Argentina, at a cost to future taxpayers of $300 Billion. As the conquering hero, President Bush, Inc. is now responsible for managing Iraq's national debt that is probably in excess of $200 billion, possibly as much as $387 billion. No on knows exactly, because the International Monetary Fund auditors have not been in Iraq for almost 20 years.

Talk about your basic pig-in-a-poke, Iraq is it.

One of the major ironies is that this debt is for the most part past due and must be addressed before the contracts can be let to the American companies lining up to rebuild Iraq. The Bush Administration is now forced to attempt to have this massive debt forgiven in order to fulfill its patronage promises.

Want to know who some of the creditor nations are now being asked to forgive the debt Iraq owes them: France - unknown Germany - unknown Kuwait - $17 billion Russia - $70 Billion Various Gulf States - $30 billion?

These are some of the same countries Congress just excluded from receiving contracts to rebuild Iraq as retribution for not being stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot like the United States. I wonder if those French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" will be disposed to grant a request to forgive Iraq's debt to them to help the United States? What goes around comes around. Perhaps Congress will find that "Freedom Fries" go well with crow.

Russia has already announced that it will not forgive Iraq's debt.

In a master application of the "poison pill" strategy, a gullible Bush was manipulated into destroying the very infrastructure necessary to run Iraq.

In the context of this economic chicken-and-egg dilemma, Bush needs the debt relief to rebuild the infrastructure but must rebuild the infrastructure to produce the oil revenues to pay the debt. It is estimated the United Nations supervised oil production could only produce an annual maximum of $15 billion, after everything is repaired.

Prudent economic principles dictate only 5% be devoted to debt payment. If the Iraqi debt is $200 billion it would take 267 years at this rate without accrued interest. At $387 billion it would take 516 years to pay the debt with 5% of the oil revenues. If the entire estimated annual oil revenues were applied it would take 14 years or 26 years, without interest.

The bottom line is that for President Bush to deliver the oil revenue financed contracts to his crony corporations the US tax payers would have to pay off Iraq's debts and the cost for destruction of the infrastructure. If Iraq's debt is not paid, American taxpayers will have to foot the cost of the crony corporation contracts.

THERE is no situation that can not be made worse by the laying on of Bush hands. His glorious triumph in Iraq will ultimately give contemporary example to "Pyrrhic victory." In addition to the evolving economic boondoggle, there is the humanitarian disaster in Iraq that includes one event Bush will be remembered for in particular. Among the consequences of the political and military quackery behind the planning and execution of the invasion of Iraq is the inadequate attention given to maintaining law and order as required by the Geneva Conventions Bush invoked to protect our soldiers that became POWs. George W. Bush is assured his place in history for an event that has no clear equivalent since the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt during the Roman Era.

By negligently allowing the looting of the Baghdad and other Iraqi Museums, Bush and Rumsfeld became responsible for the theft and destruction of over 175,000 irreplaceable artifacts and evidence of the origins of our own civilization. This atrocity may be even worse than the destruction of the Alexandria Library. Apparently lost are irreplaceable artifacts like the Baghdad battery, the earliest proven human use of electricity for an unknown purpose. In addition to the archaeological records and notes trampled in the Museums, gone forever is all that might have been learned from these artifacts by the application of future scientific knowledge.

Surprisingly, the first organized archaeological excavations in Iraq were conducted in 1842, by French Diplomat Paul-Emile Botta and British explorer A. H. Layard using funds from the French Government and the British Museum. The site of the excavations were mounds identified in 1780 by Danish explorer Carsten Niebuhr.

While the earliest artifacts uncovered went to European Museums, the contents of the Baghdad Museum covered at least 5,000 years of human history. Bush Administration arrogance and incompetence in one act of sheer banal stupidity has swept from the table of human knowledge over a century worth of the product of archeological science. Bush may or may not end up with the appellation "the Butcher of Baghdad," but he will most assuredly deserve to be recorded as "the Barbarian of Baghdad." This tragic loss to human knowledge is inexcusable.

Congratulations for earning this unique place in history, Mr. President. Your arrogant negligence is responsible for the destruction of a significant portion of 5,000 years of archaeological artifacts. If Saddam Hussein is still alive, whatever money he made off with is free and clear, while you are left holding the bag for Iraq's debt management, providing food, essential services and housing for 24 million Iraqi's, and the cost of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure which you also paid to destroy. Who needs enemies when the United States has George Bush!