{"id":50275,"date":"2021-09-24T06:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T10:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=50275"},"modified":"2021-10-04T10:24:06","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T14:24:06","slug":"shock-and-awe-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/shock-and-awe-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Shock and Awe: Iraq War Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is Shock and Awe? What was the reason the United States invaded Iraq in 2003? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The term &#8220;Shock and Awe&#8221; is typically used to refer to the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq under George Bush&#8217;s administration. Bush sold the project to Americans with a simple promise that they were bringing freedom to a troubled area. Many mistook this for a promise of free and fair democracy. However, the real objective was to create the freedom for private companies to harvest as much of the country&#8217;s wealth and resources as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this article, we&#8217;ll discuss the real motives behind Iraq&#8217;s Shock and Awe war and what happened it its aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Model Theory<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Free market proponents claimed that a restructured Iraq would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East, and inspire those other countries to adopt unrestricted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/capitalism-theory\/\">capitalism<\/a>.<\/strong> In other words, they promised that a brief upheaval in Iraq would directly lead to peace and prosperity across the entire Middle East. That idea was called, appropriately enough, the Model Theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Model Theory was based on the premise that the Middle East was a breeding ground for terrorism, which a few cherry-picked facts seemed to support:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The 9\/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Hezbollah got funding from Iran.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Hamas\u2019s leadership was based in Syria.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Iraq sent money to support the families of suicide bombers.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Those who favored the Model Theory refused to consider that the apparent rash of terrorism might be backlash against American and Israeli meddling in those countries, so they offered another explanation: the region\u2019s lack of free-market capitalism and democracy. Therefore, they sought to end terrorism by tearing down the Iraqi <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-role-of-government-in-an-economy\/\">government and economy<\/a>, then rebuilding it according to Chicago School principles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>By the logic of the Model Theory, three objectives were bundled together into one project:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Fighting against terrorism<\/li><li>Spreading capitalism to the Middle East, the last major region in the world that the Chicago School\u2019s crusade hadn\u2019t reached yet<\/li><li>Establishing democracy after the fact\u2014which is to say, using <em>post hoc <\/em>elections to lock in the changes<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>From Military Shock to Economic Shock<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The invasion and occupation of Iraq marked a brutal return to the earliest strategies of the free-market vendetta\u2014using shock and awe to wipe out any resistance to fundamentalist capitalism. However, the War on Terror went even farther and faster than any previous efforts.<strong> It was as though strategists and economic experts reviewed the available shock tactics and decided to just use them all.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The operation began with sudden, overwhelming military force. In the weeks between March 20 and May 2, the US military bombarded Iraq with over 30,000 bombs\u2014for context, that was 2\/3 of the bombs <em>ever made <\/em>up to that point.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was massive overkill from a military perspective, but the point wasn\u2019t just to defeat the Iraqi armed forces. The Shock and Awe strategy was designed with spectacle and messaging in mind; it would fire up Americans watching it on the news, and terrify the Iraqis\u2014and any other potential enemies watching the display\u2014into submission.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the <em>threat <\/em>of force was, in many ways, as effective as force itself. A tried-and-true torture technique is to simply show a prisoner the instruments of torture, and let his imagination do all the work. Months before the first bombs were dropped, American media was broadcasting promises that Iraq would experience airstrikes so sudden and destructive that Iraqi soldiers would be either unable or unwilling to even fight back\u2014\u201cshowing the instruments,\u201d so to speak.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the war started, the citizens of Baghdad were subjected to a large-scale form of sensory deprivation. The ministry of communication was one of the first targets, along with telephone exchanges and transmitters for radio and television\u2014in short, anything that people could use to connect with the outside world. They couldn\u2019t so much as call their relatives to make sure they were still alive. That, combined with the terror of almost constant explosions for months on end, was worse than any battle for many Iraqis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The targeted destruction of communication was just one example of the psychological operations\u2014psyops\u2014that the US military engaged in during the war. The combination of brute force and psyops left Iraqis in total shock, and too terrified to resist.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Aid Money Goes to US Companies<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul Bremer, Bush\u2019s appointee to direct the occupation of Iraq, was only concerned with pushing through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/free-market-reforms\/\">free-market reforms<\/a> as quickly as possible. <strong>He did next to nothing for the Iraqi people who were suffering from the invasion and occupation.<\/strong> Even foreign aid money went directly to private, foreign contractors, rather than to the people it was meant to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bremer arrived in a country that was still burning\u2014literally\u2014and ravaged by looters. There was no traffic, no electricity, no oil production, no economic activity of any kind. There weren\u2019t even any police officers patrolling the streets.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, instead of taking any sort of action to repair the damage or soothe the populace, <strong>Bremer\u2019s solution was to subject Iraq to the fastest and harshest course of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/shock-therapy-economics\/\">economic shock therapy<\/a> ever implemented.<\/strong> A mere two weeks after he got to Iraq, he threw open the borders to unregulated trade: no tariffs, no taxes, no inspections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, a coalition of countries provided some $73 billion for Iraq\u2019s reconstruction. However, Bush and Bremer used that money to write massive contracts for private companies, mostly American ones. In short, tens of billions of dollars\u2014supposedly meant to help the Iraqis recover\u2014were being funneled directly to foreign corporations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, the Iraqi people were barely involved in rebuilding their own country. Iraqi firms were still crippled by power outages and infrastructure damage, so they couldn\u2019t even try to get in on the free market\u2019s newest gold rush.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, Bremer and his staff were unsympathetic in the face of soaring unemployment and widespread economic hardship. A high-ranking member of Bremer\u2019s staff was quoted as telling Iraqis that it was their own responsibility to make sure they weren\u2019t overwhelmed by foreign businesses. <strong>According to free-market ideology, any business that couldn\u2019t survive\u2014regardless of the unfair circumstances\u2014didn\u2019t deserve to survive.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Overwhelming Force, Underwhelming Results<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In spite of the improved and expanded shock tactics, the results in Iraq were disappointing to Model Theorists and free-market economists. Many analyses concluded that the invasion was successful, but the occupation and reconstruction efforts were drawn-out and costly failures.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, what those analyses fail to realize is that <strong>the invasion and occupation were two parts of the same strategy<\/strong>. The plan was to wipe the Iraqi slate clean so that Western nations, spearheaded by the Bush administration, could build their \u201cmodel\u201d country. If the occupation had failed, then the entire mission had failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the occupation had certainly failed. Rather than winning over Iraqis with cheap foreign goods, Western pop culture, and the vaunted efficiency of private corporations, Bremer and his people encountered violent resistance and religious extremism every step of the way. Western troops answered that resistance with increased force of their own, and the entire country got caught up in a spiral of violence. By July 2006, an estimated 655,000 Iraqis had lost their lives in the \u201cWar on Terror.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Naturally, someone had to be blamed for the failure, and many fingers ended up pointing at the Iraqi people. For example, USA Today published an article by former US Army officer Ralph Peters about the ongoing violence. Peters insisted that the continued resistance not only proved that the Iraqi government was incompetent, but also that Arab people as a whole were completely incapable of progress. Peters\u2019s article was particularly harsh, but many Westerners agreed that the Iraqis were to blame.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ideological Backlash<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the best efforts of Ralph Peters and many others like him, it\u2019s impossible to separate the ever-increasing violence and extremism in Iraq from the foreign presence there. While there certainly had been extremist forces present in the country before, they only had a fraction of the influence that they\u2019d gain in the following years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two polls illustrate this quite clearly: One poll, taken in February 2004, had 21% of respondents say that they favored an Islamic state. In another poll, taken just six months later, that number had rocketed up to 70%.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key mistake that Bush and Bremer had made was, essentially, not taking the Iraqi people into account. After all, the Shock and Awe campaign was supposed to have left the people all but catatonic. Instead, every policy that Bremer enacted there made the people angrier and more violent. As far as the Iraqis were concerned, the new laws were just a modern version of pillaging.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several key missteps doomed Bush\u2019s and Bremer\u2019s efforts to failure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Keeping the Iraqis away from the reconstruction efforts silenced Iraqi voices and angered the common people.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Flooding the market with cheap foreign goods made Iraqi businessmen angry, since their shattered infrastructure couldn\u2019t hope to compete.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Suddenly laying off so many state employees crippled Iraq\u2019s government\u2014which ironically made Bremer\u2019s job harder as well. (Further, many of the soldiers who lost their jobs went straight to the resistance, taking their weapons and skills with them.)&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Bush and Bremer seemed to be either completely blind or completely apathetic to the problems that their anti-Marshall plan was causing. Despite mounting Iraqi anger and violence, they didn\u2019t try to walk back or even slow down these changes\u2014on the contrary, they did everything they could to make the new policies permanent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, the administration drafted an interim constitution that officially adopted Bremer\u2019s laws. Once that was in place, the next goal was creating a permanent constitution to prevent future governments from ever undoing the changes that Bremer had made.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many legal experts were confused by the White House\u2019s obsession with getting Iraq a new constitution, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the country already had a perfectly workable constitution and had far bigger concerns than creating a new one. Second, writing a constitution is an extremely stressful and divisive process even for a healthy nation, let alone one in Iraq\u2019s condition.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They were confused because they misunderstood the Bush administration&#8217;s concerns, which were economic rather than legal ones. The thought that any Iraqi government could ever undo their idealized free-market utopia was totally unacceptable to them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In short, the Bush administration had badly miscalculated the long-term effectiveness of Shock and Awe in Iraq. <\/strong>Far from meekly accepting their fates, the Iraqi people were now finding ever-deeper reserves of anger and willpower to keep fighting back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Free Market Can\u2019t Build a Government<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to Iraqi resistance, reconstruction efforts ran into another fundamental problem: <strong>The free-market techniques of the occupying forces stopped them from effectively building a government, because the free market is inherently incompatible with a government.<\/strong> For in spite of all their problems, Iraqi anger would most likely have subsided if the rebuilding efforts had worked. If Iraqi citizens had soon found themselves sitting in rooms lit by General Electric lights, getting treatment at state-of-the-art Parsons hospitals, and seeing their cities patrolled by DynCorp police, many of them would probably have stopped resisting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Iraq\u2019s interim government, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), was so understaffed and had so few resources that it couldn\u2019t even begin building the economy that Model Theorists dreamed of. For example, they had only three people assigned to privatizing state-owned factories; by contrast, East Germany had around 8,000 when it undertook the same task.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ironically, this fundamental failure was due to the CPA\u2019s own devotion to Chicago School fundamentals; after all, minimizing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-should-the-government-spend-money-on\/\">government spending<\/a> is a cornerstone of free-market capitalism. Additionally, the CPA staffers\u2019 hatred of all things \u201cstatist&#8221; meant that what they were trying to do\u2014build a new state from the ground up\u2014went directly against their beliefs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Free market crusaders had been extremely effective at tearing down public institutions in other countries, but now they were proving all but useless at <em>creating <\/em>those systems in Iraq. The CPA was totally unwilling to oversee, regulate, or even inspect the work that foreign contractors were doing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2007, after three and a half years of mismanagement and outright fraud, all of the major US contractors pulled out of the reconstruction. Their money was gone, and only a small fraction of the work had been done.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In one example of the CPA\u2019s utter failure, the company Parsons had been given $186 million and a goal of building 142 clinics\u2014only 6 were ever finished. In another example, Iraq\u2019s power grid was actually producing <em>less <\/em>energy in 2007 than it had in 2006.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Wolfe, a political scientist, opined that conservatives can\u2019t govern effectively for the same reason that vegetarians can\u2019t make a great beef bourguignon: <strong>If you think that what you\u2019re doing is wrong, then you\u2019re not going to do it well.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Illusory CPA<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul Bremer\u2019s new Iraq was the culmination of free-market theory: An almost-nonexistent public sector whose only purpose was to hand out money to Western corporations. Private soldiers protected those few public sector employees; and the soldiers, in turn, were protected by complete legal immunity. So, Iraq did indeed become a model, though perhaps not the one that fans of the Model Theory had hoped for. <strong>Instead, it became the perfect model of a hollow, corporate-run government.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To prove the point,<strong> <\/strong>a legal case determined that the CPA wasn\u2019t even linked to the US government. The security firm Custer Battles was charged with defrauding the US government and was ordered to pay $10 million in damages. The company responded by asking the judge to overturn the verdict on the grounds that the CPA was <em>not<\/em> part of the US government, and therefore not subject to US laws.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This time, the judge ruled in Custer Battles\u2019s favor: The company had indeed billed the CPA with fraudulent invoices, but there wasn\u2019t sufficient evidence that those claims had been presented to the US government. Therefore, the judge had no legal standing to order reparations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The implications of the Custer Battles case were enormous. The Bush administration had protected contractors from liability under Iraqi laws\u2014<strong>if contactors weren\u2019t subject to US laws either, then there could be no accountability at all.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through this lawsuit, the CPA was revealed as the ultimate hollow shell government. It had never been the US\u2019s proxy in Iraq; it was nothing but a pipeline to move billions of dollars to private corporations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Over time, the CPA simply faded away.<\/strong> The staffers went back to work in the private sector, and by the time the corruption and scandals came to light, there was nobody left to defend the CPA or to take the blame for its failures.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is Shock and Awe? What was the reason the United States invaded Iraq in 2003? The term &#8220;Shock and Awe&#8221; is typically used to refer to the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq under George Bush&#8217;s administration. Bush sold the project to Americans with a simple promise that they were bringing freedom to a troubled area. Many mistook this for a promise of free and fair democracy. However, the real objective was to create the freedom for private companies to harvest as much of the country&#8217;s wealth and resources as possible. In this article, we&#8217;ll discuss the real motives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":50287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,39,275],"tags":[494],"class_list":["post-50275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-history","category-politics","tag-the-shock-doctrine","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shock and Awe: Iraq War Economics - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why did Bush invade Iraq in 2003? 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