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Feb. 9, 2007
Countries full of complicity
Lando's book chronicles decades of western interference in Iraq.
BY KELLEY KORBIN
Journalist and first-time author Barry Lando said last week that
he felt compelled to write his book, Web of Deceit: The History
of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George
W. Bush, to expose the hypocrisy of putting Saddam Hussein and
his Iraqi confederates on trial without revealing the complicity
of other world leaders in many of his crimes.
"I thought people should know about that and I was amazed to
find out that many people don't," Lando said in an interview
with the Independent. "I think we tend to forget history.
There's not really much interest in what happened yesterday or a
week ago."
Lando, who was born and raised in Vancouver and spent 25 years as
an investigative producer with CBS's 60 Minutes, was in town
in a whirlwind promotional tour for his book, which he wrote before
Hussein's hanging on Dec. 30, 2006.
Lando said he isn't willing to stand by as we bear witness to the
execution of Hussein and the ongoing trials of his cronies without
reminding us of the other villains in this tragedy. He cautions
that we are losing the big picture when we focus primarily on Hussein's
demise.
"What I think is much more important is the fact that many
people outside Iraq helped him commit the crimes that he did and
in their own way, even apart from Saddam, were responsible for the
deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis," he said.
In his book, Lando posits that Britain and the United States' 80
years of missions to establish military bases in Iraq – mainly
efforts to protect access to oil in the region – along with
interference from other countries, including Israel and the greedy
interests of big corporations, are responsible for two to three
million Iraqi deaths.
It's not that he absolves Hussein from his heinous crimes; in fact,
Lando described the former president of Iraq as a "ruthless
tyrant who deserved what he got." However, he is clear that
without the sophisticated armaments, financing and military intelligence
provided by western nations and businesses in misguided attempts
to safeguard their petroleum supplies, Hussein could never have
generated the magnitude of destruction he did.
Lando points to examples such as the fact that the 1963 coup that
first brought Hussein's Baath party to power was supported by the
Central Intelligence Agency during John F. Kennedy's term in office
– the same organization that also supplied the Baaths with
lists of suspected communists and left-wing intellectuals who were
ultimately "picked up, tortured and many of them killed"
by people like Hussein. Lando said this was all in an attempt to
protect Iraq (and its oil) from the communists during the Cold War.
He characterized it as simply a case of "the enemy of my enemy
is my friend."
In Web of Deceit, Lando further charges that the chemical
weapons Hussein used to gas thousands of Kurds in Halabja, Iraq,
in 1988 were supplied by French, Belgian and German firms.
Lando saves his harshest criticism for the current U.S. administration,
which he claims "stage-managed" the Iraqi trials to avoid
scrutiny into international interference in Iraq. He also stated
that no American president from Eisenhower to George W. Bush is
exempt of guilt when it comes to Iraq, "and that includes Clinton."
And, he said, it certainly hasn't been worth it for them. "This
is going to cost the United States, all told, maybe up to $2 trillion
... not including [the human cost of] the 500,000 Iraqis that have
been killed since the invasion."
If foreign complicity in Iraq's blood-soaked history is shocking,
it shouldn't be. Lando said that none of the information in his
book is new. He didn't even have to travel to Iraq to research it:
"My wife has forbidden me to go," he said.
Lando was able to access most of the information for Web of Deceit
from reports written or produced by investigative journalists
over the years, reports that he said were all but forgotten until
he compiled them and brought them to light. Lando said that many
of the 40 journalists who've already interviewed him on this promotional
tour, including some of most seasoned, like Democracy Now's
Amy Goodman, were surprised by what he had to say.
As a Canadian who now lives in Paris, Lando said that he is in a
position to be objective about the situation in Iraq, "because
I don't live in the U.S. I can get a fresher view of what's happening
and not get caught up in the patriotic passion."
Lando is not hopeful about the future of Iraq, but he said he thinks
the United States needs to get out and let Iraq's neighbors, who
have a vested interest in keeping peace, try to help forge a future
– a future which Lando predicted will clearly be a divided
country, like the former Yugoslavia.
Web of Deceit is published by Doubleday Canada and is widely
available. Lando's blog can be accessed at www.barrylando.com.
Kelley Korbin is a freelance writer based in West Vancouver.
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