BEFORE the beginning of the Iraq War, two of the most popular hosts of the late night shows here made the following comments:

“President Bush may be the smartest military president in history. First, he gets Iraq to destroy all of their own weapons. Then, he declares war,”—Jay Leno-The Tonight Show-NBC

“President Bush has said that he does not need approval from the UN to wage war, and I’m thinking, well, hell, he didn’t need the approval of the American voters to become president, either,”—David Letterman- Late Night-CBS show.

Indeed, their observations were more profound than they had meant them to be.

The Bush Administration officials — led by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld — have been gloating on the American electronic and print media over the quick success they had achieved in crushing Iraq’s forces, when they entered Baghdad after three weeks of battle

But it should come as no surprise, that the Iraqi government crumbled under the onslaught of the heavily armed US-led coalition so quickly. After all, what chance did Saddam Hussein’s hapless army have against state-of-the-art weaponry, innumerable missiles, over 3,000 sorties and over 300,000 American and British troops.

Iraq’s army was debilitated in 1991 when the international coalition drove it from Kuwait and then made it to surrender and sign an armistice which entailed United Nations sanctions which are still in place. Iraq had no air power, no missiles, no weapons of mass destruction — at least not used, tanks were barely in working condition, the air defences were battered by the US and British forces much before the start of the war.

The American public was scared, believing that the Iraqi regime had connections to Al Qaeda who would in turn attack the United States. A case for war. But there have been no terrorist attacks on America. Iraq hasn’t demolished any holy site and blamed its destruction on the West. And while Iraqi soldiers have disguised themselves as civilians, the Pentagon says there have been no reports, as initially predicted, of troops donning look-alike US and British uniforms to commit atrocities against Iraqis.

The Scud missiles and nerve gas attacks which Israelis claimed would be launched against them never happened. President Bush in anticipation of chemical and biological weapon attacks on his armies had signed an executive order authorizing the use of all and every means to destroy the Iraqi army including nuclear weapons.

“The war against Iraq has become one of the clearest examples ever of the influence of the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned against so eloquently in his farewell address in 1961. This iron web of relationships among powerful individuals inside and outside the government operates with very little public scrutiny and is saturated with conflicts of interest,” observed Bob Herbert in a column in the New York Times on Friday.

Herbert says, “their goals may or may not coincide with the best interests of the American people. Think of the divergence of interests, for example, between the grunts who are actually fighting this war, who have been eating sand and spilling their blood in the desert, and the power brokers who fought like crazy to make the war happen and are profiting from it every step of the way.”

The Center for Public Integrity, a private watchdog group in Washington, recently disclosed that of the 30 members of the Defence Policy Board, at least nine are linked to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defence contracts in 2001 and 2002. Richard Perle was the chairman of the board until just a few weeks ago, when he resigned the chairmanship amid allegations of a conflict of interest. He is still on the board as a member.

Another member is the former CIA director, James Woolsey. He is also a principal in the Paladin Capital Group, a venture capital firm that, as the Center for Public Integrity noted, is soliciting investments for companies that specialize in domestic security. Mr Woolsey is also a member of the Committee to Liberate Iraq and is reported to be in line to play a role in the postwar occupation.

“The Pentagon and its allies are close to achieving what they wanted all along, control of the nation of Iraq and its bounty, which is the wealth and myriad forms of power that flow from control of the world’s second-largest oil reserves,” said Herbert.

DOMINO THEORY: The domino theory being espoused by some Bush administration’s hawks holds that bringing democracy to Iraq could promote the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East where that form of government is currently rare.