International politics
Vajpayee’s Blunder in Iraq
US ambassador David Mulford had persuade MEA Jaswant Singh, Defense Minister
George Fernandez, Army Chief NC Vij to fall in line but PM Vajpayee played spoilsport
By Saeed Naqvi
H
ard to believe, but Mosul, currently in the news,
would have been ours today had Atal Bihari Vajpayee
not played spoilspo rt.
After their invasion of Iraq in April 2003,
Americans realized fairly early that a full- fledged occupation
for an unspecified period was not possible without allies taking
responsibility to administer large swathes of the ancient land.
Seldom has a US ambassador been more effective than David
Mulford was. It took very little persuasion for External Affairs
Minister Jaswant Singh, Defense Minister George Fernandez and
Army Chief NC Vij to fall in line.
Ships were readied, battalions shortlisted, Generals chosen
for India’s first imperialist adventure since the Cholas. We were
going to rule a part of that country which alone of all the 52
Muslim nations had stood by us at the UN, Organisation of
Islamic Conference (OIC) and elsewhere on the Kashmir issue.
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The Dayafter November 16-30, 2016
I suppose it must have been self-interest which caused us to
turn turtle on Iraq as soon as the Americans were in occupation
of the country.
Our ambassador to Baghdad, BB Tyagi, even risked his life.
Iraqi resistance had identified him as a diplomat who was
supportive of the occupation. No wonder I was once ushered
into his presence while he sat in bed, his legs outstretched, eyes
wide open as in a daze, his hands on automatic weapons by both
his sides. It was a frame for a possible Woody Allen war film.
Just as the first US representative, Paul Bremer, was convinced
that the occupation would be a cakewalk, so was South Block
and, indeed, Tyagi.
Bremer, a devout Roman Catholic, had turned up with a batch
of priests who smacked their lips at the prospect of saving souls
in a post Saddam Iraq. It turned out that antique smugglers did
rather better, cleaning out the Baghdad museum on America’s
watch.
South Block, like Bremer, had assumed that once Saddam’s
yoke was lifted from their necks, Iraqis would turn up in droves
to hug the Americans.
In anticipation of Iraq’s immediate future in American hands,
South Block parked Tyagi in a three-star hotel in Amman where
he spent mornings, afternoons, evenings watching CNN and BBC
for the American progress in Iraq. The irony was that Lyse Ducet