The language of (the Iraq) war

Tucked away on page 8 of the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday, November 20, was an official notice from our Department of Defence. “NATIONAL PARADE TO MARK END OF OPERATION CATALYST”, it said. For those for whom “Operation Catalyst” just did not ring a bell, the word “Iraq” was inserted afterwards in brackets, to jolt our memories. It’s a sign of the whole arrangement under which the Howard government involved Australia in the Iraq invasion that at the phoney “conclusion”, the name of the country we invaded ends up in brackets.

Given the arbitrary nature of the ending, what would the parade be for? What exactly did we “achieve” in Iraq?

At the beginning of 2009, the UNHCR were reporting a total population of concern, including internally displaced people, and those who have fled Iraq, at a little under five million. In the month preceding the so-called “withdrawal” of American troops (note this interesting use of the term “withdrawal”, where it does not actually mean American troops have left Iraq), al Jazeera reported 437 Iraqis were killed.

Who cares? “Please bring water, hats, sun block and suitable clothing” instructed the notice. The Iraqi death toll went unmentioned in Prime Minister Rudd’s speech on the day, but the DoD was not going to have anyone get sunburned or dehydrated on this important occasion.

Ever wondered how many Iraqi civilians were killed in the invasion, or the violence since? Check out iraqbodycount.org. It provides a conservative estimate. The death toll of this adventure remains hotly debated - figures range from more than 100,000 to in excess of one million. What is significant is that the governments who invaded Iraq have never made any attempt to tally up the Iraqi dead - and have attacked those who have.

Would you say Iraq was stable and rehabilitated? I admit, it has clawed its way back from no. 2 on the US-based Failed State Index in 2007, to number 6 in 2009. It was apparently the Australian Defence Force’s contribution to “the stabilisation and rehabilitation of Iraq” which was being celebrated with this parade, which promised a “fly past” and “static displays of equipment used during Operation Catalyst”. The navy website announced the parade would “feature Australia’s Federation Guard, the Band of the Royal Military College of Australia and the Royal Australian Navy Band”. How jolly!

“In our name, and under our flag, they risked their lives to provide others with a better future,” said the PM. Actually, they risked their lives to feed American oil dependency. Do I sound cynical? I’m taking my lead here from former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who commented in 2007 “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil”.

On and on went Rudd, in language that began the process of laying down “Operation Catalyst” (brackets “Iraq”) into Australia’s glorious war history. “This grateful nation, Australia, salutes you, as you conclude another chapter in the proud history of ANZAC.”

It was weird enough that the speech had almost no past tense in it. And that Iraq was was barely mentioned, as that distant place, from where the troops were “brought safely back to our shores”.

But Rudd’s use of “ANZAC” is quite unparalleled. Typically, people speak of “the ANZACS” as a collective noun to refer to people, i.e. the Australian and New Zealand troops who had the misfortune to find themselves at Gallipoli. Or they use it as an adjective, such as in talking of “ANZAC Day”.

Rudd, perhaps desperate to take the opportunity to make his mark against the years of Howard’s expansive jingoism, appears to have coined a new usage: “ANZAC” as abstract, uncountable, noun.

It’s hard to know exactly what it means. Try and rephrase it, and you will see what I mean. Let’s hope it’s a coinage that withers and dies.

Rudd also cautioned us to keep in mind the Australians still in Iraq, providing assistance to our “ongoing civilian mission”. While “Operation Catalyst” will now be filed under “past operations” on the DoD website, there are still two listed under “current operations”.

There is “Operation Kruger”, about 80 staff protecting the Australian embassy. Was this one named after the president of the Transvaal 1883-1900 (Stephanus Johannes Paulus)? Or the American conceptual artist (Barbara)? Or Queensland’s opening batsman (Nick)?

The second operation, named “Operation Riverbank”, consists of a total of two - yes two! - Australians, assisting the United Nations “mission” in Iraq. I would have thought there is a quite a task ahead of the UN in Iraq, and that Australia might have considered “staying the course”.

Who gets to choose the operation names? Does the DoD have a brainstorm, with butcher’s paper? The original name given to the United States “operation” was “Operation Iraqi Liberation” - apparently changed to Operation Iraq Freedom when it was realised the acronym of the original was O.I.L.

The name of the Australian “operation” with which we invaded Iraq was “Falconer”. Quite what the word for “a person who trains hawks for hunting” had to do with our part in the invasion of Iraq is beyond me.

But it is not the name of the operation itself that matters. It is the bestowing of the term “operation” itself that is crucial. It creates the veneer of strategic organisation, and implies that what is being done by a nation’s military is carefully planned, purposeful, rational and predictable. The Iraq invasion was, of course, none of these things.

And there is a whole species of grammar around “operations” that helps military institutions dominate the modes of reporting war. For instance, here is ADF spokesman, Mike Hannan, reporting on March 21, 2003, that Australian troops had invaded Iraq: “our Special Forces Task Group has transitioned from the battle preparation phase we briefed in detail yesterday and is now undertaking active operations inside Iraq”.

Journalists appear to love this kind of talk. The ABC correspondent stationed at the US CentCom press briefing centre in Qatar reported on day 1 of the invasion, with breathless excitement, that Australia had “given this operation a code name all of its own. It’s ‘Operation Falconer’”. Imagine, a codename all of our own!

Al Gore wrote in his 2007 book Assault on Reason, that most people now agree the invasion of Iraq was a “grievous mistake”. He quotes a former head of the American National Security Agency, who believes it will turn out to be “the greatest strategic disaster in US history”.

The Iraq debacle was not a technological failure. It was a conceptual one. The invasion of Iraq was viable precisely because of the kind of infantilising talk exemplified so beautifully in Rudd’s speech.

With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Robert Fisk, Seymour Hersch), the media reported without question or analysis the official talk that talked up the invasion. It appears they are still in this habit, as the ABC reporting of this grand parade shows. On the ABC’s 7pm news bulletin, the “conclusion” of “Operational Catalyst” did not even rate being put before the Mike Wran sex scandal.