The return of Kissinger

Published : Dec 20, 2002 00:00 IST

STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP

STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP

THE appointment of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to head a high-powered mission to look into the intelligence and security lapses that led to the September 11 incidents has stirred a new political controversy. President George W. Bush, with the support of the Democrats in Congress, created a 10-member panel with Kissinger as the Chairman and a former Senate majority leader, George Mitchell, as Vice-Chairman, in the last week of November. The Commission has been officially told by Bush that it "should follow all the facts wherever they will lead".

The President's latest action has met with public uproar and derision. The White House had strenuously opposed the creation of an independent panel for more than a year though considerable evidence had cropped up of intelligence and security failures involving top U.S. governmental agencies. The panel's report is scheduled to be submitted in 18 months. This will coincide with the Presidential race in the year 2004.

Many in the U.S. and outside already allege that the administration has started initiating a massive cover-up process. The choice of Kissinger, given his close association with the intelligence community and corporate interests, is viewed as inappropriate, even in capitals friendly to Washington. The American media have noted that Kissinger is a close friend of senior Bush administration officials such as Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Richard Cheney.

Kissinger's appointment is also seen as particularly "insensitive" to the international community. Judicial proceedings are on in various countries to try him in cases relating to state terrorism and the sanctioning of assassinations, during the period he held public office. Kissinger as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford was deeply implicated in the covert war staged by U.S. intelligence agencies in Chile and Argentina.

After Kissinger's acceptance of his new post, Julian Borger, writing in The Guardian, said: "This man is regarded by many outside the U.S. as a war criminal. Those Europeans who were aware that the old cold warrior was still alive could be forgiven for assuming he was in a cell somewhere awaiting war crimes charges, or living the life of a fugitive, never sleeping in the same bed twice lest human rights investigators track him down." The family of the Chilean General Rene Schneider has sued Kissinger in a U.S. court. Schneider was killed in October 1970 by Chilean coup plotters in cahoots with the CIA. A lawsuit has also been filed in American courts alleging Kissinger's complicity in the assassination of Orlando Lettelier in 1976 in Washington's diplomatic area by a car bomb. Lettelier was Chile's Ambassador to Washington when Salvadore Allende was Chile's President.

Kissinger's past record has been very well documented. He was involved in the successful plot to undermine the Paris Peace talks between the U.S. and Vietnam. This was done to bolster the prospects of Nixon in the 1988 Presidential election. Kissinger's dubious role prolonged the war in Vietnam. More than a million Vietnamese and 30,000 Americans lost their lives. As the brain behind Nixon's war against Vietnam, he supervised the secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, which claimed the lives of thousands of civilians. He sanctioned the Pakistani military dictator Yahya Khan's overthrow of civilian rule and the Pakistani Army's depredations in Bangladesh.

Recently revealed official records quote him as telling the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet "that we are sympathetic to what you are trying to do here". More than 20,000 Chileans lost their lives under the brutal Pinochet dictatorship. Kissinger was also an enthusiastic backer of "Operation Condor", a U.S.-sanctioned policy of assassinating progressive people in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, which were then under the rule of military juntas. "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work," he once said.

Kissinger maintained close relations with the army officers who seized power in Greece in 1967. He was one of the biggest backers of the authoritarian and corrupt Suharto regime in Indonesia. The Gerald Ford presidency, with Kissinger as the Secretary of State, sanctioned the invasion of East Timor and condoned large-scale human rights violations there. Kissinger has been an unabashed supporter of the flexing of American military muscle in other countries. "The U.S. must carry out some act somewhere in the world which shows its determination to continue to be a world power," is one of his many memorable quotes.

After leaving public office in 1976, Kissinger has raked in millions of dollars by acting as a paid lobbyist for many governments and multinationals such as Coca Cola. Apparently, Kissinger has not been very choosy about his clientele. China, India, and Israel, are some of the countries that have reportedly benefited from his expertise and long years of diplomatic wheeling and dealing. Kissinger has steadfastly refused to divulge details about his clientele.

Even The New York Times, otherwise a steadfast supporter of the U.S. establishment, has raised questions about Kissinger's appointment as Chairman of the Commission. "Unfortunately, his affinity for power and the commercial interests he has cultivated since leaving government may make him less than the staunchly independent figure needed for this critical post. Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if the choice of Kissinger is not a clever manoeuvre by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed," the newspaper said in an editorial.

Kissinger, 79, is unfazed by the criticism that has followed his appointment. He has promised a non-partisan inquiry. He said that the President had assured him "that we should go where the facts lead us and that we are not restricted by any foreign policy considerations". He stressed that the commission was not under any restrictions and that in any case the Commission "would not accept restrictions".

The Commission has been allocated only $3 million so far by the administration. A lot of behind-the-scenes wrangling is going on to fill up the remaining eight posts in the panel, which will be filled by December 15. There will be five Republicans and five Democrats on it. Scott Anderson, a former staff member of the U.S. Senate's Watergate Committee, is, like many other Americans, of the view that "Kissinger's sordid past and compromised present will make it impossible for him to lead a credible investigation". Kissinger's selection has further reinforced the impression that the Bush administration has a lot to hide about the facts leading to September 11.

John Cherian
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