Spring 2003 Energy

As the drums start to beat more loudly for war with Iran, a lot of commentators are pointing to the similarities with the spring of 2003, ahead of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld’s war with Iraq. I had just finished two listless years of high school or what they call ‘junior college’ in Mumbai. All parents believe their children are uniquely capable, but none more so than Indian parents, so I had I been coaxed to prepare for the notoriously difficult entrance test to India’s premier engineering colleges, despite having neither the talent or the inclination for it. Being the news junkie that I still am, the top-most thing on my mind was the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. I remember the telecast of the infamous UN security Council session where US lies about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction were given the imprimatur of evidence. Colin Powell, the least hawkish and the most dignified member of Bush’s inner circle, was trotted out to lie. The picture of him holding up vials to demonstrate Iraq’s chemical weapons capabilities is the defining image of war propaganda in the post-9/11 era. I remember my father scoffing at my grandfather, who believed the evidence presented by Powell to be credible. Even to the then-18-year-old me the evidence felt like something someone could just make up. Lessons are never learnt because no one—not Bush and Blair and their respective cabinets, not media pundits, not the New York Times--paid a price for lying about Iraq.  Powell was the only person to express public contrition and banish himself from public life.