Fintan O'Toole: Last Thursday, according to a report by Seán O'Driscoll in this newspaper, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen, standing in Times Square in New York with pipers from the Irish Army, "welcomed back US troops from Iraq" at a wreath-laying ceremony in New York.
"At a ceremony that included both US and Irish troops, Mr Cullen said it was an honour to represent the Government in commemorating members of the US 69th Infantry, which lost 19 members during combat in Iraq. Flanked by US soldiers wearing desert camouflage, the Minister said Ireland was especially proud of the contribution made by many Irish men and women to the uniformed services of New York and the US."
The 69th Infantry Division (known as the "Fighting Irish") has, appropriately enough, given its name to the road from Baghdad to the airport, which is now known in official military-speak as Route Irish. A year ago, on March 4th 2005, a car containing two Italian military intelligence officers, Nicola Calipari and Andrea Carpani, and the journalist Giuliana Sgrena, whom they had rescued from a kidnapping, drove towards a checkpoint manned by a detachment of the 69th Infantry. The patrol was under the command of Captain Michael Drew who, in civilian life, is an archetype of the old New York Irish - a sergeant in the NYPD.
The 69th Infantry had been in Iraq since the previous November, serving first in Taji in the Sunni Triangle and then being given the unpleasant task of patrolling the airport road or, in the journalistic cliché, "the most dangerous road in the world". It had experienced in that time 86 attacks, 13 deaths and 12 wounded. It is hardly surprising therefore that the soldiers decided to shoot first and ask questions later when the Italian car came towards them . They fired at the car, killing Calipari and wounding Sgrena. The incident made the headlines because the occupants of the car were Europeans and citizens of one of the US's staunchest allies in the invasion of Iraq. Even so, the US army's official report exonerated all of its troops. Had the dead and wounded been Iraqi, of course, nothing much would have been heard of the incident. Numerous eyewitness accounts of the slaughter of families at roadblocks have generated little comment.
If the Minister involved in informing the 69th Infantry of the pride the Irish people take in their achievements were anyone other than Martin Cullen, one might assume that he knew he was lauding people who had killed an agent of a friendly government. But someone at a high level in the Department of Defence or the Department of Foreign Affairs must have known that the Calipari affair hit a very raw nerve in Italy, that Calipari is regarded there as a national hero, and that even the fervently pro-US Berlusconi government demanded that his killers be brought to justice. Surely someone raised a question about whether it was a good idea for the Government to give such a fulsome public endorsement not just of the occupation of Iraq but of the conduct of a unit of the US army that has been involved in a major international controversy. If no one raised such a question, the levels of official idiocy are higher than anyone could have feared. If the question was raised, then we have to conclude that the Government took a deliberate decision to show its support for the conduct of the war in Iraq. It also decided that the Irish Army, which it puts in harm's way on UN peacekeeping missions, would be officially identified with the US military - a lovely badge to wear in the world's trouble spots.
It is hard to know whether the stupidity of these decisions is greater than their immorality.
Americans no longer support the war (the polls show 65 per cent disapproval). The intellectuals who justified it are beating their breasts in contrition. (Neocon guru Francis Fukayama now declares himself "appalled by the sheer level of incompetence"; onetime British cheerleader David Aaronovitch wrote in Saturday's Times that "things have been far, far, far worse than most pro-war people ever thought possible, and it is the hawks - people such as me, in fact - who need to account for what has gone wrong.")
George W. Bush is now almost as unpopular as Richard Nixon was at the time of Watergate. A thousand people are dying violently in Iraq every month. And this is the moment the Government chooses to come out of the closet, support the war, and declare its undying love for the troops.
The almost comic fatuousness of Cullen's gesture, however, should not distract from the moral bankruptcy it exposes. Tens of thousands of people - Americans as well as Iraqis - have paid with their lives for the arrogance and incompetence of the Bush administration.
When the US walks away - as it will - the Iraqis who suffered so much under Saddam will be left with a toxic residue of tribalism and sectarianism. But all of this matters not at all to a government for whom Iraq is just another piece of Paddy's Day sentimentalism, a bauble, like leprechauns and shamrocks, to be waved at the Yanks to show what a jolly lot we are.