Iraq: The reason for war
The "Smoking Gun Memo"
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
Legality?
The president has adopted a policy of "anticipatory self-defense" that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy.
- Arthur Schlesinger Jr., March 23, 2003
The Court can only regard the alleged right of intervention as the manifestation of a policy of force, such as has, in the past, given rise to most serious abuses and such as cannot, whatever be the defects in international organization, find a place in international law. Intervention is still less admissible in the particular form it would take here; for, from the nature of things, it would be reserved for the most powerful states and might easily lead to perverting the administration of international justice itself.
- International Court of Justice, the Corfu Channel case, 1949
Deeply sensible of their solemn duty to promote the welfare of mankind;
Persuaded that the time has, come when a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made to the end that the peaceful and friendly relations now existing between their peoples may be perpetuated;
Convinced that all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means and be the result of a peaceful and orderly process, and that any signatory Power which shall hereafter seek to promote its national interests by resort to war a should be denied the benefits furnished by this Treaty...
ARTICLE I
The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
ARTICLE II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
- The General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, AKA the Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
War between nations was renounced by the signatories of the Kellog-Briand Treaty. This means that it has become throughout practically the entire world... an illegal thing. Hereafter, when engaged in armed conflict, either one or both of them must be termed violators of this general treaty law... We denounce them as law breakers.
- Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, 1932
[W]hen the plans for an attack on Norway were being made, they were not made for the
purpose of forestalling an imminent Allied landing, but, at the most, that they might prevent an Allied occupation at some future date...
It was further argued that Germany alone could decide, in accordance with the reservations made by many of the Signatory Powers at the time of the conclusion of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, whether preventive action was a necessity, and that in making her decision her judgment was
conclusive. But whether action taken under the claim of self-defense was in fact aggressive or defensive must ultimately be subject to investigation and adjudication if international law is ever to be enforced.
- Judgment of the International Military Tribunal For The Trial of German Major War Criminals London His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951
Liberation?
[Iraq's possession of WMDs] is what this war was about and is about.
- Ari Fleischer, Financial Times (London), 12 April 2003, War in Iraq section, p. 5
We have made it clear – British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made clear repeatedly – that if Iraq complies with (Security Council resolution) 1441 and disarms its weapons of mass destruction, we accept that the government of Iraq stays in place.
- Jack Straw, British Prime Minister, March 6, 2003
Let me put the question to you directly and clearly in the simplest terms that I can. The question simply is: Has Saddam Hussein made a strategic political decision to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions? Has he made a strategic political decision to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction? That's it, in a nutshell.... That's the question. There is no other question. Everything else is secondary or tertiary. That's the issue.
- Colin L. Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, March 5, 2003
QUESTION: Hello, Secretary Powell. My name is Alexandra Kennedy (ph) from St. John's College High School. My question is: Are we invading Iraq for possession of their oil?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, not at all. We hope not to have to invade Iraq. President Bush and the international coalition has been doing everything possible to avoid a conflict with Iraq. The issue simply is getting Iraq to disarm, to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction. And the United Nations Security Council, through a resolution, a resolution called Number 1441, demanded that Iraq come into compliance with its international obligations and get rid of these weapons.
- Colin L. Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, 02/19/2003
To illustrate the weird logic of dreams, Sigmund Freud used to evoke a story about a borrowed kettle: When a friend accuses you of returning a borrowed kettle broken, your reply is, first, that you never borrowed the kettle; second, that you returned it unbroken; and third, that the kettle was already broken when you borrowed it. Such an enumeration of inconsistent arguments, of course, confirms precisely what it endeavors to deny: that you, in fact, did borrow and break the kettle.
A similar string of inconsistencies characterized the Bush administration's public justifications for the U.S. attack on Iraq in early 2003. First, the administration claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which posed a “real and present danger” to his neighbors, to Israel, and to all democratic Western states. So far, no such weapons have been found (after more than 1,000 U.S. specialists have spent months looking for them). Then, the administration argued that even if Saddam does not have any WMD, he was involved with al Qaeda in the September 11 attacks and therefore should be punished and prevented from launching future assaults. But even U.S. President George W. Bush had to concede in September 2003 that the United States “had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.” Finally, there was the third level of justification, that even if there was no proof of a link with al Qaeda, Saddam's ruthless dictatorship was a threat to its neighbors and a catastrophe to its own people, and these facts were reason enough to topple it. True, but why topple Iraq and not other evil regimes, starting with Iran and North Korea, the two other members of Bush's infamous “axis of evil”?
- Slavoj Zizek, Foreign Policy, January/February 2004
Weapons
It's Official: There Were No WMDs In Iraq
In... news on Iraq - it's official - no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. On Monday the Iraq Survey Group published its final report on the hunt for WMDs. The group concluded that a two-year search had uncovered no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq. In addition the US investigators reported they had found no evidence that any weapons of mass destruction were moved to Syria before the war.
- Democracy Now!, April 26, 2005
Osirak Reactor:
Iraq had a long history of peaceful use of nuclear power. Iraq, which began construction on the Soviet supplied reactor in 1963, had operated it peacefully since 1969. Iraq became a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1969. It had permitted IAEA inspections of Osiraq in 1976 when the Osiraq program began. The last IAEA inspection before the Israeli attack was January 1981. The IAEA reported no evidence of Iraq's intention to develop nuclear weapons and had accounted for all Iraq's nuclear material. In contrast, Israel had refused to sign the NPT and had kept its nuclear facilities secret. The United Nations Security Council condemned the Israeli attack as an act of aggression. The United States, Israel's strongest ally, was sympathetic to Iraq...
... Having failed to secure a replacement reactor, Iraq turned to uranium enrichment programs in order to acquire weapons grade nuclear material. The natural uranium Iraq had already acquired (250 tons in 1981) and all further uranium it could acquire on the open market could be enriched on Iraqi soil and developed into nuclear weapons. There was no longer a need for a reactor. So in the long term, the Israeli attack did not delay the nuclear weapons program - it accelerated it by stimulating a sense of domestic political urgency. As a country living in an anarchic international system and facing an intense security dilemma, Iraq was compelled to expand its program and to identify Israel as a direct threat. Although United Nations weapons inspections following the Gulf War of 1991 did find evidence of a nuclear weapons program, they found no evidence that this program pre-dated 1981.
- Professor David L. Rousseau, University of Pennsylvania
In 1981, when Israel attacked Iraq's Osirak reactor, Tel Aviv's move caused Baghdad to accelerate its quest for nuclear arms. By demonstrating Iraq's military weakness in its failure to prevent an Israeli air strike, Tel Aviv's decision merely caused the leadership in Baghdad to believe even more strongly that they needed nuclear weapons to shield against future aggression from hostile states. By acquiring nuclear arms, states are able to increase their defense capabilities since other states are hesitant to take military action against a nuclear-armed rival. As Khadduri writes in his recent book describing Iraq's nuclear research program, after Israel attacked the Osirak reactor, "Saddam took the political decision to initiate a full-fledged weapons program immediately afterwards."
- Erich Marquardt, Asia Times, Oct 21, 2003
At first, the program focused mainly on the use of nuclear energy for power generation. Khadduri said that changed in 1981 after Israeli jets destroyed the country's Osirak nuclear reactor.
At that point, he said the program shifted to focus on producing nuclear weapons. At one point Saddam Hussein put his son-in-law Hussein Kamel in charge in order to improve results.
- Jeffrey Hodgson, Reuters, February 03, 2003
A more far-reaching example of establishing norms was Israel's bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq in June 1981. At first the attack was criticized as a violation of international law. Later, after Saddam Hussein was transformed from favored friend to unspeakable fiend in August 1990, the reaction to the Osirak bombing also shifted. Once a (minor) crime, it was now considered an honored norm, and was greatly praised for having impeded Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program.
The norm, however, required the evasion of a few inconvenient facts. Shortly after the 1981 bombing, the Osirak site was inspected by a prominent nuclear physicist, Richard Wilson, then chair of the physics department at Harvard University. He concluded that the installation bombed was not suited for plutonium production, as Israel had charged, unlike Israel's own Dimona reactor, which had reportedly produced several hundred nuclear weapons. His conclusions were supported by the Iraqi nuclear physicist Imad Khadduri, who was in charge of experimental work at the reactor before the bombing and later fled the country. He too reported that the Osirak reactor was unsuitable for the production of plutonium, though after the Israeli bombing in 1981, Iraq took the "solid decision to go full speed ahead with weaponization." Khadduri estimated that it would have taken Iraq decades to obtain the required amount of weapons-grade material, had the program not been sharply accelerated as a result of the bombing. "Israel's action increased the determination of Arabs to produce nuclear weapons," Kenneth Waltz concluded. "Israel's strike, far from foreclosing Iraq's nuclear career, gained Iraq support from some other Arab states to pursue it."
- Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, p.25
Terrorism?
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
Legality?
The president has adopted a policy of "anticipatory self-defense" that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy.
- Arthur Schlesinger Jr., March 23, 2003
The Court can only regard the alleged right of intervention as the manifestation of a policy of force, such as has, in the past, given rise to most serious abuses and such as cannot, whatever be the defects in international organization, find a place in international law. Intervention is still less admissible in the particular form it would take here; for, from the nature of things, it would be reserved for the most powerful states and might easily lead to perverting the administration of international justice itself.
- International Court of Justice, the Corfu Channel case, 1949
"The charges in the Indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent States alone, but affect the whole world.
"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
- The Nuremburg Judgement
Deeply sensible of their solemn duty to promote the welfare of mankind;
Persuaded that the time has, come when a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made to the end that the peaceful and friendly relations now existing between their peoples may be perpetuated;
Convinced that all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means and be the result of a peaceful and orderly process, and that any signatory Power which shall hereafter seek to promote its national interests by resort to war a should be denied the benefits furnished by this Treaty...
ARTICLE I
The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
ARTICLE II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
- The General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, AKA the Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
War between nations was renounced by the signatories of the Kellog-Briand Treaty. This means that it has become throughout practically the entire world... an illegal thing. Hereafter, when engaged in armed conflict, either one or both of them must be termed violators of this general treaty law... We denounce them as law breakers.
- Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, 1932
[W]hen the plans for an attack on Norway were being made, they were not made for the
purpose of forestalling an imminent Allied landing, but, at the most, that they might prevent an Allied occupation at some future date...
It was further argued that Germany alone could decide, in accordance with the reservations made by many of the Signatory Powers at the time of the conclusion of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, whether preventive action was a necessity, and that in making her decision her judgment was
conclusive. But whether action taken under the claim of self-defense was in fact aggressive or defensive must ultimately be subject to investigation and adjudication if international law is ever to be enforced.
- Judgment of the International Military Tribunal For The Trial of German Major War Criminals London His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951
Liberation?
[Iraq's possession of WMDs] is what this war was about and is about.
- Ari Fleischer, Financial Times (London), 12 April 2003, War in Iraq section, p. 5
We have made it clear – British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made clear repeatedly – that if Iraq complies with (Security Council resolution) 1441 and disarms its weapons of mass destruction, we accept that the government of Iraq stays in place.
- Jack Straw, British Prime Minister, March 6, 2003
Let me put the question to you directly and clearly in the simplest terms that I can. The question simply is: Has Saddam Hussein made a strategic political decision to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions? Has he made a strategic political decision to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction? That's it, in a nutshell.... That's the question. There is no other question. Everything else is secondary or tertiary. That's the issue.
- Colin L. Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, March 5, 2003
QUESTION: Hello, Secretary Powell. My name is Alexandra Kennedy (ph) from St. John's College High School. My question is: Are we invading Iraq for possession of their oil?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, not at all. We hope not to have to invade Iraq. President Bush and the international coalition has been doing everything possible to avoid a conflict with Iraq. The issue simply is getting Iraq to disarm, to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction. And the United Nations Security Council, through a resolution, a resolution called Number 1441, demanded that Iraq come into compliance with its international obligations and get rid of these weapons.
- Colin L. Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, 02/19/2003
To illustrate the weird logic of dreams, Sigmund Freud used to evoke a story about a borrowed kettle: When a friend accuses you of returning a borrowed kettle broken, your reply is, first, that you never borrowed the kettle; second, that you returned it unbroken; and third, that the kettle was already broken when you borrowed it. Such an enumeration of inconsistent arguments, of course, confirms precisely what it endeavors to deny: that you, in fact, did borrow and break the kettle.
A similar string of inconsistencies characterized the Bush administration's public justifications for the U.S. attack on Iraq in early 2003. First, the administration claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which posed a “real and present danger” to his neighbors, to Israel, and to all democratic Western states. So far, no such weapons have been found (after more than 1,000 U.S. specialists have spent months looking for them). Then, the administration argued that even if Saddam does not have any WMD, he was involved with al Qaeda in the September 11 attacks and therefore should be punished and prevented from launching future assaults. But even U.S. President George W. Bush had to concede in September 2003 that the United States “had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.” Finally, there was the third level of justification, that even if there was no proof of a link with al Qaeda, Saddam's ruthless dictatorship was a threat to its neighbors and a catastrophe to its own people, and these facts were reason enough to topple it. True, but why topple Iraq and not other evil regimes, starting with Iran and North Korea, the two other members of Bush's infamous “axis of evil”?
- Slavoj Zizek, Foreign Policy, January/February 2004
Weapons
It's Official: There Were No WMDs In Iraq
In... news on Iraq - it's official - no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. On Monday the Iraq Survey Group published its final report on the hunt for WMDs. The group concluded that a two-year search had uncovered no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq. In addition the US investigators reported they had found no evidence that any weapons of mass destruction were moved to Syria before the war.
- Democracy Now!, April 26, 2005
Osirak Reactor:
Iraq had a long history of peaceful use of nuclear power. Iraq, which began construction on the Soviet supplied reactor in 1963, had operated it peacefully since 1969. Iraq became a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1969. It had permitted IAEA inspections of Osiraq in 1976 when the Osiraq program began. The last IAEA inspection before the Israeli attack was January 1981. The IAEA reported no evidence of Iraq's intention to develop nuclear weapons and had accounted for all Iraq's nuclear material. In contrast, Israel had refused to sign the NPT and had kept its nuclear facilities secret. The United Nations Security Council condemned the Israeli attack as an act of aggression. The United States, Israel's strongest ally, was sympathetic to Iraq...
... Having failed to secure a replacement reactor, Iraq turned to uranium enrichment programs in order to acquire weapons grade nuclear material. The natural uranium Iraq had already acquired (250 tons in 1981) and all further uranium it could acquire on the open market could be enriched on Iraqi soil and developed into nuclear weapons. There was no longer a need for a reactor. So in the long term, the Israeli attack did not delay the nuclear weapons program - it accelerated it by stimulating a sense of domestic political urgency. As a country living in an anarchic international system and facing an intense security dilemma, Iraq was compelled to expand its program and to identify Israel as a direct threat. Although United Nations weapons inspections following the Gulf War of 1991 did find evidence of a nuclear weapons program, they found no evidence that this program pre-dated 1981.
- Professor David L. Rousseau, University of Pennsylvania
In 1981, when Israel attacked Iraq's Osirak reactor, Tel Aviv's move caused Baghdad to accelerate its quest for nuclear arms. By demonstrating Iraq's military weakness in its failure to prevent an Israeli air strike, Tel Aviv's decision merely caused the leadership in Baghdad to believe even more strongly that they needed nuclear weapons to shield against future aggression from hostile states. By acquiring nuclear arms, states are able to increase their defense capabilities since other states are hesitant to take military action against a nuclear-armed rival. As Khadduri writes in his recent book describing Iraq's nuclear research program, after Israel attacked the Osirak reactor, "Saddam took the political decision to initiate a full-fledged weapons program immediately afterwards."
- Erich Marquardt, Asia Times, Oct 21, 2003
At first, the program focused mainly on the use of nuclear energy for power generation. Khadduri said that changed in 1981 after Israeli jets destroyed the country's Osirak nuclear reactor.
At that point, he said the program shifted to focus on producing nuclear weapons. At one point Saddam Hussein put his son-in-law Hussein Kamel in charge in order to improve results.
- Jeffrey Hodgson, Reuters, February 03, 2003
A more far-reaching example of establishing norms was Israel's bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq in June 1981. At first the attack was criticized as a violation of international law. Later, after Saddam Hussein was transformed from favored friend to unspeakable fiend in August 1990, the reaction to the Osirak bombing also shifted. Once a (minor) crime, it was now considered an honored norm, and was greatly praised for having impeded Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program.
The norm, however, required the evasion of a few inconvenient facts. Shortly after the 1981 bombing, the Osirak site was inspected by a prominent nuclear physicist, Richard Wilson, then chair of the physics department at Harvard University. He concluded that the installation bombed was not suited for plutonium production, as Israel had charged, unlike Israel's own Dimona reactor, which had reportedly produced several hundred nuclear weapons. His conclusions were supported by the Iraqi nuclear physicist Imad Khadduri, who was in charge of experimental work at the reactor before the bombing and later fled the country. He too reported that the Osirak reactor was unsuitable for the production of plutonium, though after the Israeli bombing in 1981, Iraq took the "solid decision to go full speed ahead with weaponization." Khadduri estimated that it would have taken Iraq decades to obtain the required amount of weapons-grade material, had the program not been sharply accelerated as a result of the bombing. "Israel's action increased the determination of Arabs to produce nuclear weapons," Kenneth Waltz concluded. "Israel's strike, far from foreclosing Iraq's nuclear career, gained Iraq support from some other Arab states to pursue it."
- Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, p.25
Terrorism?
When it came to pinning the terrorist label on the Saddam government, all the Bush administration had to do was point a finger at the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organistaion (MKO, People's Mujahedin). An anticlerical Iranian group opposed to the regime in Tehran, the MKO, placed on the State Department's list of terrorist organisations in 1997, had located its headquarters in Baghdad since 1986. Its National Liberation Army was trained and armed by the Iraqi military, and it engaged in self-confessed terrorist activities against the Iranian government. Moreover, while MKO representatives around the world publicly condemned 9/11, inside Iraq the MKO rejoiced. "There were celebrations at all the Mujahedin camps [in Iraq] on September11," Ardeshir Parkizkari, thirty-nine, a former member of MKO's central council and now a political refugee in Europe, told the New York Times. "I was in one of their prisons then. And we were never treated so well as we were that day - given juices and sweets. They called the events of September 11 God's revenge on America." Yet the MKO's political wing, the National Resistance Council of Iran, even though listed as a terrorist organisation after 9/11, continued to function openly in the United States, with its head office in Washinton.
- Dilip Hiro, Secrets And Lies: Operatoin "Iraqi Freedom" And After, p.381-382
posted by Unknown at 2/13/2005 04:53:00 p.m.
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