WEB NOTES
Why
Now?
Malcolm
Savidge MP (Aberdeen North)
“Why now?” Tony Blair has asked repeatedly.
The Prime Minister and others have sought to
answer the question of the reasons for contemplating
full-scale war against Iraq at this time.
Saddam’s previous aggression against Iran and Kuwait is
sometimes cited. However,
he seems to have been successfully contained and
deterred from further attacks on his neighbours for over
a decade.
Hussein’s horrific human rights record has also been
referred to. But, since he has been committing these
atrocities for decades, this does not seem likely to be
the main reason that military action is being considered
at present.
The British government has placed heavy emphasis on his
breaches of UN resolutions.
However, since many of the most vociferous
advocates of war in the United States are fierce critics
of the United Nations and were notoriously reluctant to
use the UN route, this seems unlikely to have been their
original reason for demanding an attack on Iraq.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates
that Iraq has fairly low stocks of missiles, many of
them limited in range and accuracy.
Even on the higher assessments in the UK
government dossier and the report by the US Director of
Central Intelligence, Iraq’s missile capability is
much lower than it would have been in the past.
Weapons of mass destruction
have been cited as a main cause for war.
As the US National Academy of Sciences has
pointed out, though 'weapons of mass destruction' can be
a useful phrase, it dangerously blurs the massive
difference between nuclear weapons and most forms of
biological or chemical weaponry. There is common agreement that Iraq has not yet achieved a
nuclear weapons capability.
In the 1980’s, Iraq built up considerable stocks of
biological and chemical weapons with the assistance of a
number of countries including all five of the permanent
members of the UN Security Council.
As a result mainly of the earlier inspection
programmes together with previous military action, it is
most unlikely that its present stocks of these weapons
are as large as they were in the past.
In the 1980’s, Saddam used these weapons against both Iran
and internal enemies, and it is therefore suggested that
he would not respond to the threat of a deterrent
response. However,
during the Gulf War, he was deterred from using these
weapons by a warning of overwhelming retaliation.
He is a homicidal rather than a suicidal maniac
with a murderous obsession with his own
self-preservation.
It has been suggested that Iraq might pass on weapons of mass
destruction to unconditional terrorist organizations,
like al Qaeda. However,
intelligence services are sceptical of claims by
politicians of current links between Saddam and al Qaeda.
While the CIA report, which the Senate forced
George Tenet to make public, stated that though they did
not believe that Saddam was either likely to use these
weapons or supply them to unconditional terrorists, they
did think that these possibilities could be increased by
launching war against him.
There are a number of other far more likely
sources from which unconditional terrorists could obtain
such materials.
Even cumulatively none of these reasons seem to adequately
answer the question: Why now?
Perhaps we should ask other questions.
Would we be considering imminent war with Iraq if Al Gore had
been recognized as the winner of the US Presidential
election? Would
we be considering war if George Bush had not appointed
to key positions leading right wing hawks who had been
urging war with Iraq for years?
Perhaps we should seek the answer to “Why now?” in the
writings of those hawks.
Where possible I shall give the web sites on
which the original documents were published, so readers
can make their own judgment.
In 1996, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political
Studies, a joint US/Israel right wing think-tank, published
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the
Realm.” It was
produced by a working group chaired by former US
Assistant Defense Secretary, Richard Perle and included
his former Special Counsel Douglas Feith, now US Under
Secretary of Defense.
It was prepared for Israel’s new Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to advise him how to change from a
policy of 'land for peace' to a policy of 'peace through
strength'. Its objective was to retain within Israel all
the occupied territories, including the Golan Heights.
It advocated “effort can focus on removing
Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq,” both as “an
important Israeli strategic objective in its own
right,” and as a means of “weakening, containing,
and even rolling back Syria.”
It suggested, “restoring a Hashemite kingdom in
Iraq,” and among other things promoted two of
Perle’s favourite concepts “the principle of
pre-emption rather than retaliation alone” and missile
defence – “it would broaden Israel’s base of support among many in the United States
Congress who may know little about Israel but care
very much about missile defense”. [Their italics]
On 26 January 1998, Richard Perle was one of the signatories
of an
open letter to President Clinton from “The Project
for the New American Century”.
Some of the other signatories are now prominent
in the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and
Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton.
The letter demanded the “removal of Saddam
Hussein’s regime from power".
Among the reasons given are his chemical and
biological weapons, the “safety of US troops in the
region…allies like Israel…and the hazard to a
significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.”
On 19 February 1998, another
open letter was sent to the President from the 'Committee
for Peace and Security in the Gulf'.
Richard Perle was one of two main signatories.
Supporting signatories included Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Armitage, Bolton, and Feith.
It demanded “a comprehensive political and
military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his
regime” concentrating on Iraq’s biological and
chemical munitions as a reason, “it is the only
country which has used them – not just against its
enemies, but its own people as well”.
The letter also refers obliquely to the ongoing impeachment
of Clinton, and accusations that he was soft on Iraq
rapidly became an additional line of attack on the
President. Accordingly,
regime change in Iraq started to become an article of
faith among some right-wing Republicans.
By early 2000, Condoleeza Rice gives removal of Saddam as a
basic feature of the Bush foreign policy Presidential
platform (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000. P.62).
In September 2000, “The Project for the New American
Century” published
“Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, which includes in
its key objectives that US military forces should
“fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major
theater wars”; and “develop and deploy global
missile defenses … to provide a secure basis for US
power projection around the world.”
It includes the following passage, which seems to
imply that conquest of Iraq should be a strategic
objective for the US, irrespective of either WMD or
Saddam Hussein:
“Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a
more permanent role in Gulf regional security.
While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides
the immediate justification, the need for a substantial
American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue
of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
On 11 September, within hours of the atrocity, Richard Perle
was on British television demanding two responses: the
development of missile defence and war on America’s
known enemies whether or not they had any connection
with the terrorist attacks.
According to Bob Woodward, on the 12th of
September Rumsfeld suggested attacking Iraq - as well as
al Qaeda - at the National Security Council, a policy to
which he and his deputy Wolfowitz had long been
committed. “Before
the attacks, the Pentagon had been working for months on
developing a military option for Iraq.” [Bob Woodward,
“Bush at War”, pp. 48f]
On 15 September, Rice, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld are alleged to
have urged war against Iraq on the grounds that it was
an easier target than Afghanistan. [Woodward, pp.
74-85]
Condoleeza Rice told the “New Yorker” ‘that she had
called together senior staff people of the National
Security Council and asked them to think seriously about
“how do you capitalize on these opportunities” to
fundamentally change American doctrine, and the shape of
the world, in the wake of September 11th.’
[Lemann, N., “The Next World Order”, New Yorker,
April 1, 2002. P. 44]
Tony Blair has expressed a commonly stated view: “11
September made a difference to the way America views
such things”. [Hansard, 24/11/2002,c22].
It might be more accurate to say the hawks have
shamelessly exploited 11 September to promote a
predetermined agenda.
War on Iraq ties in with two other dominant themes in
neo-conservatism. The
advocates of National Missile Defence had designated
certain unpleasant dictatorships as “rogue states”.
Extreme advocates tend to define “rogue
states” in simplistic terms as having an insane
tyrant, driven by hatred of the USA, seeking weapons of
mass destruction and missiles solely in order to attack
the US and so insane as not to respond to the threat of
nuclear deterrence.
Such advocates suggested that these diverse
“rogue states” all cooperated together and nicknamed
this “Club Mad”.
President Bush speaks of the “Axis of Evil”.
In 1990, two rival working-groups, chaired by Colin Powell
and Paul Wolfowitz respectively, reported to Dick
Cheney, then US Defense Secretary, on future policy
options. The
latter group produced a very hawkish agenda on which
they kept working.
Their theories were developed by
neo-conservatives during the Clinton era, becoming the
declared basis of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”
[p ii] and are reflected in such Bush administration
documents as “The National Security Strategy”,
“The Nuclear Posture Review” and “The National
Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction”.
They reveal a sharp change in emphasis from arms
control and diplomacy to military aggression including
pre-emptive war. [Lemann, pp. 42-48, provides a useful
summary of some of this.]
Iraq is seen as the first rogue state on which to
apply this doctrine.
An extraordinary story in the highly reputed Israeli
newspaper, Ha’aretz,
alleges that Richard Perle, now a senior advisor to the
Defense Department as Chair of the Defense Policy Board,
which reports to Douglas Feith, is still pursuing his
original 1996 objectives.
In 2002 Perle invited Pentagon chiefs to a
meeting, where Ha’aretz
reports:
“According to information that reached a top official in
the Israeli security services, the researchers showed
two slides to the Pentagon officials.
The first was a depiction of the three goals in
the war on terror and the democratisation of the Middle
East: Iraq – a tactical goal, Saudi Arabia – a
strategic goal, and Egypt - the great prize.
“The triangle in the next slide was no less interesting:
Palestine is Israel, Jordan is Palestine, and Iraq is
the Hashemite Kingdom.” [Ha’aretz, Perles of wisdom
for the Feithful, 1 October 2002]
In the same article, Ha’aretz
noted that a prominent member of the Hashemite royal
family, Prince Hassan, the uncle of King Abdullah of
Jordan, played a prominent role in the meeting arranged
in London last year for the Iraqi opposition in exile.
Doubtless, many other hawks do not share Perle’s dream.
Indeed, so many diverse reasons are given for war
with Iraq, that the impression is created that this is
being driven more by an ideological obsession than any
particular objective.
From his talks with administration officials, last April
Nicholas Lemann forecast how this desired conflict would
be achieved: “A drama involving weapons inspections in
Iraq will play itself out over the spring and summer,
and will end with the United States declaring that the
terms that Saddam offers for the inspection, involving
delays and restrictions, are unacceptable.
Then, probably in the late summer or early fall,
the enormous troop positioning, which will take months,
will begin.” [Lemann, p48]
UN Security Council Resolution 1441 was reasonable, if
reasonably interpreted.
Intrusive inspections under threat of military
action and using technology, which has considerably
improved in the last decade, in conjunction with modern
surveillance, could achieve disarmament much more
effectively than was possible in the early ’90s.
However, the Bush administration demanded positive
cooperation by Saddam Hussein in voluntarily handing
over his arsenal in a short period, while at no time
giving a united and unequivocal guarantee that the US
would not subsequently invade anyway.
This does not seem like an ultimatum intended to
achieve a peaceful resolution.
“Why now?” can also be applied to the rush to war.
Is the timetable dictated less by any immediate
threat than by US domestic politics and military and
climatic considerations?
In conclusion, perhaps we should ask another question: “Why
not?”. Possible
dangers of launching war include, as the CIA suggested,
that it could provoke Saddam, when facing impending
destruction, to attempt to use his biological or
chemical weapons. If
he attacked Israel then that could evoke a nuclear
response. Another
risk is that it could lead to the dispersal of some of
the materials or personnel from his WMD programme.
King Abdullah of Jordan warned that destabilizing
such a volatile area could open a Pandora’s box.
Since conspiracy theorists could genuinely trace
the war’s roots to a right-wing ‘Zionist plot’,
there is a particular danger of provoking Arabic - and
indeed Islamic - feeling around the world, and thus
inflaming terrorism and inadvertently achieving Osama
bin Laden’s ambitions.
For Britain, there is a particular threat.
While here in the UK, Tony Blair may generally
have been seen as a moderating influence for peace on
the Bush administration; elsewhere, he maybe viewed as
an essential co-conspirator in war mongering - making us
a future target. Pre-emptive
war sets a dangerous precedent.
Who does the West attack next?
Who follows that example? Is the concept not
dangerously close to what were condemned as
international crimes in Counts 1 and 2 of the Nuremberg
Tribunal? Finally
if, as Nelson Mandela has suggested, this is a recipe
for “international anarchy”; then, in a world in
which weapons of mass destruction cannot be disinvented,
humanity will face a bleak future.
Malcolm
Savidge is Convener of the
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security &
Non-Proliferation
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