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10 May 2002
War
Plan Iraq 2003
US
Lacks Evidence, Hostile to Inspectors, Seeks
‘Leadership Change’ in Baghdad
Disarray in
Washington
President
Bush’s war plans are in disarray. The conflict in Palestine has
pushed back the timetable, probably to 2003, though hawks in the
Administration are still pushing for an earlier start to hostilities.
The Pentagon is deeply divided over how to overthrow Saddam Hussein
- a plan was supposed to have been agreed by 15 April. Tony Blair
is under increasing pressure from his own Cabinet and from Labour
backbenchers - he is reported to have been forced to promise dissenters
‘that Britain will not back US military action against Iraq unless
it wins the backing of the United Nations Security Council.’ (Independent,
10 May 2002, p. 1)
An Unpopular
War
Crucially,
a majority of people in Britain already oppose going to war with
Iraq: 51 per cent disapproved according to an ICM poll. (Guardian,
19 Mar., p. 1) Two weeks later Time magazine reported an
even stronger MORI poll finding. 56 per cent of British people
polled said it was ‘wrong’ to ‘join the Americans in stepping
up military action in Iraq, the country run by Saddam Hussein’.
(1 Apr., p. 35)
War
is unpopular in the region. Crown Prince Abdullah, effective ruler
of Saudi Arabia: ‘I do not believe it is in the United States’
interests, or the interests of the region, or the world’s interest’.
(Financial Times, 16 Mar.) Even Kuwaiti foreign minister
Sheikh Mohammed says, ‘ultimately, who rules that country [Iraq]
should be a decision taken only by the Iraqi people.’ (Financial
Times, 9 Apr., p. 6)
No Justification
for War - No Link to 11 September
The
Bush Administration has finally given up trying to link Iraq to
11 September. The strongest alleged link was the supposed meeting
of Mohammed Atta, the 11 September ringleader, and an Iraqi diplomat
later expelled from the Czech Republic for spying. The Administration
has finally accepted that this ‘meeting’ in Prague never happened.
(Washington Post, 1 May 2002, p. A09) The reluctant US
admission came over four months after ‘Jiri Kolar, the [Czech]
police chief, said there were no documents showing that Atta visited
Prague at any time this year [2001]’. (Daily Telegraph,
18 Dec. 2001, p. 10)
An
anonymous former CIA officer has remarked that, ‘The reality is
that Osama bin Laden doesn’t like Saddam Hussein. Saddam is a
secularist who has killed more Islamic clergy than he has Americans.
They have almost nothing in common except a hatred of the US.
Saddam is the ultimate control freak, and for him terrorists are
the ultimate loose cannon.’ (Daily Telegraph, 20 Sept.
2001, p. 10)
The
latest wheeze is an attempt to prove that a fundamentalist group
operating in Iraqi Kurdistan is linked to both al-Qaeda and Baghdad.
(New Yorker, 25 Mar.)
No Justification
for War - Weapons of Mass Destruction
What
about the threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. We have
heard lots of claims and assertions, but seen precious little
evidence.
Former
UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said that, ‘it was possible
as early as 1997 to determine that, from a qualitative standpoint,
Iraq had been disarmed. Iraq no longer possessed any meaningful
quantities of chemical or biological agent, if it possessed any
at all, and the industrial means to produce these agents had either
been eliminated or were subject to stringent monitoring. The same
was true of Iraq's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.’
(Arms Control Today, June 2000)
According
to Ritter, a former US Marine, ‘manufacturing CW [chemical weapons]
would require the assembling of production equipment into a single
integrated facility, creating an infrastructure readily detectable
by the strategic intelligence capabilities of the United States.
The CIA has clearly stated on several occasions since the termination
of inspections in December 1998 that no such activity has been
detected.’ Similarly biological weapons, according to Ritter.
The
Prime Minister promised to publish a dossier of evidence about
Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction by early April. It still hasn’t
appeared. It was to be based on a ‘Joint Intelligence Committee’
report: ‘there is little new information worth sharing or publishing,
according to insiders’ who had seen the report. (Sunday Times,
10 Mar., p. 2) According to intelligence sources, the dossier
‘contained no evidence that the threat from Iraq had increased
significantly since the end of the Gulf war in 1991.’ (Sunday
Times, 31 Mar., p. 15)
US ‘Won’t
Take Yes For An Answer’
No
conclusions can be drawn regarding Iraqi weapons programmes without
in-country monitoring, but the best way to secure that monitoring
is to move to a less confrontational inspection programme, and
show willingness to lift, and not merely suspend, sanctions -
so says Ritter.
US
policy is heading in the other direction. ‘Key figures in the
White House believe that demands on Saddam to re-admit United
Nations weapons inspectors should be set so high that he would
fail to meet them unless he provided officials with total freedom.’
(Times, 16 Feb. 2002, p. 19) A US intelligence official
said the White House ‘will not take yes for an answer’. (Guardian,
14 Feb. 2002, p. 1)
According
to a former US official, ‘The hawks’ nightmare is that inspectors
will be admitted, will not be terribly vigorous and not find anything.
Economic sanctions would be eased, and the US will be unable to
act… and the closer it comes to the 2004 elections, the more difficult
it will be to take the military route.’ (Washington Post,
15 Apr,. A01)
‘"The
White House’s biggest fear is that UN weapons inspectors will
be allowed to go in," says a top Senate foreign policy aide.’
(Time magazine, 13 May, p. 38) Inspectors are not part
of the solution, they are part of the problem, as far as the Bush
Administration is concerned. Preventing the development of Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction is secondary to the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein. Inspectors hinder the war effort, and they must be undermined.
US
Secretary of State Colin Powell has made it clear that the US
is intent on war, whatever happens with the inspectors: ‘US policy
is that, regardless of what the inspectors do, the people of Iraq and
the people of the region would be better off with a different
regime in Baghdad. The United States reserves its option to do
whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can
be a regime change.’ (Guardian, 6 May) The issue of the
inspectors is a ‘separate and distinct and different’ matter from
the US position on Saddam Hussein’s leadership, said Powell. (Associated
Press, 5 May, 12.27pm ET)
The
‘Afghan Test’
A
fundamental problem is that military planners have yet to come
up with a convincing plan: ‘so far, officials have yet to come
up with a plan that meets "the Afghan test": a low-cost,
speedy assault that has a high probability of toppling President
Saddam Hussein.’ (FT, 1 Feb. 2002, supplement p. III)
Washington
hawks favour the Afghan route, relying on local opposition forces
supported by US airpower. Pentagon generals prefer invasion with
a force of 70,000 to 250,000 US troops. A smaller force of 50,000
could be assembled on US aircraft carriers and in Kuwait, without
having to force unwilling allies in the region to provide bases.
It could also build up faster, lessening the opportunities for
international opposition to develop. (Sunday Times, 17
Feb. 2002, p. 28)
‘Leadership
Change’ Not ‘Regime Change’
US
leaders, and now Tony Blair, have spoken in terms of seeking ‘regime
change’. But since 1991 the US has shied away from real change
in Iraq, seeking instead ‘an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam
Hussein’, according to Thomas Friedman, Diplomatic Correspondent
of the New York Times (7 July 1991): sanctions were there
to provoke a military coup to create ‘the best of all worlds’,
a return to the days when Saddam’s ‘iron fist... held Iraq together,
much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi
Arabia.’ In March 1991 this prospect was described by Ahmed Chalabi
(now leader of the Iraqi opposition group the Iraqi National Congress)
as ‘the worst of all possible worlds’ for the Iraqi people. (Cited
Noam Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New, 1994, p. 9)
When
Kurds and Shias rose against the regime in Mar. 1991, the US granted
permission to Baghdad to use helicopter gunships against the rebels,
refused to release captured arms to rebels, and refused to intervene
to defend the rebels. Richard Haass, director for Near East affairs
for the US National Security Council, explained, ‘Our policy is
to get rid of Saddam, not his regime.’ (Andrew and Patrick Cockburn,
Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, HarperCollins
1999, p. 37)
‘Washington’s
calculation is that a break-up of Iraq would fundamentally alter
the balance of power in the Middle East, especially if it led
to the creation of an independent Kurdistan. Turkey, a steadfast
US ally with a large Kurd minority, would be destabilised. Iran
could exploit the vacuum.’ (FT, 1 Feb. 2002, supplement
p. III)
Sparing
the Republican Guard
An
officer involved in US planning asks, ‘do you take the Republican
Guard [the military unit most loyal to Saddam] and disarm it?
Or is it preferable to turn it from having a capability to protect
Saddam to a capability to protect Iraq?’ (New Yorker, 24
Dec. 2001, p. 63) To protect Iraq from democracy and fragmentation.
In
Feb. 1991, President Bush Sr. called a ceasefire just as US forces
were about to destroy the most important elements of the Republican
Guard. Now his son seems set to follow in his footsteps, preserving
the regime, and trying simply to replace a handful of leaders
at the centre. The Republican Guard is noticeably absent from
the target lists published in newspaper reports.
The
Illegality of the US War
‘The
US does not, to date, have a legal mandate for serious military
intervention.’ (Economist, 26 Jan. 2002, p. 59) Lord Healey,
former Labour Defence Secretary, said of Operation Desert Fox
in Dec. 1998, ‘It is illegal to attack with bombs targets in a
sovereign country without direct authorisation from the Security
Council.’ (Daily Telegraph, 21 Dec. 1998) War on Iraq would
be illegal today.
The
Human Consequences
Another
round of bombardment could have a devastating effect on the long-suffering
people of Iraq. Even the destruction of a single power plant -
by accident or design - could trigger off the shut-down of the
entire Iraqi National Grid. This could have consequences that
‘could potentially dwarf all other difficulties endured by the
Iraqi people’, according to Kofi Annan. (Report of the Secretary-General,
1 Feb. 1998) The stakes for the Iraqi people are very high.
ARROW
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