Well, the hunt is still on for possible instruments of Mass Death in Iraq, and so far, from what I have seen and read, not a great deal has yet been found.
Should advocates of military action to deal with this possible menace like yours truly be now eating vast amounts of humble pie, agree that non-interventionists like Jim Henley were correct all along? Well, not quite.
For starters, it hardly needs to be pointed out that one cannot fight or not fight wars on the basis of 20/20 hindsight. Nothing that Saddam did over the past 12 years, including his devious treatment of UN weapons inspectors, led one to think that simply keeping Hans Blix and co in situ for another year or so would suffice. And I think that Saddam’s past record, such as his gassing of Iraqi villagers, made me doubt he was either deterrable or that he could be made to bend to the will of the arms inspectors.
However (gulp) I am beginning to detect among some pro-war types a clear shift in their stance. We have, so it appears, shifted from the “war is justified to rid Iraq of WMDs and then getting to terrorists” stance to a “Let’s bring peace and democracy to Iraq”. The first stance can be clearly based on self defence, which as a libertarian I have no quarrel with, though interpretation is the hard part. The latter stance, though, however idealistic and admirable as an ideal, smacks of hubristic social engineering.
Who cares? In some ways, if they do not find WMD, it could (just possibly) contribute to my admittedly wildly optomistic “best of all possible worlds” scenario.
Say no WMDs are found… not that I care much for G. Dubya Bush really (other than compared to the ghastly Donkey Party alternatives), but I think he will just shrug it off and blame Syria (which may actually be true for all I know): he is bullet proof now politically, at least for a while.
Blair on the other hand is in a less secure political position and will take a major hit, thereby reducing the risk he will use a surge of political capital to do something truly horrendous, like taking the UK into the €uro, or bringing in ID cards… so we have a tyrant overthrown in Iraq, Blair weakened at home, and the downside of that is…what exactly???
I suspect the WMDs will turn up (or at least the makings of them), but for me WMDs were never more than a side issue (read my old articles) compared to overthrowing a tyranny. That alone was justification enough given that all the factors needed were both ready and waiting for the job to be done at what I think is an acceptable cost.
In a few weeks, if no WMDs are found, the question will become-What did he know and when did he know it? Everyone will want to know if we were lied into a war.
Given the more free press in the UK, it is Mr Blair that will have to answer the harder questions, but it is possible that the bullet proof Bush might get tagged with an intentional lie to start the war.
As I have said to some pro-war friends, I think that we should be looking for the WMDs in the Gulf of Tonkin.
yeah, just imagine. the government may have lied to us!!!! who’d a thunked it???
I agree with the first guy. like, who cares? the dudes who hated bush will still hate him and stamp their little feet. the dudes who supported him will still support him and not give a shit. saddam is toast and anything else we find is just to make the joint menthol filtered.
It still seems early to say that it looks unlikely that Iraq had illegal weapons. Even if it turns out that Iraq didn’t have those weapons, it could hardly be said that what the U.S. did was bad.
Folks, the Iraq war is one chapter in a long story.
We justified a preemptive strike on the grounds that deterence would not work, that Iraq posed a danger to others because of its large army, WMD, and terrorist allies.
The first is proven false; if WMD/terror not used in self-defence, deterence probably would have been successful.
The army neither fought nor surrendered, nor do we see 400,000 soldiers walking home. Perhaps it never existed on the scale advertised.
No WMD, no sign of terrorist allies.
What will we see next time, when we warn of imminent danger? “Oh yeah, that’s what you said about Iraq.”
Credibility, like honor, are tangible and important things in international relations.
For what did we trash the multilateral institutions that we labored for so long to build? Trashed the laws of nations, recognized as legitmate in the US Constitution, that supported for hundreds of years?
We liberated Iraq. Their humiliation and resentment is unlikely to provide a basis for the military alliance we seek, Iraq bases from which to pressure their fellow Islamic nations.
We cannot know the outcome yet. Still, most area experts I’ve read consider our efforts to remake their polity to be a fool’s quest.
I hope we succeed. We’ve paid a serious price for the results, in lives (Coalition and Iraq) and other ways.
Worse yet, the bitter dregs, is that evidience to date suggests that the French were right and we wrong.
No, liberation is not enough.
The first is proven false; if WMD/terror not used in self-defence, deterence probably would have been successful.
That presupposes the Iraqis had the CCI to actually assemble and use chem weapons after the first day command & control strikes… you do not know any more than I do for sure. Likewise you are rather fast to say it has been ‘proven’.
The army neither fought nor surrendered, nor do we see 400,000 soldiers walking home. Perhaps it never existed on the scale advertised.
Actually it looks to me like you are wrong on all three counts: there are plenty of accounts of the Iraqis fighting (were you under the impression ALL the allied loses were blue-on-blue incidents?) and being shattered by UK and US forces each time… thousands did indeed surrender or were captured… and how on earth would you know if 400 or 400,000 Iraqi troops downed tools and went home?
No WMD, no sign of terrorist allies.
No WMD yet…and wrong. What about the base in the north? You know, the guys who don’t exist who killed that Australian journalist.
What will we see next time, when we warn of imminent danger? “Oh yeah, that’s what you said about Iraq.”
Well, yeah actually… you have not proved anything. The US was not worried the Iraqi army was going to invade New Jersey but that Iraqi weapons and resources would be used to assist US enemies in assymetrical warfare. Did you not see the ‘twin towers and smiling Saddam’ painting?
Credibility, like honor, are tangible and important things in international relations.
‘Honour’ and ‘international’ used in the same sentance makes me laugh.
For what did we trash the multilateral institutions that we labored for so long to build? Trashed the laws of nations, recognized as legitmate in the US Constitution, that supported for hundreds of years?
The multilateral institutions like the UN? Good riddence. Damage the EU? Superb. Law of Nations? How many Iraqis or Cambodians or Tibetans or Rwandans or Zimbabweans or Cubans has ‘The Law of Nations’ saved? As for what is in the US Constitution, forgive me if that is of only the most passing interest to me.
We liberated Iraq. Their humiliation and resentment is unlikely to provide a basis for the military alliance we seek, Iraq bases from which to pressure their fellow Islamic nations.
Funny that. If you are correct that the US seeks to do that, then what the Iraqi people want is irrelevent just as what the German people felt in 1946 was. Regardless, even on the arguments own premise, I think your analysis is very simplistic… bases could be located in the middle of nowhere (like H2 and H3) or in friendly Kurdish areas.
We cannot know the outcome yet.
Finally we agree on something.
Still, most area experts I’ve read consider our efforts to remake their polity to be a fool’s quest.
Then you are not reading very widely. I have read pretty much every view imaginable!
I hope we succeed. We’ve paid a serious price for the results, in lives (Coalition and Iraq) and other ways.
Without minimising the tragedy to the families concerned, the cost was absurdly low in terms of blood for the overthrow of a tyrannical regime that had been entrenched in Iraqi society for decades… and the military cost of the allies was astonishingly low.
Worse yet, the bitter dregs, is that evidience to date suggests that the French were right and we wrong.
Huh? You mean Jaques “Elf Aquitaine” Chirac? Didn’t you know that for the French, it is All About Oiiiiiiil!
No, liberation is not enough.
I look forward to beating you over the head with that remark for years to come. Liberation is always enough.
I hate to be the one to make the “legalistic” argument, but it is irrelevant whether WMD are found. Saddam’s Iraq signed a cease-fire agreement requiring it to destroy its WMD. The job was for him to do, not the inspectors, whose only job was to verify compliance. That inspectors had to look for anything at all amounted to a violation of the cease-fire terms.
Who knows, maybe Saddam decided to turn a new leaf and destroy the remaining WMD that he had not accounted for. Or maybe “the inspections were working” prior to 1998 and they found and destroyed them. That’s not the point. He was supposed to produce documentation concerning their whereabouts.
Of course some might make the argument that Saddam really did get rid of them, and only played his games so as not to look weak to the Iraqis he needed to control. (I don’t buy it, but I’ll concede that it’s a reasonble position). The fact remains, that was not our problem. He took his chances in ’90-’91 and failed dismally. As a result, he had to face the consequences.
Some might still say that it will hurt the coalition’s credibility. The fact is, most of the people who were opposed to the war from the start did not believe Saddam’s WMD was something we should have been concerned about anyway.
As the previous poster remarked, if you supported the war you’re not going to care. If you were opposed, then nothing was going to convince you anyway.
Perry, as always some good points — on some sloppy language by me!
As for failure of deternce, using “proven” and “probably” was brain failure on my part. Certainly a probable, definitely not a proven.
The behavior of the Iraq army is a major question. Certainly it did not, as a whole, fight. Some elements did; much of the southern activity might have been irregulars. Numbers for killed and surrendered both are close order of 8,000 (per stratfor).
As for what happened to the others, various writers — including John Keegan, Stratfor, and others, have wondered where they are.
Iraq, like most such regimes, stationed army units far from home. A 10,000 man division marching home would be quite noticable. It’s need for shelter and food would make demands on the areas thru which it passes. That many young men with guns and no structure would create mini-crime waves. That’s why commanders surrender instead of disbanding, for the sake of their men and their homes.
No such reports. Perhaps they never existed.
No WMD yet, as you say. Finding WMD must have been a top priority, if only to prevent them from falling into other hands. We’ve reassigned 2 of the 4 mobile search/lab teams to other work.
And what of the intelligence of which we boasted, and provided the basis for attacking? The weapons could be destroyed or hidden, but not so easily fixed bases. But still an open issue.
The outcome for Iraq remains open, of course. While I too have read speculations about every possible result, I have seen nothing hopeful from any academic or professional area expert. I am sure there are such, but suspect they are a minority. Not a subject on which I have competant opinion, but the quick mobilization of Shia factions — and their anti-american attitudes are disturbing.
It does seem a widely expressed opinion that they want us out, and soon. True, we can impose bases on them by force. But the cost for them and us seems likely to be steep.
As for the French, I refer only to the logic of their statements — which seem (prelim, so far) to be more correct than the pre-war statements of our leaders. Logic, evidence — more important then motives.
The most important I save for last. As an American, I consider the Constitution important. Likewise, to a lesser degree, the “Law of Nations.” I mention their use in the Consitution to show the antiquity of their origins, the centuries of work to push back the Hobbsian jungle of international relations.
Throwing them aside for so little seems foolish, IMHO.
That we’ve (perhaps) lost credibility seems important, esp. for a global leader.
As for honor, I suspect a voting majority of US citizens believe that honor remains an important foundation for US actions — however antique that might seem to more jaded Eurofolk.
If we’ve damaged that, again, diminishes my confidence and support for President Bush. A value, not a fact — but still important to me.
There can, of course, be a world of difference between what your private reasons for doing something are and what the politically acceptable public rationale may be.
The real reason for war in Iraq is that when rogue states, WMD and terrorists come together there exists an unacceptable risk to life as normal in the west. The fact that this ‘unholy trinity’ may not be proved to exist together in one place at one time matters little. Weapons don’t kill people, people kill people – so WMD in the hands of say China or France is not a reason to lose sleep. The targets are rogue states and terrosists. A perfectly reasonable and rational response is then the one just taken: Don’t risk anything – smash rogue states and terrorists in case they might come together with WMD.
Personally I don’t care a jot if there are or aren’t WMD in Iraq. There was a chance that they were and even that chance is too much.
Two comments,
Firstly, is it not possible that the WMD were buried to hide them from weapons inspectors and western intelligence agencies? Furthermore given that Saddam’s idea of security seems to have been the eradication of those with knowledge it is likely those that hid the weapons are either sufficiently senior to be on the run and therefore unavailable for interrogation or dead.
Given the length of time it took us to find an airbase complete with fighter jets I think we should exercise a little patience when it comes to tracking down weapons that were no doubt hidden as well as possible by a paranoid dictator with an extremely large territory to hide them in.
Speculation I know, but it seems reasonable that as everyone, western and Arabic analysts alike, were predicting a month or longer softening up bombing campaign that this sort of deep hide strategy would have seemed feasible to the regime, allowing time for reclaiming the WMD for use in a defensive or offensive capacity. As it was the almost immediate invasion threw everyone off balance.
Which brings me to my second point which is for Larry. Credit the military with something. The fact that key aspects regarding the Iraqi army and it’s weapons did not happen as predicted is not necessarily due to their absence but could be because of an effective campaign fought in a way that surprised and demoralised the Iraqi army and effectively separated Command and Control from the troops. Bad things not happening may just have had something to do with the influence and efforts of the coalition troops.
Well, as for WMD, it’s too soon to call. The forces there have (or should have) other priorities: security, supressing fedayeen, order, restoring power and water, hunting Ba’athists.
It’ll be three or four more weeks before I even begin to feel concerned.
Besides, WMD was not my main reason for supporting invasion. Nor was liberation, marvelous as it is. It wasn’t terrorism links, or the potential for ending the stasis of the Middle East. Though all these were additional reasons. And certainly not upholding the authority of the UN.
My main reason, though, was basically that stated above by Daniel, that Iraq agreed a ceasefire and then violated it’s terms. I crossed us, and filled a decade with the rhetoric of defiance.
And beyond that, other regimes will now consider whether they really want to pursue WMD, terrorism etc.
In other words: “Do not take the piss.”
Larry, well said.
There was a chance that they were and even that chance is too much.
Patrick,
There’s a chance you will become a serial killer. The twisted reasoning you employ in the post above may be merely the preliminary signs of your descent into homicidal madness. Furthermore, we know you have a computer and access to the internet. It seems clear that their is a risk, however slight, of you accessing terrorist and anarchist websites and gaining the skills and knowledge to committ grievous atrocities. Who knows what atrocitites you are capable of? Can we afford to take that chance? What principle should guide our actions in such considering such a complex issue? Ah, here’s one:
A perfectly reasonable and rational response is then the one just taken: Don’t risk anything
Of course we don’t know for certain that you possess the particular combination of motivation, resources and willpower to conduct such an atrocity, but does it really matter?
the fact that this ‘unholy trinity’ may not be proved to exist together in one place at one time matters little
Obviously not. We could of course send some policemen round to your house to check your history folder, and look behind your dustbin for explosives. They may find the evidence we need to lock you up. But what if they don’t? Does it really matter if the explosives even exist?
Personally I don’t care a jot if there are or aren’t… There was a chance that they were and even that chance is too much.
Well, I think we’ve heard more than enough to jump to a conclusion. Case closed your honour. Please take Patrick to a place of safety, declare him an ‘unlawful combatant’ and keep him in an open air kennel until we can determine in our own sweet time whether he represents a threat.
Have you thought any of this through? As you’ve watched the government run roughshod over the laws governing nations, jeopardising alliances, ruthlessly undermining multilateral institutions that have kept a shaky hold on international order? You’ve abandoned the principles of sovereingty and legality, as well as any pretence of multilateral security. In its place you’ve erected a shaky edifice based on the new gospel of ‘preemptive action’ ‘rogue states’, ‘War of choice’ and whatever other hysterical claptrap is currently peddled in place of rational discourse.
Where are you planning to draw the line? Who is to say what a ‘rogue state’ is? Do you have any idea? It sounds like a convenient buzzword that can be used to label pretty much any nation you have a beef with to me.
Why not act preemptively at home as well? I’ll bet the police know who the local gangsters are in your home town, why bother with assembling evidence against them? Just assemble a hit squad instead and take them out. Whatever you do, don’t take the ‘RISK’ that they may commit a crime, far better to take the RISK that you get the wrong person.
On reflection Patrick I’m going to push for your early release, I don’t believe speculation and supposition are sufficient justification to deny someone their liberty, let alone declare war on a sovereign nation. Besides, you nailed one point which is unarguable:
There can, of course, be a world of difference between what your private reasons for doing something are and what the politically acceptable public rationale may be.
And how…
An introspective libertarian, Gadzooks there’s hope fopr the world yet. The comments are well stated and are indeed the “flip side” to many of the hawkish arguments presented previously on Samizdata.
I doubt anyone likes Saddam and his departure is like the passing of a kidney stone. Painful, but once done, well forgotten. However what amounts to attempted social engineering is almost equally as detestable as the previous state of affairs in Iraq.
To add to the state of political chaos, (as far as the west is concerned) what was once a secular state that repressed too much Islamic expression is now rapidly becoming an Islamic state. Those dear Mullahs are seen as the only coherent and locally believable voice guiding the masses. Oy Vay, as they might say in Jerusalem! Was this in the plan?
And if the plan was to attack Iraq to find the fabled WMDs, any fool might predict that before leaving the Ba’ath party would remove them elsewhere (if they ever had them) and clean up most of the evidence. As the other Arab nations (and Russians)advised some time ago – what is the use of a weapon you could not possibly use in any useful way? If they did not exist then Iraq and not America would be seen to eventually occupy the moral high ground. Now that is a piece of “black comedy”…
Well, lets wait see what happens. If they can’t find any WMDs in Iraq, then I’m sure someone in the area can lend them some (To you 3 Mega Shekels, but if you don’t use it I’ll do a deal) or maybe we could lift trade sanctions and flog ’em some. Hopefully some old ones with a “remote control safety feature” (never say we don’t learn from mistakes).
I wonder what they could pay with? Hmmmm, that oil looks nice…
“I don’t believe speculation and supposition are sufficient justification to deny someone their liberty, let alone declare war on a sovereign nation”
OMG! Those poor Iraqis! We denied them their collective liberty! Yeah, right.
Putting this kind of dogmatic “libertarianism” before the individual freedoms of actual people really is reversing the cart and the horse, you know.
Neither liberty nor real libertarian values are furthered by the perpetuation of evil dictatorships. Respecting the sovereignty of Iraq was nothing more than respecting the sovereignty of Saddam Hussein at the expense of the people who would have been tortured and killed for not voting for him!
It’s time for us in the West to understand that we have not just a right but a responsibility to get rid of evil nations and make the whole world safer and better. As the costs go down, this will happen more and more.
Dogma-obssessed libertarians will never understand this. Rational libertarians who understand that freedom is about more than hiding inside their own state boundaries will be on the same side as all the other freedom-loving capitalists.
At first, I was a little annoyed at the idea of invading Iraq. Really, the Bush administration has done a very, very bad job at communicating clear reasons for the invasion. But, ironically, it was the anti-war protesters that said the invasion was illegal that eventually brought my reluctant support to the war. Like John F, my reasoning for the war was in fact the UN resolutions. There is no doubt in my mind that the cease fire was indeed violated. This wasn’t Gulf War II, *the* Gulf War in fact never ended. It was put on hiatus while the conditions were being met. After the named conditions were met, there *should* have been another resolution(s) that would have renormalized relations with Iraq and thus ended the war.
Possibly eliminating WMD, possibly taking another bite out of terrorism, the potential for the creation of a democratic nation in the middle east…these are all warm-and-fuzzy….but not, in my mind, the justification for the violence.
What is indeed most curious is that the UN really did put itself into a conundrum. I think that most of us here agree that to a large degree a law must be enforced, emphasis on force. (I have read very good statements on moral capital, but…) The UN, by not backing up its law with a credible use of force, really did make itself irrelevant as a body for international security.
My 2 cents…wait…that’s pretty long…that’s a nickel job at least. 😉
Somewhat off topic, but I read an August 2001 publication…the asssessed US share of the UN operations budget is 22% !!! Japan is nearly 20% !!!
Ouch! The assessed US share of peace keeping operations is 25% (down from previously 31%) !!!
Oof….anyone care to do cost benefit analysis?
If Saddam couldn’t use WMDs to (literally) save his life, then he didn’t have any of military significance. “Liberation” hasn’t happened yet, all we’ve done is remove the thugs in charge at the time. You simply cannot say Iraq will become West Germany instead of late 1970s Iran. This wasn’t over the minute the invasion slowed down, and it isn’t over now.
This war was originally sold as fear of WMDs, and Perry wants to let the government off the hook for that lie because he approves of the results of that lie.
More on the so called liberation:
…Many Baghdad residents are outraged to see so many familiar officers back at work in the same olive uniforms that had come to symbolize abuse and fear. Thousands demonstrated at a west Baghdad public square on Monday to protest Mr. Razaq’s appointment.
Mr. Razaq told the Americans that police officers were making as little as $5 a month under the old regime, “so many of them had to do things to get money, and people didn’t like the police department.”
U.S. officials promised a pay increase and a budget for new uniforms,…
Scott, you are right about the WMD issue to an extent – I am surprised that Saddam never used any of these, since it hardly fitted with his previous monstrous behaviour. Of course I am mightly glad he did not, and it says a lot for the excellence of our military planners and troops that the command structure of the Iraqi regime was smashed so fast.
Even so – and I put this to supporters and opponents of war alike – surely the core issue is self defence against a clear and present threat, and not nation building. The neo-cons want the latter, often for the finest of reasons. But as a libertarian, my view is that if folk want to spread liberty and the rest to the Middle East, good for them, but don’t ask me as a taxpayer to foot the bill.
My god, is this the first time I have agreed with Scott on anything?
The war was never about actual WMD nor about liberating the Iraqi people. Those were lame sales tactics used by a president who isn’t a great communicator to shore up desperately needed domestic support for regime change.
The war was about removing a despot who for twenty years had demonstrated an unswerving desire to acquire nuclear weapons, who provided unwavering support and encouragement for the terrorist enemies of Israel, who declared publicly that it was his destiny to make war on Israel and that he would therefore need nuclear weapons (back in the days of Osiraq/Tammuz), who was just 6 months away from fielding nukes at the start of Gulf War 1, and who has demonstrated his willingness to use chemical weapons indiscriminately.
All the UN weapons inspectors, from Scott Ritter to David Albright to Hans Blix, agree on the fact that though they were able to disarm Saddam of at least 90% his current WMD, they were unable to eradicate his capability to quickly rebuild that WMD once UN sanctions are lifted. Witness:
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1998/mj98/mj98albright.html
David Albright, Nuclear Physicist & UNSCOM inspector:
Even as Iraq was agreeing, under the terms of Resolution 687, to disclose its nuclear program and bring it to an end, it was developing a broad strategy for hiding evidence of the program and misleading U.N. inspectors about it.
…
In 1998, many believe that Iraq?s nuclear program has been dismantled and most if not all of the materials and equipment that were used in that program have been found and destroyed. But in a seven-year-plus effort, U.N. inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Action Team have had to work through so many layers of deception, and have received so many different ?full, final, and complete declarations? from the Iraqis, that they have no doubt Iraq is still hiding important information. Inspectors believe they may never know the full story.
And theirs is not idle curiosity. The stakes are high. Inspectors believe that Iraq could reconstitute its nuclear weapons program quickly, once sanctions are lifted. Although Iraq might need several years to recreate its enriched-uranium or plutonium programs, it might be able to acquire fissile material on the black market. In that case, it has already learned enough to be able to build a nuclear weapon in less than a year. As a result, Iraq?s nuclear potential must be carefully scrutinized by international inspectors for some time to come.
Scott Ritter has said likewise in an interview with PBS.org, and Hans Blix is on the record with those sentiments in recent testimony at the UNSC.
This was the true reason for the war in Iraq, and for those libertarians who supported it, there is no need to feel chagrinned at the lack of WMD finds so far. A great menance has been pre-empted. If there is anything we should be concerned about, it is where the policy of pre-emption could potentially lead. Both good and bad can result from it, but that is an argument for another thread.
surely the core issue is self defence against a clear and present threat, and not nation building. The neo-cons want the latter, often for the finest of reasons. But as a libertarian, my view is that if folk want to spread liberty and the rest to the Middle East, good for them, but don’t ask me as a taxpayer to foot the bill.
All things being equal, I would agree. However, without a concerted nation building effort in Iraq, the most likely outcome is that it becomes an islamofascist theocracy like Iran, and just as much a threat as Saddam’s regime was. (Either that, or it breaks into Kurdistan in the North and Shiite islamofaschist theocracy Iraq in the South.) We didn’t use up global good will, billions of dollars in deficit spending, and most importantly the lives of US, British, Polish, and Australian soldiers just to see Iraq revert back to just as much of a threat as Saddam was. In this case, nation-building is merited b/c the alternative consequence of not nation-building would defeat the entire purpose of the war in the first place.
If WMDs weren’t used because we smashed their command structure, we would have found the WMDs. You don’t bury a weapon you’re about to use 500 miles away from the fighting, and if nobody could deliver the order to fire them, nobody would have been able to deliver an order to hide them again.
No WMDs? They’re, um, in Syria, the next country we wanted to attack anyway. Not finding WMDs isn’t a failure, its propoganda for our next war.
No WMDs? That just proves how wonderfully our government fought this war (smashing their command structure and all) and is propoganda for our next war.
I can be more disagreeable if you like. 🙂
I particularly like the mission creep going on here. We don’t like nation building, but we just have to this one time or else Iraq will remain a threat. And we will have to, of course, rebuild those other socialist hell-holes like Syria, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Massachusetts….
For those who are now patting themselves on the back at the lack of actual WMD finds (never mind the finds of untold circumstantial evidence that WMD played a major roll in the Iraqi military mindset) I have some simple questions:
1. Did YOU think that he didn’t have any WMD?
2. Why did you think that?
3. Were you one of the people who though we should give the inspections more time?
4. If so, why are you so impatient with U.S. miltary inspectors when you were planning on giving U.N. inspectors unlimited amounts of time.
5. If Saddam did destroy the weapons the U.N. had catalogued him having, then what happened to them? Were they a myth?
6. If you are smart enough to not think his WMD’s were a myth, then don’t you think finding out what happened to them will be a lot easier with Saddam gone? Moreover, if, as has been alleged in some places, he transferred those weapons to Syria, then don’t you think his regime change may go a long way in keeping Syria in line? Or do you think the U.N. would have done a better job at that?
Just curious.
1. The threat of Saddam using WMDs on us was not proven to my satisfaction by my government (which claimed it was acting to protect me).
2. The burden of proof is on the state, not on me.
3. Not particularly. The UN is full of state worshipping idiots also.
4. NA
5. If Saddam destroyed the weapons, then the weapons were destroyed. This question makes no sense.
6. Yes, I have stopped beating my wife.
The legal question of attacking Iraq should be pretty damn straightforward. If you give a damn about the multilateral institutions you say you cherish, then why were you so hard up to prevent the enforcement of Iraqi obligations. Obligations THEY had agreed to? Obligations signed off on by the world community. Please tell me how the multilateral institutions would have been strengthened by not enforcing the 17 U.N. resolutions that Iraq had agreed to.
Look, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say you like the U.N. and then disagree when some of it’s it’s members have the balls to actually take it’s declarations seriously (which is what the coalition did).
On the WMDs, this is what we know, by “we” I mean those of us here, everyone at the U.N., and even folks at the NYT editorial board.
1. Saddam has used WMDs in the past. Therefore he had them at one time
2. Saddam has tried repeatedly to obtain nuclear weapons and had many of the materials to achieve this (and no, I don’t buy that the nation with the 2nd largest oil deposit wanted nuclear power)
3. Saddam agreed to provide unconditional inspections and agreed to disarm. He had agreed to timelines that matured in the early 90s.
4. As late as 1998, he had still not completely disarmed. The U.N. physically catalogued tons (literally) of chemical weapons and significant amounts of biological weapons. Those weapons were not destroyed as of the date the inspectors left in 98.
5. Saddam provided no evidence (as in zilch, nada, none) that he had destroyed them. He didn’t even bother to falsify paperwork to that effect.
6. He violated the living crap (yes that’s the technical term) out of the oil-for-food program. His violations led to the starvation of many Iraqis.
7. He was in violation of 17 Iraqi resolutions. Everyone outside the French, Russian and German foreign ministries agree he was in violation of 1441.
8. He violated pretty much every aspect of internation human rights declarations and the geneva conventions.
Again, tell me again how WE hurt the multilateral institutions with this action? Iraq was the single largest violator of international treat obligations.
Bush isn’t the only one who has some explaining to do regarding where the weapons went. So do the anti-war people who believed he actually did have them.
Lastly, do I think not finding the WMDs is a bad thing? Yes, politically it would be very bad and Bush will pay political price for it. But ethically, morally, and for the love of God, legally, this war was justified. And it was justified if you truly believe in multilateral organizations and the enforcment of international obligations. If you multilateral fetishist can’t see that, I simply can’t help you.
Scott:
5. If Saddam destroyed the weapons, then the weapons were destroyed. This question makes no sense
You are correct, I wrote that very poorly. If Saddam did remove the weapons from Iraq (via transfer or destruction), where are they or where is the proof of their destruction.
6. Yes, I have stopped beating my wife. Touche. A less biased way to word it is, if Syria has some of Iraq’s WMDs, then what do you think the best way to prevent them from misusing them is. More U.N. diplomacy, or the big stick method of proof of will the U.S. just displayed. Iraq wasn’t meant to be the first of many wars. It was meant to a) solve a well documented world problem and b) provide a lesson on the proper behavior for maniacal dictators. If this lesson is learned by the folks in Syria and elsewhere, then we can avoild more wars.
When did I ever say I cherished a multilateral anything? I do believe you cannot say “we’re enforcing a UN resolution” if the UN doesn’t go along with you. That’s not bowing to the UN; I also believe you cannot say “this is what Russ wants” if Russ doesn’t want it, but that wouldn’t make Russ’ word Law in all things either.
Everybody ignores UN resolutions (which is for the most part fine by me). Have the US and Isreal obeyed every one?
Should we have invaded Iraq in the 80s, when he was gassing the Kurds, or can the government just put atrocities in the bank to be pulled out and used later, when it finds them useful?
Scott: When did I ever say I cherished a multilateral anything?
I think Russ may have aimed that remark at Larry, not you.
5. Dunno – prove they were a threat to me before the invasion.
6. We should also shoot people accused of crimes, to let real criminals know we mean business. Prove Syria’s WMDs (whether theirs or imports from Iraq) are a threat to me, then ‘my’ government can claim acting is justified.
You don’t bury a weapon you’re about to use 500 miles away from the fighting,
No, but you do bury a weapon 500 miles away from where you know the inspectors will be looking. Of course if coalition forces don’t attack as per chapter one of Desert Storm as everyone has told you they will you might be in trouble.
The fact that they didn’t use these weapons means either they couldn’t, wouldn’t or they didn’t exist. Military forces being over run and their equipment taken indicates that the Iraqi military didn’t have the weapons, which rules out wouldn’t. Of the other two, if they didn’t exist why didn’t Saddam just prove it, co-operate with the UN, get the sanctions lifted and laugh in the face of his enemies when it became apparent they couldn’t touch him?
I stand by couldn’t, because they were out of reach. Of course if I knew where I’d tell someone and this argument would be moot!
Scott, I don’t think I ever called you by name except in responding to something you said. Perhaps, you have a more libertarian isolationist tilt than the “multilateralists” I was addressing. Fine by me. We can disagree on that point. It’s certainly a more substantive position. But, you basically back up my point. Everyone ignores U.N. resolutions. Yes they do. Which is why, AS A DEBATING POINT, the “trash the multilateral institutions”(as Larry and others put it above) argument is worthless. That’s really what I’m trying to get at.
I can argue over such things as should we do this or not. That’s fine. Bush chose Iraq for a number of reasons that were debated on this board a few weeks ago. And those reasons haven’t exactly been spelled out in one place. I believe in those reasons we argued about then, but some do not, that’s fine. But, I simply can’t stand the crowd who says the “war is OK, only with U.N. approval.” You either believe Saddam was a threat to the U.S. and others or you don’t. You can’t buy into the threat but then believe it’s not worth fighting without international approval like most European politicans and some U.S. presidential candidates have done. That’s my point. Iraq was either a threat and an integral part of the war on terror or it wasn’t. That’s where the debate should be grounded. Worrying about the impact on the international “system” is just superfluous. And both sides are guilty of it. Hell, Bush used international law essentially as a pretext for invasion. So, he’s certainly guilty of it too.
I’m not actually as against international and multilateral obligations as I sound. I just think there is a love affair with the U.N. and other such arrangements that is completely disconnected from reality.
Scott, you probably agree with that last point. Clearly we disagree on many other things. While you may be one of the most vocal dissenters on this board (and kudos for that), don’t assume we are always addressing you with out own comments.
You asked 6 questions, I gave 6 answers, so I assumed your next post was aimed my way (no biggie, just a misunderstanding).
Jay, you bury weapons 500 miles from the inspectors, then you dig them up when you need to use them (like to fight a US invasion). They knew we were coming, we didn’t prevent orders to get them ready before the attack even if we prevented the order to fire them.
Here’s a bit of humor, making some of the points addressed on this thread.
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/rule-the-world.htm
This is a great thread. Fascinating to see so many libertarians backing a policy which, if continued, seems to me likely to lead to a far stronger state.
It will need that size & strength to gather the resources to maintain global hegomony, surpressing the opposition that always arises in response to a hegemon (both domestic & foreign).
I agree that the plan would have been to dig them up in order to use them against the US. However, the Iraqi’s wouldn’t dig them up before hostilities began because it carried the risk, if discovered, of legitimising the US attack, whereas there must have seemed a fair chance that the US + UK could be stalled, possibly terminally, by the diplomatic process and internal unrest.
Once the hostilities began the scale and type of attack removed the availability of time and space in which to reclaim and reconstitute the weapons. Movement of US troops on the ground cut off access to the entire south west of the country within two days, there wasn’t much time to act and the upper echelons where busy running from bunker busters.
As I said earlier it’s speculation but unless someone can explain the actions of Saddam in the run up to the war and provide some evidence of what they did with 4 tons of nerve agent it’ll remain my preferred theory.
Because tyrants like Saddam have such a deft PR touch.
Scott,
Your implying that Saddam hasn’t managed to play the international community with amazing effectiveness?
This is the man whose political career survived a UN backed war, managed to profit out of having sanctions levied on his country, has despite an absolutely horrific human rights record managed to be lauded by several British political figures and kept a process that was supposed to last 3 months running for 12 years. Who, depite being the most secular of Arab leaders managed to have the rest of the Arab world follow his agenda. And had, lest we forget, two out of five permanent members of UNSC prepared to veto action against him, while people like Galloway and Benn got millions of people to cheer in defiance of their government in central London. Has in fact through his actions managed to effectively neuter the UNSC and possibly NATO.
Your right, he’s been absolutely crap at PR
He was supported by the West because we found him useful in opposing the Soviet Union and then Iran. The support he got during the latest war was more anti-US than pro-Saddam.
He is absolutely crap at PR. Rumsfeld is just worse.
Been off planet?
We had this little falling out with Saddam back in ’91, remember?
Which only proves my point – was Iraqi PR any good during Gulf War I? Did they match the incubator lie Kuwait told us to justify the war?
“The latter stance, though, however idealistic and admirable as an ideal, smacks of hubristic social engineering”
Not “smacks of”. It IS social engineering – viz we’re going to turn all those Arabs into good democracy loving liberals.
So how come when the soc dems do social engineering at home we hate it, but when they do it abroad, we love it?
IMHO the reasons why we hate it at home ought to apply equally when Governments try to do it abroad:
1) Governments know squat all about what people really want or what’s good for them. If it’s true at home, it’s all the more true when the people concerned live a long way away in a strange country. Except in a trivial sense, Rumsfeld et al cannot know what the average Basran Shia wants from his life or what he/she values.
2) Most things Governments try their hands at end up worse than before. Just think of education, health, welfare, you name it. Why should this be any different? What’s the betting Iraq ends up as anything other than a fanatically anti-Western Shia theocracy?
3) It makes the Government even bigger than before and legitimises large scale social engineering.
4) Cost
Cydonia
p.s. presumably the pro-war libs who favour the bringing of liberty to Iraqi’s will have no problem with a Shia theocracy if that is what the locals want?
Has in fact through his actions managed to effectively neuter the UNSC and possibly NATO.
Don’t give all the credit to Saddam on this one Jay. Save some for the perpetrators of the single most hamfisted and pathetic attempt at diplomatic alliance building in recent memory.
Remember the litany of petty insults and gaffes from the US administration towards the other parties? They blew so much political capital for so little gain they could have been actively trying to sabotage/sideline the UN/NATO. They certainly showed little interest in bringing them on board.
The diplomatic initiatives were little more than a sop to Blair and the promoters of this war were more than happy with their narrow base of support, therefore retaining control over the war and its aftermath.
Oops, forgot my tag!
Still, on a more general note, this elevation of Saddam into a PR mastermind or James Bond style evil villain is laughable. He was a comon or garden dictator, primarily concerned with staying in power. His risible pretensions of uniting the Arab world had already been exposed and his sanctions ravaged obsolete force would’ve been no match for Kuwait, let alone the other regional powers. He would no more have attacked the US with WMD than he would have slit his own throat.
It was the fact that he had survived, not only GW1 but the sanctions afterwards that marked him for elimination, not the WMD. What an embarrassment for the planners in the Pentagon!
Oh, there’s a rumour that there’s oil in them ‘thar hills, that may be a factor as well…
Scott,
Saddam capitalising on anti-US sentiment to further his own aims is excellent PR.
Did they match the incubator lie Kuwait told us to justify the war?
I don’t know what this means. If you are saying that Saddam screwed up by misjudgng whether the international community would act against him then yes he got that wrong.
But what we were talking about was his ability to sow dissent in the ranks of supposed allies and his ability to fail to meet any of the requirements placed on him by the international community while at the same time managing to somehow be judged as not being guilty enough to act against. That is also good PR.
How do you go about searching for hidden WMD?
Presumably you take all the information you have about where they may have been and what they may have looked like and then think – how would I go about hiding these WMD. Then as you have no definite knowledge of where they are you use your best “guess” and you start random searching.
Well I don’t know about you – but if had Saddam’s Regime at my disposal and I had a country the size of Iraq to hide something that only takes up a few tens of thousands of square feet at most!!!
I think I could make a pretty good job of ensuring a hiding place that might take a good couple of hundred years to be found by random searching.
I’m quite surprised that nobody has found anything that could be called a “weapon of mass destruction.” It’s not like chemical weapons are rare. Before the invasion I figured that if nothing else one of Saddam’s palaces would have a swimming pool, with a supply of chlorine nearby.
Matt said: “Oh, there’s a rumour that there’s oil in them ‘thar hills, that may be a factor as well…”
Puhlease. Gulf War I had far more to do with Oil than this war did. Unless you are France, Russia or Germany.
If you’ll pardon me some sour grapes: On the question of U.S. diplomacy, why is it that anything that seems to go wrong in the world is somehow a failure of U.S. diplomacy. Cuba’s locking up people. It’s somehow a U.S. diplomat’s fault. The Israeli Palastinian question hasn’t been solved, must be because that Cowboy in the White House forgot the words to Kumbaya. Kosovo or Rwanda? The White House sat on their hands. Sept. 11th? Happened because of arrogant U.S. policy in the region. The U.S. can’t convince France, Germany and Russia to put their monetary and petroleum interests aside, not to mention the Franco-German desire to rule Europe, so we can please disarm Saddam. Well, naturally it is the U.S.’s fault.
Seriously, how is it Bush’s fault that Christopher Patten and every other EU bureaucrat thinks the U.S. doesn’t understand the nuance of the middle east, even though it is EU money and UN support that has fueld the Palastinian Authority’s violence. Nevermind that EU bureacrats are more likely to use crude language in reference to the U.S. than towards former colonial dictatorships. Canada’s prime minister says the U.S. doesn’t understand the poverty in the world. Yep, we’s be confused about 3rd world kleptocracy and stuff. At least two close aids of alliied prime ministers called Bush dumb, a moron or Hitler. Chirac very publically speaks down to Eastern European nations as if they are children. Yet, it’s the U.S. that is arrogant.
Rumsfeld didn’t fail at anything, diplomacy wise. Rumsfeld has simply responded in kind. Not to mention, he’s made the most important geo-political analysis of the last decade with his Old Europe New Europe comment.
I understand that the U.S.’s unique position in the world requires us to be a little more humble in international diplomacy. And if you’d stop reading Guardian editorials and actually listen to what the people in power actually say and do, the U.S. has bent over backwards not to speak ill of allies, when you got to believe “cheese eating surrender monkey” is quite ready to roll off their tongues. But, the self-described sophistacates in the EU and the UN act as if everyone in the U.S. must be a complete dipshit because we’ve been generally supportive of the ill spoken Texan in the White House. Well, I got a little news for you. Sorry, Jaques, but that’s a pretty simplistic view of things.
The incubator lie was when the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter (who was in the US the entire time of Iraqi occupation) went to Congress posing as an average Kuwaiti civilian who saw Iraqi troops stealing incubators from hospitals, dumping premature babies on the floor to do so. She lied.
Also on the PR front, how many people know that part of the original Iraq-Kuwait tension was from Kuwaiti slant drilling (drilling across the border into Iraq, in other words, we were defending thieves)?
There is one way that this ‘new global hegemony’ could support libertarian principles, in relation to less, not more government. It ain’t gonna happen, but a girl can dream, can’t she?
If, by projecting power in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have proved to the world that you really, really don’t mess with the US, maybe we could begin to dismantle some overseas bases and bring troops home (specifically from Germany and S. Korea). Of course, that would take time and a bit of sorting out of the “new world order’. It probably won’t happen because of the physical laws of the beltway – (E = mc2 : extensive liberty crushing beaurocracy = military x civilian (state) governmental spending squared). Everyone will fight for their little piece of the pie (pork?) and said bases will not be dismantled.
Oh well.
Scott, how ya doin? I have to say not finding WMD yet is a bit disconcerting. Although, the Taliban didn’t have WMD and they managed to host some righteous nasties, whose actions sort of started this whole mess. How long did it take to sort out WMD issues when the Soviet Union fell?
Y’all may not like the source of the quote, but its a good article:
Where Have All the WMD-Hunters Gone?
…The US military certainly has been looking for chemical and biological weapons as well as evidence of a nuclear bomb program (Iraq was never said to be in possession of nuclear weapons). But what is surprising–if not scandalous–is that two weeks after US troops moved into Baghdad the Bush Pentagon has not yet mounted a full sweep of Iraq for WMD, or even dispatched a sufficient amount of trained troops and specialists to conduct such a mission. It’s as if the Bush administration and the Pentagon had not bothered to listen to their own rhetoric about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction while planning the invasion and occupation. Shouldn’t a mess of these units have been scrambling across Iraq–using all that prewar intelligence that allowed administration officials to declare without pause that Saddam Hussein controlled enough of these dangerous weapons to be a direct threat to the United States–within days, if not hours, of the collapse of Hussein’s murderous regime? Perhaps they should even have been among the forward-deployed troops. Yet while some US WMD-hunters are hard at work, the Pentagon acknowledges that nothing close to a full detachment has been sent to Iraq. As The Los Angeles Times reported on April 20, the Defense Department is still preparing to send “hundreds of additional investigators to speed up the search” for WMD and remains in the process of “assembling a ‘survey group’ with more than 1,000 experts to interrogate Iraqi scientists and sift through recovered documents to broaden the search for weapons of mass destruction.”
Is it dumb to ask, why wasn’t all this ready to go when the war started?
…Whether biological and chemical weapons and the remnants of an active nuclear program are found or not, Bush and his national security team have already violated their prewar commitment to the United States and the world. They claimed that finding and eliminating WMD in Iraq was the prime reason for the war. Yet they–of all people–do not seem to have taken the threat seriously, for they failed to draw up adequate plans to deal with it. Even if the MET teams and the come-lately reinforcements uncover WMD caches, they will likely never know what they missed–and where and with whom it might be today.
14 years and counting?
Scott: Jay, you bury weapons 500 miles from the inspectors, then you dig them up when you need to use them (like to fight a US invasion). They knew we were coming, we didn’t prevent orders to get them ready before the attack even if we prevented the order to fire them.
Not really. Chemical weapons have, for the most part, quite short shelf lives… so they are assembled shortly before they are going to be used (i.e. in a matter of weeks or at most months). Also, the longer the weapons are assembled and loaded into shells or missile warheads, the longer they can be located and attacked by air or special forces. These are facts.
Now comes the suppositions. If Gulf War II was just Gulf War I redux, it would have started with the mother-of-all-air-offensives for several weeks, i.e. the Allies give up strategic and operational surprise in order to leverage air supremacy prior to the ground attack. During that time the Iraqis may have planned to dig up any buried and dispersed components and assemble some weapons to be used and send them off to suitable delivery units…
But that is not what happened. Gulf War II was a very brief air attacks with almost immediate ground attacks into Iraq across the border at Umm Qasr and amphib/airmobile assaults on the Al Faw Peninsula. Instead of maximum airpower leverage, this time the allies elect to go for moderate strategic surprise and massive operational and tactical surprise. Ooops.
To make matters worse for the Iraqis, the complete operational and tactical surprise, plus the rapid degradation of CCI capabilities, mean even if they order some chems dug up and assembled ASAP, they are really not sure which unit to send the damn things to if they get then ready as Iraqi tactical intelligence is so bad they cannot accurately locate any allied units (keep in mind that getting an enemy unit location wrong by as little as one kilometre means all you chemical weapons will kill is a few goats).
The fact the Iraqis did not use chemical weapons is neither surprising not in and of itself proof of their existence or non-existence. For me the best argument they must exist was that offered by Russ and Jay N… why risk destruction by the USA if all you need to do is bend over backwards to help the idiots from the UN actually do their job proving Iraq had no WMD production capabilities?
Everyone agreed that Blix’s Keystone Cops were being obstructed by the Iraqis, so ask yourself, WHY?
Blix and Co were being obstructed because Saddam was a secretive tyrant. That in and of itself isn’t proof they had anything they could threaten US civilians with. Besides, you don’t actually believe Bush wouldn’t have invaded anyway even if God Himself had appeared on Fox News saying Iraq didn’t have any WMDs. You sound like you would have supported the invasion anyway. If the invaders don’t care what the UN inspectors said, why would the invadees?
So you agree with Scott Ritter that past WMD history doesn’t mean anything about current WMD capability (since they have short shelf lives)?
In other words, transporting WMDs would have been risky during that air campaign, which is all the more reason to have them moved into position beforehand.
Did you actually read the whole of what I wrote, Scott?
1. Your second main paragraph makes no sense. The ability to ASSEMBLE chemical weapons is what matters. Past assembled WMD which may have been destroyed, and WMD CAPABILITY (which means the ability to assemble them if they are needed) are two completely different things.
2. The ability to move the weapons into ‘position’… but only after it was clear an attack was going to happen in a few weeks at most (i.e. any US actions were not just a poke with the rattling sabre). But they did not get the operational warning they may have been expecting, hense no chance to assemble or mocve the weapons. Whilst moving trucks during a air offensive is dangerous, it is nothing compared to moving trucks during a ground offensive, particularl if the only way you have to guess where the front line is currently is by watching CNN.
1. Assemble them out of what? What is it about chemical weapons that have “short shelf lives” as compared to an AK47?
2. Please, we made it painfully obvious we were about to invade. Saddam would have been the only surprised person on the planet if he didn’t expect it (which goes against the Evil Genius theory others are selling).
Russ,
Apologies if my throwaway remark is taking this OT but I figured you deserved a detailed answer.
The oil reference was my (doubtless lame) attempt at humour but I’d hope you would agree that the oil is, at least a (singular) factor – Note, I’m not saying its ALL about the oil or anything like that, simply that Iraq has the second largest deposits in the world and the Saudis are no longer playing ball so lets all be realistic and agree that it appears somewhere in the equation. How far up or down depends on your perspective.
I wasn’t seeking to make a point about US diplomacy in general being weak, but in this example (building support for attacking Iraq) it was definitely not up to scratch. Certainly, I would argue that deficiencies in US diplomacy were more damaging to the eventual size of the coalition against Iraq than any smart moves on Saddam’s side (the point of my previous post)
why is it that anything that seems to go wrong in the world is somehow a failure of U.S. diplomacy
Isn’t this simply what happens when you are a superpower and involved in virtually every theater of conflict? If you posess overwhelming military, economic and political power and influence it is natural, if not entirely fair, that people will hold you responsible for anything and everything that they don’t like. To take the Palestinian case as an example, those on the Palestinian side would cite the US repeated use of its veto to quash any censure of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and West bank as being down to the US. Now, we should know that the US is not omnipotent and its thus not fair to blame the entire ages old conflict to its partisan stance but life aint fair. Its unavoidable in other words and you’ll just have to get used to it.
EU money and UN support that has fueld the Palastinian Authority’s violence
Again, we have significantly different perceptions on the crisis in Israel. We see US supported members of the IDF bulldozing houses, shooting peace protesters and think the same thing.
As for Iraq, you must understand that the US was wayyy out of line with the rest of the world on its take on Iraq in the first place. From the day after Sept 11th there were voices in America calling for action against Saddam, this was incomprehensible to the Europeans. We knew that Bin Laden had nothing to do with Hussein and regarded him as a ‘busted flush’ repulsive, sure but contained and certainly not a threat deserving military intervention. It was for the US to make this case and carry its allies with it. This it failed to do. The linkage which the administration used successfully to generate support back home (I think almost %50 of Americans believed that Iraq was responsible in some way for the WTC attacks in one survey) just wouldn’t work on European audiences, they know that this was simply not the case.
You know that politics is ‘the art of the possible’. Well France has 6 million Muslim citizens, many of them deeply suspicious of US motives in the Middle East and looking to their democratically elected government to represent their concerns. Of course they’re going to be cautious. If the US was to get France on board they had to be seen to be genuinely looking for a peaceful outcome, and whether this is true or not, that simply did not seem plausible. From debating 1441 in November it was clear that the US was getting ready for war, the Europeans could not simply jump on board. Bush was asking something which the leadership in Europe could not have delivered. It damn near brought Blair down remember, and the UK is probably the closest ally you could wish for. The UK population have more affinity with the US than Europe and they weren’t convinced. In Blair you have a supremely gifted political persuader and arm twister and he nearly lost his job.
With the best diplomacy you would have had trouble squaring this circle, but with flexibility in the timetable, more time spent on preparing the ground, more tact and humility from certain spokesmen and, I think most importantly greater control and discipline exercised over some of the figures in and around the administration and you may have acheived your goals without the fracturing that has taken place. Hence my classing it as a diplomatic failure.
Rumsfeld has simply responded in kind. Not to mention, he’s made the most important geo-political analysis of the last decade with his Old Europe New Europe comment.
Unfortunately Rummy’s plainspoken style doesn’t travel well. His links to the old administration and its support of Saddam was one problem. A week before the war started his off hand remark that US could go it alone without UK help caused a massive rumpus in the UK, amongst many of the war supporters ironically enough.
I disagree regarding the profundity of the ‘Old Europe’ speech.
you’d stop reading Guardian editorials and actually listen to what the people in power actually say and do, the U.S. has bent over backwards not to speak ill of allies, when you got to believe “cheese eating surrender monkey” is quite ready to roll off their tongues.
Well, I read the Telegraph (the antiGuardian) on a daily basis and most of the more inflammatory comments along the ‘cheese eating’ line come from commentators, often touted as being close to the administration. Richard Perle won few friends in Europe for his slamming of the UN, an institution which commands significantly more respect in Europe than the States (although not on these oages 😉 ).
the self-described sophistacates in the EU and the UN act as if everyone in the U.S. must be a complete dipshit
Agreed, they can be bloody patronising. There’s a fair amount of patronising of Americans coming out of Europe which is highly irritating and unfair.
Finally, every single inflammatory remark and poorly judged phrase on either side of the Atlantic has been instantly seized upon by parties on both sides keen to foster this break. The reality is that there still remains an immense amount of goodwill towards America on mainland Europe, alhough suspicions regarding the administration are significant.
Isn’t “New Europe” the same set of countries Perry thinks should have done a better job of de-Communizing themselves, and “Old Europe” de-Nazified Germany and de-Facisized Italy and liberated France?
Matt: Your more detailed point about oil is quite fair. Oil factors into it to be sure. But, I believe it’s quite peripheral, whereas I think it was a very large factor in the 1st gulf war. The “it’s all for oil” crowd don’t understand this of course, and I apologize that I kind of lumped you in with those folks.
You make a good point about the U.S.’s position in the world being the reason why we get “blamed” for so many problems. I kind of aluded to that when saying we should be more humble. Also, I did note I was expressing some sour grapes, so I was kind of venting. Even so, I think my point is correct. It’s the disconnect that drives me nuts. French diplomacy is the very example of arrogance and nationalism, while Americans worry about the Cameroonians (sp?) think. Moreover, the actual evidence of American arrogance, bullying, and “unilateralism” is simply not there in any quantity that warrents the stereotype. It’s a vision that has been created by the left wing media.
Rumsfeld did slip on his comments about going it alone. I got to believe he got a good talking to from his boss on that one. He’s occasionally careless to be sure, but I do not believe he has made personal attacks on any foreign leader (I could be wrong). This can not be said of high ranking officials of allied countries. And the primary problem with Rumsfeld, as viewed by Euro elites, is that he speaks uncomfortable truths in plain English. He hasn’t mastered the language of the diplomat. Many in the US see that as a good thing.
Your point about the difference in perspective in Europe on Iraq being at the core of the problem is dead on. But, I think the reason why that is, is a much larger issue than Iraq or even the war on terror. So, that’s something that should probably be explored at greater length elsewhere. But, I don’t think that it’s a failure of U.S. diplomacy that we didn’t change the European perspective, which is based on a totally different set of assumptions than the U.S. (I’m aware I’m working with generalizations, which are handy only up to a point).
On Richard Perle, I’d simply note that he was part of a citizen’s advisory committee. He has influence, but there are many such committees on all sorts of issues. The view of Perle, and the suddenly sinister neocons (some of which are, gasp, Jewish) has really taken on a life of it’s own. The various neo-con think tanks have had influence, but nothing like the puppetmaster-like myth that has received so much hype in the last few months. He’s a talking head. He knows people in the administration. So does Kenneth Pollack, who made probably the most convincing case for war in his book, yet no one considers him part of the “neo-con conspiracy” because he’s not conservative, not Jewish and votes Democrat. Matt, I’m not saying you are doing this, but I really have to wonder if Perle’s statements are given extra weight in the European media, especially when his views are considered sinister, because he is a Jewish neo-conservative whose certainly pro-Israel.
Finally, point taken about the good will. I have relatives in both Germany and Holland (3 of which are visiting us right now) and I get that impression as well. The worldviews are simply different. Again, why that is could take a disertation. I just wish traditional European allies would give a little benefit of the doubt to the U.S. instead of 3rd world dictators and their state-sponsored mouthpieces. I think the U.S. has earned at least that much. So, if it takes a little while to find WMDs (woohoo, back on topic!) and we do find them, I would hope “they planted it” won’t be the first thing off the lips of bureaucrats in supposedly friendly nations.
1. There were many, many advance reports that the strategy this time around included an immediate ground invasion. So there was no reason for Iraq to assume a weeks-long air-only campaign. All of the concern in the run-up to war was that we were about to launch “Market Garden II.” It never got that bad, but the concerns themselves are testament to how widely-publicised the war plan was.
2. If the Iraqis were getting the Russian advice reported, then even if the Iraqis somehow missed the copious broadcasts about The Plan (short sharp Shock and Awe followed by a Race to Baghdad), the Russians knew, and undoubtedly had signals intelligence etc. confirming this.
3. As for not cooperating with the inspectors, there are solid reports that Western Intelligence penetrated the first inspections regime and used it to gather non-WSD-related intelligence. There are many public statements over the last dozen years by US officials saying that no matter what Iraq did about its WSDs, the US would never consent to the lifting of the sanctions so long as Saddam Hussein remained in power.
4. There may indeed have been chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and credible proof of this may yet emerge, but as Scott points out, the US isn’t ACTING like a country that believes this. A responsible government that believed there were quantities of WSDs in Iraq would not just start searching after the war, but would structure its force levels and invasion plans to secure suspect sites and escape routes quickly – frex, sealing the Syrian and Iranian borders ASAP and putting boots on the ground outside all the hundreds of sites in Mr. Powell’s secret dossier. That would mean more troops in the first wave.
5. You’d also think that the various scientists said to be in charge of the Bad Things programs would be higher up in the deck than the Finance Minister, _or at least in the deck at all_. (As “Dr. Germ” seems not to have been.)
I never doubted that Iraq had WSDs until the actual war. Now I have to wonder.
Cydonia wrote “p.s. presumably the pro-war libs who favour the bringing of liberty to Iraqi’s will have no problem with a Shia theocracy if that is what the locals want?”
To cite the opinion of a non-libertarian who I believe puts well the best possible argument for “social engineering” in Iraq, his answer would be “No” (i.e., the Iraqi’s cannot have a theocracy if that’s what many/most of the locals want, because a theocracy is a denial of liberty. They must have rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of religion.) I suggest that the Samizdatsas (both pro and anti war) grapple with Steve’s argument, particularly the likely results and alternatives. It may be wrong, but it is at least a coherent view that “social engineering” is in this case a necessasry form of self defense
I have no problem with imposing a form of government (rather that the actual government) on Iraq at bayonet point. If large numbers of Iraqis say “No, we will not tolerate that”, then you do what the US and UK would have done in Germany circa 1946… you use force. You shoot people if you have to. De-Nazification was not done with a whole lot of ‘please and thank you’ either.
Democracy is just a side issue and can come later, if at all. Set up some confederal system to make whoever ends up running Baghdad about as strong as the Swiss central government compared to the cantons (i.e. not very). This also reduces the chance of Islamic moonbats taking over the whole country at a later date.
If the US and UK governments are willing to go to war to change the regime, it makes little sense to get squeamish about using force to keep the new government within acceptable limits. Acceptable to whom? To a basic core of western liberal values, of course.
If the locals are idiotic enough to want some Islamic law, well just so long as there are enough get-out clauses for those who don’t and just so long as women are not disenfranchised, and just so long as non-Muslims can opt out, and just so long as regional autonomy is respected, etc etc etc.
Many sections of Iraqi society have a vested interest in not seeing Baghdad get too powerful, such as the Kurds, the Sunni minority (if the Shia’s come to dominate Baghdad), secularists etc… so it is not like the US will have to make water run uphill to avoid a return to a Ba’athist style centralised state but with some Ayatollah Khomeini wannabe at the helm.
If some of the locals do not like that, tough shit… just remind them who has the bigger stick. It makes little sense to go to all this trouble and then just let the Islamofascists replace the Ba’athist Socialists.
Thanks to Perry for the nice summary of what exactly he means by “liberation.”
Sure Ken… “liberation” means exactly the same as it did in 1945. Funny that, eh?
Funny how Perry said we had to invade Iraq because the people there yearned to breathe free but were helpless against their totalitarian regime (and so freedom had to be a gift from some other government – they couldn’t free themselves), but now Perry wants to turn our guns on those same people because, amazingly enough, they may want the wrong thing after all.
“. . . in order for the social compact to avoid being an empty formula, it tacitly entails the commitment — which alone can give force to the others — that whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body. This means merely that he will be forced to be free”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on liberating Iraqis
Well, the problem is , who is this “they” that want the “wrong” thing ( I have no idea if that sentence is grammatically correct, it sounds funny, but oh well). I think we all went down this road on Samizdata before when discussing who “the people” are.
One thing I know for sure, it ain’t the Turkish or Iranian or Syrian agents running around Iraq. Isn’t this how Afghanistan’s mess started? This time around, isn’t a little of Perry’s “tough shit”/tough love justified in at least policing the borders, so to speak. I mean, we started this thing, right? So what’s the point of messing it up now?
WMD? The debriefing sessions with Tariq Aziz and the like will be very interesting….If we don’t find them (or evidence of active, relatively current plans to procure more), that is not good for US credibility at all ( or the credibility of the UN and myriad other intelligence agencies all saying the exact same thing, albeit in very different ways). What on earth is going on here?
From ABC News:
W A S H I N G T O N, April 25 — To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam’s weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
“We were not lying,” said one official. “But it was just a matter of emphasis.”…
Who “they” are is easy, they are the individual human beings living within Iraqs borders. If enough of them individually want the wrong type of government, Perry will bomb them.
Scott, sometimes you argue your case well but this is not one of those times. All you are doing now is striking poses and I expected better of you.
Are you suggesting that I am arguing the ‘we’ should turn our guns of the people in Iraq who want to see a modicum of liberal western values imported into Iraq? Or do you think, just maybe, I might be suggesting that if we have turned our guns on the Ba’athists, we should not hesitate to turn our guns on the Islamofascists? As I have said ad nauseam, I am not a great fan of democracy (the one thing paleo-libertarian Hans Hermann Hoppe and I agree on) if it gets in the way of liberty, so what the majority want is of little interest to me… a tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.
But if you are not willing to fight and kill the people who seek to remove liberty, then any claims to actually care about liberty is just empty rhetoric and coffee house posturing.
Killing some people for liberty of others might seem like an oxymoron (like fucking for virginity), but it is no more of a contradiction that taking a knife to a person to cut out cancer. Reality is rarely clean and tidy: some cancer patients die as a result of the operation. In the real world the squeamishness and insularity of the anti-armed liberation advocates are just a form of moral autarky that is tantamount to refusing to help fellow survivors from a shipwreck when they are attacked by sharks. The reality is that, at best, you just get eaten last.
When I started reading it, Samizdata was a combo philosophy & current event blog. Fun & interesting.
Now I find it max disturbing!
I do not see the equality of Iraq vs. Nazi Germany. With pretty much the full support of their citizens, German attacked its neighbors and committed large-scale attempted genocide.
That justified its long-term occupation and forced political & cultural change by other nations. Also their total defeat made this possible. Neither condition applies to Iraq.
“I have no problem with imposing a form of government (rather that the actual government) on Iraq at bayonet point. If large numbers of Iraqis say “No, we will not tolerate that”, then you do what the US and UK would have done in Germany circa 1946… you use force. You shoot people if you have to….”
Who are we to do this? By what authority?
Pls do not mention 9/11. The links between Al Qeda and Iraq are too tenuous to justify such measures, despite the propaganda that’s convinced many Americans that Iraq did it.
Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Larry: as far as I am concerned, if the Swiss or Lithuanian or Mexican armies had invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussain, that would be just fine by me. September 11th has nothing to do with this really.
I have always been dubious about the claimed Ba’athist Iraq-Al Qaeda link, though the revelation of that large training camp in Northern Iraq has moved me into the “well, okay, maybe” camp on that issue now.
And if the “Islamofacists” turn out to be a majority, are you willing to turn your guns on them or not? Are you willing to kill that majority if they happen to be Islamofacists and if they refuse to back down? We’re no longer talking about a handful of govt officials. Take it as a hypothetical if you want, but what’s the upper bound on the number of Iraqis you’re willing to kill to “liberate” the country?
I don’t buy the argument, but FYI (never let it be said I only disclose things that help my arguments):
THE MYSTERY OF SADDAM’S MISSING WEAPONS
Here’s one theory: He did such a good job of hiding them from
U.N. inspectors that they were unreachable when the war began
Fine, speaking hypothetically, as Larry pointed out is a rather different context, Nazi Germany did what it did with widespread support within that country. To destroy Nazi Germany it was not required to kill the majority of Germans and it will require even less Iraqis to die to achieve something similar in Iraq.
The reality is that ‘who is the majority?’ does not change the moral calculus all that much, it just makes the tactical considerations different once you actually have the bayonets in the capital city.
I doubt it will in fact work out that a true majority support Islamofascism, but as I have no idea how it will ultimately pan out any more than you do, I do not propose to get into ideological trench warfare on the subject. I think we all know where the other folks here stand and it seems to me we are just working on points for style now.
There has to be an upper limit to how much force you are willing to use against the average Iraqis on the street before you have to stop saying you “liberated” them, even if you let them live. Letting them know you’d kill them so they’ll behave and you don’t have to bother isn’t exactly limited force.
There’s a big moral difference between a surgeon and a mugger, but a surgeon will not operate if he has to cut out so much that the patient dies.
And you base this on….? Hitler wasn’t in power as long as Saddam (there were more Germans w/ living memories of pre-Nazi Germany than Iraqis in the same situation), and Germans had been part of European civilization for as long as there was such a beast. They also had a Soviet Union to fear (and thus cooperate with the Allies). I don’t see how you can just assert that this will be easier in Iraq than Germany.
As we are in the realm of pure conjecture at this point, Scott, I see little value is debating it as I am sure you can figure out what my responses will be to any question you ask on this… I can certainly figure out yours (and I do not mean to be rude by that). My views is that your predictions are based on your desire for it to go badly wrong so that your meta-context survives contact with what has happened in the last month… obviously you will not see it that way and I hope, probably vainly, you feel no overwhelming need to confirm that at great length.
As only the history books will prove which of us (if either) is correct, I have little of value to add to this thread unless someone pulls a hitherto unknown and unexpected kind of rabbit out of this particular hat that Johnathan Pearce created.
Just as an aside… I find it fascinating to see which blog posts generate passionate interest and a deluge of comments. Often it is articles that I expect will shuffle down Samizdata.net’s page largely un-remarked before falling into the archives which turn out to be the ones greeted with clarion calls and angry-villagers-waving-torches, whereas some of what I think are ‘dynamite articles’ generate little more that a subdued murmur and the occasional burp. Go figure.
I don’t see the “pure conjecture” behind my last question (why re-integrating Germany into the West was harder than integrating Iraq for the first time will be), and I don’t see “what price are you willing to pay?” to be an unfair question.
Why won’t the War Party ever spell out exactly how far they are willing to go (Iran? Syria? NK?, How long will occupation be?), instead of retreating behind empty verbage like “meta-context”?
I did not think it was an ‘unfair question’, just a largely arid one. Centuries of somewhat analogous British colonial experience suggests mass murder is rarely required to impose a form and degree of political order on a country after it has been conquered militarily. I see no reason to think Iraq in 2003 will be the exception that proves the rule. As you are now descending into petulance, I feel no need to answer you at great length.
Like British colonial experience in the Middle East, which obviously didn’t prevent the current situation there. You’ve proven my point; it didn’t work before so there’s no reason to expect it to work this time.
Mass killing isn’t necessarily mass “murder” – you don’t need death camps, you just need to kill people as they resist.
“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes.”
— Winston Churchill
Any you still haven’t justified your claim, mass murder required or not, that cleaning up Nazi Germany was easier than cleaning up Iraq will be.
I don’t know why you humor scott as much as you guys do. the Brits did just fine in maintaining Pax Britannica when they were strong enough to enforce it in the shitholes of the world like Iraq, and they did it with a fraction of the army folks like the French used in their colonial empire. they largely did this by letting the locals largely run their own affairs so the analogy seems like a pretty good one to me. Obviously if you are using force, it means that you need to be willing to kill the people who resist you. This is hardly a breathtaking insight. That things turned to shit after the British Empire collapsed economically after two world wars does not prove the idea of imposing an order from outside cannot work, it just proves that when an empire collapses that mean it is no longer willing to spend its treasure and blood to keep the former colonies in line. In other words, when an empire collapses, it collapses. duh.
Snide, here’s a blurb about Empire from the Churchill article above:
Great quote, Scott.
It’s a nice bit of topic drift. The US plans — not clear at this point — seem to assume a neo-colonial role in Iraq. Setting up the new polity & boundaries on acceptable national action, plus a long-term US military bases from which we pressure neighboring Islamic nations.
1. Everyone recognizes that game, seem unlikely to tolerate it, and knows the successful countermoves.
2. Nor is their support in western countries for the necessary repressive measures.
3. Nor does the US have Legions, long-service pro infantry who enjoy fightening in distant lands. I doubt the US public will support a steady stream of dead and injured fighting in what most consider a non-essential conflict.
I guess Larry must have access to some history book from 2020.
Ain’t gonna happen that way, dude.
How is it going to happen then, dude?
The liberation of Iraq! What a wonderful thing! Unfortunately it isn’t likely any time soon. The current situation? Tell me it’s liberation a couple years down the line, when the US nation builders have realized their choices consist of: permanent occupation, islamofascist theocracy by popular vote, or installing a new “friendly” secular dictator – just like the ex-friendly one they just deposed.
State liberation. Fighting for peace. Shagging for celibacy.
Libertarians should have known better.
Now this is exactly why a certain kind of libertarian will never be taken seriously by anyone except by a tiny number of self reinforcing backslapping fellow travellers. Just because iraq is not going to be some randian paradise, the three stooges julian, scott and larry cannot seem to grasp what is so clear to us poor unenlightened muggles. of course iraq has been liberated. i suppose our three wise men would just scoff at the fact the allies are not setting up torture chambers or gassing entire villages for dissent as being unimportant. If imposing civilisation requires some force then that is what will have to be done regardless of your rolled eyes. Matters of degree do actually matter. Until i found this site i though all libertarians were completely divorced from reality. Now I realise only some are.
I’m sorry Anne, but calling me one of the “three stooges” (I wanna be Shemp, BTW) doesn’t qualify as refutation.
Well all I can say to that is… this
(sorry)
BTW, who was Shemp? A fourth three stooges? I am agog at the notion!
There were six different stooges.
Ah, sort of a sacreligious version of the-three-who-are-one… the six-who-were-three. Got it.
Dear God (great name, makes replying a pleasure),
My comment was speculation — hence phrasing “seems” and “I doubt” — with no claim to have history books from 2020.
Astonishing the amount of black & white thinking on this thread.
Iraq has been liberated from an evil regime. That phase is over. Discussion about it — right/wrong & wise/foolish — is for historians.
What comes next?
Any attention to current events in Iraqs finds support for the following projections:
a. Local Iraq leaders, some with support from Iran, have mobilized quickly and intend to control the design of the new polity.
b. Our ambitions are neo-colonial. To design the new government, select the ruling elites, set parameters on the new gov’t’s actions (esp. foreign policy), and estabilsh US bases from which to pressure local regimes.
c. These ambitions will encounter serious local opposition.
The colonial game is an old one. Hundreds of variants have been played out. Everyone knows the moves, both the benign foreign rulers, the local puppets, the nationalist insurgents, etc.
Since WWII the locals have consistently won, for the reasons I mentioned in the above post.
Machiavelli: “There is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success and more dangerous to carry though than initiating changes in a State’s constitution.”
Double the difficulties when changes are imposed by foreign infidels with minimal knowledge of the people.
The outcomes form a bell curve. We debate its mean and shape. I think the most likely outcome is poor, the range of outcomes skewed to the bad.
The true trinitarians of stoogedom don’t accept the heretical Shempites after both groups pronounced mutual anathemas on each other in 1054 (“oh, wise guy!”), followed by ritual pokes in the eyeballs……
Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies
The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
A high-level UK source said last night that intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious that briefings they gave political leaders were distorted in the rush to war with Iraq. “They ignored intelligence assessments which said Iraq was not a threat,” the source said. Quoting an editorial in a Middle East newspaper which said, “Washington has to prove its case. If it does not, the world will for ever believe that it paved the road to war with lies”, he added: “You can draw your own conclusions.”
…On chemical weapons, a CIA report on the likelihood that Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction was partially declassified. The parts released were those which made it appear that the danger was high; only after pressure from Senator Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the whole report declassified, including the conclusion that the chances of Iraq using chemical weapons were “very low” for the “foreseeable future”.
…Other explanations for the failure to find WMDs include the possibility that they might have been smuggled to Syria, or so well hidden that they could take months, even years, to find. But last week it emerged that two of four American mobile teams in Iraq had been switched from looking for WMDs to other tasks, though three new teams from less specialised units were said to have been assigned to the quest for “unconventional weapons” – the less emotive term which is now preferred.