November 2002
The last thing that G.W. Bush and company wanted - or expected - was for Saddam Hussein to capitulate to United Nations demands that he allow UN inspectors unimpeded access in Iraq - without notice, any place, any time. Preceding this momentous cave on September 16, the Bush Administration believed it had set the criteria so high that it was inconceivable that Iraq would accede to such humiliating terms. The UN resolution, crafted largely under US pressure, was deliberately designed to be rejected. A rejection by Iraq would provide the US the needed casus belli prelude to an invasion, whether or not sanctioned by the United Nations.
The true intentions of the US were clearly spelled out beforehand by the President and Vice President: Bush's speech to West Point graduates in June intimated that Iraq was within a few months of acquiring nuclear weapons, making a pre-emptive war virtually obligatory, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency's 1998 finding that Iraq's nuclear program had been completely dismantled. On August 20, in a VFW speech, Cheney declared that the US was fully committed to war against Iraq, irrespective of any actions taken by the UN.
Given the finality and single minded bent of these pronouncements, Iraq's surprising decision to allow inspections to resume unconditionally must have been received as a grave and unexpected setback. The Administration quickly countered, reminding the public that Iraq had a long history of deception and treaty violations and could not be trusted by this latest diplomatic parry. Iraq was subsequently accused of such (unsubstantiated) crimes as aiding the al Qaeda and secretly building various types of WMD. Its past record of defiance also proved that it was completely impervious to either containment or deterrence. Moreover, the White House fully anticipated that Iraq would reject the new, more stringent set of conditions contained in UN Resolution 1441, adopted unanimously by the Security Council on November 8. Indeed, the Iraqi Parliament obligingly complied with a unanimous rejection the following day. However, the Iraqi government's (i.e., Saddam) official announcement five days later, reiterating its acceptance of the latest conditions, finessed the Administration for a second time, forcing it to revise its rhetoric but not its ultimate goals.
If the double capitulation of Iraq in less than two months was insufficient to allay the purported concerns of the Bush team, what would - short of invading that beleaguered nation? Probably nothing. Reason, logic and fairness insist that the Administration answer this basic question: what threat do Saddam Hussein and his minions actually pose to the US and its allies? However badly Saddam would like to injure the US, the relevant facts are that he cannot and will not. He cannot because the Gulf War and the subsequent work of the UN inspection teams following the war destroyed his ability to do so. He will not because, though perhaps somewhat demented, the man is not suicidal.
A new book, War on Iraq by William Rivers Pitt and Scott Ritter (UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98), provides the most authoritative assessment to date of Iraqi offensive capabilities. The inspectors not only inspected, they destroyed - a fact perhaps not fully appreciated by most Americans. They destroyed not only the weapon stockpiles but the physical-industrial base required to produce them. "We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated."
The chemical weapon plant for manufacturing sarin and tabun was bombed during the Gulf War and all remaining potential in this regard was destroyed upon the arrival of the inspectors. Furthermore, any undiscovered caches of these chemicals would have degenerated into "useless, harmless goo" in less than five years. The inspectors also located and destroyed VX nerve gas supplies, their production plants as well as factories for the production of liquid anthrax and liquid botulinum toxin. The essential facts are that the destroyed chemical and biologic warfare facilities could be reconstituted only at great expense, relying primarily on sources external to Iraq, a virtual impossibility under the import embargoes imposed on Iraq since the Gulf War.
If, based upon these findings, Iraq poses no credible threat to the US or its allies, and if these findings are further confirmed by UN inspection teams now on the ground, why does the President adamantly persist in his obsessive, reckless pursuit of war with Iraq?
The answer may lie in the planet's dwindling supply of oil, minerals and water as depicted in Resource Wars, a new book by Michael Klare. In this scenario future wars will not be fought for political or religious reasons as in the past but rather for these diminishing resources. Viewed in this context, Bush's relentless push for war becomes completely comprehensible.
Klare makes two essential points: First, the United States, the world's most profligate consumer of oil, is becoming more dependent on imported petroleum; and, second, Iraq has proven reserves (112 billion barrels), greater than any country on Earth after Saudi Arabia. The great attraction of Iraq's petroleum domain is that, over and above its proven reserve, it remains largely uncharted, i.e., it may be the largest source of fossil fuels on earth for the foreseeable future.
There is no lack of countervailing opinion regarding the impending war against Iraq: As a result of the Gulf war and ongoing sanctions Iraq is economically prostrate and militarily defenseless. Such a war would pit the world's mightiest war machine against one of the world's weakest. The disproportionate toll of casualties will fall on Iraq's anguished civilian population. The war's projected cost ($200 billion) will further decimate the already staggering US economy; it will further destabilize the already fragile middle east and confound our relationships with still friendly Islamic nations, playing directly into the hands of al Qaeda; it is immoral, contrary to international law and contravenes the principles laid down in the Charter of the United Nations, largely a product of US diplomacy; it has no justification in the Constitution of the United States.