[A conservative figure in the British defense establishment makes an extremely mainstream case that this strategy makes zero sense and is a crime.]
Financial Times; Aug 07, 2002
COMMENT & ANALYSIS: War on Iraq: a blunder and a crime
By Michael Quinlan
Saddam Hussein is a malign tyrant with a history of aggression against his neighbours. He almost certainly has chemical and biological weapons and would like to get nuclear ones, in breach of United Nations Security Council edict. We can place no trust in his denials or his current manoeuvring. The world would be better without him. But starting a war is an immensely grave step and we must still ask whether it would be wise, and right, to take it.
It would be wrong to say pre-emption is never warranted but the hurdle must be set very high: the evil needs to be cogently probable as well as severe. It is hard to see on what grounds Iraqi use of biological or chemical weapons, or their transfer to terrorists, is nowadays believed to meet that test. Mr Hussein, who has had such weapons for 20 years, has not used them since 1988, not even amid the 1991 Gulf war. Why should the international containment that has held for more than a decade now be thought likely to break down? It might if his survival were threatened - but to pre-empt the use of biological or chemical weapons by adopting the one course of action most apt to provoke it seems bizarre.
Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, unconscionable though it is, is entirely capable of explanation as an act of defiance, a bid for prestige and an insurance against mortal attack. Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, once told Rolf Ekeus, head of UN weapons inspections in Iraq from 1991 to 1997, that Baghdad was determined to keep its weapons lest Iran one day come looking for revenge for the Iraqi invasion of 1979 and the subsequent war.
To argue that September 11 shows the need for pre-emption is to draw a false parallel. Mr Hussein's regime is not a shadowy terrorist organisation; it has much to lose - and deterrence can be brought to bear. It is true that prevention of use falls far short of the ideal of Iraqi compliance with Security Council requirements; but decision-makers have to compare the realistic alternatives.
An assault could be costly in military and civilian lives and in damage to an already ravaged society. Iraqi resistance might fold quickly, as it did in 1991. That, however, was about hanging on to an external conquest; defence of the homeland might be different. Iraqi forces did not fight weakly against Iran in the 1980s.
We think little of the way Mr Hussein rules his people and wonder why they should fight for him. But we thought poorly of Hitler, as the US did of Fidel Castro at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Mr Hussein has been dominating his people and controlling what they hear since the 1960s. Winston Churchill once wrote: "Never, never, never believe that any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurri canes he will encounter."
Nevertheless, a US assault could probably be carried through now with little or no use of local infrastructure, unlike the 1991 Desert Storm campaign. There would, however, be hard questions about the effects across the region on stability, western interests and west-friendly regimes, both during and after the conflict. A majority of people polled in a recent survey of opinion on the Arab street believed that a Zionist conspiracy was behind the September 11 attacks; given such sentiment, it would be naive to assume that a US-led overthrow of Mr Hussein would be hailed with general relief.
And there remains the problem of governing Iraq afterwards. Claims about viable regimes-in-waiting, especially ones likely both to please the US and to enjoy popular support, carry little conviction.
An assault therefore looks like an unnecessary and precarious gamble, unless there emerges new evidence against Mr Hussein altogether more compelling than any yet disclosed. But that is only half the story. To invert Boulay de la Meurthe's cynical saying, starting such a war would be worse than a blunder: it would be a crime.
The doctrine of just war rests on centuries of reasoned reflection and underlies much of the modern law of war. Attacking Iraq would be deeply questionable against several of its tests, such as just cause, proportionality and right authority . If further strengthening of containment be thought necessary, there are ways to achieve that: the inter-national community could declare that Iraqi use of biological or chemical weapons would be treated unequivocally as a crime against humanity.
As to "right authority ", the imperfections of the UN system mean that, as with Kosovo, prior Security Council assent cannot be the imperative condition; but the say-so of a single power, itself not under direct threat, hardly suffices. There have been suggestions that Security Council resolutions after the Gulf war can be read as authority for military action, given Iraqi refusal to comply; but even if that is formally so, it cannot be the basis for a regime-changing assault more than a decade later, in circumstances in which the Security Council would certainly refuse assent if consulted now.
A UK government decision to participate in a US-led assault could provoke more severe domestic division than Britain has seen since the Suez crisis. And benefit-of-the-doubt acquiescence within the armed forces, the media and the public might prove much weaker than it was then.
No definite proposition is on the table. But anyone who has worked within government, and particularly with the US, knows that once one is tabled, the time for effective influence is past: minds have been made up and domestic consensus negotiated; psychological if not public commitment will often have gone too far for reversal. To oppose the US administration would be a serious step. But this is a serious matter; and what is influence for? In spite of the administration's resolve not to be deflected from its policy preferences, it would scarcely be unmoved by a clear signal - whether public or private - from its most solid ally that neither military participation nor political support was to be assumed. Such a signal ought to be given soon.
Sir Michael Quinlan was permanent under-secretary at the Ministry of Defence, 1988-92, and is a visiting professor at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London