WAR SEEMS ON THE WAY
By Jack A. Smith
Committed for the last year to violent "regime change" in Baghdad, the Bush administration recently has been engaging in a strenuous campaign to scuttle a potential obstacle to its plan to launch a "preemptive" war against Iraq, probably within the next few months. The gathering impediment was widespread antipathy to Washington's unilateral intention to attack the beleaguered Middle Eastern country even though it is innocent of involvement in last year's terror raids.
The main purpose of President Bush's relatively measured speech to the General Assembly Sept. 12 was to eliminate these political potholes on the road to war -- the product of increasingly belligerent anti-Iraq rhetoric and unsubstantiated allegations by top government leaders that alarmed the United Nations, alienated allies in the so-called war on terrorism, confused Congress, and created contradictions within the conservative camp.
Bush's main maneuver was to invite the UN to participate in the beginning stages of a process ultimately designed by the White House to result in an invasion of Iraq and the installation of a government responsive to Washington's dictates in Baghdad. He combined this tactic with a recent announcement that he desired to "consult" Congress about the impending conflict. In so doing, the Bush administration obviously aspires to neutralize the two principal objections to its bellicose ambitions. To a certain extent the ploy has succeeded.
Another element of Bush's appeal to the world body was to finally provide the semblance of a comprehensive explanation to justify Washington's goal of destroying the government of Saddam Hussein even though Iraq has been quiescent and essentially preoccupied with surviving the wreckage to its infrastructure by U.S. warplanes 11 years ago and vicious economic sanctions.
A number of countries responded positively to Bush's assignment of limited responsibilities to the UN to restore weapons inspectors to Iraq. They hope this will be followed up with an agreement to permit the Security Council to decide whether to invade Iraq, as opposed to Bush's evident intention to strike unilaterally.
Two days after his UN talk, Bush insisted that the world body swiftly pass a resolution demanding that Iraq immediately agree to the return of arms inspectors with virtually unlimited powers of investigation. He also stipulated that the Security Council resolve beforehand to support a U.S. war should the Baghdad government violate the resolution in any way.
At the same time, it remains probable that the U.S. will fabricate some means for "justifying" a war if the Iraqi government permits the return of UN arms inspectors. The White House has repeatedly stipulated in recent months that even if Iraq received the inspectors, the U.S. would still wage a war because Baghdad inevitably would cheat. And while the Bush regime is certainly desirous of obtaining UN backing for its invasion plans, it has not signaled the slightest intention of obeying any Security Council resolution opposing a war.
Many members of Congress expressed relief that Bush sought UN involvement, and that the imperial presidency at last deigned to engage the legislative branch of govenment in its war plans. Conservative critics within the Republican Party are pleased that the Bush administration is taking initial steps to prevent the disintegration of the coalition supporting the war on terrorism by conveying the impression that it is adopting a more multilateral approach to the question of Iraq.
It is likely Congress will approve the administration's invasion plans when they are presented, whether backed by the Security Council or not. Virtually the entire House and Senate are composed of politicians committed to the notion of toppling the Iraqi government. The national leadership and all the known presidential candidates of the "opposition" Democratic party have indicated they would support a new war if Bush decides to attack. As long as the majority of U.S. public opinion remains captive to pro-war propaganda from the government and mass media, only a small minority in Congress will risk taking a principled antiwar position. Clearly, those responsible for organizing today's growing peace movement repose almost entirely outside the ranks of the organized two-party system.
Top administration warhawks appear optimistic that Bush's painless public relations gestures toward the UN and Congress constitute an elegant solution to the political problems generated by White House saber-rattling coupled with an apparent inability to produce an unassailable argument for the war. The somewhat less belligerent faction led by Secretary of State Colin Powell is satisfied that the administration's new maneuvers may prevent a split in the allied coalition supporting the war on terrorism, its prime worry. It appears that the Powell caucus also prefers to obtain Security Council backing before launching a new war, but it is doubtful this group would contest a decision by the leading faction of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to go it alone if necessary. The differences between the two groups are not between hawk and dove but how best to gain control of the Iraqi government and its enormous oil resources without compromising other U.S. interests.
Bush's UN speech was "comprehensive" only to the extent that it was a lengthy compendium of all the charges against the demonized Saddam Hussein and his administration that have long been circulated by the White House, from the question of human rights violations to preventing the return of arms inspectors. Some of the charges are true, including not fulfilling UN resolutions (although Iraq cannot compete with Israel in this regard) -- but never before in international affairs, or according to the UN Charter and the entire body of international law, have they been considered justifications for war against a small country by a military superpower.
Other charges, including the three most important, are only half-true-with-an-explanation or are completely without verification.
1. On weapons inspections, for instance, Washington never mentions that it was the U.S. which decided to withdraw the UN inspectors from Iraq in December 1998 days before President Clinton ordered a massive bombing campaign. And it is never recalled that just weeks later it was proven that American members of the inspection teams were spying for the U.S. government. Iraq has refused to allow the inspectors back since that time for several reasons, including a promise that no U.S. spies will be on the teams and a statement from the UN as to when the sanctions would be removed. In response to Bush's UN speech, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz Sept. 14 that Iraq would readmit the arms inspectors on the basis of a comprehensive agreement "that would prevent an attack by the U.S. and lift sanctions." It is doubtful the U.S. will approve of such an agreement.
2. Although Bush continually mentioned Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, demonstrating that "Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger [to] the lives of millions of people," his speech offered not a modicum of proof to corroborate his innuendos. Bush's top aides, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, have been gallivanting around the U.S. for several weeks claiming that they possess the knowledge that Iraq has such weapons and is planning to use them, but like their Commander-in-Chief they refuse to take the elementary step of proving their allegations. Knowledgeable critics, such as former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter, claim Washington is lying to justify a war.
3. For nearly a year, the White House has been attempting to connect Hussein with the Sept. 11 events in order to rationalize making Iraq the next target in the war on terrorism. Bush did so once again in his UN address, by indirection. "Our greatest fear," he intoned, "is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale." Also, "Al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq." The first quote was intended to suggest that Iraq would reach into its vast storehouse of weapons of mass destruction and supply a few choice items to Al Qaeda. The second was to imply that members of Al Qaeda reside in Iraq with Baghdad's permission. Both quotes are distortions to link Iraq to mass terrorism. This may fool the American people, but most foreign governments are well aware that Hussein's secular Ba'ath Party with its vaguely socialist rhetoric and the fundamentalist Islamic terror group are staunch ideological opponents. If Iraq harbored such weapons it would hardly transfer them to an organization that shared George Bush's desire to remove Saddam Hussein.
It should further be noted that Bush used his speech to wash the blood from Washington's hands for the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis as a direct result of sanctions. By refusing to respect certain UN resolutions, he said, Hussein "bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi civilians." So much for that.
While many of the allied governments in the war on terrorism coalition have expressed support for those aspects of Bush's speech relating to a role for the United Nations and the Security Council, and for the return of weapons inspectors, the great majority remain opposed to Washington's intention to invade Iraq and install a puppet government. The U.S. will attempt to pressure, coerce or buy-off some of these countries to obtain their support. Administration leaders have several times stated that the U.S. has no objection to creating different coalitions to pursue other objectives than the overall war on terrorism -- and, for that matter, that it is willing to fight without allies.
Some members of the terrorism coalition, especially from the Arab countries, are concerned that a violent "regime-change" will utterly destabilize the Middle East, particularly because the new client government in Iraq will be composed of figureheads transparently dependent on orders from the White House. This could vastly expand the growing anti-Americanism coursing throughout the region, strengthen terrorist movements, and threaten a few of the regimes dependent on the U.S. to remain in power. Also, a Washington-installed Baghdad administration will find it difficult to prevent Iraq from splitting into two or three separate entities or even separate states, with Kurds in the North, Sunnis in the Center, and Shiites in the South. Such a development would require an ever greater U.S. presence in the country to prevent a Syria or Iran from filling the regional power vacuum.
Other problems include the nature of the war Bush decides to wage and the drain on the economy that will result. The White House seems to think a military adventure in Iraq would approximate that just waged against helpless Afghanistan or resemble Iraq War I in 1991, when the U.S. contented itself with destroying the Iraqi infrastructure from the air while booting Iraqi troops out of Kuwait but not following them into Iraq. A ground war in Iraq might be an entirely different matter, for which American public opinion is not prepared. Some 40,000 U.S. troops are already in the region, bases have been readied, supplies are stored in various countries, ships and planes are offshore awaiting instructions, the command center is shifting from Florida to the Middle East, and the rest of an invasion force is en route or ready to move on command. But none of this, even with the Pentagon's technological and weapons supremacy, assures the kind of easy victory the American people have come to expect. Economically, the war is taking place at a time of downturn and increasing debt and, as opposed to 1991, the allies have no intention of paying for this conflict.
Despite these concerns, the Bush administration is transfixed upon its aggressive "regime-change" plan and, while recognizing there may be further political problems ahead in the next weeks and months, feels strengthened by its current maneuvers in the UN and Congress. It seems that the administration is closer to its long-desired war than ever before. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that some White House and Pentagon strategists are already at work figuring out what country to hit next, after Iraq.