IRAQ: LETTER TO WILLIAM SHAWCROSS
By: Richard Hine
Dear William Shawcross
Your article 'Let's take him out' (Guardian, G2, 01.08.02) attempted to analyse the threat that Saddam Hussein poses to the world. Subsequent to this attempt you assert that strong justification exists for effecting an Iraqi regime change via military action.
However, when the article is stripped of ad hominem arguments, and facts that compellingly contradict your stand are inserted in their place, the position that you occupy appears as uncomfortable as it is untenable. I shall attempt to offer some aid and comfort.
Your first assertion appears to be that the only illegal 'player' in the current 'crisis' over Iraq is Saddam Hussein, all other parties being paragons of virtue. Indeed, even though you acknowledge that "weapons of mass destruction are the greatest threat to life on earth", it appears that what should really concern us about such weapons is whether or not they are sought and acquired legally rather than the fact that they exist at all. Furthermore, the tacit assumption of this stance is that such weapons only do harm when utilised by 'official enemies'.
After supplying us with the number of chemical weapons that Saddam rained on Iran during their terrible war we are reminded of Saddam's crime 'against his own people', the atrocious killing of over 5000 Kurds in the north-eastern Iraqi town of Halabja (Mar 6 1988) using chemical weapons. Whilst every person of sound mind should rightly condemn these actions your article neglects to mention the huge numbers of munitions that the U.S. sold to both parties of the Iran/Iraq war both before and during its execution. Furthermore, it goes unmentioned that the gassing of Kurds in Halabja, terrible as it undoubtedly was, currently merits a level of condemnation that was starkly lacking when Saddam was friends with Washington. Indeed the U.S. was so disgusted by Saddam's actions that it was nearly 15 months before they sent a business delegation representing "23 U.S. banks, oil and oil-service companies, and high tech construction and defense contractors" (Christian Science Monitor, Aug, 31, 1989) to Iraq for high level talks with the dictator's regime. Nearly a year later, presumably a suitable period of mourning over the dead Kurds, five top U.S. Senators travelled to Iraq with a personal message from Bush senior indicating his willingness to improve relations. Notwithstanding, of course, the U.S. State Department's obvious distress, "We want to have a good relationship with [Iraq], but this sort of thing [the Halabja massacre] makes it very difficult".
Given the current centrality of Saddam's weapons capability to the 'crisis' you dwell on U.N. resolution 687 regarding weapons inspection teams and the suffocating trade embargo imposed on Iraq until all conditions of the resolution are satisfied. Presumably the source of your information that Iraq "has spent the last 11 years trying to evade its obligations.as written in resolution 687" is a member of UNSCOM, the U.N. special commission charged with overseeing all aspects of destroying Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and biological agents. If this assumption is correct then one must wonder why you insist that UNSCOM "had no confidence in the disposal of Iraq's extensive biological weapons programme". Scott Ritter, one time head of the weapons inspection team has provided countless detailed reports asserting that up to their voluntary withdrawal in 1998, UNSCOM had accounted for 90%-95% of Iraq's proscribed weaponry. Furthermore there is a strong probability that the 5%-10% that remains unaccounted for can be explained by losses incurred during the 'Gulf War' and Iraq secretly destroying their own armaments and subsequently lying about it.
Not content with failing to avail yourself, and your readers, of such material we are informed that Saddam Hussein "created a series of crises for the inspectors at the end of 1997". Unfortunately, you fail to provide details of the crises that Saddam manufactured. Perhaps, then, you felt that failing to mention these details could be balanced by omitting that the UNSCOM team voluntarily left Iraq after it was discovered that U.S. spies had infiltrated the team. The 'crisis' resulted in 'Desert Fox' a 72 hour bombing of Iraq that focussed specifically on Iraqi 'security sites' rather than targets which might have related to weapon manufacturing. Indeed it emerged that U.S. spies working in Iraq under cover of UNSCOM's mandate had identified the targets bombed during 'Desert Fox'.
Clearly it is imperative that weapons inspections re-start immediately and there is every reason to believe that renewed monitoring will garner the same successes as its predecessors. Unfortunately, in 1998 the Republican controlled Congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act, which as William Pitt observes, means, "The weight of public American law now demanded the removal of Saddam Hussein." When one adds to this a U.S. insistence that only Saddam 's removal could guarantee an end to the current inhumane trade embargo, we must wonder if there is anything Iraq can really do to prevent the onset of another military campaign against them whilst continuing to suffer extensive loss of lives from immoral trade restrictions?
Furthermore, your uncanny insight into Saddam's 'world view' should leave us in no doubt about the long-term threat he poses to his neighbours. Unfortunately, many of these neighbours lack your folk psychological nous, a point that you magnanimously acknowledge. However, "The Beirut Summit of the Arab League in March signalled that all 22 governments want to see an end to the conflict with Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Iraq have since reopened their border at Arar and Saudi businessmen are selling their wares in Baghdad. Iraq has agreed to return Kuwait's national archives and to discuss the issue of missing Kuwaitis. Iran and Iraq have accelerated the exchange of refugees." (Hans Von Sponeck, Guardian, July 22).
Of course this improvement in relations between Iraq and other Arab states will provide logistical difficulties for a military campaign. However, this does not limit your ability to effectively measure the strategic advantages that an U.S. led military strike will enjoy. Unfortunately, what appears to be missing in your analysis is any recognition that loss of life is something actually incurred by vulnerable human beings rather than nominal nations. You do manage to gesture towards potential human suffering in Kuwait and Israel (not to mention Americans) but completely fail to mention the 20 million Iraqi's who will bear the brunt of another war. Only the most naïve of political observers believes that the Iraqi's are happy under Saddam's 'iron fisted' rule. However, we would be equally naïve to imagine that further suffering and deaths at the hands of the American military machine is something Iraq's people consider to be a desirable alternative.
Even given the current levels of journalism routinely masquerading as political analysis in mainstream media it is unlikely that a less plausible candidate will surface than the "compelling regional argument for removing Saddam". We are expected to believe that one of the most significant factors constraining the state of Israel from treating Palestinians with respect, dignity and equality is the existence of Saddam Hussein. Indeed "we continue to ask Israel to take risks for peace while the Iraqi threat remains unchecked". I would respectfully request that you provide us with concrete examples of the risks for peace that we have demanded from Israel. Perhaps whilst you are researching these details you might also include instances of Israeli intransigence toward Arab states. Unfortunately it is implicit in the article that Israel is simply an innocent target of "anti-Semitic zeal" and that bombing Iraq would not only remove a dictator, out of favour with the west, but also provide a chilling example to Arab states putting them in their place. Indeed we must simply accept that Israel is constituted by peace-seeking humanists surrounded by Arab nations fit to burst with war mongering anti-Semites.
"Some critics of the war.voice honest concerns". However, without America's response to September 11 we have to "think of the world we would still be living in: the Taliban would still be in power terrorising Afghan's; Bin Laden and al-Qaida would still be planning other outrages unrestricted. But before we salute the U.S. 'Cavalry' rushing in to save the day perhaps we should avail ourselves of some further facts. Whilst the Taliban have been removed they've been replaced by a regime that has managed to effect an extremely tenuous control of Kabul with living conditions for locals seeing almost no appreciable improvement. Meanwhile the rest of the country remains as politically unstable as it has in at least the last twenty years of outsider intrusion. Furthermore, this miraculous result has been achieved at the expense of thousands of Afghani civilian deaths and forced relocation. But perhaps we should feel encouraged at destroying Osama Bin laden and his network, except that the U.S. forces failed to capture Bin Laden, or for that matter any al-Qaida members. We also lack any evidence to suggest that the bombing of Afghanistan has limited their ability to plan and execute further atrocities.
The article concedes that it would be "preferable" to have U.N. backing for renewed military action against Saddam Hussein but "it is not strictly necessary". After all "Saddam is already in defiance of existing resolutions" and "the U.N. charter provides the right to self-defence against the threat he poses to us all". Once again this illustrates the twin notions implicit in the article; Saddam Hussein is the only person in Iraq so we needn't worry about destroying the whole country to oust him, and our defiance of U.N. resolutions doesn't warrant concern because we are good by definition. Moreover, why request U.N. backing for our good deeds? We need only look to our heroic bombing of civilians in Belgrade in 1999 to realise that any such request would have failed "because Russia and China would have vetoed it".
Far less legitimate than the mass killing of innocent civilians in countries whose regimes we detest is "anti-American abuse from, for example, the infantile Daily Mirror, the singer George Michael and those journalists.who depict Blair as Bush's poodle". Unfortunately, it seems, to make the subtle distinction between Americans and American foreign policy and to find the latter seriously wanting is to demean the argument. Once again, those calling for an end to American Imperialism are simply unable to stop themselves straying outside the narrow boundaries of acceptable debate and should leave the difficult "decision of how to deal with Saddam" to the grown ups.
Yours truly
Richard Hine