2004 Year in Review

The Stuff of History IV

Last Article in a Series of Four

Oil issues have consistently had a heavy influence on United States foreign policy, regardless of party or personalities, particularly during the last quarter century following the establishment of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the end of cheap foreign petroleum. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have had to wrestle with the vagaries of oil supply and demand and its implications for the American economy.

According to www.globalpolicy.org, “United States and United Kingdom companies have been very concerned that their rivals [France, Germany, and Russia] might gain a major long-term advantage in the global oil business.”

“’Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas – reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to,’ enthused Chevron CEO Kenneth T. Derr in a 1998 speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, in which he pronounced his strong support for sanctions.” What globalpolicy.org failed to note is that Derr supported the sanctions only because they were multinational, not unilateral as most US sanctions are.

In fact, Derr does not “enthuse” about sanctions at all, but expresses his preference for “engagement” with other countries, cooperative engagements with stable countries that last for many years, not for quick profits, as globalpolicy.org asserts.

In another case of misreporting, some of the press erroneously reported that the British dossier on Iraq (Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: the Assessment of the British Government), which justified its position on why Iraq should be forced to abide by United Nations sanctions, claimed that London could be targeted within 45 minutes after Saddam issued a directive.

To the contrary, the Iraq dossier does not make that claim at all. It does say, however, [t]he Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so.* Here, the British are referring to battlefield deployment of chemical and biological agents. The Iraqis did not possess missiles with the range sufficient to unleash such an attack on England or any other European country, for that matter; but they possessed extended-range versions of the SCUD ballistic missile…which are capable of reaching Cyprus, Eastern Turkey, Tehran and Israel.* The dossier does suppose that Saddam could possess such longer-range missiles within five to ten years.

The United States case for war against Iraq was made in detail and with supporting evidence by Colin Powell before the United Nations, by Condoleezza Rice in various settings, and by the President himself. The case was based on the best intelligence available at the time from American sources, British sources, and from evidence provided by other countries. Even France and Germany, adamant in their opposition to a war with Iraq, believed that Saddam still possessed weapons of mass destruction.

That Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, particularly biological and chemical weapons, prior to the Gulf War of 1991 is not debatable. Saddam used these chemical agents against the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and against the Kurdish minority of northern Iraq. His use of WMDs is well documented in these instances.

What is debatable is whether, following the proscriptions imposed after the Gulf War, the Iraqis obeyed UN mandates to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs, or not.

The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) which supervised inspections of Iraq following the Gulf War and during the late nineties as late as the end of 1998 believed “there remained significant uncertainties in the disposition of Iraq’s prohibited programmes.” UNSCOM’s Comprehensive Review went on to report it had “received information recently from multiple sources, identifying organizations that direct and implement the concealment effort in Iraq.” Iraqi Presidential Secretary, Abed Hamid Mahmoud, chaired a committee which “directs the activities of a unit which is responsible for moving, hiding, and securing the items which are being concealed from the Commission”

But a year later, in August 2000, US Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering told journalists that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “has not, at least in so far as we can tell, reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction.”

In contrast to Pickering’s statement, US and UK intelligence in 2002 - prior to the 2003 conflict – supplied information, much of it based on United Nations sources, to the effect that Iraq still had significant stores of biological, chemical, and ballistic weapons. “Iraq has claimed that all its biological agents and weapons have been destroyed. No convincing proof of any kind has been produced to support this claim.”*

In the last round of UN inspections – December 2002 to March 2003 – the Iraqis played the same cat-and-mouse game they did during the previous inspections in the 1990s. Instead of opening up his facilities for the world to see, Saddam chose to pretend that, indeed, he did possess WMD. An understaffed UN inspections team raced from one site to another hoping to ‘surprise’ the Iraqis.

It may be that there were no weapons of mass destruction to discover; it may be these WMD are secreted somewhere in Syria; it may be that they were destroyed by 1994 as some experts suggest; it may be that Saddam overplayed his hand and got caught. Regardless, the coalition took him seriously, and he paid the price for his stupidity. And it may be no weapons of mass destruction will turn up after the coalition finishes its sweep of Iraq.

Yet to say that the coalition acted against Iraq without just cause is to do so without clearly looking at the situation. True, if Saddam had been as forthright in his dealings with UN inspectors as Khadaffi of Libya, he probably would still be in power. But, let’s not fool ourselves: Saddam was a threat to the stability of the region, and, therefore, a threat to the interests of the United States and its allies in the Mideast.

When the Coalition cedes political power to an Iraqi governing council in June 2004, United States troops will remain in sufficient numbers to assure America’s interests in the region are protected. Two points of interest are to keep the oil flowing and to keep terrorist organizations on the defensive. With oil revenues, Iraq can finance rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, provide wide-spread education opportunities, build up its security forces, and begin paying off the large debt it owes the United States.

It is better to fight the enemy on its home turf than to engage in defensive actions on one’s own territory. Iraq will serve as a staging area for American military operations in that region. Terrorist training camps can be targeted quickly, not only with aircraft and missiles, but with ground troops as well. . Terrorists, now, are concentrating a great deal of energy, time, and resources in Iraq, which has to be a plus as far as homeland security is concerned. Rogue nations such as Syria and Iran can be more easily controlled – intimidated – with American forces next door. Already they are feeling the presence of US troops, and their actions are less militant and more cautionary.

It’s not unusual for war-time presidents to be attacked by the opposition party. In fact, it’s the norm. Madison, Polk, Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon all suffered the slings and arrows of the loyal opposition during times of conflict. In terms of national security, one can argue whether it’s better to have an activist president, such as Bush the Younger, or one who basically plays defense.

President Clinton, for example, had several chances during his administration to demonstrate his commitment to national security. He chose to play the defensive card: World Trade Center bombing, Somalia, attempted assassination of Bush the Elder, Kohbart Towers bombing, battleship Cole bombing - five instances of terrorism in which the United States backed away from a full-scale commitment to honor its integrity.

In each case the United States did little to contain the terrorist threat other than send a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan against bin Laden’s training camp and into Iraq against Saddam’s military defenses. Clinton was more involved in brokering a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians than in tending to the rising terrorist threats against the United States. In retrospect, his longing for the Nobel Peace Prize took precedence over his obligations as chief executive to protect and defend the country.

On the international front, whether one agrees with President Bush, or not, he has made national security the major focus of his administration. Some have criticized his ‘lone cowboy’ approach, but in reality he has gathered other nations to his cause. True, France and Germany have demurred to actively assist the United States, but they are militarily weak nations anyway.

Domestically, he has done likewise. What is significant among the loyal opposition at home is the lack of consistency. Bush’s Democratic opponents seem to want their cake and to eat it too.

During the last Democratic debate (2-28-2004), Senator John Edwards, in speaking of the crisis in Haiti, advocated early United States intervention, saying that the Bush administration seems to “always wait until things reach a crisis stage, then we act.” Presidential hopeful John Kerry said, "He's [Bush] late, as usual." Yet, the two candidates have been quite outspoken in their criticism of the ‘preemptive’ action the United States took against Iraq, before “things” reached a “crisis stage.”

There should be little debate as to which of these ‘hot spots’ is of the greater national interest to the United States and its long-term security. And there should be little argument on the role oil plays in a thriving American economy – it is essential. In the same sense, is it not to our advantage to fight the war on terrorists on their turf rather than in the cities of America?

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* Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government

by William Driver, Guest Columnist
March 7, 2004