Saddam’s heart of darkness

“Who has looked the threat in the eye and come back to report it? To get to the bottom of it, to find out what you believe and why, is so damned hard.” John Wojdylo.

The heat is on. Former Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke, former Liberal leader John Hewson, former governor-general Bill Hayden, former defence chiefs General Peter Gration and Admiral Alan Beaumont, former chief of navy staff Admiral Michael Hudson and RSL chief Major-General Peter Phillips say no to us joining a unilateral United States invasion of Iraq.

The text: smh. The killer quote:

“We put this conviction directly and unequivocally: it would constitute a failure of the duty of government to protect the integrity and ensure the security of our nation to commit any Australian forces in support of a United States military offensive against Iraq without the backing of a specific United Nations Security Council resolution.”

John Howard, you’re wrong. The wonder – and the horror – of it is that the Australian people knew it long before he did.

I’ve just watched Hawkie on the 7.30 Report. Powerful stuff. He dismissed the Blair dossier Howard had so roundly praised as final proof with: “There has been no evidence produced that something has changed to an immediate threat. There is nothing immediately new about the Blair dossier.”

I’ve got so many fantastic emails I haven’t even read them all yet. Sorry about that – I’ll catch up tomorrow. Tonight, a piece from me on the politics of the war for tomorrow’s Herald, one from my boss, smh.com.au editor Stephen Hutcheon, on the oil factor, and one of those fabulous epics Webdiarist John Wojdylo treats us to when we’re lucky. It’s called Saddam Hussein and the Heart of Darkness and it asks and answers questions you may not have even thought of. If you want to know who Saddam is, please read John’s piece and be very afraid. It’s long, so part one is in this entry, part two in the next.

***

When politics is in the blood

By Margo Kingston

I was at high school in the mid-1970s when memories of the Vietnam war were fresh. We learnt that we once did what Britain wanted, but after John Curtin said in December 1941 that “Australia looks to America” we did what it asked.

We were alone down under threatened by alien countries to our north. To encourage America to help if attacked, we paid insurance premiums. Korea and Vietnam were cited. We weren’t told what would happen if we missed a payment, but we were invited to critically assess whether we were right to go to Vietnam.

In July, with America threatening to invade Iraq and the government effectively promising to join it, defence force chief General Peter Cosgrove said “we probably shouldn’t have gone” to Vietnam. The Vietnam veteran went further. The Iraq debate was “in full swing and it should play out”.

“It’s an important issue for the Australian people” and debate was vigorous “on a number of different levels,” he said. RSL president Major-General Peter Phillips, another Vietnam veteran, commented: “It’s timely that the issue is raised now, given the possibility of an American invasion of Iraq.”

Now America asks Australia to invade another country – a country which, unlike Afghanistan, has not housed the attackers of America on S11. We’ve never done that before. We defend countries from attack and repel attackers when the US, with UN backing, demands it, but we are a peaceful nation.

We see the middle-east on TV every night and thank our lucky stars the mess is nothing to do with us. Now America asks us become embroiled in it and won’t tell us what they plan after “regime change” or how long we’ll have to stay on.

But saying no to the USA? Terrifying, even before President Bush said over and over that “you are with us or against us”.

At first blush the politics couldn’t be worse for Labor. Its already bleeding left flank could gush with deserters for the anti-war Greens. Its solid pro-American members and supporters would insist on support for the US. The party split over Vietnam, with many against Arthur Calwell’s opposition – in defiance of public opinion – to Robert Menzies sending a battalion to Vietnam in 1965.

Labor feared John Howard would go for Tampa 2, a wedge to finish it off. So in March it prepared a detailed policy. Kevin Rudd did every interview offered ever since. Labor won’t say yes without strong evidence of an immediate threat from Iraq. The UN should authorise an attack. We’ll leave open the issue of supporting a unilateral military attack.

The unifying theme is support for the UN, a fundamental Labor commitment since Doc Evatt helped construct the UN after WW11 to deny any nation the right to invade another without good cause and to declare the Security Council the supreme global policeman. Evatt believed, as does modern Labor, that international law is the best protection for middle-powers like us.

A Labor heavy says it’s “knots in the gut” time as Labor prays for Iraqi capitulation or a UN mandate for attack.

It’s rare for Howard’s gut instinct to be awry. He said yes instantly and suggested an armoured brigade for a unilateral strike. He felt no need to explain, leaving it to George Bush to sell the case to Australians.

And he tried the wedge. Weeks before Cosgrove’s remarks, Downer said “only a fool” wanted “a policy of appeasement”, predicted a US strike and told Americans “the Australian people don’t have a natural inclination to support acts of appeasement”.

Australians didn’t buy it. The majority wants firm evidence that Iraq poses an immediate threat. Without that we want everyone else on the cart with us via UN authorisation because we don’t want to be singled out as a target. Especially, some whisper, because the world’s superpower mightn’t be thinking straight.

After all, the US Republican establishment – political and military – publicly split on Bush’s plan, some arguing it would trigger more, not less, terrorism. Traditional allies Canada and New Zealand said no to a unilateral strike, as did Europe, and the British people are unconvinced.

Some Australians don’t trust the Americans not to worsen the mess it helped create in Iraq. Others are appalled by Howard’s naked me-tooism. Foreign policy is an avowal of our national identity, and Howard hurt our national pride.

And some, convinced by Howard’s demonisation of muslim boat people and enamoured with Fortress Australia, ask why we should liberate “the ragheads”.

Howard reversed hard. All of a sudden, the UN was important, “we won’t just automatically click our heels and follow the Americans”, and talk of what military assistance we could offer and an assessment of the increased risk to our homeland security was hypothetical.

In the Coalition party room meeting this week, there was no dissent from Howard’s “all the way with GWB” position, despite its echo of Harold Holt’s Vietnam war line. The talk was about “explaining it to the troops”, Liberal slang for voters.

Marginal seat holders were on edge. Peter Lindsay had just publicly opposed a unilateral strike in an unofficially authorised break with public unity. Lindsay owns the marginal North Queensland seat of Herbert, which houses defence force bases. He got local hero coverage in the local papers and he’s done his representative duty, but he shocked many with his venom. “For a nation to just unilaterally decide to go in without proper reason or proper support for the UN, I think, puts that nation in the same basket as the terrorists.”

Coalition members think that if Howard says yes to war without UN backing, patriotism, waving the troops off and all that will do the trick on public opinion. Noone asked Howard what he’d do if the UN said no and Labor said no and the Yanks went in. They think that when the chips are down, Labor will fold its hand.

If it doesn’t, John Howard would be alone at the docks waving off our troops. The absence of Simon Crean beside him, coupled with a lack of majority support, would mean Australia had not taken a collective decision to spill the blood of young Australians in the national interest. The blood would be on Howard’s hands.

If John Howard cannot turn public opinion around if he needs to, he cannot send our troops to war. The legitimacy of Australians dying for us requires that the majority of us endorse the sacrifice in the national interest.

The stakes are too high. As Doc Evatt predicted, we need the UN to deliver.

***

The oil thing

By Stephen Hutcheon

What if the whole anti-Iraq crusade is not just about a pre-emptive strike against a terrorist-coddling serial pest whose nuclear ambitions and stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons threaten to destabilise the world?

What if this is really as many have speculated – an oil thing? That would certainly explain the ‘Why now?’ question that everyone’s asking since Bush announced it was time for a regime change in Baghdad. And the more I drill down, the more I become convinced that there’s a lot going for this conspiracy theory.

Suppose the Bush Administration has intelligence suggesting the despotic rulers of Saudi Arabia are about to be toppled by a fundamentalist Islamic uprising, the likes of which unseated the Shah of Iran back in 1979?

Suddenly there’s a big question mark over 265.3 billion barrels of crude oil thats about one quarter of the worlds known reserves. A domino effect might also claim oil-rich sultanates such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, taking out another 15 per cent of those reserves. (For the full rundown of who has what reserves see this US Department of Energy page: eia).

Suddenly, an oil crisis becomes an oil catastrophe. It’ll make the so-called “shock” of 1973 look like a harmless jolt. The major economies of Japan and the West will grind to a halt or at least to a crawl sending the world into the economic equivalent of a nuclear winter.

Far fetched maybe, but not impossible. A briefing given in July to the Defence Policy Board, a group of prominent intellectuals and former senior officials that advises the Pentagon, described Saudi Arabia as “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” in the Middle East.

“The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader,” according to the briefing prepared by Laurent Murawiec, an analyst with the conservative Rand Corp think tank. “Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies.”

The Administration was quick to distance itself from these incendiary views, but you can’t help feeling that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Obviously there are some American conservatives who believe the Saudis-as-enemies theory. And there are a lot of conservatives in the Administration who don’t need reminding that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia as did the man most responsible for that attack, Osama bin Laden.

So who’s got the second largest reserves of crude oil in the world? No prizes for guessing Iraq (with almost 10 per cent of reserves). Get rid of Saddam, install a friendly regime into what is already a secular country and you have the best buffer money can buy against the virulently anti-Western Islamic regime which may one day run Saudi Arabia.

You don’t have to look far to see that the Bush people are more than a little obsessed with oil issues. One of the first things they did after pushing out the Democrats was to open large tracts of formerly off-limits, pristine Alaska for oil exploration.

Just last week I read a story about renewed US interest in West Africa’s oil reserves. According to the Associated Press, the US has been attempting for some time to lessen its dependence on oil from the Middle East. Presently some 15 per cent of its supplies come from there. Another 15 per cent now comes from West Africa – mostly Nigeria, but it is also boosting the take from promising offshore discoveries in the Gulf of Guinea.

Much of the action is centred on Equatorial Guinea where the US has become the largest single foreign investor. In fact, an ethanol plant there and an associated petroleum pipeline in neighbouring Cameroon comprise the two largest capital investments ever in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the AP report. Moreover, the US State Department recently approved Military Professional Resources Inc, a private firm run by Pentagon retirees, to train those protecting Equatorial Guinea’s coast and offshore oil wells.

Ironically, Equatorial Guinea is ruled by a dictator who came to power in a coup in 1979, around the same time Saddam took over in Iraq. Like Saddam, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema presides over a kleptocratic regime which has siphoned off or squandered millions of dollars of his countrys wealth. Both have trammeled their critics and opponents. They’ve both used torture as an instrument of repression and ensured that their citizens enjoy none of the basic human rights and freedoms. If nothing else, it’s another good example of US hypocrisy.

(You can read the AP story here: washingtonpost. And if you want to read more about Equatorial Guinea, try the US State Department’s own assessment: state, or Amnesty’s take: amnesty, or the CIA’s fact book:cia).

Like any good conspiracy theory, this one is also full of holes. You need only read a profile of US Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, that appeared in the New York Times Magazine last week – (this is a copy, lifted by the Soldiers for the Truth site: sftt ) to find one of those holes.

In this piece, Bill Keller reveals how Wolfowitz has been on a personal get-Iraq mission since 1979 when as a humble analyst at the Pentagon he first raised concerns about Baghdad’s potential menace. The September 11 attacks gave Wolfowitz his chance to bring the Saddam issue on to the “front burner”, as Keller tells it. And it’s been there ever since. If you read Keller’s article you will probably come to the conclusion that the answer to the “Why now?” riddle is Wolfowitz.

But if you like your theories with a conspiratorial edge, keep your eye on the oil angle.

***

Saddam Hussein and the Heart of Darkness

By John Wojdylo

The coldness is still in the air, even though the sun is shining. The sky is blue again, with a sheen of light like a veil over the darkness of winter. Indistinct memories drift to other days like this, when things were simpler. The glare of the sky, like swimming in light, dissolves thought. Bliss. You wish things could be like this all the time. The coldness on your skin reminds you where you are. Reality gradually returns, you sense its darkness, that nightmare you had temporarily forgotten but now have to deal with. It just never goes away.

Back at the computer, the portal to a much wider world, you read how other people are dealing with the news. Some have gone for a walk under the brilliant blue sky and haven’t returned. Others, attuned to the sunlight, are disgusted by the belligerence they see. Still others rejoice in the belligerence, as they always do.

Who has looked the threat in the eye and come back to report it?

To get to the bottom of it, to find out what you believe and why, is so damned hard.

And it’s not made easier when so much information is steeped in hubris, devoid of substance, as if designed not to inform us at this most crucial time, but to make the belligerent more satisfied, or the disgusted more zealous in their disgust.

The nightmare is not being dealt with, the gap isn’t being bridged. We’re spinning apart.

While reading about Saddam Hussein, trying to get a foothold on what’s happening specifically with regards to Iraq, I imagined what his thoughts might be towards the UN, towards agreements for weapons inspections. And what his ambitions might be. But I found an article, published in May, just before the American attitude changed abruptly, where I didn’t have to imagine them – Iraqi defectors had recalled what he said in similar situations in the past, in an essay by Mark Bowden.

Should I believe that Saddam Hussein has suddenly changed and that he is now harmless? Is our scepticism of the Americans matched by our scepticism of Saddam Hussein’s minders?

How many people have read Saddam Hussein’s speeches – and monitored his deeds lately? Or had a look at his “manifesto” – in words and deeds – for world dictatorship? Why isn’t Saddam Hussein taken seriously, while Bush is the one who is branded a dictator hell bent on ruling the world?

If we can’t think clearly now about whether belligerence – by the Americans and anyone who joins them; or by UN-sanctioned action, if that can be achieved, and this may be crucial to our future – is the right approach against Iraq, then we may be missing a historical moment that would mark the end of our ability to influence the world in the direction we believe is right – whatever this may be.

We’re being distracted from Saddam Hussein and his milieu at a time when we ought to be getting to know him better.

* * *

What causes the distraction?

In Good for Business? (Webdiary September 17) three of the four commentators are avoiding the real issue. The question, “Would a war on Iraq and its aftermath be positive or negative for the world economy?” is nonsense: positive or negative compared to what?

Gerry van Wyngen’s conclusion that war could spell the demise of the US can equally well be drawn in the case that Saddam is allowed to succeed.

We need to understand whether a war is necessary, irrespective of the economic effects. (Can war ever be necessary? Was World War II or Kosovo necessary?)

Each of the articles (bar the last) in that Webdiary have one thing in common: although they discuss future projections of the US and world economies in the event of a US-led war, they do not carry out the same projections in the event that Saddam Hussein is allowed to fulfil his ambition.

On what grounds do Gerry van Wyngen and Clive Williams discount the threat of Saddam Hussein?

No anti-war articles I’ve seen in the SMH or elsewhere try to comprehend what the threat is. It’s somehow just dismissed as irrelevant, or the Americans are dismissed as cowboys. Or bent on world supremacy. (The implied argument – we cannot support the Americans because they are bent on world supremacy – is not an argument for not acting against Iraq, because allowing Iraq to continue on its present course may have consequences for you even if you are anti-American. Why do you believe Iraq cannot have consequences for you? What is the basis of your certainty?)

There’s a clear trend: pro-tough line articles focus on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein; anti-war articles focus on US and world consequences because of US actions – as if no outside force can determine the West’s destiny, and every act rebounds on the West in a sort of eternal closed loop, a modern version of bad karma, where merely being belligerent condemns you to the hell of eternal retribution, regardless of the good that belligerence achieves (eg World War Two, recently in Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia).

Others bawk at UN backing for force – there should be no unilateral action. UN backing is indeed crucial in avoiding a massive anti-American backlash in the event of many Iraqi casualties. But if the price of inaction is high enough – if Saddam Hussein will indeed have a nuclear device within two years if allowed to continue – then the terrible risk of unilateral action must be taken. The moral ball is in the UN’s court to fulfil its duties to disarm Saddam Hussein.

Is belligerence sometimes necessary, being the lesser of two evils? Can we be belligerent and remain moral people? Every person has power of one form or another – we can and must use it responsibly. Is now the time for this?

I’d like to see anti-war journalists face the scenario of Saddam succeeding – or explain in detail why it is either unlikely or not of paramount significance. We’ve heard a lot about Yank ambitions, now what are Saddam Hussein’s ambitions?

The articles in Good for Business? read as if the authors are lost in the “blue sky dream”, avoiding the horror of the choice that is facing us now.

If we’re aware of Saddam Hussein’s threat at all, why do we focus on the US and not Saddam Hussein? Answer: We’re afraid of being responsible for collateral killings in the cause of avoiding some threatened event in the future that some say can only ever be speculation – until it happens.

Some perhaps believe that they don’t want to be responsible for collateral killings because “we’d only be fighting for a dictatorship hell bent on world domination”; but this extreme view is also just an excuse for inaction. The basic questions are: do you believe Saddam presents an urgent threat, and if so, do you want him to win? Alternatively, on what grounds do you believe Saddam Hussein will not go through with fulfilling the ambition that he has repeatedly stated? Al Gore recognized the same dicotomy in his speech the other day.

Others reject action because of the certainty of loss of life, and the real possibility of massive loss of life if we attack. Is the price of inaction higher? What might this price be, anyway? Is this been properly dealt with in the media? See below.

How can one rationally think about threats that can only be realized in the future? This is a major question. I broach it in the last part of this piece, giving a historical example. Does rationality entail that we can only contemplate eternal light, with future nightmare scenarios banished by the glare of Reason? Can we only ever focus on the moral consequences of our own actions, and of those who ostensibly act in our name? How, then, do we deal with the “outside”, with new things, the threat of somebody who wills our destruction? Is Reason a trap? Does it – as one of a number of possible obstacles – actually hinder us seeing a part of the world that lies outside our rational constructs (e.g. a foreign threat, alien to our way of life, what we are capable of imagining, or willing to imagine)?

We know a lot more about the US than about Saddam Hussein, so it seems rational – even though it is foolhardy – to put US motives and moral outcomes under the microscope while ignoring the challenge posed by Saddam Hussein, excluding the alternative from our thinking: that Saddam Hussein can succeed. What do you think Saddam Hussein’s ambitions are and how close is he to achieving them? Later in this piece, I include a number of excerpts from Saddam Hussein’s speeches, and reports of recent incidents, that indicate what Saddam Hussein’s intentions might be.

If you think he’s just a tin-pot megalomaniac who likes building monuments to himself, then US efforts, unsurprisingly, would seem extremely aggressive. The risk of the Arab world rising up against the “anti-Muslim” West would then be highly influential in your judgement. The US would then be seen as mad to step into this danger – or greedy for oil, as the smiling and amiable Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, keeps saying.

A lot of people take that conclusion as a starting point or do not apply equal standards of analysis to what is known about Saddam Hussein. In so doing, they avoid the issue.

But Tariq Aziz is Saddam Hussein’s fall guy – a new Salah Omar al-Ali. Salah Omar Al-Ali used to be Saddam’s fall guy, but defected when he found out who Saddam Hussein really was. He told his story to Mark Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down, who wrote an excellent essay on Saddam Hussein the person, “Tales of the Tyrant”, in The Atlantic Monthly, May 2002. It is available online at iraqwatch. I highly recommend this essay, which is based on interviews with many defectors and is a serious effort to sort out the myth from the facts (and keep the facts). For instance, Saddam likes Ernest Hemingway, particularly The Old Man and the Sea.

Two of these anecdotes are particularly relevant to understanding Saddam Hussein’s dealings with the UN, especially his present acquiescence to the return of the weapons inspectors.

In September of 1979 Saddam attended a conference of unaligned nations in Cuba, where he formed a friendship with Fidel Castro, who still keeps him supplied with cigars. Saddam came to the gathering with Salah Omar al-Ali, who was then the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, a post he had accepted after a long period of living abroad as an ambassador. Together Saddam and al-Ali had a meeting with the new Foreign Minister of Iran. Four years earlier Saddam had made a surprise concession to the soon-to-be-deposed Shah, reaching an agreement on navigation in the Shatt-al-Arab, a sixty-mile strait formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as they flow into the Persian Gulf. Both countries had long claimed the strait. In 1979, with the Shah roaming the world in search of cancer treatment, and power in the hands of the Ayatollah Khomeini (whom Saddam had unceremoniously booted out of Iraq the year before), relations between the two countries were again strained, and the waters of the Shatt-al-Arab were a potential flash point. Both countries still claimed ownership of two small islands in the strait, which were then controlled by Iran.

But al-Ali was surprised by the tone of the discussions in Cuba. The Iranian representatives were especially agreeable, and Saddam seemed to be in an excellent mood. After the meeting al-Ali strolled with Saddam in a garden outside the meeting hall. They sat on a bench as Saddam lit a big cigar.

“Well, Salah, I see you are thinking of something,” Saddam said. “What are you thinking about?”

“I am thinking about the meeting we just had, Mr. President. I am very happy. I’m very happy that these small problems will be solved. I’m so happy that they took advantage of this chance to meet with you and not one of your ministers, because with you being here we can avoid another problem with them. We are neighbors. We are poor people. We don’t need another war. We need to rebuild our countries, not tear them down.”

Saddam was silent for a moment, drawing thoughtfully on his cigar. “Salah, how long have you been a diplomat now?” he asked.

“About ten years.”

“Do you realize, Salah, how much you have changed?”

“How, Mr. President?”

“How should we solve our problems with Iran? Iran took our lands. They are controlling the Shatt-al-Arab, our big river. How can meetings and discussions solve a problem like this? Do you know why they decided to meet with us here, Salah? They are weak is why they are talking with us. If they were strong there would be no need to talk. So this gives us an opportunity, an opportunity that only comes along once in a century. We have an opportunity here to recapture our territories and regain control of our river.”

That was when al-Ali realized that Saddam had just been playing with the Iranians, and that Iraq was going to go to war. Saddam had no interest in diplomacy. To him, statecraft was just a game whose object was to outmaneuver one’s enemies. Someone like al-Ali was there to maintain a pretense, to help size up the situation, to look for openings, and to lull foes into a false sense of security. [Tariq Aziz, smiling and amiable, is doing excellently.] Within a year the Iran-Iraq war began.

It ended horrifically, eight years later, with hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis dead. To a visitor in Baghdad the year after the war ended, it seemed that every other man on the street was missing a limb. The country had been devastated. The war had cost Iraq billions. Saddam claimed to have regained control of the Shatt-al-Arab. Despite the huge losses, he was giddy with victory. By 1987 his army, swelled by compulsory service and modern Western armaments, was the fourth largest in the world. He had an arsenal of Scud missiles, a sophisticated nuclear-weapons program under way, and deadly chemical and biological weapons in development. He immediately began planning more conquest.

In the Koran, Allah says, ‘If you thank me, I will give you more.’ In the early nineties Saddam was on TV, presenting awards to military officers, and he said, ‘If you thank me, I will give you more.’ He no longer believes he is a normal person. Dialogue with him is impossible because of this. He can’t understand why journalists should be allowed to criticize him. How can they criticize the father of the tribe? This is something unacceptable in his mind. To him, strength is everything. To allow criticism or differences of opinion, to negotiate or compromise, to accede to the rule of law or to due process – these are signs of weakness.”

To Saddam Hussein, the United Nations is a weak organisation because it allows him to toy with it. He does not see it as hindering his ambitions at all; at worst, it’s just a nuisance. He does what he wants. But what does get through to him is sabre-rattling – unaesthetic and ugly belligerence.

Addressing Congress on September 19, Colin Powell noted that “it was only after the president’s speech at the UN that the phone lines to Baghdad went hot. Iraqi envoys were falling over themselves to reach him”.

By accepting the recent Iraqi letter, with its glaring omissions, Kofi Annan has allowed Saddam Hussein to have his way. Annan has been duped – or is a weak man – and has no idea how to handle him. The Americans have a better idea of who Saddam Hussein is, and will engage in even uglier sabre-rattling, putting on more and more pressure in graduated stages, at each stage allowing the pressure to take effect in Saddam’s milieu, opening up the possibility of various mechanisms taking effect, with the ultimate aim of removing him from power. Ugly belligerence – particularly when it is willed by one side no matter what anyone else says – is an essential part of getting the message through.

Saddam Hussein undoubtedly plays cat and mouse games with UN inspection teams. He plays to win. UN inspections – if they’re not completely unfettered and backed by force – will be farcical. Just one example:“Iraq’s known bioweapons labs were so carefully hidden that UN officials failed to discover them until 1995 – four years after the start of inspections. Only after the defection of the program’s chief, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, did inspectors find secret laboratories that were producing lethal bacteria by the ton.” [Washington Post, July 31, 2002.]

Another take on the same story, by Laurie Mylroie in the Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs, Volume 1, Number 4, December 1997:

“An attack using unconventional agents and carried out by professional terrorists trained by a state, according to former CIA director James Woolsey, could result in 50,000 or more fatalities; a biological attack could produce 500,000 or more fatalities.”

“One would think that, given such dangers, the most extreme care would be taken to ensure that Iraq never had the opportunity to use such material. But that has not been the case. In August 1995, Hussein Kamil, Saddam’s son-in-law who had overseen Iraq’s unconventional weapons program, defected to Jordan. Until then, it had been thought that most of Iraq’s proscribed agents had been destroyed during the 1991 Gulf war and that UNSCOM was slowly but steadily removing what remained.

“Following Kamil’s defection, it was learned that was not true. Iraq’s most lethal agents had survived the Gulf war and Baghdad had managed to conceal that from UNSCOM. Moreover, even after UNSCOM learned of the concealed stockpiles, Iraq refused to turn over any of the proscribed agents since it claimed already to have destroyed the material. Thus, every report that UNSCOM has produced since December 17, 1995, has detailed the problem of the considerable unconventional capabilities Iraq retains.

“Yet until quite recently the United States acted as if the information that came to light as a result of Kamil’s defection was insignificant. Washington’s response was merely to affirm the old policy of maintaining sanctions on Iraq, while dissuading others from raising the problem.”

This refers to Clinton, but it could equally well have referred to Bush until a few months ago. Clinton, however, did almost wage war against Iraq in 1998, without further UN approval for action. Saddam Hussein sent a letter to Kofi Annan just as the B-52s were over the Atlantic.

In an interview with Arms Control Today, Vol. 29, No. 4 June 1999 (“The lessons and legacy of UNSCOM”; iraqwatch), Richard Butler repeatedly refers to systematic deception on the part of the Iraqis:

“There are U2 pictures that show things like 100 heavy trucks with Republican Guard markings gathered in the Iraqi desert, 100 kilometers from absolutely nowhere. They had been flushed out by UNSCOM inspectors and zipped off into the desert. And we happened to have our bird overhead and took photographs of this and said to Iraq, “What were those 100 trucks doing in the desert having disappeared from a place where we thought weapons materials were kept?” And Iraq looked us in the eye and said, “What trucks? There were no trucks.” In the name of God, we had photographs of them. Iraq said it buried missiles in certain places. We took photographs of those places, no burial pits. But they were elsewhere, where we did find them. I could bore you to death going on like this. I could go on and on about the degree of deception, the elaborateness of Iraq’s program to maintain its weapons capabilities. I have no doubt that it is Iraq’s second-largest industry, after oil.”

Not only the Americans avoided the problem of Iraq. It was a general malaise in the world, as represented by the United Nations. Richard Butler continues:

“Putting all this together, I’m now alarmed – and I’m saying this publicly for the first time to your journal – that something which only a few years ago was axiomatic has been lost, that a train has been derailed, and that train is called arms control. Up to a few years ago there was a widespread and growing conviction in the international community that arms control was a good thing, that it was an integral part of a good security policy, that the smaller the weapons package you had to deal with in maintaining your own national security, the better, and that this required sacrifices by you as well as by others. Arms control was a going concern….The Security Council is walking away from dealing with him and his weapons. They have decided it’s too hard.”

ACT: Are all members of the Security Council walking away from the problem, or are the United States and Britain trying to hold the line?

Butler: I would put the membership of the Security Council into three categories. One is those who have clearly and avowedly decided for whatever reason to bring about an end to the Iraq crisis. Either they’re very friendly to Iraq, or they’re of the view that enough’s enough and we can’t go any further with this. Russia, China, France and, in the present Security Council, Malaysia fall into that category.

The second category is made up of the United Kingdom, supported by the Netherlands and the United States, saying there remain disarmament obligations to be fulfilled, that we need ongoing monitoring in Iraq and that Iraq must accept these facts before any suspension or relief of sanctions. They’re the harder-line states, and they’re in the minority…

ACT: What are your impressions of the specific draft proposals that are now being considered by the Security Council?

Butler: All of the proposals on the table involve some kind of diminution of the vigor with which the Council will pursue the disarmament of Iraq. The Russian-backed proposal would basically say that it’s over, Iraq is disarmed, which is simply to call black white and they know it. Were they to say, “We’ve got other fish to fry, this continual pursuit of Saddam’s arms is not as important to us as those other fish,” they would be telling the truth. But when they argue it’s over, there’s nothing more to pursue in terms of disarmament in Iraq, they’re not dealing with reality, and they know it.

The British proposal is far closer to the truth, far more robust, but it does involve some political concessions to Iraq’s resistance to the Security Council. I don’t think it involves capitulation on the arms control side, but it tries to find some other form of political concession to get Iraq to come back into cooperation with the Council. While I think their attempt is brave and I understand it, they’ve got to be very careful that it doesn’t result in a lot of countries in the world thinking, “This is interesting, all you’ve really got to do with the Security Council is be prepared to wait, to tough it out for a long time, to take a few bombings, but to still say, ‘No, we won’t do what you say,’ and in the end they’ll cave in.”

The ideals of the United Nations were already beginning to be corrupted.

ACT: What are the members of the Security Council subordinating arms control to? What is their primary interest?

Butler: It depends on what country you’re talking about. One could go through the motivations of each of the permanent members that is supportive of Iraq – Russia, France, China – and it wouldn’t be an edifying spectacle.

***

The point is, there were serious grounds for concern about Iraq even back in 1999. And 1998. The sudden change a couple of months or so ago by the Bush administration can be understood even without a conspiracy theory: taking the lead and kicking the UN Security Council into action – which had clearly fallen into a corrupted, self-interested malaise on the Iraq question – is a good in itself.

Those that do not see Saddam’s threat as urgent naturally treat the timing of the acceleration with suspicion. Yet any military action must occur in winter (otherwise it’s too hot); and last winter was too soon after September 11: this event is the one that focussed American minds on the new type of threat that terrorism – and the type of war Saddam would fight – presents. But congressional elections are to happen before this winter, which would make action this winter impossible – hence the urgency. By next winter, Saddam Hussein could well have a nuclear device.

No conspiracy theory – eg “Bush wants to rule the world” – is necessary to understand the current urgency. The manner in which Bush pushes the case is inept, but Bush is not as talented as Blair.

Not believing (yet) that Saddam is much of a threat, the American Democrats nevertheless believe that “the war debate is a manoeuvre by President Bush to deflect attention from his domestic political problems, such as the finance scandals and the weak economy”.

“One can’t help noticing that the sudden urgency of a war against Iraq comes exactly at a time when stories about company scandals are peaking, poll results for the republicans are sagging, and the prospects that they will win a majority in the senate are diminishing, ” said Jim Jordan, director of the Democratic Campaign Office, to a Washington Post journalist. “Other priorities exist in the USA, the war against terror and the economy,” said Tom Daschle, the Democrats’ leader in the senate, where they have a majority. [Der Spiegel, 16/9]

Colin Powell rebutted the claims: “Bush has taken a tougher line against Iraq right from the start of his presidency.”

 

But even if the “tougher line” Powell refers to doesn’t explain the apparent large variation in toughness between now and a year ago, the impact of September 11 and the Saddam’s progress does.

Why this winter, rather than 18 months from now? Because his weapons program – which undoubtedly exists – will be 18 months more mature by then. He already has weapons of mass destruction (I cite more details below); and is getting too close to the ultimate prize of nuclear weapons. If he obtains weapons-grade material in that time, then 18 months is ample time to fit it to the designs he already has successfully tested:[Iraq Watch Report, August 2002 iraqwatch]

When the UN inspectors left Iraq, they concluded that Iraq was still withholding drawings showing the latest stage of its nuclear weapon design. In addition, they found that Iraq was withholding blueprints of individual nuclear weapon components – including the precise dimensions of explosive lenses – and drawings showing how to mate Iraq’s nuclear warhead with a missile. Iraq claimed that these things either did not exist or were no longer in its possession. Iraq had also failed to turn over documents revealing how far it got in developing centrifuges to process uranium to weapon-grade, and failed to provide 170 technical reports it received showing how to produce and operate the centrifuges. Iraq claimed that all these documents were secretly destroyed. Nor did Iraq account for materials and equipment belonging to its most advanced nuclear weapon design team. In fact, Saddam Hussein has taken pains to keep his nuclear teams together and to prevent any of their members from leaving the country.

Iraq’s nuclear procurement efforts have also continued. Iraq is allowed to import medical equipment as an exception to the U.N. embargo, so in 1998 Iraq ordered a half-dozen “lithotripter” machines, ostensibly to rid its citizens of kidney stones, which the lithotripter pulverizes inside the body without surgery. But each machine requires a high-precision electronic switch that has a second use: it triggers atomic bombs. Iraq wanted to buy 120 extra switches as “spare parts.” Iraq placed the order with the German electronics firm Siemens, which supplied the machines but forwarded the order for the extra switches to its supplier, Thomson- C.S.F., a French military-electronics company. It is uncertain whether the French government barred the sale. Stephen Cooney, a Siemens spokesman, claimed that Siemens subsequently provided only eight switches, one in each machine and two spares. Sources at the United Nations and in the U.S. government believe that the number supplied is higher. It only takes one switch to detonate Iraq’s latest bomb design.

This episode shows that Iraq is still determined to obtain nuclear weapons. And according to the U.N. inspectors, Iraq is closer to the bomb than most people think. The inspectors have learned that Iraq’s first bomb design, which weighed a ton and was a full meter in diameter, has been replaced by a smaller, more efficient model. From discussions with the Iraqis, the inspectors have deduced that the new design weighs only about 600 kilograms and measures only 600 to 650 millimeters in diameter. That makes it small enough to fit on a Scud-type missile. According to inspection records, up to nine of Iraq’s Scud-type missiles are still unaccounted for.

The inspectors have also determined that Iraq’s bomb design will work. Iraq has mastered the key technique of creating an implosive shock wave, which squeezes a bomb’s nuclear material enough to trigger a chain reaction. The inspectors have learned that the new Iraqi design also uses a “flying tamper,” a refinement that “hammers” the nuclear material to squeeze it even harder, so that bombs can be made smaller without diminishing their explosive force. Thus, Iraq now possesses an efficient nuclear bomb design. The only thing lacking is the fissile material to fuel it.

Why the military option rather than weapons inspectors? And why the urgency for this?

Following Saddam Hussein’s acceptance last week of UN weapons inspectors, Salah Sheihli, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress (an organisation of emigres in the US that occasionally advises the US government) said: “Saddam Hussein is playing for time, because he has his own calculations. Weapons inspectors won’t appear in Iraq for several weeks, and he’ll use the time to scatter the military objects that the committee might find. From our sources, we know that chemical and biological materials – which don’t take up much room – have previously been hidden in schools, hospitals, private homes and even at a cemetery…. The end of the year will come, and we’re still going to have long debates in the UN…” [Gazeta Wyborcza, 17/9]

Richard Butler, writing in reference to Kofi Annan, conjured the “Hitler 1938” analogy, and referred to Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. Is this too harsh? Or will history indeed judge Annan as a Chamberlain figure?

“Kofi Annan has failed to win Iraqi concessions on key weapons inspection points. The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, did not use the words “peace in our time” when he announced that the letter to him from the Iraqi Foreign Minister stated that Iraq would “allow the return of the United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq, without conditions”.”

“The economy of Annan’s statement did suggest, however, that he thought, like Chamberlain had when he returned from Munich in 1938, that the problem had been solved and war had been averted. Sadly, it appears that Annan will be on no safer ground than was Chamberlain.”

Overnight, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was pointing out the glaring deficiencies of the Iraqi letter and saying that a new Security Council resolution would still be required while his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, was expressing satisfaction with the letter and urging that it be accepted without any further resolution. The French followed Russia.

If the US fails, it is not clear at this stage what it would then agree to in the UN context. The sorry possibility is that it will walk away and implement Bush’s threat that if the UN fails to take up its responsibilities, the US will act alone.

It is a great pity that Annan did not obtain from Iraq a clearer commitment to unfettered inspection. He seems to have a problem in dealing with Saddam.

His visit to Baghdad in March 1998 to head off the conflict that was brewing at that time proved to be an abject failure. He signed an agreement with Iraq, another piece of paper which he proclaimed would bring peace in our time, only to see Iraq violate it virtually before his aircraft had touched down back in New York.

“More important, however, is the now very real prospect that the hard men in the Bush Administration who were always sceptical about the UN, the Security Council and the rule of international law generally, and who above all prefer to solve the Iraq problem by simply going to war, will say: “We told you so,” and then firmly advise the President that the time for war has come.” [SMH, 18/9]

A meeting between Iraqi and UN officials to plan the inspections will take place in Vienna in October. If you believe the Iraqi defectors’ and emigres’ reaction to Saddam Hussein’s letter to the UN, and notice the reluctance of the UN to hurry, knowing what is at stake – by late October the bioweapons will be well hidden in private homes, and the labs will have been cleaned – would you too be inclined to act alone if the UN didn’t get around to approving action?

In any case, if Saddam is really determined, hiding bioweapons is a piece of cake. You can hide enough weapons-grade anthrax in your fridge at home to kill a lot of people. Not that you need a fridge. Saddam did it during the first four years of UN weapons inspections (at least), while producing bioweapons by the ton under the noses of the inspectors. There are good grounds why inspections can only fail. See “Why Iraq Will Defeat Arms Inspectors” (iraqwatch ).

I should mention that recent articles (in the SMH and the Australian) by Richard Butler seem much more simplistic and idealistic than the views he expressed in the interview with Arms Control Today in 1999. Perhaps this is because of lack of space in the column format of Australian newspapers. Or, having been an outside observer these years, perhaps he has simplified his thinking. I come back to this presently.

The French and the Russians, too, are possibly wondering why the American attitude has changed so much in recent months. If the Americans had tolerated the threat for so many years, and allowed them to pursue their interests in Iraq, why change now? Especially since in the absence of American oil companies – which were forbidden to operate in Iraq by the US government – the Russians and French took the chance to put down roots in Iraq, and now have large oil interests there. They would not want to see their investment go down the gurgler in an unstable, postwar Iraq. [Der Spiegel, in “The Battle for Caspian Oil”, an eight part series of articles about oil interests in the region, including an excellent clickable map showing oil and gas reserves and pipelines; in German spiegel]

What this means is that the Russians, especially, will be looking to be bought off by the Americans in return for support at the UN Security Council. The Russians will be brazen about it; the French will do it in secret while proclaiming the opposite. China will oppose US action until it sees itself isolated; then it will uphold the principle of the group ethic and change its vote – but only to the extent that it will abstain. China is sensitive about its ties with some Arab states. (A couple of weeks ago, an exhibition in Beijing marking the anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birth was banned by the communist authorities because it featured a letter written by Einstein in which he declared his support for a Zionist state.)

When the Russians openly come out selling their vote on the Security Council, we’ll see that it’s not just American unilateralism that is diminishing the rule of international law. [Indeed, “Russia puts a price on its support” (SMH 20/9): Russia has asked the United States for economic guarantees worth tens of billions of dollars, plus help getting into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), in return for its support in the campaign against Iraq. ]

I’m not sure if Richard Butler considers bought unity in the UN Security Council as constituting “rule of international law”. The law ought to be based on something more substantial than bribes. The headline in theAustralian (16/9) is just schein-ethics all over again, which wants us to believe that the UN Security Council is a place where “principle overrides politics”. So when the Yanks go charging in on the white horse, no wonder they seem to be smashing all the decent mores of international law single-handedly.

Yet UN backing for current US military action may be crucial in determining the course of world events in the next decade. It may be the crucial dressing that determines Arab reaction in the event that Iraqi casualties are high and Israel attacks with nuclear weapons. The UN must face its responsibility now.

***

Richard Butler writes:

“A little more than 50 years ago, an argument as old as recorded history was apparently settled. The meeting at San Francisco adopted the Charter of the United Nations. It sought to answer affirmatively the ancient question: Could relations between nations be conducted in accordance with some basic agreed rules of conduct, international law? Or would the main determinant of those relations remain what it had been in the past – power politics?

“The impetus for this extraordinary attempt to rid the world of “the scourge of war”, was the two world wars of the 20th century, and their attendant horrors, that killed some 70 million people.

“At the core of the charter’s commitment to “the maintenance of international peace and security” is the Security Council. It was given singular powers – its decisions are binding in international law and the council may authorise the use of force to bring about compliance with its decisions.

“The authors of the charter had learned from history. They were aware of the potentially destructive conflict between the notion of international law and the habits of power politics.” [The Australian, 16/9]

Compare these high and pious ideals with what Richard Butler knew to be the case in the interview with Arms Control Today (above).

Although the charter’s ideals undoubtedly have a positive normative influence in many UN’s decisions, glaring deviations from perfection have been the rule rather than the exception throughout the organization’s existence. Butler notes that “the veto power was abused subsequently, particularly by the US and the USSR, who in the subsequent 40-year Cold War period, each used their power more than 250 times in protection of their client states”. And in the Arms Control Today he advocates more sensible veto rules.

Nowadays Butler appears to confound normative ideals with something more absolute. Thus he exaggerates the dire consequences of American unilateral action at the moment on the Iraq question, without giving credit to the resilience of the UN in retaining its shape after shocks.

If the Americans go ahead with unilateral action now, he says, it could spell the end of the UNSC as a relevant body. “Failure by the Security Council to act on Iraq could lead to its end as a viable institution. We would all also, assuredly, have to reckon with the revival of sheer power, as the major determinant of outcomes in international relations.”

It should be noted that these two consequences are held to be desirable by some key members of the Bush administration.

It certainly might. And that might be a good thing, if it comes back with a new lease of life, functioning as it is supposed to in the maintenance of international peace and security. By his own admission in Arms Control Today, the UN Security Council had become (in my words) moribund and corrupt:

ACT: What challenges did you face in balancing the work of UNSCOM with the delicate, complex politics of the Security Council?

Butler: “Complex” is an accurate way to describe the Council, but “delicate” certainly isn’t. The word “delicate” doesn’t sit well other than as an oxymoron for the somewhat thuggish behavior that is often seen inside the Council. The Council is a place where power is deployed rather unsentimentally, particularly by states that have the veto and that are prepared to throw their weight around – very often without getting to the meat of things in other than perfunctory terms. For example, if someone says to China, “Why do you want x?” the answer “Because I say so” is hardly an answer. It says, “Because I’m powerful.” That’s not a rational answer, and one hears answers like that. You hear a little bit more than that very often, a sort of papering over by saying that it would be bad for international peace and security if China or Russia, for example, didn’t get its way.

So I think the largest challenge in the Council is truth telling. The basic function of the Council lies between the exercise of great power, which is typically exercised in terms of separate national interests, and the justification for it, which is supposed to be presented through the Council’s reports in a way that demonstrates what was done was in fact good and right. And if those reports are not readily capable of ambiguous or elliptical interpretation, then the naked exercise of power, in terms of national interests, gets uncomfortably exposed. And I think that became characteristic of the last few years of UNSCOM.

***

The most urgent question is: What do you believe Saddam Hussein’s ambitions are, and how close is he to realizing them?

If you believe that the threat is great and urgent, then acting against him should be the UNSC’s uppermost imperative, if it’s acting according to its charter. So the aims of the Americans and the UNSC should coincide, now and for as long as Saddam Hussein’s ambition is alive (it could be carried on by pan-Arab Islamists after his death). Otherwise – if the UNSC doesn’t act – it’s not acting according to its charter, and the Americans are justified in taking the law into their own hands – and hoping that the UN rebounds later to the form it ought to have. And hoping the consequences among Arab states are not too dire.

And why should the UN Security Council gain a new lease of life at all, given that Bush has embarked on a path of global domination that not even Hitler, Stalin, or his protege Saddam Hussein could match? Because in his National Security Strategy Report to Congress (submitted in accordance with Section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Department Reorganization Act of 1986, and meant to be an American account of American responsibilities presented to Americans – hence the frequent use of the “our” and “we” and the world out there, just as Clinton had it in his reports (almost: Clinton used more inclusive phrases to sweeten his unilateral duties, that was his style)), Bush writes:

“We are also guided by the conviction that no nation can build a safer, better world alone. Alliances and multilateral institutions can multiply the strength of freedom-loving nations. The United States is committed to lasting institutions like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organization of American States, and NATO as well as other long-standing alliances. Coalitions of the willing can augment these permanent institutions. In all cases, international obligations are to be taken seriously. They are not to be undertaken symbolically to rally support for an ideal without furthering its attainment.”

Why doubt Bush, if we doubt Saddam Hussein?

So, maybe the Americans are just after the oil. But serious people like Powell have faith in the cause. In any case, if you believe that Saddam Hussein’s ambitions are great and he is dangerous – as I think the American leaders do, irrespective of other sleazier motives that some of them almost certainly have – then it would seem justified that the nations that stand up to the tyrant get some of the oil booty to help allay the costs of the war. After all, they would have single-handedly enforced the international law that the UN Security Council had impotently mumbled throughout the 1990s. But oil is clearly not the aim.

Again, material gain could well be a secondary issue – the real question is, what do you think the threat from Saddam Hussein is? This is the starting point for evaluating American or anyone else’s actions on the question of Iraq.

(CONTINUED NEXT POST)

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