There was little doubt that at least some of the nations on the UN Security Council would not take part in an effort to dislodge Saddam. Russia and China, in particular, were often opposed to American proposals. France sometimes joined them.25 Saddam’s agents actively worked to cultivate their friends in Paris, Berlin, and Moscow by offering lucrative oil and other contracts. The French had an especially close, longstanding relationship with him. “France in particular,” as Saddam put it when I met with him in 1983, “understood the Iraqi view.”26 French leaders in industry, and perhaps some in politics, not only “understood” Iraq; they came to profit handsomely from it. President Jacques Chirac, for one, seemed comfortable with Saddam, whom he had shown around French nuclear power facilities in the 1970s. He had also negotiated an agreement to sell Iraq a nuclear reactor. In the decades that followed, France sold some $1. 5 billion of military equipment to Iraq.27 I don’t doubt that Iraq’s intransigence in defying the United Nations had been at least in part a result of Saddam’s belief that the UN Security Council was ineffective, and that his friends there would continue to give him political cover. He was right—almost.
By the end of 2002, the United Nations had reached a new low. The organization’s members seemed to have abandoned judgment and elected Libya, one of the world’s most backward dictatorships, to chair the UN Commission on Human Rights. To top that, the UN made Iraq the chair of the UN Disarmament Commission. This put Saddam in the driver’s seat of a body responsible for examining whether he was complying with disarmament obligations to the UN. And when it came to Iraq, the UN Oil-for-Food program had become a sad story of corruption and lies, as a later independent investigation established.*
As frustrating as the organization could be, it was not in America’s interests to see the United Nations follow the path of its predecessor, the League of Nations, the organization that watched as Italy’s Fascist forces invaded Abyssinia in 1935. President Bush wanted to rally the United Nations to support a U.S.-led effort to enforce the Security Council’s resolutions on Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a persuasive advocate, buttressed Bush’s efforts. Bush and Blair, Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw coaxed and cajoled the members of the UN Security Council on the matter. Finally, on November 8, 2002, the Security Council voted 15-0 to support Resolution 1441. The resolution condemned Iraq’s weapons programs, demanded that Iraq reopen suspected weapons facilities for inspection, and threatened “serious consequences” if Iraq failed to provide the UN a comprehensive list of the WMD it retained. The resolution stated that this was Iraq’s “final opportunity” to comply with the international community.29
There had been no fewer than seventeen UN resolutions demanding that Saddam comply with various requirements since 1991. They specified that his regime demonstrate that it had: destroyed its WMD arsenal; ended support for international terrorists; stopped threatening neighbors; and ceased oppressing Kurds and Shiites. Because nothing seemed to result from their noncompliance with the earlier resolutions, Iraq concluded, not unreasonably, that it could safely respond to this latest, UN Resolution 1441, with still another shrug.
Weeks later Saddam Hussein’s regime produced a contemptuously incomplete declaration of their weapons programs. In December 2002, President Bush concluded that Iraq was in “material breach” of UN Resolution 1441.30 United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix reported to the UN that “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.” Blix also said that based on an Iraqi Air Force document and Iraq’s former claims, one thousand tons of toxic nerve gas, one of the most lethal chemical weapons, remained “unaccounted for.” Since Iraq had actually used nerve gas before in the Iran-Iraq War, there was every reason to believe the regime still possessed it.31
Though Resolution 1441 was written as Iraq’s last chance to come into compliance with its obligations to the United Nations—the tip-off to most people was the phrase “final opportunity”—some members of the Security Council proceeded to insist that there needed to be still another vote on an additional “this time we really mean it” resolution before they would sign onto any military action. Prime Minister Blair seemed to believe that it might be possible to obtain such a resolution and, along with it, additional international support, most notably from France and Germany. The other way to look at it—and perhaps the way Saddam did—was that this was an opportunity to further drag out the process.
Seeing the disappointing state of play, at one point Bush told me with a rueful smile, “This is a quagmire of my own making.” In fact the diplomatic efforts surrounding the final months before combat operations began proved to not be anyone’s finest hour.
CHAPTER 32
A Failure of Diplomacy
“War is a failure of diplomacy.”
—source unknown
President Bush believed that the key to successful diplomacy with Saddam was a credible threat of military action. We hoped that the process of moving an increasing number of American forces into a position where they could attack Iraq might convince the Iraqis to end their defiance. On January 11, 2003, I approved the deployment of an additional thirty-five thousand troops, with aircraft and warships, to the Gulf region, sending still another signal that the time for cooperation was dwindling.
For a year, officials from both France and Germany had said they were looking for a diplomatic compromise with the United States that would open the way for them to support the use of force in Iraq, if it proved necessary. On January 22, President Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced that they would oppose ousting the regime.
It was a regrettable position for two longtime U.S. allies, not to mention historic rivals themselves, to oppose America’s diplomatic and possible military effort as strongly as they did. In the United States critics used France and Germany to claim that “Europe” was opposed to the administration’s stance on Iraq. That, of course, was not true. A large majority of European countries were supportive. More troubling, the French and Germans were, intentionally or not, giving Saddam’s regime the impression that they could stop a military confrontation. By giving Saddam a false sense of security, and thereby reducing the incentive for him to comply with the UN’s demands, the French and Germans undoubtedly made a war more likely, not less.
Hours after the French and German declaration, I traveled to the Foreign Press Center for a scheduled briefing of foreign reporters. One questioner asserted that the attitudes of the French and Germans were representative of “the mood among European allies.”
“[Y]ou’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France,” I replied. “I don’t. I think that’s old Europe.” I pointed out that if the reporters looked at the entire composition of NATO today, the center of gravity had shifted east with its new members. Those countries, I asserted, were “not with France and Germany on this. They’re with the United States.”1
I had no sense that anything I had said was anything other than blindingly obvious. But I soon learned that my “old Europe” comment had touched a raw nerve. It caused an uproar, especially from those who felt they were on the receiving end of my remark. The French Finance Minister called the comment “deeply irritating.”2
Ironically, my comment was unintentional. I had meant to say France and Germany represented “old NATO” not “old Europe.” As a former ambassador to NATO, I had been thinking of the alliance that existed when I served in Brussels. In the 1970s, when there were fifteen countries in the alliance, France and Germany played a large role. But after the Cold War’s end, NATO extended membership to a dozen Eastern European nations, changing its size and outlook. While serving as secretary of defense in the Bush administration, I took a particular interest in visiting Eastern Europe and its leaders. I was comfortable with those countries, since Chicago has a large representation of Eastern Europeans.* This shift in the
center of gravity of NATO eastward naturally reduced the role of France and Germany. Having been liberated from the Soviet Union only a short time earlier, the nations of Eastern Europe had a recent understanding of the nature of dictators, whether a Stalin, a Ceausescu, or a Saddam Hussein.†
Shortly after my “old Europe” comment, and to counter France and Germany’s negative position on Iraq, ten Eastern European nations jointly declared their support for military action. “Our countries understand the dangers posed by tyranny and the special responsibility of democracies to defend our shared values,” their leaders declared jointly. “[W]e are prepared to contribute to an international coalition to enforce [UN Resolution 1441] and the disarmament of Iraq.”4
In any event, the phrase “old Europe” entered the vernacular. The segment of Americans that preferred calling french fries “freedom fries” loved it. The elites in Paris and Bonn who thought themselves the guardians of a sophisticated, new world order did not. All in all I was amused by the ruckus.
Nearly fifty nations would join the American and British–led coalition willing to change the regime in Iraq—with thirty members committed to concrete, visible support and the others preferring to provide assistance more discreetly. As far as everyone on the NSC was concerned, the more nations involved in the invasion and in the postwar period, the better. It would mean less burden would fall on the United States and, in particular, on our military. I agreed with Churchill’s formulation. “There is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies,” he observed, “and that is to fight without them.”
Yet even this impressive achievement did not prevent critics from accusing Bush of “acting alone.” It was harmful, to say the least, when Senator John Kerry publicly denigrated the forty-five nations that were supporting the coalition effort in Iraq. He acidly referred to them as members of the “coalition of the coerced and the bribed.”5 This was an especially peculiar charge for two reasons. The first was that Kerry, like most of the Democrats in the Senate, had supported the decision to go to war—at least, when things seemed to be going well. Second, he presented himself as an internationalist, yet he was insulting our friends and allies and purposefully harming our coalition, simply to score a domestic political point.
The deeper irony was that his charge was perfectly misdirected. It was true that some nations in the coalition provided only a little help, but in some cases that was all they could afford to offer. Others, particularly the British, Polish, Spanish, and Australians, extended substantial help, in the form of military and civilian personnel and materiel. Given all we now know about the deep corruption in the Oil-for-Food program, if any nations might have been charged with having been bribed or coerced to take a position on the war in Iraq, it should have been some of the nations that opposed military action, not those that supported it.
In February 2003, to further rally international support and increase pressure on Saddam, President Bush decided that the United States would make a major presentation to the UN Security Council on the threat Iraq posed and its defiance of UN resolutions. The point person for that presentation was an obvious choice. Secretary of State Colin Powell was not only America’s senior foreign policy official, he also carried substantial credibility at home and abroad.
As he prepared to make his case for military action against Saddam, Powell worked closely with Tenet and other senior CIA officials, traveling to CIA headquarters, meeting with analysts over several days, and working late into the night. Powell went over his presentation extensively with Condoleezza Rice to be certain they had analyzed all of the facts and information, and had raised every conceivable question, to hone America’s case. Powell and his aides considered how to achieve an Adlai Stevenson moment—a reprise of the UN ambassador’s forceful 1962 presentation to the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which turned the tables on the Soviet Union.6
On February 3, two days before Powell was to go to New York, he sketched out his briefing to the President at an NSC meeting. “We have sources for everything,” Powell confidently told the President. If Powell felt duped or misled about any aspect of his presentation, as some would later claim, there was no sign of it two days before he delivered it.7
Powell would touch on Iraq’s links to terrorists and mention the small Kurdish town of Khurmal, which, the CIA had been reporting since early 2002 housed an underground facility for testing chemical weapons, including ricin and cyanide.8 The site was operated by Ansar al-Islam, a Sunni extremist group with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of al-Qaida. A number of al-Qaida terrorists, including Zarqawi, were believed to be present at the Khurmal facility, having recently fled from combat in Afghanistan.9 Some in the intelligence community believed elements of Ansar al-Islam were funded by al-Qaida and could be colluding with Saddam’s regime. The reach of the Iraqi intelligence services was extensive in the country, with a vast network of informants, so it was not unreasonable to conclude that the Iraqi government knew of this fairly sizable terrorist operation.*
Many months before the February NSC meeting, Chairman Myers, General Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Staff, and CENTCOM planners, in close coordination with the CIA, had developed a range of options to attack Khurmal. They included a ground assault using CIA operatives, U.S. special operations forces, and Kurdish militia fighters known as the peshmerga. Another way was to destroy the facilities using cruise missiles and air strikes. The ground option had the advantage of collecting better evidence on the WMD operation, but given how well defended the site was, it was almost certain to entail casualties.
We were aware that the intelligence about the facility, though extensive, could not be considered conclusive. But taking all the risks into account, Myers and I were convinced that the intelligence was sufficiently persuasive to warrant military action. The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were also unanimous in their recommendation to strike.11 We believed that hundreds of suspected terrorists, including Ansar al-Islam’s senior leadership, suspected al-Qaida members, and an active chemical weapons facility were in our sights. With a military strike, we thought we would gain more clarity on the CIA’s reporting on Iraqi WMD programs in short order. Myers, Tenet, and I went back to the President and the NSC several times in 2002 to urge an attack on the facility. Each time we were unpersuasive. Powell and Rice were concerned that a U.S. strike within Iraq’s borders could cause Saddam to take action against the Kurds and make America’s diplomatic initiatives in building a coalition and gaining support at the UN more challenging. Bush agreed with them.
In February 2003, as Powell briefed the National Security Council on his upcoming UN speech, I spoke up once again on Khurmal. If we were ever going to hit the facility and have a favorable result, we would have to do it at the same time, or preferably just before, Powell spoke, since he would be telling the world that we knew about the WMD facility. Once the terrorists learned from Powell’s speech that we were aware of their presence, they would flee.
Before the NSC meeting ended, I offered my recommendation for the last time: “We should hit Khurmal during the speech,” I said, “given that Colin will talk about it.”
Powell objected. “That would wipe out my briefing,” he said, adding, “We’re going to get Khurmal in a few weeks anyway.”12
In his dramatic address before the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, Powell presented recordings, satellite photographs, and documents that he argued proved that Iraq was engaged in WMD activities in defiance of the UN. “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources,” Powell told the Security Council. “These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”13
On the subject of nuclear weapons, Powell left no room for doubt about his convictions about Saddam’s intentions. “[W]e have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons,” Powell said, with the authority of his years of military and diplomatic servic
e. “Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.” He echoed the Agency’s estimates about linkages between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaida. “[W]hat I want to bring to your attention today,” he said, “is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder.”14 Powell went on to finger Khurmal. “[T]he Zarqawi network,” he said, “helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp ... and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.”15
As expected, shortly after Powell’s speech was delivered, many of the terrorists fled Khurmal. When our troops and intelligence operatives eventually arrived there in March 2003, days after the war in Iraq began, they engaged in a firefight with the terrorists remaining.16 By then, much of the facility had been destroyed by cruise missile strikes and fighting on the ground, but clear signs of chemical weapons production were found, including chemical hazard suits, manuals to make chemical weapons in Arabic, and traces of the deadly toxins cyanide, ricin, and potassium chloride.17 For whatever reason, the administration never made public these facts about an active WMD production facility run by terrorists in Iraq. Members of Ansar al-Islam would later become part of the insurgency. Ironically, had Powell not objected to the DoD and CIA proposal to attack the Khurmal site before he gave his presentation to the UN, we might have been able to gather the conclusive evidence of an active WMD facility, that he said existed in his UN speech.
As we now know, portions of Powell’s presentation about Iraq’s WMD programs proved not to be accurate, but something interesting happened over the years that followed. Here was a briefing, personally developed by the Secretary of State, with the close assistance of the National Security Adviser, the CIA Director and the intelligence community. It was consistent with strong statements of congressional support for military action, including those from many prominent Democrats, as well as with the assessments of several foreign intelligence agencies. And yet, over time, a narrative developed that Powell was somehow innocently misled into making a false declaration to the Security Council and the world. Powell himself later contended, in defense of his participation, “There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn’t be relied upon, and they didn’t speak up. That devastated me.”18 When asked why these people did not speak up, he replied, “I can’t answer that.”19
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