The Iraq War

by John Keegan

  Unfortunately for Saddam, official America after 9/11 was uninterested in distinctions between one sort of Arab extremist and another. Osama was violently anti-American. So was Saddam. The decision was taken to eliminate his régime. The steps to that decision were given in two public warnings, President Bush’s State of the Union address to Congress in January 2002 and his speech to the graduating class at the US Military Academy in June. In both he denounced Saddam’s régime – to Congress as part of an ‘axis of evil’ – and he threatened pre-emptive action. The decisive moment came, however, on 11 January 2003 when Secretary Rumsfeld ordered the deployment of 60,000 troops, together with military aircraft and warships, to the Gulf; on 20 January Geoffrey Hoon, the British Secretary of State for Defence, commanded the despatch of 26,000 British troops and 100 aircraft; with those already in the area, a quarter of the British army and a third of the Royal Air Force would be present in the zone of operations. Rumsfeld’s and Hoon’s announcements clarified a puzzling obscurity. Strategic analysts had pondered for months on the territorial difficulties of mounting an operation against Iraq, one of the most inaccessible countries in the northern hemisphere. Its tiny coastline at the head of the Gulf offered scarcely any space for a bridgehead. Saudi Arabia was proving uncooperative. Iran was almost as hostile to the West as Iraq itself. Turkey had suddenly turned contrary. Syria would not breach the Arab front. Jordan seemed too weak to violate Muslim opinion. There seemed no way in. At the last moment, though the Americans had known so for some time, Kuwait was revealed to be willing to offer basing and transit rights. It was a courageous decision, since it isolated the country in the Arab world and carried the risk of terrible retaliation if the coalition operation did not work.

  Solving the difficulty of the military preliminaries did not, however, dissolve the political obstacles. The United States could count on the support of Britain and of Australia, which supplied ships, aircraft and special forces (which may have included a New Zealand element). Otherwise it was bereft of allies. Worse; early in the crisis that developed in 2002 and persisted into 2003, right up to the unleashing of hostilities, its traditional European supporters began to object to and even oppose the taking of military action against Saddam. Spain, an unlikely militant, supported President Bush, so enthusiastically that he chose to stage a summit meeting in the Portuguese Azores on 16 March, the very eve of the war. France, however, made strong and increasingly loud protests; so did Germany. Objections by France were to be expected, for many reasons. Historically pro-Arab and pro-Muslim since the seventeenth century, when it had been the Ottoman Emperor’s only friend among the Christian powers, and led by the braggart President Chirac, who both gloried in trumpeting his differences with Washington and was deeply implicated in commercial dealings with Saddam’s government (dating back to the sale of the Osirak reactor to Iraq at the end of the 1970s), France was an odd man out in the Western world. Germany, by contrast, had always been an American insider. In the days when twenty Soviet divisions occupied the old East Germany, it had been America’s most devoted friend on the continent. Liberated, however, from the Soviet threat, thanks to the triumph of President Reagan’s policy of bankrupting the Soviet Union by competition in military expenditure, German public and much political opinion yielded to the temptation of seeking the softer way. The defeat of 1945 had altered the German psyche, transforming the most militarist nation in Europe into one genuinely devoted to the principles of peace and the resolution of international disputes by conciliation. The threat of Soviet aggression had forced the German people to embrace NATO and do the military duty membership of the alliance required. The elimination of the Soviet threat allowed German anti-militarism to surface and to predominate. The new German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, a Social Democrat, though lacking Chirac’s pro-Arab credentials, shared his anti-Americanism and by 2003 was on equally as bad, if not worse terms with Washington. The Americans were not shocked by Chirac’s chauvinism since they had been taught French egoism by the master of the medium, Charles de Gaulle. German ingratitude both surprised the Americans and genuinely hurt; it exemplified de Rochefoucauld’s judgement that past favours are never forgiven.

  Yet the attitude of France and Germany, shared by some of the smaller Western European countries, was not fully to be explained by personal or contingent factors. Something much larger was at work. Superficially it is easy to say that France and Germany had, during the second half of the twentieth century, become ‘European’. The rise of the European Union and the consolidation of its authority had undoubtedly encouraged first France and then Germany to look forward to a rebalancing of international power in the Atlantic world, in a fashion that would equalize the influence of its two halves, American and European. Economically that seemed attainable, for the combined population of the European Union countries exceeded that of the United States and, on the admission of new members, promised to be much larger. It was not impossible either that, with effort and by accepting economic sacrifice, an expanded Europe might eventually match the military capability of the United States. The attainment of economic and military equality, perhaps eventual superiority, depended, however, upon political evolution. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, France and Germany were pressing for the adoption by the states of the Union of a comprehensive constitution, regulating not only economic activity but also defining political institutions and their powers, including the Commission, its executive authority, the council of ministers, the parliament and the European court; the constitution also made provision for a Union president, foreign minister and military authority.

  Yet the Europe envisaged by the framers of its constitution – a constitution not in the event adopted, because of the refusal of some of the constituent states to accept it – would not have imitated the United States of America of the Founding Fathers. It would initially have been less but eventually more; initially less because it left to the constituent governments more power than the American constitution left to the states, eventually more because, by accretion, the powers exercised by the Union over its constituent members would have greatly exceeded those of the American federal government. The fathers of the European ‘idea’, the Frenchman Jean Monnet and the Englishman Arthur Salter, had conceived their vision of Europe’s future as officials of the League of Nations, after the First World War. They were inspired by the hope of creating a pan-European system that would render impossible war between its member states. The only way to assure that outcome, they persuaded themselves, was to create a central authority so strong that subordinate governments would lack the means to take independent decisions. Their ‘Europe’ was therefore to be not ‘intergovernmental’ in character but ‘supranational’.

  It was towards that form that ‘Europe’ gradually evolved in the years after the Second World War. Beginning with a Coal and Steel Community, to which were added an Atomic Energy Community and an Economic Community, with a European court and central bank as adjuncts, and eventually a European currency as a medium of exchange, the European Union was, on the eve of the Iraq War, when the framing of a constitution was at an advanced stage of drafting, almost the supranational body Monnet and Salter had wished to make it. Its executive, the Commission, monopolized the drafting of legislation to regularize its economic life; its parliament had rights only to approve, scarcely to alter, such laws; and the European court had authority to condemn governments in breach of Union legislation. In almost every respect it amounted to a supranational authority, to which the historic governments of Europe were subordinate.

  In only one aspect was its authority deficient. It had no power to impose its will, either internally or externally. This was a crippling deficiency, its effect completely unforeseen by the European founding fathers, Monnet and Salter. They, products of an earlier and higher-minded age, were mechanistic in outlook and, believing in the power of economic sanction and collective legal condemnation to regulate misbehaviour, had apparently imagined that treaty and
international law would be sufficient to enforce the supranational will. It may be that, in their appreciation of the Union’s domestic behaviour, they were correct; the fundamental authority of the Union’s institutions has not hitherto been called into question, though the failure of France and Germany to abide by the Union’s financial stability pact gives warning of trouble ahead. It is in the Union’s external relations, those both of it as a collectivity and of its individual member states, that the weakness is apparent, and never more so than over the crisis with Saddam’s Iraq. The crisis of 2002–03 revealed a fundamental breach in foreign policy attitude between ‘Europe’, both the Union itself and most of the states that compose it, and America. The crisis made it obvious that the United States (originator of the League of Nations idea of collective action that inspired ‘Europe’, to be enforced at harshest by economic sanction) had been hardened by fifty years of Cold War confrontation to settle for nothing less than bringing transgressors of international order to compliance by military action. The neo-conservatives were merely expressing a national attitude. The Europeans, once so militarist, had by contrast espoused a philosophy of international action that actually rejected action and took refuge in the belief that all conflicts of interest were to be settled by consultation, conciliation and the intervention of international agencies. The conflict of approach between ‘hard cop’ America and ‘soft cop’ Europe became manifest in the months that preceded the outbreak of the war.

  Iraq’s relations with the outside world were governed, following its unsuccessful annexation of Kuwait, by a series of resolutions adopted by the United Nations, eventually to number fifteen altogether. Before the adoption of Resolution 1441 on 9 November 2002, which the United States and Britain were to use as their legal justification for instituting military action against Iraq, the most important of the relevant UN resolutions was 687, adopted immediately after the First Gulf War. Framed to legalize military action if Iraq persisted in the acquisition or development of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery – it should be remembered that the results of the First Gulf War had not given the victorious coalition forces the opportunity to inspect weapon sites in Iraq – it demanded unconditionally ‘the destruction, removal, rendering harmless of all chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities related thereto; and all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres [approximately 93 miles], and related major parts and repair and production facilities’. Resolution 687 was accepted by international lawyers as reinforcing Resolution 678, that which had authorized the inception of the First Gulf War but which also legitimized all ‘subsequent relevant resolutions needed to restore international peace and security’ to the region.

  Resolution 678 had underpinned the actions of the United States, Britain and other allied nations in enforcing restraint on Saddam in the years after 1991, in particular the ‘no fly’ principle in northern and southern Iraq. The heightening of Western hostility towards Saddam, following the election of President George W. Bush and 9/11, was at first largely justified by invoking 678, which remained in force. Then, as the new American administration became increasingly concerned by the threat of Iraq’s continuing with its development of weapons of mass destruction, 678 came to seem insufficient. In 1999, as the Clinton administration drew towards its close, a new resolution, 1284, had been passed in the United Nations, intended to reinforce the régime imposing inspection measures against weapons of mass destruction imposed by 687. That measure had created an inspection system known as UNSCOM, which had proved extremely effective, far more effective than recognized at the time or afterwards. UNSCOM worked inside Iraq for over seven years, discovering and destroying much of Saddam’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As its agents could use the leverage of denying oil sales in the face of Iraqi non co-operation, its demands for access to WMD sites had usually to be obeyed, to Saddam’s disgust. UNSCOM’s operational success led eventually to his refusing its inspectors any farther facilities in 1998 and their withdrawal from the country. UNSCOM was replaced by UNMOVIC, an altogether less rigorous régime, under Resolution 1284; even 1284 was opposed by several members of the Security Council, including Russia and France, which were profiting commercially by provisions that allowed Saddam to export oil in return for humanitarian aid (the ‘oil-for-food’ programme); Saddam, like a Roman emperor of old, had instituted a rationing system to provide dutiful subjects with essentials. In any case, Saddam declined to respect 1284 and refused UN inspectors access.

  Saddam’s defiance of 1284 inaugurated his downfall. It led the United States and Britain to seek a new UN resolution that would bring him to heel. Washington was less concerned by the need to restrain Saddam under legal authority. The UN Charter, though outlawing military action by one state against another unless authorized by the Security Council, provided, under Article 51, wide latitude for measures of self-defence. The United States had acted under Article 51 to attack the Taleban in Afghanistan in 2002. Britain, however, more influenced by the prevailing European distaste for military action of any sort, unless legally buttressed, was anxious to observe the proprieties. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, remained committed, however, to supporting President Bush in the war against terrorism, in which Saddam Hussein was identified by Western intelligence as a frontrunner. America was anxious to secure British support in any move against Saddam. During September and October 2002, therefore, American legal officers co-operated with their British counterparts to draft a new resolution for submission to the UN, which would authorize joint military action. Its wording was finally agreed in early November and submitted to the Security Council as Resolution 1441. It stated that Iraq was still in ‘material breach’ of Resolution 678 of 1990 and all subsequent resolutions affecting its régime. It required the Iraqi government to prove that it no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction and to co-operate with the inspectors of UNMOVIC. It allowed it a ‘final opportunity’ for co-operation; it warned that, failing such cooperation, ‘serious consequences’ would follow.

  Much has been made subsequently by legalists of the Security Council’s failure to adopt its usual form of words, ‘all necessary means’, to warn of the threat of military action. That seems specious. Resolution 1441 clearly menaced Saddam with severe penalties at the hands of the responsible powers unless he opened Iraq to unrestricted inspection of its military facilities. Should he fail to do so, a repetition of 1991 would follow. Then his forces had been deployed on the territory of Kuwait, proclaimed by him, illegally, to be Iraq’s nineteenth province. What he now risked, if he persisted in intransigence, was a direct Western attack on the territory of Iraq proper.

  Following the passage of Resolution 1441, there ensued a curious passage of diplomatic dissent by the larger European powers and domestic protest by their populations. The reaction to Resolution 1441 was highly ‘European’. The Union’s inner circle, France, Germany and Luxembourg, though not Italy, the latter taking unexpectedly a stoutly Atlanticist position, struggled by every means to distance themselves from the decisions of the United States, to put legal obstacles against military measures in its way and to mobilize opposition to its policy in the United Nations. Newer members of the European Union, Spain in particular, gave America wholehearted support, as did recent and aspirant member states in Eastern Europe. Popularly, a European fault line appeared. East of the old Iron Curtain, the European population came out for President Bush. Correctly recognizing Saddam as essentially Stalinist, they supported America’s determination to discipline the sort of tyrant who had created the system under which they had suffered for so many of the postwar years. Their governments took a similar position. Poland, which most valued its new status as an American ally through its membership of NATO, actually agreed to send a small military contingent to join the coalition forces. Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania granted vital staging rights
to American forces. The Czech Republic and Latvia disassociated themselves from expressions of anti-American opinion. West of the old Iron Curtain, by contrast, popular anti-war majorities appeared. They were large in France and overwhelming in Germany. Even in Britain, whose government proved America’s staunchest ally throughout the diplomatic crisis of 2003 and the war that followed, many newspapers declared an anti-American position and demonstrations staged by crowds estimated to include over one million people took to the streets.

  It was the active opposition of governments formally allied to the United States that most troubled Washington and caused the greatest diplomatic damage. Germany, throughout the Cold War years America’s most compliant ally on the European continent, revealed a face to Washington never previously shown. Gerhard Schroeder, its Chancellor, actually campaigned for re-election on an anti-American platform, apparently seeking to compensate for his personal unpopularity by espousing the popular mood of the moment. President Chirac of France went much farther. Chirac had a long personal involvement with Saddam’s régime. As Prime Minister in the 1970s he had received Saddam in France, escorted him on a tour of French nuclear facilities and negotiated an agreement by which France sold Iraq the reactors, one containing enough enriched nuclear fuel to construct at least three nuclear warheads. He also agreed to train 600 Iraqi scientists and technicians in nuclear technology. Under farther military agreements France supplied Iraq with $1.5 billion’s worth of military equipment, including fighters, surface-to-air missiles and air defence equipment. Much of this material was destroyed during the First Gulf War. Iraq paid in oil but also entered into trading arrangements with France which, under the oil-for-food programme, resulted in France selling Iraq $1 billion’s worth of exports as late as 2002.