Iraq? Who's fault?

This AP story is headlined: "U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMDs".

Which is true, the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq has concluded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time the U.S. attacked in March 2003. However, the inspector also concluded:

Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.

[Charles] Duelfer also says Iraq only had small research and development programs for chemical and biological weapons.

As Duelfer puts the finishing touches on his report, he concludes Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned.

Duelfer's report certainly doesn't provide conclusive support for the Administration's decision to attack Iraq. But if the report is accurate, isn't it troubling that Saddam Hussein was basically hoping to lie low before restarting his WMD programs? That, in a nutshell, was the major flaw in the "give the inspectors a chance" argument. What exactly did the pro-inspection crowd have in mind after the inspections were completed? Was Saddam to be required to allow annual re-inspections? Or were we supposed to trust that he had learned his lesson?

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Michael Walzer's Arguing About War, which includes a section on Iraq. Walzer states clearly that the Iraq war was "unjust" (within his moral framework), but neither does he spare the U.N., France, Germany, or Russia:

There was a just and necessary war waiting to be fought back in the 1990s when Saddam was playing hide-and-seek with the inspectors. That would have been an internationalist war, a war of enforcement, and its justice would have derived, first, from the justice of the system it was enforcing and second, from its likely outcome: the strengthening of the U.N. and the global legal order.

. . .

There was no will to enforce the inspection system -- not at the U.N. (which passed many resolutions but did nothing else), not in Europe, and not in the Clinton administration.

. . .

If the inspectors had been forcibly supported, their employer, the U.N., would be much stronger than it currently is, and it would be very difficult for the United States or anyone else to plan a war without going through the U.N.'s decision-making procedures.

I think Walzer is dead right. The problems with inspections in 2003 were that Europe and the U.N. didn't have the will to support truly invasive inspections backed by the threat of war and that they didn't appear willing to support ongoing and indefinite inspections. In light of the conclusion that Saddam was planning to reconstitute his WMD programs after the inspections died down, we can't say that the inspections regime Europe supported was such a good idea either. What would have been necessary were perpetual inspections, backed by the presence of troops to enforce the threat of force in the event that Saddam interfered with the inspections. Would the United States and Britain have borne the cost of stationing those troops? Or would Continental Europe have shared those costs?

I would say that the fault with the war lies with both the U.S. and Continental Europe. Neither Bush nor Chirac/Schroeder/Putin had interest in the kind of inspections regime that would have been necessary to address the reality. Bush wanted to oust Saddam, and Continental Europe wanted to return to 1990 (pre-Kuwait invasion). Neither position, as it turns out, was the best option.

Hopefully both sides (those who supported the war and those who opposed it) can learn from this report. Unfortunately, the misleading headline above may lead people to draw only the one conclusion, and not the other.

Comments

[No. 84]

Unfortunately, the misleading headline above may lead people to draw only the one conclusion, and not the other.

I don't think the whether there were WMD's vel non was really the issue. The issue was whether Bush used WMD's as a pretext to invade Iraq.

But I agree with the author's conclusion and always disagreed with the "Let the weapons inspectors inspect" crowd. What did we think Hussein would do once UN inspectors left? Probably the same thing Ashcroft would do if courts stopped enforcing the Constitution.

Then again, would it not have been simpler to have U.S. or UN soldiers serve as in-house inspectors rather than to install an occupying army?

[Law Monkey]

"The issue was whether Bush used WMD's as a pretext to invade Iraq."

This issue (if accurate) also includes Sen. John Kerry's pretext to invade Iraq.

"If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement ...even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act." - Sen. John Kerry, Op-Ed The New York Times 9/6/02 (Sen. John Kerry, Op-Ed, "We Still Have A Choice On Iraq," The New York Times, 9/6/02)

I would argue that the real issue is whether or not pre-emption is (or was at the time) an internationally recognized cause of war. The Bush administration stated on p. 15 of their 2002 National Security Strategy (among other supporting quotes) that "We cannot let our enemies strike first." Right or wrong as this approach may be, it is one that had always been supported by Pres. Bush, and on different occasions supported by Sen. Kerry:

"In Hindsight, Kerry Says He'd Still Vote for War"
"Challenged by President, Democrat Spells Out Stance"

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A01

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz., Aug. 9 -- Responding to President Bush's challenge to clarify his position, Sen. John F. Kerry said Monday that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction.

[No. 84]

I would argue that the real issue is whether or not pre-emption is (or was at the time) an internationally recognized cause of war.

LM, as an initial matter, I don't care what Kerry said. I'm voting for Mickey Mouse. At any rate, I do see your point. Pre-emption was a valid cause to go to war because, like in the movie "Red Dawn," Iraqi paratroopers were planning to storm down on America. We had to strike our enemies [Iraqis] before they struck us [Americans on American soil.]

[Matt]

The nuance that Kerry's been trying to bring across (and that's failing to get across either through his own failings or through the failure of the media to report it) is that while he would have voted to authorize use of force in any event (for leverage purposes in getting weapons inspectors back in and getting to a peaceful resolution) he did not support exercising that authorization, at least in the way it was done.

That (to me) is a far more nuanced and realistic understanding than "war is bad! war is bad!'

[Law Monkey]

Big difference between pre-emption (our government's pretext for invading Iraq in 2003 and Israel's bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981), anticipatory self defense (the Six Day War), and self defense ("Red Dawn").

Whereas the latter two are recognized by the U.N. Charters Chapter VII, the first is not (intentionally or otherwise). The issue is debatable though, especially given the Security Council's resolution 1441 in November 2002.

I'll debate for pre-emption, but not against sarcasm devoid of arguments.

[Tung Yin]

The nuance that Kerry's been trying to bring across (and that's failing to get across either through his own failings or through the failure of the media to report it) is that while he would have voted to authorize use of force in any event (for leverage purposes in getting weapons inspectors back in and getting to a peaceful resolution) he did not support exercising that authorization, at least in the way it was done.

Matt, I think that's a fair point. The problem is that, while it may not excuse President Bush's decision to invade, it assumes that Bush misused the leverage when he had another option open; however, as far as I can recall, the only option open was to accept the flawed inspection process in place. And at the time, Saddam was clearly obstructing the inspections -- Hans Blix tried very hard not to say so clearly, using terms like "cooperation in procedure, though not in substance" -- so the threat, to be meaningful, would have had to been carried out at some point.

At some level, it really mattered a lot less what the U.S. did or threatened, compared to what Saddam's business buddies (the French and Russians) did or threatened. Had they told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't accept full, unfettered inspections, Walzer argues persuasively, Saddam may have backed down. But without that threat from France and Russia, Saddam apparently felt he wouldn't be attacked.

In any event, if we are just talking about the political campaign, I think that's a useful explanation of Kerry's position. But if we are talking about international geopolitics, I don't really see that Kerry's position is a stable one -- by that, I mean he would have had to either attack Iraq because Saddam was not cooperating (carrying out the threat) or join with France et al. in standing for weak, sham inspections that would end at some point and allow Saddam to begin reconstituting his WMD programs. In other words, it explains Kerry's vote but not his position, if that makes sense.