“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” – President George W. Bush
(Essay written in 2019)
Since 1990 the US and its allies have engaged in two wars against Iraq with untold cost: in lives, economically, geopolitically, and for our security and freedoms. My central question is: were these wars justified? Comparing the origins, reasons and outcomes of the US led coalitions invasions of Iraq in 1990 and 2003, I argue that neither war was necessary or justified. My argument will question the official reasons used to rationalise each war; that the outcome of the wars destabilised the middle east and contributed to radicalising the Muslim world; that they helped set the ominous trajectory of the global ‘war on terror’, and have made the world less safe and more authoritarian.
Analysis of the motives US President George H.W. Bush provided for involving the west in the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, in his address on August 8, 1990, is revealing. First, Bush claimed, Saddam was an aggressive dictator; a new Hitler and appeasement wasn’t an option. This false equivalency framed Nazi Germany as a historic precedent to justify US intervention, and ‘the reason this analogy makes sense is that it invokes a very real and universal principle of catching problems early: “We should have stopped Hitler at Munich”’. However, ‘What made Hitler so destructive was the fact that he had the power of a whole nation at his beck and call’.1 Saddam, in contrast, was a serial oppressor of his own people, who ruled by fear and brutality, isolated and without allies. Iraq was light years behind the west technologically. The comparison to Hitler created a ‘boogie man’; a simplistic ‘good vs evil’ mantra that was drummed into the public consciousness.
Second, Bush argued that Saddam had a history of aggression: ‘We must recognise that Iraq may not stop using force to achieve its ambitions… Given the Iraqi governments history of aggression against its own citizens, as well as its neighbours, to assume Iraq will not attack again would be unwise and unrealistic’.2 A closer look at Saddam’s history in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war reveals that his ‘behaviour was far from reckless… his goal was to rectify Iraq’s strategic dilemma with a limited military victory’.3 Saddam’s primary goal was to counter the Islamic threat from Iran and secure his border, ‘not to conquer Iran or topple Khomeini’.4
The third reason was economic. After Kuwait, Bush reasoned, Saddam would attack Saudi Arabia. The US could ‘face a major threat to its economic independence’.5 Were there legitimate geopolitical economic reasons for the US to go to war in the gulf? After all, ‘Oil has become the world’s most important source of energy since the mid-1950s’.6 And ‘the Middle East… holds between two-thirds and three-quarters of all known oil reserves’.7 If Saddam threatened the delicate balance established in the middle east, then the economic argument holds. ‘The energetic American response in the Gulf was visibly over a political economic issue’.8 But there is no evidence Saddam intended to do any such thing. Fourth, that Iraq was not a national problem, ‘it is the world’s problem’.9 However, if the second and third arguments fail—that Saddam threatened world oil supply—so does the fourth. If much of the justification used for the 1990-91Gulf War was questionable, what of US reasons for the 2003 Iraq war?
US led invasion of Iraq
Eleven years later, the 9-11 attacks ushered in a new era of US unilateral imperialism. In 2003, President George W. Bush, in his war ultimatum speech for Iraq, gave the following justifications for attacking. Firstly, Iraq had ‘uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament’.10 Although a near direct echo of his father, there was truth in this. But what was Iraq supposedly ‘disarming?’ The second point is telling. Bush stated that ‘Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised’.11 In the lead up to the 2003 invasion, US Secretary of State Colin Powell made a speech to the UN.12 The ‘smoking gun’ Powell presented was later proven false, and in a 2005 interview Powell said it was ‘“devastating” to learn later that some intelligence agents knew the information he had was unreliable’.13 Iraq’s WMD program had been decimated in the Gulf War, and ‘The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions’.14
Third, that ‘the regime had a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East’.15 Again, Bush junior echoed his father. Was this any truer in 2003 than in 1990? Once more, a closer look reveals differently; that ‘Saddam’s decision to invade Kuwait was primarily an attempt to deal with Iraq’s continued vulnerability’.16 Consulting with the US prior to military action against Kuwait, Saddam was effectively given the nod by Washington, and moved against Kuwait in August 1990. The US had applied a policy of containment with Saddam in the seventies and eighties, ‘the real puzzle is why they (Washington) think it would be impossible to deter him today’.17 Fourth, George W. Bush declared the ‘danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfil their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other’.18 The danger was not clear. We now know the WMD evidence was flimsy or even manufactured, but—what about the alleged link to radical terrorist organisations?
Extremely unlikely. No genuine connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda was ever found. First of all, there is no credible evidence that Iraq had ‘anything to do with’19 the 9-11 terrorist attacks against America. Also, ‘the lack of any genuine connection between Saddam an Al-Qaeda is not surprising because relations between Saddam and Al-Qaeda have been quite poor in the past. Osama Bin Laden is a radical fundamentalist… and he detests secular leaders like Saddam. Similarly, Saddam has consistently repressed fundamentalist movements in Iraq. Given this history of enmity, the Iraqi dictator is unlikely to give Al-Qaeda a nuclear weapon’.20 If anything, Bush junior’s reasoning for deploying US forces to Iraq in 2003 were even more questionable than his father’s, and their actions ultimately undermined regional security.
Third, I argue that both wars, by destabilising and further radicalising the middle east, contributed to the ominous trajectory taken in the war on terror by exporting the Jihad problem to the West, driven by the ensuing diaspora. At the time of this writing, April 2019, US troops are still in Iraq, battling an ongoing insurgency. Key findings of a Rand Corporation 2010 study concluded: ‘It has also created a humanitarian disaster: The Iraq War created the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, potentially jeopardizing the long-term stability of Jordan; Syria; and, to a lesser extent, Lebanon’.21 Iran, part of the ‘Axis of Evil’, has benefited by seizing strategic gains afforded to it by the 2003 Iraq War. In addition, the war has had a regressive effect on middle eastern domestic policy: ‘The war has stalled or reversed the momentum of Arab political reform’.22
A 2016 UN report found: ‘The violence suffered by civilians in Iraq remains staggering. The so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) continues to commit systematic and widespread violence and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law… Between January 2014 and October 2015 there were an estimated 18 802 civilian deaths, (in Iraq) and 36 245 wounded’.23 So, US engagement in the two Iraq wars has: destabilised, levelled, and caused an exodus from Iraq and other affected countries. Is it fair to say that US actions have caused resentment in the Muslim world, and been a radicalising factor worldwide? Through mass immigration, is the west importing the problem it helped to create?
Finally, I argue that the wars made the world less safe, and more authoritarian. Back in 2003 in his Victory in Iraq speech, Bush claimed: ‘The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world’.24 Is this true? Is the goal of the war on terror to advance freedom? A look at the number of terrorist attacks worldwide, in the Global Terrorism Database shows: ‘…global terrorist attacks rose dramatically after 2004: There were just over 1,000 in 2004, but almost 17,000 in 2014’.25 Rather than freedom, a web of authoritarianism is encircling the planet. In a despotic arc, the perpetual state of war implied by the nebulous ‘war on terror’ is being used to justify: open ended progressive implementation of intrusive surveillance laws, dehumanising ‘social credit’ systems, restrictions on free speech and association, warrantless searches, and unlawful measures such as the ongoing global drone assassination campaign. Australia, a key US ally in the war on terror, ‘responded to September 11, 2001, with an extraordinary burst of law-making. In the ensuing decade, the Federal Parliament enacted 54 pieces of anti-terrorism legislation; 48 of these were passed under the Howard government, an average of one new anti-terrorism law every seven weeks’.26 In effect, we have an unspecified war against a vague enemy, a dangerous situation where the ever-changing dictates of the ‘good’ states set the boundaries of who and what is defined as a terrorist; both outside of their borders and within.
I’ve argued that the reasons for both Iraq wars were flawed; contributed to destabilising the region; radicalised the Muslim world; and made the world less safe and more authoritarian. Returning to the central question; were the wars justified? I believe the simple answer is: no. A more comprehensive answer may be that the 1990 Gulf War could be justified on economic grounds, but there is no evidence from Saddam’s historic behaviour to say that he was doing anything other than responding to a strategic threat from Kuwait, or that his goals went beyond securing an economic restoration to his nation. Despite 9-11, reasons for the 2003 war were even more dubious, and the main evidence used to justify it has since been proved false.
REFERENCES
1 Jonah Goldberg, ‘Hitler vs Hussein’, National Review, October 16 2002. https://www.nationalreview.com/2002/10/hitler-vs-hussein-jonah-goldberg/
2 George H.W. Bush, ‘August 8, 1990: Address on Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait’, George Bush Presidential Library, (Miller Centre). https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/august-8-1990-address-iraqs-invasion-kuwait
3 John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, ‘An Unnecessary War’, Foreign Policy, Issue 134, (January-February 2003), 415. https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-7939794-dt-content-rid-23796119_1/courses/EUB451_19se1/EUB451%20An%20Unnecessary%20War.pdf
4 John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, 416.
5 George H.W. Bush, ‘August 8, 1990.
6 UKOG: ENERGY FOR BRITAIN, ‘Why Oil is Important’, ukogpic.com. http://www.ukogplc.com/page.php?pID=74
7 Shilbey Talhami, ‘The Persian Gulf: Understanding the American Oil Strategy’, Brookings, (March 1 2002). https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-persian-gulf-understanding-the-american-oil-strategy/
8 Andre Gunder Frank, ‘Third World War: A political economy of the Gulf War and the new world order’, Third World Quarterly, 13:2, (1992), 267-282. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436599208420276
9 George H.W. Bush, ‘August 8, 1990.
10 George W. Bush, ‘Full Text: Bush’s Speech, A transcript of George Bush’s War Ultimatum Speech From the Cross Hall in the White House’, The Guardian, 18 March 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/18/usa.iraq
11 George W. Bush, 18 March 2003.
12 Colin Powell, ‘Full Text of Colin Powell’s Speech: US Secretary of States address to the United Nations security council’, The Guardian, February 5 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/05/iraq.usa
13 Steven R. Weisman, ‘Powell Calls His U.N. Speech a Lasting Blot on His Record’, The New York Times, September 9 2005. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/politics/powell-calls-his-un-speech-a-lasting-blot-on-his-record.html
14 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), ‘Regime Strategic Intent’, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, (30 September 2004). https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html
15 George W. Bush, 18 March 2003.
16 John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, 417.
17 John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, 417.
18 George W. Bush, 18 March 2003.
19 John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, 421.
20 John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, 422.
21 Frederic Wehrey, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Jessica Watkins, Jeffrey Martini, Robert A. Guffey, ‘The Iraq Effect: The Middle East After the Iraq War’, The Rand Corporation, Project Airforce, (2010).
22 Frederic Wehrey, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Jessica Watkins, Jeffrey Martini, Robert A. Guffey.
23 ‘Staggering civilian death toll in Iraq – UN report’, United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner’, (January 19 2016). https://ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16964&LangID=E
24 George W. Bush, ‘Bush Makes Historic Speech Aboard Warship’, CNN.com, May 2 2003. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/
25 Sean Zeigler and Meagan Smith, ‘Terrorism Before and During the War on Terror’, War on The Rocks, December 12 2017). https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/terrorism-war-terror-look-numbers/
26 George Williams, ‘The laws that erode who we are’, The Sydney Morning Herald’, (September 10 2011). https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-laws-that-erode-who-we-are-20110909-1k1kl.html
