An excellent piece, Jake. I remember all too well Bush's "Coalition of the Willing," which, apart from the UK included such powerhouses as Micronesia. And the pride in eating "Freedom Fries " 🍟
I want to premise my post by saying that I do not necessarily advocate for Bibi's attack on Iran. I agree with the point that this has been an "imminent" problem for decades now, and the case for military action now of all times is not obvious. I also agree that it was Bibi who agitated for Obama's nuclear deal with Iran to be scuttled, and that by his own account Bibi has nothing to show for it.
I do want to correct some misperceptions about the circumstances leading to the war in Iraq, misperceptions that I myself had at the time. The Bush presidency did not lie about WMD being in Iraq, it was sincerely *mistaken* about there being WMD in Iraq.
Hans Blix did not of course find evidence of WMD from a regime with a proven history of hiding its pre-1992 stockpiles, but he did still find Iraq to be in non-compliance with UN resolution 1441, which demanded a complete forthcoming *declaration of all WMD development history* on the part of Iraq within 30 days. Hussein's Iraq never did this, but Blix felt under pressure to personally stop the war, so he obscured Iraq's non-compliance by emphasizing Iraq's ongoing "cooperation" with a cat-and-mouse investigation that was irrelevant to what the UN had actually demanded. For example, to this day, *no one alive* knows how many thousands of litres of anthrax were produced by Hussein's Iraq pre-1992.
To quote from your own Guardian citation of Blix: "In the words of resolution 1441 (2002) - it requires immediate, unconditional and active efforts by Iraq to resolve existing questions of disarmament - either by presenting remaining proscribed items and programmes for elimination or by presenting convincing evidence that they have been eliminated. In the current situation, one would expect Iraq to be eager to comply.
"In my earlier briefings, I have noted that significant outstanding issues of substance were listed in two Security Council documents from early 1999 (S/1999/94 and S/1999/356) and should be well known to Iraq. I referred, as examples, to the issues of anthrax, the nerve agent VX and long-range missiles, and said that such issues "deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside...". The declaration submitted by Iraq on 7 December last year, despite its large volume, missed the opportunity to provide the fresh material and evidence needed to respond to the open questions. This is perhaps the most important problem we are facing. Although I can understand that it may not be easy for Iraq in all cases to provide the evidence needed, it is not the task of the inspectors to find it. Iraq itself must squarely tackle this task and avoid belittling the questions.
"By contrast, the task of "disarmament" foreseen in resolution 687 (1991) and the progress on "key remaining disarmament tasks" foreseen in resolution 1284 (1999) as well as the "disarmament obligations", which Iraq was given a "final opportunity to comply with" under resolution 1441 (2002), were always required to be fulfilled in a shorter time span.
"If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament - under resolution 687 (1991) - could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided. Today, three months after the adoption of resolution 1441 (2002), the period of disarmament through inspection could still be short, if "immediate, active and unconditional cooperation" with UNMOVIC and the IAEA were to be forthcoming."
Ironically, the post-invasion inspectors found evidence that the Iraqi dictator was trying to confuse Iran specifically about whether Iraq still possessed WMD, to deter Iran accordingly:
An excellent piece, Jake. I remember all too well Bush's "Coalition of the Willing," which, apart from the UK included such powerhouses as Micronesia. And the pride in eating "Freedom Fries " 🍟
I just hope Canada makes the right decision and stays out of it like we did Iraq. I fear we won't.
Carney is all in. Even Jean Chretien had to weigh in and ask, basically, wtf are you doing, sir?
I want to premise my post by saying that I do not necessarily advocate for Bibi's attack on Iran. I agree with the point that this has been an "imminent" problem for decades now, and the case for military action now of all times is not obvious. I also agree that it was Bibi who agitated for Obama's nuclear deal with Iran to be scuttled, and that by his own account Bibi has nothing to show for it.
I do want to correct some misperceptions about the circumstances leading to the war in Iraq, misperceptions that I myself had at the time. The Bush presidency did not lie about WMD being in Iraq, it was sincerely *mistaken* about there being WMD in Iraq.
Hans Blix did not of course find evidence of WMD from a regime with a proven history of hiding its pre-1992 stockpiles, but he did still find Iraq to be in non-compliance with UN resolution 1441, which demanded a complete forthcoming *declaration of all WMD development history* on the part of Iraq within 30 days. Hussein's Iraq never did this, but Blix felt under pressure to personally stop the war, so he obscured Iraq's non-compliance by emphasizing Iraq's ongoing "cooperation" with a cat-and-mouse investigation that was irrelevant to what the UN had actually demanded. For example, to this day, *no one alive* knows how many thousands of litres of anthrax were produced by Hussein's Iraq pre-1992.
To quote from your own Guardian citation of Blix: "In the words of resolution 1441 (2002) - it requires immediate, unconditional and active efforts by Iraq to resolve existing questions of disarmament - either by presenting remaining proscribed items and programmes for elimination or by presenting convincing evidence that they have been eliminated. In the current situation, one would expect Iraq to be eager to comply.
"In my earlier briefings, I have noted that significant outstanding issues of substance were listed in two Security Council documents from early 1999 (S/1999/94 and S/1999/356) and should be well known to Iraq. I referred, as examples, to the issues of anthrax, the nerve agent VX and long-range missiles, and said that such issues "deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside...". The declaration submitted by Iraq on 7 December last year, despite its large volume, missed the opportunity to provide the fresh material and evidence needed to respond to the open questions. This is perhaps the most important problem we are facing. Although I can understand that it may not be easy for Iraq in all cases to provide the evidence needed, it is not the task of the inspectors to find it. Iraq itself must squarely tackle this task and avoid belittling the questions.
"By contrast, the task of "disarmament" foreseen in resolution 687 (1991) and the progress on "key remaining disarmament tasks" foreseen in resolution 1284 (1999) as well as the "disarmament obligations", which Iraq was given a "final opportunity to comply with" under resolution 1441 (2002), were always required to be fulfilled in a shorter time span.
"If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament - under resolution 687 (1991) - could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided. Today, three months after the adoption of resolution 1441 (2002), the period of disarmament through inspection could still be short, if "immediate, active and unconditional cooperation" with UNMOVIC and the IAEA were to be forthcoming."
Ironically, the post-invasion inspectors found evidence that the Iraqi dictator was trying to confuse Iran specifically about whether Iraq still possessed WMD, to deter Iran accordingly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group#Duelfer_Report