NEWS: Bush and Iraq

POLITICS: Bush and Iraq

The absence of WMD in Iraq is a moot point by now, but the question remains as to how much the Bush administration knew about the state of Iraq’s military capabilities. It seems that the sanctions against Iraq, the same sanctions reviled by hawks in the Bush administration as ineffective, were actually highly effective at keeping WMD out of Saddam’s hands. Despite the gap in weapons inspections in the late 1990s, the intelligence should have indicated this.

A Foreign Affairs article outlines the effect of sanctions on Iraq’s military might:

• By 1998, weapons inspectors had destroyed almost all of Iraq’s prohibited weapons.
• In 1997, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believed that Iraq had no weapons-grade nuclear material, equipment, or ongoing nuclear activities.
• After inspections resumed in 2002, the IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) found that Iraq’s military was still in disrepair.
• Inspectors also discovered and destroyed 480,000 liters of chemicals for use in weapons and dismantled the main chemical weapons production facility.
• In 1996, Iraq’s main biological weapons production facility was also dismantled and when inspectors returned to Iraq in 2002 they found no sign of further attempts to produce chemical or biological weapons.
• Saddam was also denied certain conventional weapons. All but two of 819 Scuds were accounted for. Although Iraq had been developing new ballistic missiles in 2002 (the Al Sammoud II), they over-reached the allowed range; under pressure from inspectors, Baghdad was dismantling the missiles and their production facilities when the US invaded.

Although Saddam may have desperately wanted to redevelop his military, he simply did not have the money to do so, thanks to sanctions. For the first six years of sanctions, Iraq sold next to no oil, denying Saddam as much as $250 billion in oil revenue. After the food-for-oil scheme began all oil revenue was handled by the UN, further denying Saddam a chance to pour money into his military. Saddam did, of course, attempt to make a quick buck on the black market but the US’s own General Accounting Office and the Wall Street Journal estimate that Saddam’s black market revenues were only $1.5 to $2.5 billion per year. In fact, the US State Department estimates that Iraq’s military spending had dropped to less than $1.4 billion per year compared to more than $15 billion in 1989. Saddam simply did not have the money to rebuild his conventional military, not to mention a nuclear program. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies described it in 1998, Iraq had “decaying, obsolete, or obsolescent major weapons.”

Did Saddam want to get his hands on WMD? Absolutely. Was he an immanent threat, as George Bush and Tony Blair insisted? Absolutely not.

It’s difficult to believe that the United States, with what is presumably the finest intelligence agency on earth, could have simply overlooked the evidence. So why was the US so eager to invade Iraq? To understand the mindset of the Bush administration, it helps to look back to 1992.

In a Frontline interview, Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman discusses the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance and its similarity to the National Security Strategy of 2002. The 1992 document was created just after the end of the cold war to identify new security threats. As the new sole superpower, there were few genuine threats to the United States at the time, but the document went one further: it attempted to identify possible challenges to the US‘s superpower status, some of them current allies, and proposed that the US’s priority should be to prevent that from happening.

The document was leaked and many of the countries named as possible enemies were not pleased. The government was forced to soften the language but the sentiment remained, that the US should be prepared to take preemptive action in order to maintain American military dominance. Eventually, Bill Clinton becomes president, the individuals involved in the Defense Planning Guidance lose their positions and influence in Washington and the Guidance’s principles get shelved.

Among the chief authors of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance: Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.

Fast forward now to 2002 in the post 9/11 atmosphere with a relatively new president with no foreign relations experience. On top of that, many of those involved in the 1992 document, particularly Cheney and Wolfowitz, are back in influential positions with direct access to the president. With the post 9/11 security concerns, a revamped National Security Strategy that bears a striking resemblance to Guidance from a decade earlier surfaces, but this time it raises few eyebrows. An aggressive security strategy is much easier to implement at this point despite its main principles being ten years old and unrelated to terrorism.

Let’s recap: Iraq did not have the WMD that were the supposed justification for the war. The US invaded anyway, after implementing a national security policy that outlines the suppression of even potential challenges to American military power, a policy made possible by the current fear of terrorism. Danner sums it up nicely:

Funny how we always need a boogey man to justify our absurd military budget. Perhaps if we chose something like... oh... sustainable energy as a goal we'd reap some real benefits on our investment.

terrorism - the new black for the Pentagon

Sanctions prevented Saddam from threatening the world, all at the cost of 2 million Iraqi People, half of them children under 5. ("That is a price we are willing to pay - Madeline Albright")

There is also the fact that a starving impoverished people stood no chance in a revolt against Saddam's well fed Security services. The Sanctions made Saddam much stronger in his own country and weakened his people past the brink of submission.

Weapons development programs are such a white elephant. America already has enough firepower to destroy the entire planed a hundred times over. Arms Races make nobody any safer and in fact make the world much more dangerous.

Saddam probably wouldn't have been trying to secure WMDs if his enemies didn't already have access to them.

Gee, I guess diplomacy "didn't work" after all....

But the UN can't do anything well, which is why we should just do whatever the hell we want!

Isn't it?

That 15 billion military budget in 1989 as compared to 1.4 billion recently is particularly interesting. The arguement was made by Cheney and others that if sanctions had been dropped, Iraq would have quickly rebuilt its weapons programs. Hussein was able to spend 15 billion a year on the military in 1989 largely due to the river of money which was coming into Iraq from Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. In the absence of this money, it is unlikely that Hussein would have been able to resume military spending at 1989 levels even if sanctions had been lifted.

[Edited on Aug 31, 2004 9:30AM]

Yeah, but we haven't. We've used nuclear weapons once. Depending on your definition of chemical weapons, we haven't used them since Vietnam (I would classify agent orange as a chemical weapon.) We've never used a biological weapon. That's the issue - even the Soviet Union was somewhat predictable. The problem is when countries that are entirely unpredictable (North Korea is the first to come to mind) get their hands on WMDs, the likelihood of them getting used increases. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't for the Iraq war and I don't like the way the Bush administration uses WMDs as justification for his overly aggressive foreign policy, but I don't think we should just ignore the potential threat of nuclear proliferation.

So The solution to nuclear proliferation is to build more weapons?

yeah, funny how we expected them to help us post-saddam.
I think they're still waiting for the water and power to come back on.

I heard reports of birthrate going down there because mothers were afraid to have more malformed children thanks to depleted nuke fallout. but Fox News would have you believe that's all a lie.

Alrighty:
1. Call me crazy, but I like the idea of my home country being the lone world superpower. And taking steps to make sure it stays that way. Prevents the massive powderkep arms buildup of the cold war.

2. On the otherhand. Juts becasue these countries are follwing the Ameircan model to a t, and becomeing strong military and industrial powers does not make then a threat per se. IT would be mucg easier to develop strang trade realtions, to the point where war would be much to costly in the wallet. Note China, they are more or less the exact opposite of the USA. Yet no cold war. Why? To quote Mr. Crabs, "Money!"

3. Terrorism is the new communism, I have been saying this for months. I became immediatly obvious to me after tlaking with my Dad. People are exibiting the same unfounded reactions and fears as they did in the cold war. All these old school republicans grew up with the big bad reds yo hate and be scared off. Then, boom!!! We win, no more reds!!! But, Wait a sec! No one to be scared of! What do we do?::fast foward years later::"TERRORISTS ARE EVERYWHERE! THEY ARE OUT TO DESTROY OUR WAY OF LIFE ...etc etc."

IT seriously is sad.

No... but a good start would be to prevent anyone else from acquiring them.

By invading everybody?

By developing new WMDs like Tactical Nukes and EMP devices?

Once the technology exists, it is available for anybody to use. Developing new weapons does anything but make the world safer.

How can you expect other nations to stop their weapons programs when America continues to pursue theirs. (And don't tell me that america doesn't have chemical and biological research programs running secretly)
The only insurance against invasion for most of the world is the ability to fight back, and america has been the most beligerant nation over the last hundred years.

I'm still not sure how the absence of WMDs is a moot point.

Actually I think something like this is more likely to happen......

I don't feel any safer with North Korea and Iran having tactical nukes. They're crazy enough to use them.

If you look at the progression of american weapon system from WWII on, they are developed with the predominant intention of keeping our soldiers alive.

And the Chem and Bio weapons programs are in place for research and counter Bio/Chem attacks. I don't know about you, but I would like vaccines developed if some random terror group unleashes an attack.





[Edited on Aug 31, 2004 11:10AM]

Whoa! The ugly veep Dick rears his hideous head again. The man's fingerprints are all over decades of antagonism in the Middle East.

Which, of course, is what makes us the target of so many angry terrorists.

I don't think thats why.

it's a facet of it.

still, there has not yet been a rational explanation of WHY we are a target.

other than the one issued by the terrorists themselves: stop trying to control the middle east. stop supporting Israel.

you can start your debate as to whether it's good foreign policy for us to continue that path.

Tactical nukes have been in existence since the 50's. Any nuclear device exploded in the upper atmosphere creates an EMP. These are not new technologies.

No one is saying otherwise.

If they're secret then how do you know about them? How would any of us know about them? In fact, if they did exist and one of us knew about them and discussed it here we would be guilty of leaking classified information and could go to jail. You can speculate all you like, but let's try and stick to facts here.

This last statement is pure rhetoric. The fact that Germany was responsible for both world wars would seem to me to indicate that America has not been the most belligerent nation over the last hundred years. Yes, the US has made some serious foreign policy mistakes. But saying things like doesn't help your case against the US at all because it shows that you haven't bothered to do your homework, so we're less likely to believe other claims that you're making.

Look at the records. America has been involved in on average one international conflict involving incursions into a foreign country each year for the last 100 years.
Germany started two big wars, America started lots of little ones, as well as some big ones. (Korea, Vietnam anybody?)

Tactical Nukes are the new 'mini nukes' that have been in public discussion since George took power. These are nuclear weapons that have a small payload and limited fallout and are far more likely to actually be used, which makes them far more dangerous than the current ICBMs (if only for the risk that using them may lead to an ICBM respnse)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3126141.stm

I know that EMPs can be created using nukes, but there are more efficient ways of creating them and directing them making them a much more useful military tool.
Anyway, you seem to be denying that there have been any weapons development projects ongoing in the United States which is obviously not true.

America's biological weapons program, even if it's "for defence" is still likely to result in severe devastation if the technology is released (remember those anthrax attacks a few years ago? the spores originated from U.S. labs)

Well, twice. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not to mention the 'Depleted' Uranium weapons that have been mutilating babies and spreading cancer throughout the middle east, the balkans and Afghanistan

Once Iran finally produces enough fissable material for a nuclear weapon, how long do you think it will be before such material finds it's way into the hands of a group like Hezbollah?( Which by the way was created BY Iran as a proxy force aginst Israel and continues to receive upwards of 100 million a year in financing from Iran)

Or how about another Islamic terrorist group like Al-Queda, who have been actively seeking out a complete warhead or weapons grade material since the early 90's?

What about fanatical Chechen seperatists ? Who have already carried out an attempt at nuclear terrorism in Nov. 1995 ? Remember that?

Sorry but if it takes premptive strikes against Iran to shut down the centrifuges, then I'd call it an ounce of prevention.

Israel have threatened their neighbours with nuclear attacks on numerous occasions. These weapons are not safe in anybody's hands and they should all be destroyed.

Yeah I agree, although I can't be bothered to read that 90,000 word post at the top of this thread. Racer_X for President!!!