The US Process: I’m embarrassed by the paucity of thought that went into the invasion of Iraq. I remember thinking when they began to discuss it publicly in Sepember 2002 thinking, "What are they talking about?" I got into an email debate with old highschool classmates about it and got slammed for even questioning why we were suddenly focusing on Iraq. Within a month, Congress had authorized the use of force. Again I was aghast that people like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton voted in favor of it.
In retrospect, there are some things we didn’t really know at the time. In a then obscure office of the Department of Justice, two lawyers, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were rewriting the law as fast as it was passed. They invalidated the Congressional Mandate to work through the UN. Then, when the UN acted, they pronounced that the UN had no authority over the President. How they justified saying that is beyond my comprehension. I guess it was just over a year after 911 and we were still sufficiently crazy not to notice that Bush and Cheney were disdainful of the UN. In retrospect, The UN was absolutely correct in not authorizing the use of force. It was doing exactly what it was founded to do, keep rogue states [us] from starting spurious wars. How was our invasion of Iraq any different from Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait? It wasn’t.
We had a legitimate complaint that Hussein was ignoring the UN Mandates and a legitimate request that inspections be resumed. On the other hand, we had no real proof that Hussein was building WMD or that he was in league with al Qaeda. In fact, both of those complaints were dead wrong, and we actually knew that before we invaded. The true reason for our invasion was regime change – not a valid reason to use military force. It was an illegal war. If there were a functioning world court, we would be tried and convicted of the Crime of Aggression. Here’s the whole process in the US again – one Congressional vote and two secret Memos that changed the laws without oversight or review – pitiful:
| 10/02/2002 | US CONGRESS: AUTHORIZATION FOR THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ |
| SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS.
The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to–
AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES – The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to–
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| 10/23/2002 | OLC DOJ: AUTHORITY OF THE PRESIDENT UNDER DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL LAW TO USE MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ |
| The President possesses constitutional authority to use military force against Iraq to protect United States national interests. This independent constitutional authority is supplemented by congressional authorization in the form of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. Using force against Iraq would be consistent with international law because it would be authorized by the United Nations Security Council or would be justified as anticipatory self-defense. | |
| 11/08/2002 | UN Security Council: UNSR 1441 |
| The UN Security Council unanimously passes this "last chance" resolution demanding that Iraq comply with international monitoring of his military programs with inspections. | |
| 11/08/2002 | OLC DOJ: EFFECT OF A RECENT UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE PRESIDENT UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW TO USE MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ |
| United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 does not alter the legal authority, under international law, granted by existing U.N. Security Council resolutions to use force against Iraq. |
But beyond the manipulation of the laws and Congress, there are some things that are unconscionable – torturing prisoners to get them to say that al Qaeda and Iraq were in league, promoting the Niger Uranium Hoax as if it were fact, promoting the testimony of "curveball" who even the German interrogators didn’t believe, wiretapping the UN Security Council during their deliberations, having Colin Powell lie to the entire world in his UN speech, outing a CIA Agent to discredit her husband for telling the truth, "swift-boating John Kerry, wiretapping American civilians, throwing no-bid contracts to the VP’s former company, turning the DOJ into a political arm of their Party, irresponsibly cutting taxes to get votes, borrowing from China to pay the war debt, and all the many things we don’t yet know about or I forgot to mention – the list is very very long. One wonders if it’s possible to ever really recover from that level of corruption.
The UK Process: Before the Chilcot Inquiry, I thought Prime Minister Tony Blair had been pulled along by the Bush Administration, motivated by loyalty, or maybe by horror at 911. In England, they say it less sympathetically – that he was Bush’s Lackey. But the revelations of their Inquiry have me thinking about it differently. In each of his visits with Bush, Blair pledged his loyalty to the invasion:
| 04/06/2002 | BUSH AND BLAIR MEET AT THE CRAWFORD RANCH |
| Bush and Blair agree on Regime Change as the strategy for Iraq. | |
| 09/08/2002 | BUSH AND BLAIR MEET AT CAMP DAVID |
| Bush agrees to work through the UN. Blair agrees to stick with the US no matter what. | |
| 01/31/2003 | BLAIR VISITS BUSH |
| January 31, 2003, Blair flew to Washington for a meeting with Bush. Manning records the president – in a minute previously disclosed – telling Blair that military action would be taken with or without a second security council resolution and the bombing would begin in mid-March 2003. The note records Blair’s reaction: "The prime minister said he was solidly with the president." |
So in spite of the fact that Blair seems to have been a voice of restraint, convincing Bush to work through the UN, he was himself solidly behind the idea of regime change from the start. He just had a more difficult force to deal with back home – mainly Lord Peter Goldsmith – England’s Attorney General.
But there’s another issue that seems apparent in the Chilcot Inquiry. From my perspective, even Lord Goldsmith doesn’t occupy very high moral ground. He hid from looking at invading Iraq for itself based on British law and morality. Even as the voice of restraint, he based his legal decisions on the very vague and unenforceable international law. Until the eleventh hour, he tried to defer the decision to the United Nations. And when he finally caved in to the pressure from Blair, he still dodged the decision saying that the UN really meant it was okay.
So while I do respect the British for struggling longer with the issue than we did, in the end they didn’t really grapple with it directly, instead Lord Goldsmith leaned on a US interpretation of the UN Resolution – an interpretation that was at first and last glance, clearly wrong. But that’s not all. They knew early on that President Bush was trumping up a reason to go to war…
| 07/23/2002 | DOWNING STREET MEMO |
| "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." |
… and they went along with him. There was even more. The British went along with the Niger Uranium Hoax even longer than we did, publishing a white paper claiming to have independent corroboration that Iraq was after or had purchased African Uranium ore – not at all true. And there was Dr. David Kelly, a British Scientist who had been a weapons inspector in Iraq. He softly blew a whistle claiming that they were "sexing up" the charges against Iraq. He was first publicly humiliated, and then died in what was called a suicide, but looks a lot more like a murder to many of us – including me. So in the end, it seems that the UK was as tawdry in it’s decision to invade Iraq as we were. Just because they were following our lead doesn’t excuse what they did.
Mickey –
There’s one thing that you and 99.9% of Americans aren’t getting and that’s that George Bush Jr invaded Iraq by enacting a presidential order as signed by his own father.
Check out National Security Directive 54 (NSD54) as signed by George Bush Sr on 15 January 1991. Paragraph 10 states:
10. Should Iraq resort to using chemical, biological, or nuclear
weapons, be found supporting terrorist acts against U.S. or
coalition partners anywhere in the world, or destroy Kuwait’s oil
fields, it shall become an explicit objective of the United
States to replace the current leadership of Iraq. I also want to
preserve the option of authorizing additional punitive actions
against Iraq.
Out of these 5 conditions Saddam breached at least three, ask any Gulf War Veteran about the chemical alarms, he flooded the Gulf with oil and then torched the oil wells in Kuwait. The jury is still out regarding any biological detections that may have occured (the record shows anthrax was detected at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia on at least one occasion), and he may even have tested the basic design of a nuclear weapon.
Further to this many view the sanctions against Iraq as a primarily US imposed collective punishment against Iraq as a whole. An additional punitive action then.
I’m a Brit, and a fairly disgusted one at that insofar as the Chilcot Inquiry has a mandate that does not extend back beyond 2001. Which means that much of the past which directly led to this debacle is not going to be examined. Already from the documents that have been released we can see that the US is going to be protected from any embarrassment and any political finger pointing. There may only be a couple of scapegoats identified by Chilcot (if that many even), and they can only reside on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Andrew,
Thank you for bringing attention to NSD54 and your apparent willingness to give Yoo, Bybee, Rumsfeld et al. a kind of pass. As a point of precedent justifying our administration’s behavior in ’02-’03, I think the directive may not have the force of law attending to it…at least not sufficient for W. to have said “my Dad said it was okay and here it is on the books so all of you all have to do what I say”. For one, NSD54 was declassified in ’97 becoming an historical curio as much as anything. For another, the “options” that H.W. Bush sought were given sufficient exercise at the time of the adventures in Kuwait. The armed forces of Iraq were in full retreat back to Baghdad (after lighting off the oilfields on the way out) and were very dearly punished during that armed retreat. Pounding the bastards all the way back to Baghdad and liquidating Saddam was considered – at least until Gen. Powell cautioned the President that he “would own it” (Baghdad). Moreover, the mission – to remove Iraq’s forces from Kuwait – was “accomplished”.
G.W. and his cabal decided they wanted to own Baghdad, they did so quite resolutely and independently…indeed, G.W. had been in touch with God directly on the matter – had been commanded by God to “take Saddam out” – and I’m sure this had much to do with your Mr. Blair’s acceding to the web of bullshit that was being spun on our side of the pond. Lesson: keep the people who’ve had to be born more than once the hell away from the levers of state power. If Tony had been more traditional Anglican, I doubt he’d have proved so weak in the knees when things got right the way down to brass tactics.
Andrew, Please give some Americans a little credit. As far as 99.9%of Americans not getting it, I think that is way too large a number and rather insulting to those of us that have been researching this Iraq War mess for many sorrowful years. The problem is we do get it and now we want to make sure this never happens again . You know there are times I read someone writing or talking about the Holocaust and the Jews and I think that maybe it’s time to move on and then I read or hear about someone somewhere like the head of Iran right now who makes a statement like the Holocaust never happened and I say I guess it’s never too much to write and talk abou the Holocaust because there are people who might not realize it happened and it really could happen again. Andrew What happened with Iraq was wrong and we went to war over there because there were people like Bush and Cheney who have bigger egos than hearts. I know writing this won’t convince you I right but I feel better for writing it because you made me very angry and now I’m feeling more peaceful.
@ Carl
First up – I’d just like to say that I wasn’t trying to give Yoo, Bybee, Rumsfeld etc etc any kind of pass for their contributions to the Iraq issue, I just wasn’t trying to make a point about anything where they were concerned. On the NSD54 thing I’m not exactly sure of the status of such (variously named) presidential instruments and their overall relationship with and within your own constitutional law. My (admittedly limited) reading on this matter leads me to think that there is currently no actual definitive position. I personally tend to think that these orders may potentially carry far more weight than may be generally realised, and perhaps even exceptionally so in this particular instance. For example I would suspect that this one’s declassification in ’97 was far more to do with it being used as a political tool aimed at sending a subtle signal, call it a quiet warning shot if you like, towards the ears and organs of the office of Saddam Hussein. At that point in time the whole UNSCOM thing was falling apart and nobody really knew what was going to happen next. So far from it being just a historical curio I think at that time it was a significant and more importantly active piece of real-world global and international political interaction. As far as the ‘option’s are concerned who is to say where they really ended?
Where G.H.W. is concerned I saw a documentary made five years after the ’90/’91 conflict where he spoke about Iraq and where the emotion of it all almost broke him. So that’s my point really, that the son took on what what his father, actually for good reason, had not, this in the certain knowledge that later some part of the father honestly wished that he had gone further. So when G.W. tells us all that he had been advised by God, I simply don’t believe him. I think its far more likely that he had just been speaking with his own dad. It was as simple as that. He just wasn’t going to tell us about that so that’s why he said what he did.
@ Joy
Sorry – I didn’t mean to insult the intelligence of either you or the USA in general. I use that number as a perhaps vague reference to the number of people there who would know about the actual document itself. I am, believe me, fully aware of the sentiments of what I now take to be the overwhelming number of US citizens when it come to their views on the 2001-2009 presidency and its militaristic overseas policies. It’s just that I think that this was the exact starting point of what happened in 2003, and is therefore highly important in understanding where all this began, which is something I also think quite a lot of people don’t fully realise.
When it comes to the Holocaust and following from that the question of denial, well I think that this obviously goes back much further and is a different topic. It is though fairly unrelated to Iraq and what happened there, which is my main interest in posting here and elsewhere. So you’ll please excuse me if I don’t debate the rights and wrongs of this intensely emotive subject here any further tonight. You do though say that “I know writing this won’t convince you I(‘m) right but I feel better for writing it because you made me very angry and now I’m feeling more peaceful”. I’d just like to say that I didn’t come here to denigrate the USA as a whole because of what the Bush administration did. Please don’t feel that I was directing my European wrath at you either generally or indeed more personally than that.
@Andrew,
Your European Wrath at the Bush Administration is welcomed here, no doubt equaled by my American Wrath at the same target. I think you’re right that as Americans, we were woefully uninformed about a lot of what went on until way too late. That goes back to G.H.W.B and even Reagan. I think we had some kind of trust in government and foreign policy that was really not deserved. Our Iraq War deceit was not so different from what we did in Viet Nam – go to war with a provocation – the Gulf of Tonkin – that never happened. If anything of worth comes from all this, maybe next time we’ll be alert and awake enough to know what’s happening. Thanks for commenting…
Mickey –
Thanks for the welcome. I actually just tried commenting on your last post, but I inadvertently clicked the feed button and lost the lot as a result. Sufficient to say I thought yours was a very good posting, but it’s a bit late here (2.20 AM) to rewrite all again tonight.
Very briefly on the Gulf and Vietnam, ’91 was meant to be a curative for the South East Asia experience. It didn’t quite work out that way, but in their efforts to prove that it was they recreated the exact same scenario. These things we can see much better now, and yes we know much about what is happening today with Iran. But can we do anything about it? The repeating of history seems to me to be a very hard habit to break.