March 2003 Archives

Last updated March 2003

What is the Crisis?

The Persian Gulf War in 1991 ended in a stalemate between Iraq and the international forces led by the United States and the first President George Bush. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was driven out of Kuwait, the country he had invaded six months earlier. The peace agreement called for Iraq to destroy any chemical or biological weapons, and a team of United Nations inspectors regularly searched the country to make sure this was happening. A strict embargo kept Iraq from selling oil or buying weapons on the international markets until the United Nations would rule it in full compliance with the terms of the peace treaty. The United States kept Iraqi aircraft from flying in the southern or northern part of the country.

This situation continued through the 1990s, with continual blustering between Hussein and Bush's successor, U.S. President Bill Clinton, over the role of inspectors. Hussein claimed to have the entire country open to the inspectors and demanded that the embargoes be lifted immediately. Clinton claimed that inspectors were being blocked and that sanctions should continue indefinitely.

Iraq is one of the world's biggest oil producers, and U.S. and Saudi tycoons make billions of dollars a year while its oil was blocked. Hussein had originally invaded Kuwait because of an oil dispute. Both of the Presidents Bush have made millions of dollars as oil. The politics of the region are the politics of oil and there is big money to be made and lost by the winners and losers of international conflicts there. Many came to believe that Iraq would continue to be punished indefinitely so that it's oil would remain off the market. The U.S. and British wanted the oil embargo to continue, while the Russians and French (who wanted to profit by buying and distribute Iraqi oil) wanted them lifted. As the 1990s progressed, the international front against Iraq was cracking, with each country in the coalition adopting positions that would give it the greatest oil profits. By mid-1990s, Iraq and the United States were constantly claiming that the other was lying. Iraq would periodically block the teams of inspectors from certain sites, especially when they contained U.S. experts, declaring these teams to be fake excuses to continue sanctions. The United States would periodically threaten to restart the war if the teams weren't allowed everywhere, saying there were still some weapons hidden anywhere. Both sides were almost certainly lying and both were making self-serving claims about the other.

In 1998, President Clinton seemed about to actually start a war and he started a military and propaganda buildup against Saddam Hussein. Grassroots peace groups sprung up everywhere almost overnight and flyered and witnessed even though they were virtually ignored by the mainstream news media. That changed when some of these activists got into a CNN-sponsored "Town Hall" meeting broadcast live around the world. These activists asked sharp questions of the Clinton Administration officials onstage. The next day the news media started asking those same questions, breaking the consensus for war. That weekend, the United Nations Secretary General announced a truce that looked just like the offer Iraq had been making for months. It later came out that the Clinton Administration was behind the U.N. agreement and announcement. They realized that the American people were going to ask too many questions about Iraq and weren't going to support a second war against the country. Sometimes good questions and the truth can stop a war!

Back in 1991, there were many in President Bush's Administration who wished a peace treaty had not been signed. They had wanted U.S. forces to continue all the way to Baghdad and oust Saddam Hussein. They had wanted to install a U.S. government in Iraq. Many of these "hawks" were also involved in the oil business. Through the 1990s, they were out of office and relatively powerless. They wrote papers about what would have happened if the war had continued to Baghdad but no one cared. Then in 2000, the son of George Bush, also named George Bush, was elected President of the United States (everyone calls this new one George W. Bush to avoid confusion). Most of the people in his Cabinet and Administration were his father's friends and included those who had wanted to continue the first Gulf War back in 1991.

The horrible events of September 11, 2001, shocked everyone. everyone knew that something must be done to stop international terrorism. With the support of many Americans, President Bush started a war in Afghanistan, against the Taliban government there.

Many of President Bush's advisors had hoped that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been behind the terrorism. They've been obsessing over him for over a decade and wanted an excuse to re-start the Persian Gulf War. But there is no link Iraq with Osama bin Laden.

There are many in the Bush Administration who want to use this fear to start a war against Iraq anyway. Remember: there is absolutely no connection between Iraq and the September 11th terrorists and absolutely nothing has changed between Iraq and the United States for years. Despite this non-connection, President George W. and his Cabinet have contantly tried to paint Hussein as Osama bin Laden's backer. The propaganda has worked: a poll conducted in March of 2003 found that more than 40% of Americans think Saddam Hussein organized the September 11th attacks. In early 2003 United Nations Inspectors once again started entering Iraq. They have still found no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

Troop buildups have started and another war could start within weeks. President George W. Bush has tried to convince the rest of the world's nations that another war is needed, but has not provided any evidence. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has regularly appeared before TV viewers to declare finding evidence, only to quietly retract the story a few weeks later when the "evidence" is proved to be a hoax.

What else is Going On?

Saddam Hussein is not the only world leader with weapons of mass destruction. There are plenty of countries with even more lethal nuclear weapons including the U.S., Russian, the Ukraine, China, France, Britain, South Africa, India, and Pakistan. Most notably, Israel has also undertaken a nuclear program and they certainly have a small arsenal with missiles capable of reaching Iraq. It is arguable that their development of atomic weapons upped the ante in the Middle east Arms race and helped fuel Hussein's development of chemical and biological weapons, the "poor man's nuclear weapon." Yet the United Nations and U.S. Presidents have never proposed bombing Israel or any of the other countries for their weapons of mass destruction. There is very much a double-standard going on with regards to Iraq.

Isn't Hussein Crazy?

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is certainly no sweetheart. He has used chemical weapons against his own people (at least on people who are nominally Iraqi: it was a Kurdish village that was in open revolte against Hussein's rule). He started and fought a long, brutal war with Iran, before invading Kuwait and prompting the U.S.-led Persian Gulf War of 1991. But Hussein's actions are on par with those of other violent world leaders (for example Indonesia's in east Timor in the 1980s) and his moves have been motivated less by insanity than by the geopolitical and economic situation of Iraq and by historical regional antagonisms. This is not to say it would not be better for Iraq and the rest of the world if he were out of power. But two incredibly bloody wars have failed to oust him, indeed have only strengthened his hold on power, and it is quite doubtful that further military action will create a real peace for Iraq, the Middle east, or the planet.

Won't a War Change Things?

The U.S. military doesn't seem to think so. Here are some facts from Pentagon and Clinton Administration officials as reported in the February 21st, 1999 New York Times: U.N. inspection teams have destroyed many times more chemical and biological weapons than the 1991 Gulf War; a new war wouldn't even target weapon stockpiles since they're nearly impossible to locate. The likeliest targets of a U.S. air strike are those facilities already under U.N. inspection and the bombing would most likely destroy the monitoring equipment now in place. Pentagon officials do not suspect that any biological or chemical weapons are being stored in Hussein's presidential palaces; Iraq's refusal to open these palaces to inspectors is the supposed raison d'être of this war. Pentagon officials think it's unlikely that Hussein will launch any chemical or biological weapons in response to a U.S. attack. Iraq's Scud missiles are actually not very good at delivering chemical or biological weapons. The Iraqi military is a shambles: it is a "shadow" of the army that invaded Kuwait in 1990 and is so weakened that it does not pose a threat to neighboring countries.

A war won't reduce Hussein's weapons stockpiles, and it probably won't drive him from power. The Pentagon acknowledges all this. It will make a few rich people even richer, especially the stockholders of military equipment manufacturers and Arab sheiks who gain the longer Iraqi oil is kept from the world market. It has been quietly announced that for some time after a U.S. victory, only U.S. corporations would be given the lucrative deals to rebuild Iraqi's oil facilities (already under contract for some of these riches is Halliburton, U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney's old company).