October 3, 2010
IF THEY STILL THINK W CARED ABOUT DISARMING SADDAM THEY HAVEN'T PAID ANY ATTENTION:
Analysis: Was There Even a Decision?: U.S. and British Documents Give No Indication Alternatives Were Seriously Considered (John Prados and Christopher Ames, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 328)
Available documentary records, recollections of Bush administration officials, and the growing body of testimony and materials assembled by the British Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Panel), support the thesis that the United States went to war in Iraq without clear consideration of whether war was a proper recourse. One of a series of electronic briefing books (EBB) re-examining several aspects of the run up to the war, this posting focuses on planning and preparations for action during 2002. (The first EBB covered the beginning of the Bush administration; the third will address a parallel effort to craft propaganda in favor of a military conflict, in the guise of intelligence reporting.) The net effect of these activities was to foreclose diplomatic options that would have prevented war.President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, the record suggests, made their real decision privately and restricted knowledge to a very few individuals. Information from participants, especially on the British side, also increasingly suggests that even between the U.S. and British governments, and within the Bush administration itself, subordinate officials were kept in ignorance of leaders’ real intentions. Evidence indicates the decision was made very early, long before ultimatums to Iraq or other diplomatic action. An alternative view, that leaders ordered up contingency plans for war and then simply implemented them without further consideration based on the mechanics of military and alliance planning, offers an equally bleak picture of the disastrous Operation Iraqi Freedom.
General Tommy Franks, commander-in-chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), the responsible U.S. military authority, makes clear in a memoir that from December 28, 2001, when he presented President Bush with a concept for an invasion of Iraq, subsequent efforts were entirely aimed at refining the operational plan, identifying and preparing the required forces, and making the necessary supply and basing arrangements. Before and after, Franks was constantly prodded for progress by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. (Note 1) President Bush instructed Franks to continue elaborating his plan and told Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell to work together to secure the support of Middle Eastern nations and enlist allies for the invasion option. (Note 2) President Bush wrapped up the meeting, a videoconference with participants all over the country, by encouraging all his senior officials to believe that Iraq could, in fact, be deprived of the weapons of mass destruction that all of them assumed were hidden there. “We should remain optimistic that a combination of diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime,” Bush declared, “But if this approach isn’t successful we have to have other options.” (Note 3)
Documenting the origins of the Iraq war are an increasing array of declassified documents, a public record of the time, and a growing body of reflections, recollections, and memoirs. This material sustains the narrative of a drive toward war but not one of conflict resolution. Such diplomacy as took place was designed to recruit allies for an invasion or to coerce the Saddam government into admitting international teams of weapons inspectors—not to disarm Iraq but to justify invasion.
At the very beginning of 2002 (see National Security Archive EBB No. 326) the American distaste for disarmament measures was apparent in the reception that chief United Nations (UN) weapons inspector Hans Blix received when he visited Washington early in the new year. During 2001 Secretary Powell had promoted “smart sanctions” to encourage Iraqi disarmament but the events of 9/11 had effectively killed that policy. Now a succession of Bush administration officials voiced doubts or made veiled threats. Colin Powell expected Iraq would never comply with UN measures while his undersecretary for arms control, John Bolton, remarked that any UN effort would need the help of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—of whom the U.S. was one. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice told Blix of her fears Saddam Hussein would use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or give them to terrorists. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith worried that UN inspectors visiting Iraq would simply learn how to conceal WMDs in their own countries. (Note 4) His colleague Paul Wolfowitz asked the CIA to investigate whether Hans Blix himself was a security risk. (The agency found no evidence of that. (Note 5)) Meanwhile, ahead of Blix’s visit, CIA chief George Tenet and senior clandestine service officers met with Vice President Richard Cheney at the White House to discuss covert operations in Iraq.
On January 29, 2002, in the first open expression of U.S. hostility toward Iraq, President Bush named that country in his State of the Union address as a member of a group he called the “Axis of Evil.” On February 1 General Franks briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the latest version of his CENTCOM invasion plan and that same day CIA officers presented their covert action scheme—considered an integral part of CENTCOM’s proposal. Franks repeated this briefing for the President on February 7. Going through his slides the general reported that the time period from December through March or April would be best, when climate conditions were optimal for military operations, but he responded affirmatively when Rumsfeld pressed on whether CENTCOM could be ready to go sooner than that. General Franks added that he had trips scheduled to meet senior commanders in the region, “But Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld will have to orchestrate the diplomatic heavy lifting.” (Note 6)
On February 12 Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate committee that regime change in Iraq was a longstanding U.S. policy and in the best interests of the Iraqi people.(Note 7) Powell hastened to add that President Bush had no invasion plan on his desk, which was accurate only because the project was not actually on his desk (Franks had presented his latest concept to Bush five days earlier). “I will reserve whatever options I have, I’ll keep them close to my vest,” President Bush said at a February 13 news conference. (Note 8) Several days later he signed a new presidential finding authorizing covert operations against Iraq, and CIA advance teams visited the Kurdish region of that country within days. During all of this no U.S. diplomatic initiative was underway to encourage the Saddam regime to show the real state of its armaments programs.
Instead American diplomacy sought to build the foundation for war.
While the legal basis of the war was the enforcement of all the UN Resolutionsregarding Iraq, the only one that ultimately mattered to W and the US was Resolution 688, which implicitly required that Saddam and the Ba'ath surrender power.
