"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."If two people have all the facts, and still disagree with one another, that's okay. Conversely, those same two people espousing passionate views (particularly ones about which they get extremely sententious) based upon flawed information is cause for legitimate frustration. One would be hard-pressed to present a modern political issue about which more flawed information has been bandied about than an international coalition's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Perhaps it is not surprising that the decision remains so controversial. Even the Second World War, which most consider to be wholly uncontroversial, is still subject to debate and interpretation. For those who, like this author, were firmly ensconced in a military community around the time of 9/11, Iraq counted as America's most pressing example of unfinished business. After 9/11, many within the same community believed that the time to settle that business had come.
After what seemed like a spectacular coalition campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and after months of tension, an international coalition invaded Iraq in March of 2003. When the dust settled, the expected stockpiles of illicit weapons failed to materialize. Rhetoric about "intelligence failures", presidential dishonesty, "exit strategies", and an overall narrative of a mistaken invasion began to percolate. President Bush and his associates were excoriated, the 2004 election was hard-fought, and then-Senator Obama made his disapproval of the Iraq War a centerpiece of his successful 2008 presidential campaign.
For more than a decade now, despite one scrap of evidence here, or another shred of data there, those who supported the Iraq War gave up on trying to convince anyone that the catch phrases about "intelligence failures" and "mistakes" were unfounded. For years on end, it seemed that the debate wasn't worth having. However, with ISIS/DAESH rampaging throughout the Middle East, continuing chaos in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and renewed debates over the use of military force in Iraq - in 2003 and now in 2015 - the issue is worth revisiting. This discussion shall attempt to cut through the mountains of blather and bluster that have mounted in the decade-and-change since the Bush Administration began making a case for regime change in Iraq.
The bulk of the case for invading Iraq was made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations Security Council in February of 2003. That case leaned heavily upon evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs, though many forget that this issue was set within the wider context of Iraq's record of terrorism sponsorship. You can read Secretary Powell's February 2003 address to the Security Council here, or watch the entire video here. Secretary Powell's remarks were divided up into the following topics: Denial and Deception, Biological Weapons, Chemical Weapons, Nuclear Weapons, Delivery Systems, Terrorism, and Human Rights Violations. For the sake of discussion, it is best to save the first topic until last.
Biological Weapons
Did the Hussein Regime retain biological weapons? Yes.
The Iraq Survey Group/Duelfer Report concluded that the Hussein Regime's intelligence apparatus, the Mukhabarat, maintained covert, small-scale laboratories until 2003 with the intent of producing toxins for use in assassinations. Although CNN reported in 2003 that mobile labs had been located in Iraq, a report in June of that year claimed that the mobile labs were not involved in biological weapons research. In 2003, weapons inspectors identified multiple vials of biological weapons precursors, including botulinum toxin, in an Iraqi weapons scientist's home refrigerator. While Iraq's pre-2003 biological weapons program was limited, it had not been entirely dismantled as required by both treaties and U.N. resolutions; instead, it was being kept in storage for future development.
Chemical Weapons
Did the Hussein Regime retain chemical weapons? Yes.
The bulk of the Hussein Regime's WMD arsenal consisted of chemical weapons, and these were used against both Iranian and Iraqi targets in the 1980's. While the Hussein Regime destroyed portions of this arsenal, many chemical rounds were found by both search teams and regular units after the 2003 invasion. Below are a mere handful of examples:
Nuclear Weapons
Did the Hussein Regime retain a nuclear weapons program? Yes.
Iraq never developed a nuclear weapon, but its research reactor at Osirak was famously destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Operation Opera in 1981. However, Iraq maintained a nascent nuclear program, retained a variety of materials and infrastructure, and sought additional materials with the intent of eventually reconstituting its program.
British intelligence services, and later President Bush in the form of the now infamous "Sixteen Words", claimed controversially that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Ambassador Joe Wilson controversially disputed these accusations, while numerous journalistic investigations dismissed his claims. In the United Kingdom, the Butler Review investigated the basis of the claims made by British intelligence reports and determined that they were justified. At very least, this issue remains unsettled despite the controversy it caused in 2003.
It is worth noting that while the Iraq Survey Group and its product, the Duelfer Report, are often considered an authoritative source, investigation was ongoing when the report was issued, and additional evidence was subsequently found. (There has also been conjecture since 2004 that Russian special forces may have assisted Hussein in evacuating arms from Iraq.)
It is often noted, and with some accuracy, that many or even most of these illicit weapons or materiel were leftovers from the Iran-Iraq War. It is much less accurately claimed (link/link) that most of Iraq's arsenal was supplied by the United States. The latter claim is mostly nonsense; while the United States supplied Iraq with a handful of dual-use technologies and participated in the Tanker War phase of the Iran-Iraq War on the side of the Gulf's Arab states, the vast majority of Iraq's conventional and unconventional arsenal was supplied by the Soviet Union. The former claim is simply a distraction: Iraq was required by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, to include Resolution 687 (which ended the 1991 Gulf War), to destroy its stocks of biological and chemical weapons; to dismantle or destroy its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons infrastructure, materiel, and precursors; and to verify compliance. Instead, Iraq retained substantial, albeit poorly maintained, WMD infrastructure, materiel, and precursors, which were found after the invasion. These supplies could have eventually been reconstituted into a significant WMD program had the Hussein Regime survived long enough to emerge from the international sanctions regime.
Delivery Systems
Did the Hussein Regime retain unauthorized delivery systems? Yes.
The Hussein Regime retained, and post-invasion weapons inspectors recovered, al Samoud 2 missiles that were capable of striking at ranges that exceeded those authorized by the United Nations. Iraq also possessed a nascent - in fact, apparently infantile - UAV program. A 2004 article in The Economist entitled "Still not found" notes that inspectors also found plans to develop home-grown medium range ballistic missiles, and to purchase them from North Korea or Russia. The take-away from this, as with so many other questions about the pre-war intelligence, is that it was Iraq's responsibility to be transparent to the inspectors, and speculation that Iraq had retained an illicit stockpile of medium range ballistic missiles was reasonable.
Some mention should be made of the "45 Minute Claim", which spurred great controversy in the United Kingdom. The 45 Minute Claim is now considered to be either inaccurate or questionable, but two additional points should be considered. The first is that media hype about this claim omitted observations that this was believed to be the case under battlefield conditions, rather than a spur of the moment capability. Second, these questions and inaccuracies - among others - must be considered in the context of Iraq's rigorous counterintelligence efforts, which shall be discussed presently.
As the overarching concern was the Hussein Regime's support of terrorists, and terrorists' use of ballistic missiles and UAVs was not an issue of great concern in 2003, perhaps less attention should be paid to the issue of delivery systems. (In fact, terrorists detonating chlorine gas bombs in Iraq, and various insurgent groups fighting in the Syrian civil war, have demonstrated that delivery systems are not required to use chemical weapons effectively.) However, this non-compliance should merely be considered additional evidence of the Hussein Regime's non-compliance with international law.
Terrorism
Did the Hussein Regime support international terrorism? Yes.
Hussein's ties to international terrorism are somewhat confusing. Let's establish one thing up front: Saddam Hussein was openly supporting Palestinian terrorist groups, and was providing sanctuary to such infamous terrorists as Abu Nidal. There is no question that the Hussein Regime was openly sponsoring international terrorism, and there is no question that the Iraq War was about more than al Qaeda. The Bush Administration stated very openly that the purpose of the Global War on Terror was to deter any state around the world from sponsoring any terrorist group.
However, much of the post-invasion rhetoric centered around the Hussein Regime's connection or lack thereof to al Qaeda, and the question of Iraqi involvement in the 9/11. As the Weekly Standard reported in 2003, there do appear to have been efforts by both parties to investigate the possibility of cooperation with one another. The infamous al Qaeda operative, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is still generally accepted to have spent a significant amount of time in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion, and subsequently led al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate. With respect to an Iraqi connection with 9/11, the Bush Administration never claimed any such connection, only that they were investigating the possibility of such collusion.
A more general myth about terrorism and terrorist groups should also be dispelled. A myth exists that terrorist groups and rogue states only work together when they're in lock step with each other's ideology. This is absurd, absolutely and verifiably false. For example, Iran cooperates with Sunni terrorist groups on a regular basis, to include al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Hussein Regime was no different, and although it was a quasi-secular Baathist regime, Hussein had spearheaded an Islamization campaign in the 1990's in an attempt to legitimize his rule. Terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism enact pragmatic shifts in their allegiance, so the idea that a quasi-secular Iraq and an aggressively Islamist al Qaeda could have never cooperated with one another is simply false. While this doesn't prove an operational link, it eliminates one of the more frustrating arguments pertaining to the Iraq War.
Iraq most certainly maintained links with international terrorist groups. While an operational link to al Qaeda may be questionable, the Bush Administration's justification for invading Iraq was bigger than al Qaeda. Furthermore, the question about Iraq's WMD programs were all couched in this question of state sponsorship of terrorism: the international discourse hinged upon the potential for Saddam Hussein to work with international terrorist groups to carry out attacks with WMDs (which he retained, as discussed above). This broader context is often lost in the blather and bluster.
Human Rights
Did the Hussein Regime violate human rights? Yes.
Even those who opposed the invasion usually refrain from disputing the Hussein Regime's human rights record - the worst one is likely to hear is that maybe Iraq's current situation proves that it required a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein to hold it together. Of course, many disagree about whether or not that was justification to invade. In light of the Iraq War and other recent conflicts, some commentators have come to question the legitimacy of human rights violations as a casus belli. This question has taken on new prominence relative to the more recent conflicts in Libya and Syria, as both conflicts have inspired rhetoric about a nebulous "Responsibility to Protect", or "R2P". What one should take interest in is the idea that those who made the case for war were so worried that the American electorate and the international community at large might be so lukewarm to the other elements that swaying them with human rights issues was required in the first place.
Denial and Deception
Did the Hussein Regime maintain a denial and deception campaign? Yes.
The very first topic Secretary Powell discussed at the United Nations Security Council was the elaborate counterintelligence effort that the Hussein Regime maintained in order to maintain what has might be called "strategic ambiguity" (comparable to Israel's "nuclear ambiguity" posture). Approximately the first half of Secretary Powell's remarks focused on this issue, and he essentially argued that while the remainder of his presentation represented the best available intelligence on Iraq's WMD capabilities, Iraq's aggressive deception efforts made it difficult to discern the degree to which it was a threat to the international community. As the following items demonstrate, this deception regime was deliberate.
Much has been made of the apparent failures of Western intelligence agencies to accurately assess Iraq's illicit weapons programs, and these concerns are as legitimate as they are overstated. The delta between those estimates and Iraq's actual holdings can and should be considered in light of Iraq's dedicated counterintelligence program. These deception efforts - inspired by the Hussein Regime's self-confessed prevailing fear of Iran - were highlighted in Secretary Powell's February 2003 address to the UNSC.
To review: Iraq was involved in an elaborate, deliberate denial and deception campaign, in contravention of U.N.S.C. resolutions. Iraq had retained small but significant amounts of WMD munitions and precursors, in contravention of U.N.S.C. resolutions. Iraq did illegally retained and was carrying out research on illicit delivery systems. The Hussein regime was poised to reconstitute these capabilities, in contravention of U.N.S.C. resolutions. Iraq was openly and unapologetically supporting international terrorism. The Hussein Regime was systematically violating its citizens human rights. The Hussein Regime's denial and deception efforts led international intelligence agencies to incorrectly estimate the regime's capabilities, but on each and every point, the Hussein Regime was in material violation of one or more U.N.S.C. resolutions or international laws. Those violations alone constituted legal justification for the invasion.
Setting the record straight on the case made in the Security Council, and other details of the casus belli, is important. However, these are not the only factors that one must consider.
The Role of Intelligence
In discussion of the accidental success of Iraqi counterintelligence efforts, and the accidental failure of Western intelligence collection, mention must be made of the role that intelligence actually plays in the formulation of policy. Owing perhaps to Westerners' love for courtroom, law enforcement, and medical dramas, there seems to be a perception that intelligence dictates policy in a manner similar to the way in which forensic evidence dictates guilt or innocence, or medical tests lead to an ironclad diagnosis and treatment. Many opine that since the intelligence estimate about Iraq's illicit weapons was not accurate, the justification for invasion was wholly undermined. This is not the case. Instead, intelligence informs policy decisions, along with a variety of other factors. The coalition invaded Iraq based in part - but not entirely, as shall be discussed presently - upon the worst case scenario one could derive from the available evidence, in concert with a paradigm shift in international security risk calculations caused by the 9/11 attacks. Noted David Kay, one-time head of the Iraq Survey Group:
"Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion - although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."Strategic Considerations
The myopic focus on illicit weapons distracted most in the international commentariat from the invasion's wider context. Many books have been written on politics in the Islamic world in the preceding century, so only a brief overview can be offered here. However, for all of the frustration over the nebulous (and possibly non-existent) links between the Hussein Regime and al Qaeda, Iraq played a significant role in the formation and expansion of al Qaeda in the 1990's.
Osama bin Laden and many of his closest associates famously learned the art of guerrilla warfare as "Arab Afghans", fighting as an adjunct to native insurgents against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. (Actually, bin Laden's involvement was reportedly as a financier and logistician, rather than an actual fighter.) In 1990, shortly after bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading bin Laden to meet with the Saudi defense minister. As recounted in a 2001 New York Times article:
Shortly after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, Osama bin Laden approached Prince Sultan bin Abdelaziz al-Saud, the Saudi defense minister, with an unusual proposition. Mr. bin Laden had recently returned from Afghanistan, heady with victory in the drive, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, to expel the Soviet occupiers.While one could make the argument that the Iraq War demonstrates the potential lethality of one hundred thousand mujahideen fighters, most would acknowledge that the idea of mounting such a defense against the Iraqi army's brutality - in lieu of the international coalition that eventually protected Saudi Arabia and liberated Kuwait - represented delusion on bin Laden's part, and would have amounted to gross negligence on the part of the Saudi government had they followed bin Laden's advice. This infuriated bin Laden and his associates, as did the persistent Western presence in the "Land of the Two Holy Mosques" after the Gulf War's conclusion. Among many in the Islamic world, this Western presence lent legitimacy to bin Laden's denunciations of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and their allies, and subsequently assisted al Qaeda with recruiting and fundraising.
As recounted by Prince Turki bin Faisal, then the Saudi intelligence chief, and by another Saudi official, the episode foreshadowed a worrying turn. Victorious in Afghanistan, Mr. bin Laden clearly craved more battles, and he no longer saw the United States as a partner, but as a threat and potential enemy to Islam.
Arriving with maps and many diagrams, Mr. bin Laden told Prince Sultan that the kingdom could avoid the indignity of allowing an army of American unbelievers to enter the kingdom, to repel Iraq from Kuwait. He could lead the fight himself, he said, at the head of an group of former mujahedeen that he said could number 100,000 men.
Prince Sultan had received Mr. bin Laden warmly, but he reminded him that the Iraqis had 4,000 tanks, according to one account.
"There are no caves in Kuwait," the prince is said to have noted. "You cannot fight them from the mountains and caves. What will you do when he lobs the missiles at you with chemical and biological weapons?"
Mr. bin Laden replied, "We fight him with faith."
The conversation ended soon afterward, and the proposal was left to rest. But Saudi officials now say that the episode offered an early glimpse of several of the forces the kingdom would spend the rest of the decade trying to contain.
However, Iraq's long record of attacking its neighbors, and the survival of the Hussein Regime following the Gulf War, precipitated a prolonged Western presence in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Gulf. In addition to all of the direct concerns about Iraq itself, the United States could not undermine bin Laden's arguments while American troops remained in Saudi Arabia, and American troops could not withdraw from Saudi Arabia while Baathist Iraq was still a threat. Thus, part of an overall effort to undermine support for al Qaeda drove the reduction of the American military footprint in Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East, which itself required that the persistent issue of Iraq be addressed.
For lack of a better opportunity to mention it, one should also consider a frequent talking point: that "the Iraq War was the right war at the wrong time, and if Hussein was going to be removed it should have been in 1991". This position is understandable, but it ignores history: the 1991 coalition's objective, as outlined by the United Nations, was to reverse the annexation of Kuwait. International support for the 1991 Gulf War was predicated upon the sanctity of Kuwaiti sovereignty, and any attempt to enact regime change by force of arms would have undermined support for the campaign and set a precedent that few nations were willing to support.
There are a variety of other strategic factors that are virtually ignored in the international dialogue about the Iraq War. However, these items should at least raise questions about other strategic factors that played a role in the decision to go to war, but have not been extensively discussed.
Success and Failure
Finally, there is a profound difference between whether the coalition's actions were justified, and whether the coalition's operations were successful. Unfortunately, these issues are often conflated, as those who opposed the invasion in the first place felt justified in their opposition when the campaign went so badly.
One could point to a veritable encyclopedia of failures that undermined the coalition's efforts in Iraq. A mere sampling of these include the following:
Many of these shortcomings were addressed, albeit at a painfully slow pace. The early 2007 appointment of General David Petraeus as Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq, the introduction of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual - flawed though it was - and the now-infamous "surge" of combat troops to capitalize upon the diminished legitimacy of various insurgent groups, led to a dramatic decline in violence in Iraq by 2009. The bulk of American troops were withdrawn with some controversy in late 2011, and Iraq continued to look like a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat until the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014. (Even today, debate continues as to whether responsibility for the rise of ISIS/DAESH rests on the shoulders of the Bush Administration, or whether these developments can be attributed to the Obama Administration's inaction on the Syrian Civil War.) Despite these measured successes, even supporters of the invasion acknowledge that national (and coalition) blood, treasure, and time should have been much more carefully managed by both military and political leaders. Even now, tense debates continue in national security circles between those who, on the one hand, see the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as distractions from "real war" and "real soldiering, to be avoided in the future; and those who, on the other hand, see counterinsurgency and stability as core competencies that American troops eschew at their own peril.
Conclusion
Regardless of the data presented above, the question of whether the invasion of Iraq was justified, legally or strategically, remains a matter of opinion. Objective data informs subjective judgements. Was Iraq's state sponsorship of terrorism and circumvention of international law a risk worth managing in light of its role as an imperfect bulwark against Iranian hegemonic ambitions? Did the American military's difficulties in adapting to the complexities of counterinsurgency outweigh the potential benefits of regime change in Iraq? Did the risks associated with Iraq's regional aggression, coupled with the international commitment in Afghanistan, recommend a redoubling of America's efforts to undermine Iraqi ambitions with diplomacy, economic pressure, and intelligence operations? These and other critiques, presented to one degree or another both before and after the 2003 invasion, are entirely fair and consistent even with the evidence presented herein. However, the stakes for the future of the Middle East and the world at large rely upon accurate information. In the case of the Iraq War, such accurate information - regardless of the conclusions one reaches as a result - has been overtaken by hyperbole for too long. Only by eliminating the hyperbole and analyzing accurate information can the past be accurately understood in order that it might better inform the choices that society makes in the future.
