Rant time again.
Does Tom Friedman annoy other people as much as he does me? It's like he's always right, no matter how many times he changes his opinion. Saw him on Charlie Rose a few days ago. He was blasting the Bush administration for how things are going in Iraq. True enough. But he also feels compelled to explain how he wasn't wrong for being in support of the war initally, because if the administration had just done things correctly it would have worked out.
This is completely ridiculous logic.
It should have been obvious that this administration would not do things correctly. And everyone who was for the war (for arguably sound reasons, even if I don't agree with them) was wrong for the same reason. Not because the war was absolutely wrong (although I think it was - but again this is arguable,) but because it was so clear that Bush and company would screw it up. Not predicting this obvious and horrendous outcome was a serious error, and I can't see how any reasonably honest person can say different.
You thought Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had a good plan for helping the Iraqi people? Time to admit you were wrong Tom.
or you can just blame the french. its even more fun than blaming nader.
so i'm off dmt for a while and then i come back and jeesh, now i guess i gotta mount a defense? (as it turns out it's a long one...)
ok, it was wrong to believe Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had a plan that would be great for the Iraqi people.
But I do think it was reasonable to think they had a better plan than, as it turns out, they did.
Most of the goals the neo-cons wanted to achieve with the invasion (not the ones I thought it was worth fighting for, this is their ideology) depended, in theory, on a stable political and security environment in Iraq -- creating a model for change other Arab states, putting pressure on Iran and Syria, maybe getting some leverage on OPEC.
None of those things are possible with the current state of affairs. So it seems as though they've pissed in their own theoretical lemonade.
I thought the war was worth fighting to diminish the likelihood of a future nuclear conflict. It turns out that Saddam was farther from a bomb than most supposedly informed people assumed. In my mind that doesn't change the potential threat, given the erosion of sanctions. It just puts it a few years farther out (5 years vs 3? 8 vs. 5?).
On this issue, eliminating the threat of a nuclear confrontation, the war so far looks like a potential success.
The weirdness of my particular view is that I think the likely theater of nuclear conflict would have been Iraq, not the US. So you could say we invaded Iraq to save it. I know that sounds callous. It's not meant to be. The other hypothetical (but not acheivable, in my view) option would have been the reimposition of strict sanctions, which as we know were quite devastating to ordinary Iraqis.
Going out on a limb in terms of prediction, I would guess in rough terms that most Iraqis will be back up to a pre-war standard of living after 3 years of occupation, and a pre-sanctions standard of living after 6.
Of course there will be an elite that is massively enriched through privitizations and other state giveaways. And there will be a new migrant force of the unemployed. But I don't see why there won't also be a relatively thriving middle class independent of civil service, in addition, of course, to a big new bureaucracy.
Now, I do differ from the neo-cons on another front. I don't believe for a second that this scenario, if it should come to pass, would diminish the appeal of political Islam. The notion that capitalism leads quickly and inexorably to democracy is ridiculous.
But I do hope Iraq could look more like Turkey and less like Pakistan.
Hi Big Jimmy. Nice to see you back around. Great to see you the other night. I enjoy the chance to discuss these issues with someone who holds different views (and who I think is smart - imagine that!) I hope that my tone, over the long run, is as balanced and open to debate as yours.
I really like that you specify "nuclear conflict" as a reason for war, as opposed to the very poorly defined "weapons of mass destruction" which apparently include everything from methamphetamine production on up. Even Colin Powell cited "botulism" as a chemical weapon in the Iraqi arsenal in his UN speech. But no reasonable person would think we should invade over the threat of botulism.
As I think you rightly point out, the big problem would be if Saddam had been able to build a nuke. If he had done this, or been on the verge of doing this, I would have had to think hard about my (admittedly intellectually comfortable) anti war position.
But he wasn't. And I submit that he couldn't have been. As far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong) the production of nuclear weapons requires large football field sized production facilities. It requires massive industrial infrastructure. This isn't something you do in an underground bunker somewhere. This isn't something you can hide from advanced U.S. satellite technology. Of course I'm no expert but I'll point to the fact that no Republican (or anyone else) has ever suggested otherwise. Instead they talk about "WMDs" by which they mean, at worst, battlefield weapons (mortars and such) not too different from our own use of DU rounds - but which they hope a gullible American public will (mis)understand to mean nuclear weapons.
I very much believe - and have never heard even an attempt at a counter argument - that we could have prevented Saddam from building nuclear weapons by a simple program of satellite observation combined, if necessary, with surgical missile strikes against key infrastructure targets. Decade old autoclave parts buried in rose gardens aren't a direct threat to the U.S. I simply don't believe that he was 5 or 8 or even 20 years away from the bomb. I believe he could never have built one, and that the people in charge in the U.S. knew this.
Am I wrong about this? Do you think it is possible to build a nuclear weapon in secret (I mean assuming, as was the case, that the U.S. is suspicious and watching to see if you are trying?) How? Huge underground installations? How do you build those then?
I firmly believe there was never an imminent threat no matter what definition of 'imminent' you use. Therefore the war, even if it by chance produces some small number of benefits for some Iraqis far down the road, was illegitimate.
I predict not only will most Iraqis not be back up to pre-war standard of living after 3 years, and pre-sanction standard of living after 6, but that the country will be plunged into bloody civil war for at least the next decade, and probably much longer. Or, if not that, they will find themselves back under totalitarian rule, except this time it will not be secular.
Of course I hope I'm wrong.
there is some borderline psychotic out on allen st. "singing" a song which is supposed to be Over There but those are the only two words which he knows. the rest are nasal intonations approximating words and melody. im sure there is a metaphor for the actions of the neocons in there somewhere.
and what exactly is your timetable for invading iran, n. korea and (possibly soon) saudi arabia to stave off the spread of the nuclear menace? will you be raising taxes soon to cover these expenditures? should we reinstitute the draft or start recruiting our foreign legion core? that lure of american citizen is one hypnotic carrot.
Damn The French! if it wasnt for their impertinence and obstinacy this world would be threat free except for china and pakistan and loose nukes in russia and dirty bombs and biological agents and chemical agents terrorism and lsd.
the initial problem with the war was that the justification for it was built upon a foundation of lies self delusion and intimidation. whatever the outcome this is not a way to conduct a war or govern a people no matter how much you are sure of the rightness of your actions.
now that we are "fucked" as ambassador wilson has put it, we are looking to be bailed out by the international community that we ignored when they were not cowed by our bluster. he says the us would be lucky to get $8 billion in aid from the rest of the world to help rebuild iraq. wheres the big bucks from our allies the spanish, the italians, the saudis and the gulf states? or if only that top 1% of americans didnt so desperately need that "tax relief" we could finance it ourselves. if only those americans would stop emulating the greedy and bitter french, the world would be a safer place.
ok, im through ranting although you never did address the friedman piece which was roundly reviled throughout the blogosphere.
your main pollockian contention is that saddam was or would become a nuclear threat and would threaten the stability of the region and if im not mistaken our access to iraqi and saudi oil. but again as the wilson interview contends, the timetable and the means by which we should have endeavored to alter the situation were far removed for what pollack envisioned. this is not a minor issue. this is why we are fucked. that contingencies for post-war chaos were not well considered is either a result of hubris or incompetency.
and all of this was supposed to make us more secure in the end. that hardly seems likely at this point. i do sincerly hope that your timeline for iraqs rejuvenation is realistic but that it could degenerate into civil war is hardly a remote possibility.
btw that interview with wilson is terrific. as i read it, though, he doesn't disagree with the invasion, although he thinks we didn't pave the way well and certainly makes the case that we've fucked up the postwar. he's also a big ken pollack fan ; )
There's a great article in the Sept/Oct issue of Foreign Affairs called "Stumbling Into War" by James P. Rubin about the utter incompetence of the Bush administration leading up to the damn near unilateral invasion.
Even if one believes that this was a just cause, there's no excuse for incompetent prosecution of a major war in a volatile region. The pre-war critcism by some traditional conservatives that the Bush cabal is "the gang that couldn't shoot straight" is right on target.
I don't think it is that easy to find out who's building a nuke anymore. North Korea was able to do it, even with plenty of international inspections, without our finding out until they were close to done. Israel was able to hide their program from international inspectors (and the US) until they were done. We didn't predict the India test blast. And in the case of Iraq, undoubtedly our paranoia combined with Saddam's secrecy made it hard to tell. My argument IS heavily influenced by Kenneth Pollack, and I'm no expert on how long this stuff takes. But Saddam had showed in the past that he was willing to do almost anything to build banned weapons; he had successfully crippled the UN inspections before cancelling them altogether; and sanctions just weren't working - massive leaks via the Jordanian and Syrian borders, Security Council-defying commercial flights from all over Europe, plus, of course, the availability of technology not too far away in Pakistan all combined to make the situation dangerous. How dangerous? What should the tipping point have been? At this point it's impossible to make a compelling case that we needed to invade in Spring 2003 versus, say, Fall 2003, or Spring 2004. But I continue to believe that had we not invaded, we would not have been able to acheive confidence that Saddam didn't have an active nuclear program. And if, in the future, he took another aggressive action like the invasion of Kuwait, or of Kurdistan, we would have to assume that he had the nukes (or else he wouldn't take the action). And if we assumed that...then given the threat a nuclear strike on Gulf oil production would pose -- a threat that will be MUCH greater in 15 or 20 years as other sources of oil begin to dry up -- a pre-emptive first strike would be the logical US military response. Pollock _doesn't_ say that -- no one does. But that's why I supported the war.
Now, as to the Bush prosectuion of said war -- it was absolutely terrible from a diplomatic and post-war planning standpoint. I absolutely agree. It has ended up being much more expensive in blood and treasure than it needed to be.
The whole "WMD" was a canard from my perspective -- the bio and chem weapons were never a big threat, at least not in theater as battlefield weapons.
But I do think that Bush sincerely believed that somehow at some point Saddam might hand these weapons over to terrorists who might deliver them on US soil. I think Cheney egged him on -- whether Cheney ever sincerely believed that or not.
I also firmly believe that Al Gore would have pursued the exact same policy -- although the implementation would have been better.
What are the alternative scenarios in hindsight? Blix inspects for 3 or 4 years, doesn't find anything, sanctions continue, Iraqis starve, then what? Do we really think Saddam would have given up his drive to be the Arab superhero? Would have stopped threatening Israel? Do we think Al-Quaeda would have been somehow deterred by a continued sanctions and inspection policy? Would Iran and Syria and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been deterred? Or, more likely, would they have concluded that the West (I don't think radical islamists observe the fine distinctions Chirac hopes they do) had no appetite for conflict, and have continued to wage terror attacks against Israel, overtly, and against the US, through Al-Qaeda, covertly?
Asking Rummy to solve the Saddam problem is like asking Kenny Boy Lay to solve the California energy "crisis".
Regarding alternative scenarios, how far back can we go?
Could we ask Bush 1 not to green-light the invasion of Kuwait as an intra-Arab issue? Could we go back to Bush 1 and ask him not to sell dual-use technology to Saddam? Could we go back to Reagan, and ask him not to sell dual-use technology to Saddam? Could we ask Rummy not to be the front man for Reagan? How about we go back to Nixon and ask him not to annoint Saddam a successor? Of course, there's so much more if we go back further.
Taking down the Taliban, al Queda and Osama bin Laden would have been more than enough to create a "riding high in the saddle, morning in America" sort of brand image for the US of A. Dubya's failure to finish what he started in Afghanistan is a failure of historic proportions. He failed to take out the Taliban, al Queda and Osama. Letting this brain-addled punk start a second war without ever finishing his first war was a huge mistake by the American citizenry.
i was thinking of going back, oh, about a year.
Big Jimmy believed Ken Pollack's scare scenarios ("Saddam'll nuke the Saudi oil fields!); I believed Scott Ritter that Saddam had no nukes and wasn't a threat. Pollack is currently hiding under a desk somewhere. I'd be tempted to say nyah-nyah but an awful lot of people died for this neocon/neoliberal paternalistic experiment.
With the admission that things still could change (the U.S. still *might* find hidden weapons prohibited by U.N. resolutions,) some of what you say doesn't add up given the facts as they stand at the moment.
"...Saddam had showed in the past that he was willing to do almost anything to build banned weapons..."
It looks now like this isn't true. In fact it looks very much like he *completely* shut down his nuclear development program. That is hardly doing almost anything to build them.
"...he had successfully crippled the UN inspections before cancelling them altogether..."
This is a common mistake made (lie told?) by the right. Saddam DID NOT cancel or kick out UN inspectors. It was the U.S. who forced inspectors to leave Iraq.
Inspections were working. The proof (at least so far) is that he didn't have an active nuclear program. So either he really didn't want one, or the inspections (and sanctions) were keeping him from putting it together. And, again, since it looks like he really didn't have the program, what exactly do you mean by saying that the inspectors were crippled and sanctions were not working?
I think we agree on the general point (that I think) you are making: Saddam might possibly, at an unspecified point in the future, maybe have done some unspecified bad thing. But jumping from that suspicion to a unilateral invasion of a foreign nation against serious questions from almost every single ally, your own intelligence agencies, and with millions of your own citizens marching in the streets against your policies seems, well, completely wrong.
Especially in hindsight.
Inspections *were* working despite U.S. efforts to render them useless. If we had just worked with the U.N. we could have contained Saddam. And the proof is that he was contained. Sure, in another possible world it could have worked out much differently. But in this one - again, as it is turning out so far - the U.S. was wrong. I think the U.S. would still be wrong for going around the U.N. even if they had (or do) find the weapons. But thankfully I don't have to argue that, because THEY DIDN'T FIND THE WEAPONS!
I'm rather nervous about your reasoning. Wouldn't you have to think the same thing about Syria and Iran? They both might want nuclear weapons. They both might do something sinister in the future. They both could endanger the oil fields. Doesn't your reasoning on Iraq force us to attack those countries too? And Saudi Arabia? And probably Egypt too? How is Iraq different from these countries? Just that Saddam is a serial miscalculator? Doesn't seem like enough to me.
But again, maybe they will still find something that proves Saddam was an actual threat rather than a hypothetical one.
I haven't seen the video, so can't personally confirm the Powell and Rice quotes, but this sounds pretty bad: Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.
Just a reminder that Wolfowitz said "nukes was the one issue for bureaucratic reasons we could all agree on." That's not exactly a cry of alarm. There was no threat, and they knew it. It was the Big Lie.
The order may be somewhat random, but here are my responses..thanks to all for tolerating a minority viewpoint:
- When I say he was willing to do almost anything to pursue WMD, I'm referring to Saddam's acceptance of sanctions for 10 years. If UNSCOM had certified that his programs were truly over, the sanctions would have been lifted (per resolution 687).
If you believe that Saddam truly abandoned his programs at some point, I am interested as to your explanation of why he continued to refuse to cooperate enough with the inspectors to get the sanctions lifted.
Iraq behaved at all times as though they were hiding something. They had been found to have hidden things many, many times in the past (as testified to by your favorite, Scott Ritter (I have to say that the thing that bugs me about Scott Ritter is that all of his writing is about how he, Scott Ritter, was a genius and everyone else was a schmuck. For me it is a red flag)).
If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff.
As to Iraq's kicking out the inspectors, ten US inspectors were expelled in October, 1998. Saddam announced (not for the first time that year) that he would not cooperate with UNSCOM. Butler pulled the rest of the UNSCOM inspectors out. The US and the Brits launched Desert Fox. Those, I think, are the facts.
So you can say Saddam only kicked out the first ten inspectors. But I think it's clear that he also ceased cooperation with UNSCOM altogether.
The replacement inspection regime, UNMOVIC, had significantly less power and, in fact, discovered very little. You may believe that's because UNSCOM did such a great job, led, of course, by the indomitable Scott Ritter. But Butler, at least, thought there was plenty left that UNSCOM hadn't found yet. I think we still don't know. Some stuff may be buried. Some stuff may be in Syria. But again, it was prudent to assume that Saddam had not abandoned production when he worked so hard to cripple the inspections and accepted the massive economic cost of sanctions.
Now as to whether sanctions were working or not, they clearly did _not_ work in terms of their main purpose -- to force compliance with WMD inspections.
They were also not working in terms of execution -- the regime was successfully trading billions of dollars of oil outside the oil-for-food program through turkey, syria, jordan, and the UAE (all starting in about 1999 and creating cash to spend on weapons -- very little trickled down to social programs). There were open borders with Syria and Jordan, if not Turkey, across which contraband could flow. And beginning in 2000 there were commercial flights connecting Baghdad and Europe (starting, of course, with France).
So the sanctions had not acheived their object, and they were losing the power to do so. That's why I say they weren't working.
If it is the case that Saddam had not yet used the loosening of the sanctions regime to start aggressively pursuing banned materials, that doesn't change my view that it would have been crazy to assume he wouldn't do just that in the future.
Now to the distinction between Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The problem with Saddam WAS that he was prone to make errors. His attack on the Kurds in 1974. His attack on Iran in 1980. His attack on Kuwait in 1990. His mobilization towards the Kuwaiti border in 1994. His mobilization towards Syria in 2000. Combine these erratic moves, none of them beneficial to Iraq, with Saddam's absolutely effective monopoly on power, and you really did have a situation in which, as it seemed, one man could make any decision he liked and execute it, no matter how poor his judgement.
In Iran, by contrast, it's unclear how easily any single ruler could authorize, oh, for example, a nuclear strike on Jerusalem, or an invasion of Saudi Arabia. There is, at least, some distribution of power, together with a shared belief that the Revolution and the state are more important than any single individual. So the odds of Iran doing something totally erratic or suicidal seem much lower than in the case of Iraq.
Syria also seems to be fairly pragmatic, although obviously it's also a dictatorship with little distribution of power. That is, the Syrians haven't miscalculated any worse with respect to Israel than Egypt and Jordan (in 67 and especially 73). Syria is also relatively poor and is not facing any significant threats. So there is less incentive to attempt to be a bully (a la India or Iran) or to see nukes as a last resort of defense (a la Israel or Pakistan).
JMB -- you say you think the US would still have been wrong to go around the UN even if we were absolutely certain that Saddam had WMD.
Is it your belief that the US should only ever exercise military force if authorized by the Security Council?
Would you vote for a presidential candidate who promised to adopt that policy?
"The US government maintains that Saddam Hussein expelled the UN inspectors from Iraq in 1998, but this is not true. On October 30 1998 the US rejected a new UN proposal by again refusing to lift the oil embargo if Iraq disarmed. On the following day, the Iraqi government announced that it would cease to cooperate with the inspectors. In fact it permitted them to continue working, and over the next six weeks they completed around 300 operations. On December 14, Richard Butler, the head of the inspection team, published a curiously contradictory report. The body of the report recorded that over the past month "the majority of the inspections of facilities and sites under the ongoing monitoring system were carried out with Iraq's cooperation", but his well-publicised conclusion was that "no progress" had been made. Russia and China accused Butler of bias. On December 15th, the US ambassador to the UN warned him that his team should leave Iraq for its own safety. Butler pulled out, and on the following day the US started bombing Iraq."
Media Lens Alert: Iraq and Arms Inspectors - The Big Lie, Part 1
ok, i was mistaken.
Iraq expelled the US inspectors in October 1997, not October 1998.
Here's the BBC's timeline from December 1998.
Interesting narrative that doesn't exactly cast Iraq as making a great effort to come clean.
BJ - Your take on the differences between Iraq and it's neighbors is interesting. I'm not sure I agree, but it makes sense what you said about the precarious consolidation of power in the hands of one man. I'm still thinking about this.
As for the US only exercising military force if authorized by the Security Council I'll say that the US can do anything it wants if the country is in imminent danger of being attacked. Now of course we can argue about what imminent means. But I'm imagining a pretty high standard. Clearly nothing like what we had in Iraq. And if we do strike first I'd like to see the secret intelligence that confirms the imminent threat be submitted to congress beforehand in some sort of time release capsule so that after the thing is over the people get to see a non doctored version of what the administration thought was "imminent." In other words I'd like some safe guards in place so that we can't be dragged into a war without any revelation as to the specific nature of the threat.
Short of this sort of imminent danger to the country I'd like to see everything go through the UN. And short of that I'd *at least* want NATO on board.
Acting against our own allies seems very costly (in terms of future security) in such a tightly coupled world. We need our friends more than we need one less bad guy.
Big Jimmy, Iraq was bluffing. Its leader (like ours) couldn't admit weakness or error. This isn't surprising or hard to understand. Our leaders definitely understood it. Journalist John Pilger has found 2001 videotape footage of Powell assuring the Egyptians that Saddam had no WMD (or significant military capability). Like Wolfowitz, you you keep pounding the nuke issue because its the only argument you've got. And it's weak. Why not admit it? Saddam "obtaining nuke capability in 3, 5, or 8 years" is pure speculation, unsupported by facts. He was no threat. Our leaders knew that and lied us into war.
Here's the relevant quote:
Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.
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Does Tom Friedman annoy other people as much as he does me? It's like he's always right, no matter how many times he changes his opinion. Saw him on Charlie Rose a few days ago. He was blasting the Bush administration for how things are going in Iraq. True enough. But he also feels compelled to explain how he wasn't wrong for being in support of the war initally, because if the administration had just done things correctly it would have worked out.
This is completely ridiculous logic.
It should have been obvious that this administration would not do things correctly. And everyone who was for the war (for arguably sound reasons, even if I don't agree with them) was wrong for the same reason. Not because the war was absolutely wrong (although I think it was - but again this is arguable,) but because it was so clear that Bush and company would screw it up. Not predicting this obvious and horrendous outcome was a serious error, and I can't see how any reasonably honest person can say different.
You thought Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had a good plan for helping the Iraqi people? Time to admit you were wrong Tom.
- jim 9-18-2003 10:46 pm
or you can just blame the french. its even more fun than blaming nader.
- dave 9-18-2003 11:53 pm [add a comment]
so i'm off dmt for a while and then i come back and jeesh, now i guess i gotta mount a defense? (as it turns out it's a long one...)
ok, it was wrong to believe Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had a plan that would be great for the Iraqi people.
But I do think it was reasonable to think they had a better plan than, as it turns out, they did.
Most of the goals the neo-cons wanted to achieve with the invasion (not the ones I thought it was worth fighting for, this is their ideology) depended, in theory, on a stable political and security environment in Iraq -- creating a model for change other Arab states, putting pressure on Iran and Syria, maybe getting some leverage on OPEC.
None of those things are possible with the current state of affairs. So it seems as though they've pissed in their own theoretical lemonade.
I thought the war was worth fighting to diminish the likelihood of a future nuclear conflict. It turns out that Saddam was farther from a bomb than most supposedly informed people assumed. In my mind that doesn't change the potential threat, given the erosion of sanctions. It just puts it a few years farther out (5 years vs 3? 8 vs. 5?).
On this issue, eliminating the threat of a nuclear confrontation, the war so far looks like a potential success.
The weirdness of my particular view is that I think the likely theater of nuclear conflict would have been Iraq, not the US. So you could say we invaded Iraq to save it. I know that sounds callous. It's not meant to be. The other hypothetical (but not acheivable, in my view) option would have been the reimposition of strict sanctions, which as we know were quite devastating to ordinary Iraqis.
Going out on a limb in terms of prediction, I would guess in rough terms that most Iraqis will be back up to a pre-war standard of living after 3 years of occupation, and a pre-sanctions standard of living after 6.
Of course there will be an elite that is massively enriched through privitizations and other state giveaways. And there will be a new migrant force of the unemployed. But I don't see why there won't also be a relatively thriving middle class independent of civil service, in addition, of course, to a big new bureaucracy.
Now, I do differ from the neo-cons on another front. I don't believe for a second that this scenario, if it should come to pass, would diminish the appeal of political Islam. The notion that capitalism leads quickly and inexorably to democracy is ridiculous.
But I do hope Iraq could look more like Turkey and less like Pakistan.
- big jimmy 9-20-2003 5:31 pm [add a comment]
Hi Big Jimmy. Nice to see you back around. Great to see you the other night. I enjoy the chance to discuss these issues with someone who holds different views (and who I think is smart - imagine that!) I hope that my tone, over the long run, is as balanced and open to debate as yours.
I really like that you specify "nuclear conflict" as a reason for war, as opposed to the very poorly defined "weapons of mass destruction" which apparently include everything from methamphetamine production on up. Even Colin Powell cited "botulism" as a chemical weapon in the Iraqi arsenal in his UN speech. But no reasonable person would think we should invade over the threat of botulism.
As I think you rightly point out, the big problem would be if Saddam had been able to build a nuke. If he had done this, or been on the verge of doing this, I would have had to think hard about my (admittedly intellectually comfortable) anti war position.
But he wasn't. And I submit that he couldn't have been. As far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong) the production of nuclear weapons requires large football field sized production facilities. It requires massive industrial infrastructure. This isn't something you do in an underground bunker somewhere. This isn't something you can hide from advanced U.S. satellite technology. Of course I'm no expert but I'll point to the fact that no Republican (or anyone else) has ever suggested otherwise. Instead they talk about "WMDs" by which they mean, at worst, battlefield weapons (mortars and such) not too different from our own use of DU rounds - but which they hope a gullible American public will (mis)understand to mean nuclear weapons.
I very much believe - and have never heard even an attempt at a counter argument - that we could have prevented Saddam from building nuclear weapons by a simple program of satellite observation combined, if necessary, with surgical missile strikes against key infrastructure targets. Decade old autoclave parts buried in rose gardens aren't a direct threat to the U.S. I simply don't believe that he was 5 or 8 or even 20 years away from the bomb. I believe he could never have built one, and that the people in charge in the U.S. knew this.
Am I wrong about this? Do you think it is possible to build a nuclear weapon in secret (I mean assuming, as was the case, that the U.S. is suspicious and watching to see if you are trying?) How? Huge underground installations? How do you build those then?
I firmly believe there was never an imminent threat no matter what definition of 'imminent' you use. Therefore the war, even if it by chance produces some small number of benefits for some Iraqis far down the road, was illegitimate.
I predict not only will most Iraqis not be back up to pre-war standard of living after 3 years, and pre-sanction standard of living after 6, but that the country will be plunged into bloody civil war for at least the next decade, and probably much longer. Or, if not that, they will find themselves back under totalitarian rule, except this time it will not be secular.
Of course I hope I'm wrong.
- jim 9-20-2003 7:53 pm [add a comment]
there is some borderline psychotic out on allen st. "singing" a song which is supposed to be Over There but those are the only two words which he knows. the rest are nasal intonations approximating words and melody. im sure there is a metaphor for the actions of the neocons in there somewhere.
and what exactly is your timetable for invading iran, n. korea and (possibly soon) saudi arabia to stave off the spread of the nuclear menace? will you be raising taxes soon to cover these expenditures? should we reinstitute the draft or start recruiting our foreign legion core? that lure of american citizen is one hypnotic carrot.
Damn The French! if it wasnt for their impertinence and obstinacy this world would be threat free except for china and pakistan and loose nukes in russia and dirty bombs and biological agents and chemical agents terrorism and lsd.
the initial problem with the war was that the justification for it was built upon a foundation of lies self delusion and intimidation. whatever the outcome this is not a way to conduct a war or govern a people no matter how much you are sure of the rightness of your actions.
now that we are "fucked" as ambassador wilson has put it, we are looking to be bailed out by the international community that we ignored when they were not cowed by our bluster. he says the us would be lucky to get $8 billion in aid from the rest of the world to help rebuild iraq. wheres the big bucks from our allies the spanish, the italians, the saudis and the gulf states? or if only that top 1% of americans didnt so desperately need that "tax relief" we could finance it ourselves. if only those americans would stop emulating the greedy and bitter french, the world would be a safer place.
ok, im through ranting although you never did address the friedman piece which was roundly reviled throughout the blogosphere.
your main pollockian contention is that saddam was or would become a nuclear threat and would threaten the stability of the region and if im not mistaken our access to iraqi and saudi oil. but again as the wilson interview contends, the timetable and the means by which we should have endeavored to alter the situation were far removed for what pollack envisioned. this is not a minor issue. this is why we are fucked. that contingencies for post-war chaos were not well considered is either a result of hubris or incompetency.
and all of this was supposed to make us more secure in the end. that hardly seems likely at this point. i do sincerly hope that your timeline for iraqs rejuvenation is realistic but that it could degenerate into civil war is hardly a remote possibility.
- dave 9-20-2003 8:14 pm [add a comment]
btw that interview with wilson is terrific. as i read it, though, he doesn't disagree with the invasion, although he thinks we didn't pave the way well and certainly makes the case that we've fucked up the postwar. he's also a big ken pollack fan ; )
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 9:24 am [add a comment]
There's a great article in the Sept/Oct issue of Foreign Affairs called "Stumbling Into War" by James P. Rubin about the utter incompetence of the Bush administration leading up to the damn near unilateral invasion.
Even if one believes that this was a just cause, there's no excuse for incompetent prosecution of a major war in a volatile region. The pre-war critcism by some traditional conservatives that the Bush cabal is "the gang that couldn't shoot straight" is right on target.
- mark 9-21-2003 5:47 am [add a comment]
I don't think it is that easy to find out who's building a nuke anymore. North Korea was able to do it, even with plenty of international inspections, without our finding out until they were close to done. Israel was able to hide their program from international inspectors (and the US) until they were done. We didn't predict the India test blast. And in the case of Iraq, undoubtedly our paranoia combined with Saddam's secrecy made it hard to tell. My argument IS heavily influenced by Kenneth Pollack, and I'm no expert on how long this stuff takes. But Saddam had showed in the past that he was willing to do almost anything to build banned weapons; he had successfully crippled the UN inspections before cancelling them altogether; and sanctions just weren't working - massive leaks via the Jordanian and Syrian borders, Security Council-defying commercial flights from all over Europe, plus, of course, the availability of technology not too far away in Pakistan all combined to make the situation dangerous. How dangerous? What should the tipping point have been? At this point it's impossible to make a compelling case that we needed to invade in Spring 2003 versus, say, Fall 2003, or Spring 2004. But I continue to believe that had we not invaded, we would not have been able to acheive confidence that Saddam didn't have an active nuclear program. And if, in the future, he took another aggressive action like the invasion of Kuwait, or of Kurdistan, we would have to assume that he had the nukes (or else he wouldn't take the action). And if we assumed that...then given the threat a nuclear strike on Gulf oil production would pose -- a threat that will be MUCH greater in 15 or 20 years as other sources of oil begin to dry up -- a pre-emptive first strike would be the logical US military response. Pollock _doesn't_ say that -- no one does. But that's why I supported the war.
Now, as to the Bush prosectuion of said war -- it was absolutely terrible from a diplomatic and post-war planning standpoint. I absolutely agree. It has ended up being much more expensive in blood and treasure than it needed to be.
The whole "WMD" was a canard from my perspective -- the bio and chem weapons were never a big threat, at least not in theater as battlefield weapons.
But I do think that Bush sincerely believed that somehow at some point Saddam might hand these weapons over to terrorists who might deliver them on US soil. I think Cheney egged him on -- whether Cheney ever sincerely believed that or not.
I also firmly believe that Al Gore would have pursued the exact same policy -- although the implementation would have been better.
What are the alternative scenarios in hindsight? Blix inspects for 3 or 4 years, doesn't find anything, sanctions continue, Iraqis starve, then what? Do we really think Saddam would have given up his drive to be the Arab superhero? Would have stopped threatening Israel? Do we think Al-Quaeda would have been somehow deterred by a continued sanctions and inspection policy? Would Iran and Syria and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been deterred? Or, more likely, would they have concluded that the West (I don't think radical islamists observe the fine distinctions Chirac hopes they do) had no appetite for conflict, and have continued to wage terror attacks against Israel, overtly, and against the US, through Al-Qaeda, covertly?
- big jimmy 9-23-2003 1:58 am [add a comment]
Asking Rummy to solve the Saddam problem is like asking Kenny Boy Lay to solve the California energy "crisis".
Regarding alternative scenarios, how far back can we go?
Could we ask Bush 1 not to green-light the invasion of Kuwait as an intra-Arab issue? Could we go back to Bush 1 and ask him not to sell dual-use technology to Saddam? Could we go back to Reagan, and ask him not to sell dual-use technology to Saddam? Could we ask Rummy not to be the front man for Reagan? How about we go back to Nixon and ask him not to annoint Saddam a successor? Of course, there's so much more if we go back further.
Taking down the Taliban, al Queda and Osama bin Laden would have been more than enough to create a "riding high in the saddle, morning in America" sort of brand image for the US of A. Dubya's failure to finish what he started in Afghanistan is a failure of historic proportions. He failed to take out the Taliban, al Queda and Osama. Letting this brain-addled punk start a second war without ever finishing his first war was a huge mistake by the American citizenry.
- mark 9-23-2003 2:54 am [add a comment]
i was thinking of going back, oh, about a year.
- big jimmy 9-23-2003 8:04 am [add a comment]
Big Jimmy believed Ken Pollack's scare scenarios ("Saddam'll nuke the Saudi oil fields!); I believed Scott Ritter that Saddam had no nukes and wasn't a threat. Pollack is currently hiding under a desk somewhere. I'd be tempted to say nyah-nyah but an awful lot of people died for this neocon/neoliberal paternalistic experiment.
- tom moody 9-23-2003 6:30 pm [add a comment]
With the admission that things still could change (the U.S. still *might* find hidden weapons prohibited by U.N. resolutions,) some of what you say doesn't add up given the facts as they stand at the moment.
"...Saddam had showed in the past that he was willing to do almost anything to build banned weapons..."
It looks now like this isn't true. In fact it looks very much like he *completely* shut down his nuclear development program. That is hardly doing almost anything to build them.
"...he had successfully crippled the UN inspections before cancelling them altogether..."
This is a common mistake made (lie told?) by the right. Saddam DID NOT cancel or kick out UN inspectors. It was the U.S. who forced inspectors to leave Iraq.
Inspections were working. The proof (at least so far) is that he didn't have an active nuclear program. So either he really didn't want one, or the inspections (and sanctions) were keeping him from putting it together. And, again, since it looks like he really didn't have the program, what exactly do you mean by saying that the inspectors were crippled and sanctions were not working?
I think we agree on the general point (that I think) you are making: Saddam might possibly, at an unspecified point in the future, maybe have done some unspecified bad thing. But jumping from that suspicion to a unilateral invasion of a foreign nation against serious questions from almost every single ally, your own intelligence agencies, and with millions of your own citizens marching in the streets against your policies seems, well, completely wrong.
Especially in hindsight.
Inspections *were* working despite U.S. efforts to render them useless. If we had just worked with the U.N. we could have contained Saddam. And the proof is that he was contained. Sure, in another possible world it could have worked out much differently. But in this one - again, as it is turning out so far - the U.S. was wrong. I think the U.S. would still be wrong for going around the U.N. even if they had (or do) find the weapons. But thankfully I don't have to argue that, because THEY DIDN'T FIND THE WEAPONS!
I'm rather nervous about your reasoning. Wouldn't you have to think the same thing about Syria and Iran? They both might want nuclear weapons. They both might do something sinister in the future. They both could endanger the oil fields. Doesn't your reasoning on Iraq force us to attack those countries too? And Saudi Arabia? And probably Egypt too? How is Iraq different from these countries? Just that Saddam is a serial miscalculator? Doesn't seem like enough to me.
But again, maybe they will still find something that proves Saddam was an actual threat rather than a hypothetical one.
- jim 9-23-2003 8:23 pm [add a comment]
I haven't seen the video, so can't personally confirm the Powell and Rice quotes, but this sounds pretty bad:
- jim 9-23-2003 8:36 pm [add a comment]
Just a reminder that Wolfowitz said "nukes was the one issue for bureaucratic reasons we could all agree on." That's not exactly a cry of alarm. There was no threat, and they knew it. It was the Big Lie.
- tom moody 9-23-2003 9:32 pm [add a comment]
The order may be somewhat random, but here are my responses..thanks to all for tolerating a minority viewpoint:
- When I say he was willing to do almost anything to pursue WMD, I'm referring to Saddam's acceptance of sanctions for 10 years. If UNSCOM had certified that his programs were truly over, the sanctions would have been lifted (per resolution 687).
If you believe that Saddam truly abandoned his programs at some point, I am interested as to your explanation of why he continued to refuse to cooperate enough with the inspectors to get the sanctions lifted.
Iraq behaved at all times as though they were hiding something. They had been found to have hidden things many, many times in the past (as testified to by your favorite, Scott Ritter (I have to say that the thing that bugs me about Scott Ritter is that all of his writing is about how he, Scott Ritter, was a genius and everyone else was a schmuck. For me it is a red flag)).
If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff.
As to Iraq's kicking out the inspectors, ten US inspectors were expelled in October, 1998. Saddam announced (not for the first time that year) that he would not cooperate with UNSCOM. Butler pulled the rest of the UNSCOM inspectors out. The US and the Brits launched Desert Fox. Those, I think, are the facts.
So you can say Saddam only kicked out the first ten inspectors. But I think it's clear that he also ceased cooperation with UNSCOM altogether.
The replacement inspection regime, UNMOVIC, had significantly less power and, in fact, discovered very little. You may believe that's because UNSCOM did such a great job, led, of course, by the indomitable Scott Ritter. But Butler, at least, thought there was plenty left that UNSCOM hadn't found yet. I think we still don't know. Some stuff may be buried. Some stuff may be in Syria. But again, it was prudent to assume that Saddam had not abandoned production when he worked so hard to cripple the inspections and accepted the massive economic cost of sanctions.
Now as to whether sanctions were working or not, they clearly did _not_ work in terms of their main purpose -- to force compliance with WMD inspections.
They were also not working in terms of execution -- the regime was successfully trading billions of dollars of oil outside the oil-for-food program through turkey, syria, jordan, and the UAE (all starting in about 1999 and creating cash to spend on weapons -- very little trickled down to social programs). There were open borders with Syria and Jordan, if not Turkey, across which contraband could flow. And beginning in 2000 there were commercial flights connecting Baghdad and Europe (starting, of course, with France).
So the sanctions had not acheived their object, and they were losing the power to do so. That's why I say they weren't working.
If it is the case that Saddam had not yet used the loosening of the sanctions regime to start aggressively pursuing banned materials, that doesn't change my view that it would have been crazy to assume he wouldn't do just that in the future.
Now to the distinction between Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The problem with Saddam WAS that he was prone to make errors. His attack on the Kurds in 1974. His attack on Iran in 1980. His attack on Kuwait in 1990. His mobilization towards the Kuwaiti border in 1994. His mobilization towards Syria in 2000. Combine these erratic moves, none of them beneficial to Iraq, with Saddam's absolutely effective monopoly on power, and you really did have a situation in which, as it seemed, one man could make any decision he liked and execute it, no matter how poor his judgement.
In Iran, by contrast, it's unclear how easily any single ruler could authorize, oh, for example, a nuclear strike on Jerusalem, or an invasion of Saudi Arabia. There is, at least, some distribution of power, together with a shared belief that the Revolution and the state are more important than any single individual. So the odds of Iran doing something totally erratic or suicidal seem much lower than in the case of Iraq.
Syria also seems to be fairly pragmatic, although obviously it's also a dictatorship with little distribution of power. That is, the Syrians haven't miscalculated any worse with respect to Israel than Egypt and Jordan (in 67 and especially 73). Syria is also relatively poor and is not facing any significant threats. So there is less incentive to attempt to be a bully (a la India or Iran) or to see nukes as a last resort of defense (a la Israel or Pakistan).
JMB -- you say you think the US would still have been wrong to go around the UN even if we were absolutely certain that Saddam had WMD.
Is it your belief that the US should only ever exercise military force if authorized by the Security Council?
Would you vote for a presidential candidate who promised to adopt that policy?
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 12:56 am [add a comment]
"If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff."
We'll see. War orphans make good terrorists.
- steve 9-24-2003 6:17 am [add a comment]
aw, c'mon now...that's a bit much, isn't it?
we don't know exactly how many iraqi casualties there were, but it's clear that there weren't many compared to any of iraq's other recent wars. or civil wars, for that matter (200k shiites and 20k kurds killed since 1991).
get a viable non-state economy going, with some political representation for all groups, and you won't have tons of iraqi terrorists. get direct oil revenue accounts for all iraqis and it will be even better.
there aren't any iraqi kurdish terrorists to speak of, and aside from the sadr guys i don't see a lot of shiites going at it. the problem is the sunnis, and hey, it's a real problem, but i just don't see angry tikritis getting on a plane to boston to solve their woes.
i know this may seem pollyanna-ish, but it's only been six months since the invasion. let's see how we're doing a year from now.
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 6:43 am [add a comment]
I think it's different when a big foreign super power with a reputation for bullying comes in there and kills people. Look at Iran's anger for what we did in the 50s.
- steve 9-24-2003 6:50 am [add a comment]
true. but in the 50's we deposed a representative government, installed a dictator, and privatized the state-held oil industry.
in iraq, we've disposed a dictator, will install a (more) representative government, and...ok, so we're going to privatize oil again...but if we institute the personal oil revenue accounts i think it nets out pretty well for individual iraqis...as well as being a bulwark against another kleptocratic regime
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 9:07 am [add a comment]
Big Jimmy, you write as if the Clintons, Paul Berman & Co were in charge instead of the Khristian Kriminal Keystone Kops. According to this AP article the next installment of our tax dollars is going to fund Iraqi zip codes, an Atrocity Museum, and 30 million worth of English lessons. Your optimism is boundless that something good is going to emerge from the current American regime's efforts.
- tom moody 9-24-2003 9:52 am [add a comment]
The goal is much broader than privitizing oil. The Bushies want to reinvent the Iraqi economy. Having gone through the re-invention of the power utilities in CA at the hands of Gov. Pete Wilson (R), Ken Lay (R), El Paso Natural Gas (R), et al, the Iraqis have my deepest sympathy.
The Bushies plan to delay the automony of the people of Iraq until after the state-owned industries have been auctioned off to the highest bidders. Of course, the highest bidders won't be Iraqis, since they have precious little capital.
That's why they can't cut and run. The pillaging isn't finished yet.
- mark 9-25-2003 6:32 am [add a comment]
"The US government maintains that Saddam Hussein expelled the UN inspectors from Iraq in 1998, but this is not true. On October 30 1998 the US rejected a new UN proposal by again refusing to lift the oil embargo if Iraq disarmed. On the following day, the Iraqi government announced that it would cease to cooperate with the inspectors. In fact it permitted them to continue working, and over the next six weeks they completed around 300 operations. On December 14, Richard Butler, the head of the inspection team, published a curiously contradictory report. The body of the report recorded that over the past month "the majority of the inspections of facilities and sites under the ongoing monitoring system were carried out with Iraq's cooperation", but his well-publicised conclusion was that "no progress" had been made. Russia and China accused Butler of bias. On December 15th, the US ambassador to the UN warned him that his team should leave Iraq for its own safety. Butler pulled out, and on the following day the US started bombing Iraq."
Media Lens Alert: Iraq and Arms Inspectors - The Big Lie, Part 1
- dave 9-24-2003 4:02 am [add a comment]
ok, i was mistaken.
Iraq expelled the US inspectors in October 1997, not October 1998.
Here's the BBC's timeline from December 1998.
Interesting narrative that doesn't exactly cast Iraq as making a great effort to come clean.
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 6:13 am [add a comment]
BJ - Your take on the differences between Iraq and it's neighbors is interesting. I'm not sure I agree, but it makes sense what you said about the precarious consolidation of power in the hands of one man. I'm still thinking about this.
As for the US only exercising military force if authorized by the Security Council I'll say that the US can do anything it wants if the country is in imminent danger of being attacked. Now of course we can argue about what imminent means. But I'm imagining a pretty high standard. Clearly nothing like what we had in Iraq. And if we do strike first I'd like to see the secret intelligence that confirms the imminent threat be submitted to congress beforehand in some sort of time release capsule so that after the thing is over the people get to see a non doctored version of what the administration thought was "imminent." In other words I'd like some safe guards in place so that we can't be dragged into a war without any revelation as to the specific nature of the threat.
Short of this sort of imminent danger to the country I'd like to see everything go through the UN. And short of that I'd *at least* want NATO on board.
Acting against our own allies seems very costly (in terms of future security) in such a tightly coupled world. We need our friends more than we need one less bad guy.
- jim 9-24-2003 5:34 pm [add a comment]
Big Jimmy, Iraq was bluffing. Its leader (like ours) couldn't admit weakness or error. This isn't surprising or hard to understand. Our leaders definitely understood it. Journalist John Pilger has found 2001 videotape footage of Powell assuring the Egyptians that Saddam had no WMD (or significant military capability). Like Wolfowitz, you you keep pounding the nuke issue because its the only argument you've got. And it's weak. Why not admit it? Saddam "obtaining nuke capability in 3, 5, or 8 years" is pure speculation, unsupported by facts. He was no threat. Our leaders knew that and lied us into war.
Here's the relevant quote:
- tom moody 9-24-2003 10:31 pm [add a comment]