Iraq Archive

 

 

Powell appears to have been the only chief member of the administration pushing for a strategy that could possibly avert war and avoid America's international isolation.

Giving inspections one last try was exactly the outcome Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld feared most.

The increasingly popular idea in Washington that the United States, by toppling Saddam Hussein, can rapidly democratize Iraq and unleash a democratic tsunami in the Middle East is a dangerous fantasy. The U.S. record of building democracy after invading other countries is mixed at best and the Bush administration's commitment to a massive reconstruction effort in Iraq is doubtful. The repercussions of an intervention in Iraq will be as likely to complicate the spread of democracy in the Middle East as promote it. The United States has an important role to play in fostering democracy in the region, but the task will be slow and difficult given the unpromising terrain and lack of U.S. leverage over key governments

Resolution 1441 is more an alternative "legal" road to war rather than an alternative to war itself. Extrapolating from Saddam Hussein's previous behavior, the Security Council resolution will lead to war as surely as a position of unilateral U.S. belligerence. The Iraqi ruler will need an unprecedented political and psychological makeover to eat the copious and indigestible helpings of humble pie that the UN resolution prescribes being shoveled down his maw.

 

 This background report reviews the mechanics of Saddam Hussein’s rule, looks at the political dynamics that govern relations between religious and ethnic entities, and describes the various opposition groups and their potential role. It does not seek to predict the course of events in Iraq or to argue for any particular course of action. This is the first in a series of reports and briefing papers that ICG intends to issue on the challenges posed by Iraq, including the state of the country more than a decade after the Gulf War; regional attitudes toward a possible U.S. military offensive; the status of Iraqi Kurdistan; and Iran’s posture toward a U.S.-led war and Iraq after Saddam Hussein

Congressional leaders who are hurrying votes on Iraq had very different views when the president was a Democrat named Bill Clinton. They made more sense back then.

The chief architect of the containment and deterrence policies that shaped America foreign policy during the Cold War  analyzes Bush's plans invade Iraq, and declares them a recipe for disaster.

When we campaign against the threat of US war on Iraq....  we should not do so in any way that implies credence to or support for Saddam Hussein’s "anti-imperialist" claims. Cheap agitation such as that which declares Bush and Sharon to be "the real axis of evil" and the "real terrorists" should be rejected. Whatever about Bush’s hypocrisy, Saddam’s regime is "really" as evil and as terrorist as any on earth. We oppose the US war plans, not in the name of support for the Iraqi regime, but in the name of international democracy and working-class solidarity.

Are domestic political motives behind the war drive?

Scenarios Feature A Smaller Force, Narrower Strikes

 ..the administration will declassify intelligence information, but it will keep classified the fact that this material was (or was not) shared with the President or anyone else at the White House. The administration's position is that it can tell the public about intelligence reports the government gathered regarding potential acts of terrorism before September 11 without harming national security, but if it must reveal whether these reports were brought to the attention of George W. Bush or his aides, that would endanger the United States.

"A briefing prepared for senior government officials at the beginning of July 2001 contained the following language: 'Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that UBL [Usama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.'"

 

Signiicance of German SPD Chancellor Schroeder's New York Times interview

With public and elite opposition rising and allied condemnation remaining, the Administration's effort to invade Iraq is doomed.

Waiting to Make Case for Action Allows Invasion Opponents to Dominate Debate

The war for public opinion in the UK, the US and elsewhere is clearly just beginning. Many analysts believe that the hawks have merely made a tactical withdrawal and are marshalling their forces for a major push to convert public opinion in the autumn. 'There is a sense that the doves have committed themselves too early. They will run out of arguments just when the hawks start to make the case for attacking Saddam,' said Daniel Neep, an Iraq specialist at the Royal United Services Institute. 'Watch this space.

...a campaign against Saddam Hussein will never succeed unless the Bush administration can enlist support from the American public, Congress and key allies abroad. Allies will be needed to share the practical burden of the fight, the reconstruction and the cost; but the United States also needs to win international acceptance before taking the extraordinary step of starting what would amount to a preventive war. Americans too must be given a full and honest accounting of the risk Saddam Hussein poses and the likely costs of removing him; only after a sober consideration of that balance will Congress and the nation be ready to support the plan that likely is headed for President Bush's desk.

Getting rid of Saddam - as President Bush has pledged to do - may not be easy. But it could be a walk in the park compared with what follows, according to experts on Iraq, U.S. officials and Iraqi dissidents.

In the worst-case scenario, Iraq's fractious ethnic groups could try to break off their own mini-states, trapping American combat forces in the middle of a civil war. Those repressed under Saddam's vicious police state might engage in a bloody round of score settling.

Even in the best case, U.S. troops and diplomats could be stuck in Iraq for years, trying to teach the finer points of democracy to a nation that has never known it.

As the debate over a potential U.S. attack on Iraq continues in Washington and abroad, a subtle increase in the mobilization of Army combat troops is underway. This development offers a hint to the Pentagon's evolving Iraq strategy, with the specific units involved indicating that a conventional attack on Iraq could be slated for January or February, with a major thrust possibly coming from Turkey

As Washington Prepares for War on Iraq, a Key U.S. Ally Lays Low

President Bush's new and public plans for Iraq unwisely makes "regime change" far tougher to achieve, and increases the risk of U.S. troops being exposed to chemical weapons counterattacks.

  • "Not In Our Name"   Statement of many activists, artists, and others opposed to the direction of the country since 9/11.

 

The Afghanistan model of warfare may not apply very well to Iraq.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that the swift American military success in Afghanistan is no reason to believe that a similar campaign in Iraq to oust President Saddam Hussein would succeed.

In an interview, Powell sought to quiet speculation that the Iraqi government would be an early target in the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign. He said that Hussein's military is far stronger than the ill-equipped Taliban forces and that the Iraqi opposition is not comparable to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance.

The often obnoxious CM comes on strong against extending the war to Afghanistan

A growing chorus is calling for Saddam Hussein's head. But experts disagree on whether a U.S. assault on Baghdad is worth the high risks.

  • Niall Ferguson, " 2011" New York Times Sunday Magazine December 2, 2001

[advocates that US take an openly imperialist role]

Still, all the options not only look bad, but they are bad. Saddam cannot be toppled by proxy. We lost our chance to do that when we failed to help the anti-Saddam insurgents who rose against him in 1991. The opposition forces are weak and divided. Nor can we engineer a coup d'etat from the outside. Nor do we know, in the event of such a coup, who would take over....

And I am now convinced that we must, as soon as we can, end almost all sanctions, allow Iraq to use its oil revenues, and kill the excuses that tie Saddam to his suffering countrymen and women. We can demand, as a quid pro quo, the return of arms inspectors in the form of the new United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Unmovic (the replacement for the former UN Special Commission, Unscom, which was given the mandate to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.)

Then – least worst – vigilant, we wait for him to die (he's 64), or we wait for him to act. One will give the Iraqi people an opportunity, and the other, regrettably, will force the completion by us of a task that has taken too long.

Former UN Aid Chiefs Speak Against an Attack on Iraq

 

 

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