Iraq: The Doubters Grow
The Nation
Editorial
September 2, 2002
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=editors
This past week confirmed that the American political establishment
is not united in support of the Bush Administration's policy of forcible
"regime change" in Iraq. Odd as it may
seem, the strongest expression of doubt came from a key member of the GOP's right wing, House majority leader Dick Armey.
Expressing concern that an unprovoked attack on Iraq would violate
international law, Armey was quoted as saying that such an attack "would
not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a
nation." Meanwhile, Armey's colleague across the aisle, Carl Levin, voiced
the thinking of many of his fellow Democrats when he argued that
"containment of Saddam is so far working."
Armey and Levin are just two of a number of important political
actors--including several prominent senators, forces within the military and
worried figures on Wall Street--who have recently expressed qualms about the
proposed military invasion. These voices need to be amplified and reinforced by
others if the United States is to avoid a
potentially disastrous intervention in the Middle East.
Arguably the most important doubters, because only the Senate is
empowered by the Constitution to declare war, are the members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. At their July 31-August 1 hearings on Iraq, chairman
Joseph Biden Jr. and other
committee members--while taking pains to make clear that they, too, think
Saddam Hussein must go--emphasized that the aim of the hearings was not to
rally support for or against an invasion but rather to raise questions and
concerns. "Here we have a situation [about] which, clearly, we need to
know much more," Republican Senator Richard Lugar explained in his opening
remarks. Intense questioning of possible US moves is essential, he added,
because "the life of the country is at stake."
Another significant indication of elite concern was articles in
the New York Times and the Washington Post reporting serious divisions within
the US military and
business class over the merits of the proposed invasion. If these articles are
accurate--and there is no reason to assume otherwise--many senior military
officers fear that US intervention will produce chaos in the Middle East and
lead to a costly, dangerous and long-term American occupation of Iraq.
Likewise, senior corporate officials are said to fear a drop in consumer
spending resulting from rising oil prices, as well as a heightened risk of
terrorism.
None of these groups can be described as flat-out opponents of an
American invasion. Most would probably support the President--even cheer him
wildly--if US intervention was thought certain to result in a speedy,
casualty-free occupation of Baghdad and the replacement of Saddam with a
democratic, pro-Western, peace-seeking regime. The problem, in their eyes, is
that Bush can guarantee none of this. And while readers of The Nation might
wish to raise more fundamental issues--such as whether the United States has a legal or
moral right to initiate a unilateral assault--the concerns among the country's
elite deserve widespread public attention. They can be compressed into nine
critical questions:
1. Why engage in a risky and potentially calamitous invasion of
Iraq when the existing strategy of "containment"--entailing no-fly
zones, sanctions, technology restraints and the deployment of US forces in
surrounding areas--not only has clearly succeeded in deterring Iraqi
adventurism for the past ten years but also in weakening Iraq's military
capabilities?
2. Why has the Administration found so little international
support for its proposed policy, even among our closest friends and allies
(with the possible exception of Britain's Tony Blair),
and what would be the consequences if Washington tried to act
without their support and without any international legal authority? Isn't it
dangerous and unwise for the United States to engage in an
essentially unilateral attack on Iraq?
3. Is the United States prepared to
accept significant losses of American lives--a strong possibility in the
projected intense ground fighting around Baghdad and other urban
areas?
4. Is the United States prepared to
inflict heavy losses on Iraq's civilian
population if, as expected, Saddam concentrates his military assets in urban
areas? Would this not make the United States a moral pariah
in the eyes of much of the world?
5. Wouldn't an invasion of Iraq aimed at the
removal of Saddam Hussein remove any inhibitions he might have regarding the
use of chemical and biological (and possibly nuclear) weapons, making their use
more rather than less likely?
6. Are we prepared to cope with the outbreaks of anti-American
protest and violence that, in the event of a US attack on Iraq, are sure to
erupt throughout the Muslim world, jeopardizing the survival of pro-US
governments in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and further
inflaming the Israeli-Palestinian crisis?
7. Can the fragile American economy withstand a sharp rise in oil
prices, another decline in air travel, a bulging federal deficit, a drop in
consumer confidence and other negative economic effects that can be expected
from a major war in the Middle East? And what would
an invasion mean for an even more fragile world economy and for those emerging
markets that depend on selling their exports to the United States and that are
vulnerable to rising oil prices?
8. Even if we are successful in toppling
Saddam, who will govern Iraq afterward? Will
we leave the country in chaos (as we have done in Afghanistan)? Or will we
try to impose a government in the face of the inevitable Iraqi hostility if US forces destroy
what remains of Iraq's
infrastructure and kill many of its civilians?
9. Are we willing to deploy 100,000 or more American soldiers in
Iraq for ten or twenty years (at a cost of tens of billions of dollars a year)
to defend a US-imposed government and prevent the breakup
of the country into unstable Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite mini-states?
So far, the Bush Administration has not provided honest or
convincing answers to any of these questions. It is essential, then, that
concerned Americans ask their Congressional representatives to demand answers
to these (and related) questions from the White House and hold further hearings
to weigh the credibility of the Administration's answers. It is vital that our
representatives play their rightful constitutional role in this fateful
decision. The American public clearly would welcome such moves: A recent
Washington Post-ABC News poll found that while a majority support the President
at this point, they want him to seek authorization from Congress and approval
of America's allies before
going ahead. And when asked whether they would favor
a ground war if it were to produce "significant" US casualties,
support plummeted to 40 percent and opposition rose to 51 percent. If you worry
about the future of America, clip or copy
these nine questions and include them in letters to your senators and
representative. In addition, get involved locally: Help organize a teach-in,
write a letter to your newspaper, raise the subject at
civic meetings.
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