Undeclared Goal of Gulf War II:
Getting Rid of Saddam Hussein
By M.P. Prabhakaran
The warmongers in the Bush administration may soon act out their threat to attack Iraq. Fifty thousand ground troops are being readied for dispatch to the Gulf region to join the 60,000 air force and navy personnel who are already there. The alarm the administration has raised gives one the impression that the missiles of Saddam Hussein, mounted with weapons of mass destruction, are about to strike the shores of America. Apart from preempting such a strike, the impending war--call it Gulf War II--also has the hallowed goal of destroying all weapons of mass destruction the administration says Saddam has and making the world safe from them. That, by the way, is only the declared goal of the war.
There is also an undeclared goal, a hidden agenda, which we don’t hear much about. It is to destroy Saddam Hussein himself. It is hidden in what is euphemistically presented as “regime change.” As far as President Bush is concerned, there is a filial aspect to this goal and, as such, it is very personal and more important than the declared goal. It has to stay hidden because assassinating a foreign head of state is against American and international laws. It has to be accomplished in the course of a war whose goal is couched in noble-sounding words. In this case, it is ridding the world of Iraq’s illegal weapons. But while the declared goal can be achieved through diplomacy, war is the only means of achieving the undeclared goal. Hence Bush, Jr.’s insistence on seeking a war solution, not a diplomatic solution, to the problem. More about the filial obligation in a bit.
If Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction, it certainly is a violation of Security Council resolutions passed in the wake of Gulf War I which Bush, Sr. fought and abruptly ended over a decade ago. That is, it is a violation of international law. But there are procedures, established under the aegis of the United Nations, to deal with the problems of international law violations. The U.N. Charter clearly prohibits any state’s taking upon itself the responsibility of punishing another state for such violations, unless approved by the Security Council. If international law violations were the real problem, all that President Bush had to do was get the U.N. to put its machinery at work. Why was he so reluctant in the beginning even to approach the U.N.? As we all know, it took a good deal of persuading by some level-headed men in the administration, notably Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, for him to fulfill that legal requirement. His constant refrain, which betrayed his disdain for international laws and norms, was that it was not a requirement.
Disdain for U.N.
This disdain explains why, even after bringing the matter to the U.N., he kept threatening that he would go it alone if the world body was unwilling to go along with his wishes. Correction: His threat was blunter than that. He said he would attack Iraq with or without U.N. approval. Repeated warnings from legal scholars, more importantly from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, that any attack by one country on another, unless undertaken in self-defense, would be a violation of international law, had no effect on him.
It is to the credit of the Security Council that it did not succumb to his threat, though it expressed its willingness to accommodate his wishes within the legal bounds. Though the President’s approach was crude and bombastic, the council did recognize the fact that he was the leader of the only superpower left in the world. Also, it was keen on avoiding a war as far as possible. The result was Resolution 1441 (2002) which the council passed unanimously on November 8, 2002. It is laughable to see many in the Bush administration boast that, but for the President’s repeated threat to go to war alone, if need be, the resolution would not have received the support of all 15 council members. They are also wrong to interpret the resolution as a carte blanche for their war plans. At best, the resolution puts Saddam Hussein on notice that the rest of the world is losing its patience with him. It gives him one more chance to abide by all the resolutions the U.N. has passed with regard to his country since the end of the first Gulf War. If he is found in “material breach” of any of them, the latest resolution says, the consequences will be severe.
Contrary to the actual intent of the “material breach” provision in the resolution, the Bush team has been interpreting it as authorization for automatic triggering of war in the event of its occurring. That explains why it has been overanxious to find material breach in every act and omission of Iraq since the passage of the resolution.
The latest case in point is its rush to judgment on the report Iraq submitted to the United Nations on December 7. Iraq declared the report to be a true and complete dossier if its weapons and weapons programs. The declaration was a requirement under Resolution 1441. Hans Blix, executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic), which is currently combing Iraq to determine whether Saddam Hussein was hiding any of the banned weapons anywhere, is expected to give the commission’s assessment of the declaration on January 9. But the Bush team has no patience to wait until then. It issued its verdict on December 19, finding Iraq in “material breach.” It did so even before some members of the Security Council had finished reading and evaluating the 12,200-page declaration. Those members and many around the world found the manner in which the administration handled the issue and rushed to judgment disgusting. Syria, one of the 10 nonpermanent members of the Security Council, returned its copy of the declaration to the council and refused to participate in its discussion.
Iraq’s response to the U.S. verdict came through Gen. Amir al-Saadi, Saddam Hussein’s top adviser on weapons. He said: “We have only heard politicians talk like that. We haven’t heard any reputable weapons expert come out and pick out the holes in our declaration.”
U.N. weapons inspectors, sent back to Iraq to resume their work which was suspended in 1998, have been doing as thorough a job as possible. They have been looking in every nook and cranny of the country. They are fully aware that Saddam has lied in the past and will lie again. They have the expertise to determine whether the dossier of weapons Iraq submitted to the U.N. truly represents the realities on the ground. No smoking gun has been found during the search of 200 suspicious sites they have so far completed. We will wait and see whether they find any during the search of the remaining 100 sites on their list. They are expected to submit their report to the U.N. on January 27. One hopes that the trigger-happy in the Bush camp wait at least until then before deciding to pull the trigger.
If they want to pull the trigger right now, they must come forward with hard evidence to prove that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction. As the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said, “To say ‘We know, but we won’t tell you,’ is not something that is persuasive, frankly speaking. This is not a poker game, when you hold your cards and call others’ bluff.”
Why A Different Approach to North Korea?
That brings us back to the question: Is the President really serious about disarming rogue states of weapons of mass destruction? And is war the only means of achieving it? If so, why is he not making war preparations against North Korea which already has one or two nuclear bombs and is well on its way to making more? Also, in a tone that can be construed as a challenge to the Bush administration, North Korea announced on December 27 that it would restart its nuclear fuel reprocessing laboratory which was shut down under its 1994 agreement with the U.S. Though the proclaimed purpose of the restarting is to produce electricity, which that impoverished nation badly needs, the actual purpose experts say is to produce weapons-grade plutonium. At this writing (December 29), the North has also ordered all international nuclear inspectors out of the country. Which means that there will be no outsiders to monitor what goes on in that country hereafter. It has been in isolation from the rest of the world for over 50 years. The scenario is scary.
What is the Bush administration’s response to all this? It says it would seek a diplomatic solution, working through the U.N. Suddenly it has realized that the U.N. is not all that irrelevant. “We want to make it clear that this is now an international problem, not just a problem between the United Sates and North Korea,” said a senior administration official, according to The New York Times of December 28.
There is a double standard here. The administration is willing to treat North Korea’s possessing nuclear weapons as an international problem, deserving diplomatic approach. But Iraq’s being suspected of possessing nuclear and biological weapons is a national problem that calls for military approach.
Real Threat Comes From Pakistan
If there is any state whose possessing of weapons of mass destruction poses a real problem to our national security, it is neither Iraq nor North Korea. It is a state that helped North Korea develop its clandestine nuclear weapons program. It is a state that is allied with the U.S. in its ongoing war against terrorism. The state is Pakistan.
That Pakistan has nuclear weapons is no secret. The possibility of some of them, or at least some portable nuclear warheads, falling into the hands of terrorists cannot be ruled out. The victory that the U.S.-led coalition achieved in Afghanistan over the Taliban and Al Qaeda has proved to be ephemeral. Reports are pouring in daily that both are regrouping in two Pakistani provinces bordering on Afghanistan and preparing for the next strike. Hereafter, they will be able to conduct their activity with impunity because the governments that came to power after the recent elections in those provinces, Baluchistan and Northwest Frontier Province, are controlled by coalitions of hard-core, anti-American Islamist parties. They openly support the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The central government’s control over these provinces, most of which are still governed by tribal laws, is very tenuous.
The situation at the center, Islamabad, is not all that encouraging either. The coalition of parties that took over the administration there may profess support to President Pervez Musharraf, a friend of the Bush administration. But the majority which that coalition enjoys over the Islamist parties that are in opposition is wafer-thin. May of those Islamist parties, too, are ardent supporters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The latter, thanks to that support, could gain access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. And if they do, they will use it against us with a vengeance and great relish.
President Bush has a military plan to deal with the perceived threat from Iraq. He has a diplomatic plan to deal with the possible threat from North Korea. Does he have any plan to deal with the probable, perhaps more imminent, threat coming from Pakistan? None that we know of.
Filial Obligation of a Son
If that is the case, why is he so obsessed with Iraq? More to the point, why is he so obsessed with Saddam Hussein? The answer has to be sought in what we set out to examine: the filial obligation of a son to punish the man who tried to kill his father. In mid-April 1993, there was an attempt on Bush, Sr.’s life by Saddam Hussein’s agents. Thank God, he escaped unhurt. Under a legal system like ours, the perpetrators of the crime could easily be brought to justice. Not under the Iraqi system. Under that system, the law is what Saddam Hussein says it is. President Clinton's decision to mete out the punishment that would fit the crime has to be seen in that context. On June 26, 1993, U.S. Navy ships launched 23 Tomahawk missiles against the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. According to Clinton, it was a "firm and commensurate" response to Iraq's plan to assassinate Bush, Sr. There was a reason for the choice of the target: The assassination plot was "directed and pursued by the Iraqi Intelligence Service," Clinton said in a speech on the day he ordered the attack. The missile attack did some damage to Iraq, all right. But it did nothing to the man who contrived the crime.
No son would be at ease seeing the man who made an attempt on his father’s life go scot-free. Bush, Jr. after nursing the grievance as long as he could, has decided to act, it seems. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem concerned that the action he is contemplating is going to hurt others more than the person at whom it is directed. It is quite possible that Saddam would survive the next war also.
There is one more thing that may be rankling this proud son. The government-owned hotel in Baghdad, Al Rashid, which was a symbol of Iraq’s modernity and status as a secular state, was mostly destroyed during the Gulf War I bombing. Soon after the war, Saddam Hussein rebuilt and restored it to its original grandeur. But the restoration was done in such a way that no guest can now enter the hotel without stepping on Bush Sr.’s face. The face is imprinted on the tiles that make up the mosaic in the foyer of the hotel. Any son would be angered by such an insult done to his father.
So Bush, Jr.’s anger and wanting to get rid of the man who disgraced his father is understandable. But should that anger be translated into the undeclared goal of a war in which thousands of people, soldiers as well as civilians, Iraqis as well as Americans, are going to be killed. The whole civilized world will be happy if Saddam Hussein is removed from the face of earth. But the way Bush is trying to accomplish it is wrong.
[Readers are invited to comment. Send your comments to letters@eastwestinquirer.com]
[Originally published on December 31, 2002. It has since been slightly edited.]