Iraq: Was it all worth it?

March 15th, 2013

David Schulberg the 3rd

A photograph covers the back of the headstone of Lance Corporal Daniel R. Bennett, of Clifton, Virginia in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Section 60 is the section of the cemetery where American military members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently laid to rest.
Source: AFP

NOTHING that the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could have done 10 years ago would have prevented George W Bush and his coalition of the willing from invading Iraq on March 19, 2003.

As those of us from the western media who bunkered down at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad braced ourselves for Bush and Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe” campaign, and everything that dreadful term stood for, it was crystal clear that Bush and his allies including John Howard, would not rest until Saddam Hussein was dead and buried and Iraq’s huge oil reserves were secured.

The pretext of ridding the world of the brutal dictator’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and preventing the spread of Islamic terrorism post 9/11 had been spun into a fine thread of deceit and we and millions of innocent Iraqis as well as hundreds of thousands of coalition troops massed along Iraq’s borders, and a handful of elite special-forces troops already operating inside the border, braced for all-out war.

A decade, tens of thousands of lives and between one and two trillion dollars later, Iraq’s fledgling democracy teeters on the brink of a sectarian cliff and the nation’s massive oil reserves remain largely untapped.

Read Ian McPhedran’s full report after the infographic

Prime Minister John Howard took the nation to war seemingly on the basis of United Nations reports about Saddam’s missing stocks of WMDs. It emerged after the war and Bush’s ridiculous “mission accomplished” pantomime that intelligence reports had contradicted the popular view within the UN, the US and Australia – including Labor whose then spokesman Kevin Rudd stated it was an “empirical fact” that Saddam had WMD – that somewhere in Iraq there were stocks of chemical and biological weapons. Perhaps even nuclear precursors had been well hidden by the crazy dictator.

Who can forget Colin Powell’s humiliating appearance at the United Nations to argue the case with images of stainless steel tubes, semi-trailers and some jumped up intelligence reports?

A member of Iraq’s internal security forces inspects the damage outside the Iraqi justice ministry in Baghdad on March 15, 2013.

In 2003 no leader was arguing that regime change was the primary driver for the war. In 2013 that is all they want to talk about.

John Howard told the National Press Club on March 13, 2003 that, “I have never advocated regime change as much as I despise it”.

He now concedes that post invasion mistakes were made, most particularly the dismantling of Iraq’s Army, but he does not resile from the decision to go to war and says that Iraq is better off with Saddam.

“Iraqis have shown great commitment to democracy by voting so many times in face of murder, threats and intimidation,” Mr Howard says.

“Most people believed Saddam had WMD, with debate in Australia being about whether action should be taken without further UN resolution. Intelligence was not manufactured.”

He pointed to the post-war inquiry by former senior diplomat Philip Flood into the performance of the intelligence agencies.

This December 14, 2003 file image taken from video, captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein undergoes medical examinations in Baghdad.

“The Flood Inquiry said that no evidence of politicisation or pressure was placed on officials,” Howard says.

“He (Flood) concluded significantly that intelligence assessments reflected reasonably the available evidence, and that the obverse conclusion that Iraq had no WMD would have been more difficult to substantiate.

“Former army officer Andrew Wilkie worked inside the government’s peak intelligence analysis agency the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in the lead-up to 2003.The independent MP from Tasmania has a very different view to Howard.

Wilkie, who was all but accused of treachery by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer after he blew the whistle and resigned from ONA on March 11, 2003 argues that both Howard and Downer were dishonest with the Australian people and that they should be brought to account.

He says a wide ranging independent inquiry was the only way to finally clear the air on Iraq.

“It would be in the best interest of our governance and would correct the record as well,” Wilkie says.

Sgt. Michael Smith, left, with his dog Marco, watching a detainee at an unspecified date in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq.

“It would also throw up lessons so that we don’t make the same mistakes again. The risk still exists that a prime minister might go it alone and takes Australia to war. That should be a matter for the Parliament unless there is no time.

“Wilkie says the UN weapons inspectors should have been given more time to search for WMD.

He also said that the post-war inquires in Australia were too restricted and none of them has examined the intelligence that Australia had received from Washington and London.

Alexander Downer scoffs at the suggestion of yet another inquiry.

Speaking from Cyprus where he is the UN Special Adviser, Downer said calls for another inquiry were nothing more than political games.

“There is nothing else to say, it would be a waste of time and money,” he said.

ASLAVs from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment fire alongside an Abrams M1A1 tanks from the 1st Armoured Regiment .Photograph by Corporal Hamish Paterson1st Joint Public Affairs Unit Picture: Department Defence

“There were numerous debates in parliament, hundreds of questions were answered and several inquires were held.”

Downer was the one senior minister at the time who argued strongly for the removal of Saddam.”It was a barbaric regime and people thought we would be better off without it,” he says.

By the same token Downer says he was as surprised as anyone when the Iraq Survey group failed to turn up any WMDs. “The UN had been telling us for years that Saddam had WMD.”

Downer says he was talking to UN boss Kofi Annan at the General Assembly in September 2003.”He (Annan) said to me that he had heard that Richard Butler had been elected Governor of one of our states. I said he was appointed in Tasmania not elected and he said to me, `I can’t believe it, if not for Richard Butler there would not have been an Iraq war.”

Butler was chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and chief weapons inspector in Iraq. He wrote numerous reports saying that Saddam definitely had hidden stocks of terror weapons.

“Everybody was surprised when there were none, from the UN Secretary General down,” Downer said.

An Australian soldier squats while a Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicle is at halt during a desert reconnaissance patrol south of As Samawah in Iraq.

Former chief of the Australian Defence Force General Peter Gration took a strong stance against the war in 2003. He joined a group of eminent Australians that included former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, ex-army chief General John Sanderson and former Defence Secretary Paul Barratt in vocally opposing the war and demanding an independent inquiry into it.

In the lead up to March 2003 Gratrion wrote, “there are insufficient grounds for war, which is unnecessary and may lead to unpredictable and potentially disastrous consequences. It is not in Australia’s interests to take part in such a war.

“His views have not altered and he strongly believes that the war was “immoral, illegal and unnecessary”.

General Gration this week said that the Bush/Howard/Blair doctrine that if a country might be a threat in the future then they (the US and its friends) had the right to launch a pre-emptive strike threw decades of international law onto its head.

“That is a dreadful doctrine and shows that if you are the world’s only super power then you don’t care,” he said.

General Gration says he still doesn’t know the real reason for going to war. “There were no WMDs, there was no Iraqi involvement in 9/11 and yet American sailors on board aircraft carriers were writing 9/11 revenge messages on bombs to be dropped on Iraq. “It was the first time in Australian history that we had taken offensive action against a country that had done nothing against us. In fact we were still selling them wheat.

Smoke billowing after a missile hit the planning ministry in Baghdad as the Iraqi capital came under heavy US-led bombardment on the first day of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

“General Gration said he could not understand how the US could make such a huge misjudgement and how Australia so easily joined in.

“We need some way to ensure that this never happens again.”

Terrorism expert from Sydney’s Macquarie University, Clive Williams, describes the invasion of Iraq as a terrible mistake.

“Even if Saddam was still in power there would be more people alive than are alive now,” Professor Williams said.

He said the war was always about regime change and oil and the political leaders of the time had learned nothing from the long list of failed American attempts to replace regimes across the Middle East.

Williams pointed to the CIA organised coup in Syria in 1949 so that US interests could build an oil pipeline.

An SAS Long Range Patrol Vehicle tows a Russian built Iraqi air force Mig jet fighter at al Asad air base.

“Look at Syria today,” he said.

“In Iran in 1954 the Americans threw out the government and look at it now. Syria got the Baath Party and the Assad family and Iran got the Ayatollah Khomeini.

“Now Libya is going the same way and is supplying arms to terrorists in Africa.”

Williams says Iraq was a huge distraction from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan. It allowed the Taliban to regroup and now the Taliban is still there and we are faced with a huge refugee problem.

“There are consequences.”

Professor of International Security at the University of NSW Alan Dupont sees some positives from the Iraq War, but overall he rates it as a serious strategic error by the US and its allies.

Soldiers from 4th Battalion, RAS patrol perimeter fence of their compound at sunset in Kuwait, deployed as part of Operation Bastille in Middle East, February 2004 in preparation for war with Iraq.

“On the positive side of the ledger they got rid of Saddam, there is some democracy there, the Kurds got autonomy and oil production is about to get serious,” Professor Dupont said.

“On the negative side sectarianism is rife between Sunni and Shia and that is not conducive to Iraq’s national unity. Terrorist groups are operating there, Iran’s influence has grown and Iraq could be drawn into the conflict in Syria,” he said.

“It is difficult to see Iraq stabilising in the near future.”

Professor Dupont said in 2003 he believed that the war as a strategic error and nothing that has happened in the ensuing decade has altered his view.

“The gains are not worth the blood and treasure spent.”

PROS AND CONS

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