Immediately following the Gulf War, the international community agreed that the burden was on Iraq to cure the presumption of guilt on Iraq's WMD stocks, programs, and intentions. By the late 1990s, however, the US's Iraq mission was opposed by UNSC members Russia, China, and France, perhaps influenced by desire for Iraqi favor and the Oil-for-Food scandal, dedication to a realist rather than a liberal world order, and/or the desire to avoid brinkmanship with Iraq. They advocated for negotiating a settlement with Saddam Hussein that would allow Iraq to reintegrate into the international community in spite of Iraq's continued noncompliance. On the other side, the US continued to conduct the post-Gulf War mission of disarming and rehabilitating Iraq to a high standard.
The obvious and known stocks of Iraqi WMD had been eliminated within the 1st years after the Gulf War, but due to the 2 successive wars instigated by Iraq and the continued malfeasant behavior of Saddam Hussein, the ceasefire following the Gulf War was conditioned upon Iraq rehabilitating its behavior to a degree that would satisfy the doubts of a very cautious international community led by the US and UN.
With Saddam Hussein in charge, we had to be sure.
Despite the elimination of the obvious and known stocks of Iraqi WMD, the continued Iraqi deception and resistance to the inspections meant Iraq's behavior failed to comply with the standard imposed by the US and UN. The threat of Iraq was based less on what we knew about Iraq's weapons and intentions, but rather what we didn't know about them. In addition, repression within Iraq following the Gulf War generated more humanitarian UNSC resolutions that expanded the standard of compliance imposed on Iraq to prove its rehabilitation.
Then in 1995, WMD stocks Iraq had hidden from inspectors were uncovered due to a defector. While the defector (Saddam's son-in-law, General Hussein Kamel al-Majid) claimed they were the last stockpiles, the hitherto successful deception by itself increased the burden of proof imposed on Iraq. Whether or not Iraq was actually cleansed of WMD after the 1995 revelation, Iraq's deception demonstrated the intent to harbor NBC capability and resist the verification and compliance process necessary to validate Iraq's rehabilitation. With a heightened focus on the behavior of Saddam's regime, distinct from its demonstrable possession of weapons, the trigger for military enforcement was Iraq's continued failure to meet the standard of compliance, which qualified as proof that Saddam's regime was a "clear and present" danger.
President Clinton linked the "clear and present danger" label to the behavior of Saddam's regime and only indirectly to Iraq's weapons. He carried his argument for military intervention in Iraq from Operation Desert Fox through his support of President Bush's decisions on Iraq, before his public support for Bush became politically untenable. The casus belli for Operation Desert Fox was not based on what we knew Iraq possessed, but rather it was based on what we did not know as a result of Iraq's failure to provide a complete account and its active efforts to disallow us from knowing.
The regime change mandate in Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act was based on the premise that the issue was Saddam's regime. The humanitarian requirements imposed upon Saddam's regime were strict. The primary threat of Iraq was the noncompliant behavior, presumed guilt, and intentions of Saddam's regime regarding WMD and other matters, apart from Iraq's actual or demonstrable possession of WMD. Therefore, the standard for Iraq's compliance was based not on American and UN demonstration of Iraqi WMD, which was impossible to do reliably due to Iraqi resistance to both the inspections and foreign intelligence efforts to assist the inspections, but based instead on the behavior of Saddam's regime judged by the standard determined by the US and UN.
In December 1998, UNSCOM ended and the US and UK bombed suspected weapons sites in Iraq, while Iraq remained noncompliant. In 1999, UNMOVIC replaced UNSCOM, and in 2002, the US and UN aggressively moved to reintroduce weapons inspectors into Iraq under UNMOVIC. However, by 2002, there was a profound split in how the US and UN's Iraq mission was interpreted. Opponents of the continued sanctioning and military-enforced containment of Iraq abandoned the harsh duties, burdens, and standard for rehabilitation imposed on Iraq since the 1990s - the standard by which President Clinton had defined the casus belli of Operation Desert Fox. They believed that negotiating a settlement with Saddam to end the sanctions and containment mission was the way to peace, whereas the threatened introduction of ground troops and regime change in Iraq to enforce the UNSC resolutions was unacceptable short of 'smoking gun' proof of an imminent threat by Iraq.
To disarm the looming confrontation with Saddam's regime, opponents argued Iraq should no longer be required to prove compliance by the 1990s standard, but rather the lower burden of demonstrating the absence of WMD stocks. They sought to remove both Iraq's burden to 'prove a negative' (ie, prove WMD programs and intent were permanently ended) and, more importantly, the presumption of guilt for Iraq that was the foundation of the Gulf War ceasefire and subsequent UNSC resolutions. UNMOVIC director Hans Blix even explicitly rejected the presumption of guilt against Iraq in his leadership of UNMOVIC and framed the US and Iraq positions as equivalent, even implicitly accepting the Iraqi argument that foreign intelligence efforts to aid the thwarted inspections were a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. By 2002, opponents of OIF had in effect adopted the standard of compliance preferred by Saddam Hussein, by which Iraq would have satisfied its burdens and obligations to the UN by 1994, in other words, before Saddam's son-in-law revealed Iraq's hidden WMD stocks.
In the public discourse, opponents of OIF downplayed or ignored altogether the humanitarian grounds and shifted the burden of proof from Iraq proving compliance to the US proving Iraqi WMD. Opponents of the US-led UN mission blamed the US, not Iraq, for the continued sanctioning and containment of Iraq. They pushed for a standard that was fundamentally revised from the standard that had been imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990s in order to make the case against war match the situation on the ground in Iraq that had been shaped by Saddam.
Opponents claimed the purpose of the inspections was to determine the status of Iraqi WMD. In contrast, President Bush continued to use the same standard of compliance in 2002-03 that President Clinton had used for Iraq in 1998, which was based on judging the proscribed behavior of Saddam's regime and what we were kept from knowing due to Iraq's noncompliance. The standard of compliance for Iraq was not based on what the US could demonstrate about Iraqi WMD stocks and programs. For Presidents Clinton and Bush, the inspections tested and sufficiently proved Iraq's noncompliant behavior. President Clinton bombed Iraq based on UNSCOM reports of Iraqi noncompliance with 3 weeks of inspections; President Bush invaded Iraq based on UNMOVIC reports of Iraqi noncompliance with 4 months of inspections.
However, where President Clinton's rhetoric had been carefully consistent with the policy standard for military intervention, based on Iraq's behavior, President Bush fell into the opponents' rhetorical trap by making a claim of affirmative knowledge of Iraqi WMD stockpiles and programs (ie, what we knew and could demonstrate) despite that he approved Operation Iraqi Freedom following the same standard used by President Clinton for Operation Desert Fox (ie, behavior of Saddam's regime and its failure to cure what we did not know). Rather than resting his case on affirmative knowledge, President Bush should have utilized President Clinton's lower bar of lack of knowledge of Iraqi WMD.
President Bush should be faulted for confusing the public and empowering opponents by making a public argument that deviated from the controlling US policy on Iraq. However, the US led by President Bush followed the same policy course with Iraq that had evolved from the 1991 Gulf War through his father's and President Clinton's administrations. President Bush held Iraq to the same standard of compliance and rehabilitation with the same trigger for military intervention that President Clinton had applied in 1998.
The vitriolic disagreements over Operation Iraqi Freedom were caused by opponents who sought to make peace with Iraq by changing the issue from the behavior of Saddam's regime to demonstrable WMD, shifting the burden of proof from Iraq to the US, changing the standard of compliance to fit Saddam's strategy to defeat the UNSC resolutions, and eliminating the foundational presumption of guilt on Iraq.
This is the counter to the criticism from Bush detractors – specifically from President Clinton – that President Bush did not allow the UNMOVIC inspectors enough time to finish their work:
UNMOVIC was in Iraq for 4 months (Nov 02 – Mar 03) before the start of OIF. President Bush decided on OIF based on Hans Blix’s report to the UN in Feb 03, or the 3 month mark, that showed Iraq remained noncompliant.
Why did Bush conclude UNMOVIC had finished its job with Blix’s report at the same time Blix was requesting an indefinite number of additional “months” in Iraq for UNMOVIC?
Because Bush understood UNMOVIC was a compliance test for Saddam’s regime and Blix’s report to the UN was conclusive proof that Iraq remained noncompliant. That was the trigger. In opposition, Blix either was trying to delay the invasion of Iraq, trying to change the standard for testing Iraq's compliance, and/or reinterpreting UNMOVIC’s function away from compliance to an investigation of Iraq’s possession of WMD.
Clinton’s criticism of Bush implies that Clinton disagrees with Bush’s understanding of UNMOVIC and instead supports Blix’s interpretation of UNMOVIC’s function. However, Bush’s understanding of UNMOVIC followed Clinton’s precedent with UNSCOM: Clinton decided to bomb Iraq in Operation Desert Fox in 1998 based on a 3 week compliance test by UNSCOM. Just as Clinton understood UNSCOM's function to be a standardized compliance test for Saddam’s regime – not an investigation of Iraq’s WMD - Bush correctly understood UNMOVIC's function.
From Clinton's announcement of Operation Desert Fox, 16DEC98:
“Now over the past three weeks, the UN weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq’s cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM’s chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to UN Secretary-General Annan. . . . If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler’s report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.”In 1998, not only did Clinton deem 3 weeks were sufficient for UNSCOM to prove Iraq’s conclusive noncompliance, Clinton declared it was urgently necessary to bomb Iraq as soon as possible upon receiving Butler's report in order to disallow Saddam time to “disperse his forces and protect his weapons”. Clinton contradicts his own precedent by criticizing Bush for granting 3 (really 4) months for UNMOVIC’s standardized compliance test and not allowing the indefinite number of additional “months” requested by Blix. Yet Bush used the same compliance test for Iraq as Clinton did, when Clinton also determined as President that rapid military action was necessary as soon as Iraq was shown to be noncompliant.
In addition, as a former Commander in Chief, Clinton knew or should have known the temporal and other practical limits of the invasion force that was providing the credible military threat, and understood why Bush had set a time limit for Saddam to prove Iraq was in compliance.
The Blix alternative was flawed on its face for two reasons: Hans Blix's assumption of an indefinite sufficiently credible military threat and the unreliability of Blix's ad hoc replacement standard of compliance.
Blix agrees that the credible military threat presented by the build-up of the invasion force was necessary to compel Iraqi cooperation. Blix also agrees that once the force build-up surpassed a certain mass that it could no longer be sustained as an indefinite presence. In other words, Blix understood that once it surpassed a certain size, the credible military threat required for the inspections would either need to be used on schedule or lost altogether. To paper over this fatal flaw in his proposed alternative, Blix observed that Iraq has started to cooperate at the 50,000 point, so he claimed that freezing the size at 50,000 indefinitely would ensure an indefinite Iraqi cooperation. However, 50,000 was by itself an insufficient size to pose a credible military threat to Iraq. The Blix alternative relies on the unreasonable conclusion that Iraq was compelled to begin cooperation with UNMOVIC by the unthreatening size of 50,000 rather than the passing of the 50,000 point on the developing trajectory of the invasion force build-up. Blix, perhaps deliberately, conflated the context and signal communicated by 50,000 with the number itself.
The particular standard of compliance imposed on Iraq was a consequence of Iraq's history, especially the record of deception and defiance towards Iraq's post-war and subsequent obligations in the period between the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet while relying on the faulty assumption of an indefinitely sustained, sufficiently credible military threat, Blix also proposed to alter and lower the standard of compliance for Iraq during an indefinitely extended trial period.
President Bush rightly recognized that the Blix alternative was impractical in its military requirements and substituted an unreliable standard of compliance that was insufficient to resolve Iraq's - as President Clinton had determined - "clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere."
08SEP12 Add: My comment at the Belmont Club in response to criticism of the CIA's record on Iraqi WMD. In a better world, the CIA would have provided better intel on Iraq to President Bush and, before him, President Clinton. However, the CIA should not have been placed in the position where a claim based on CIA intel was the cornerstone of President Bush’s case for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Clinton is open that he did not know the actual state of Iraq’s WMD when he bombed Iraq. As we’ve since learned, Bush knew the same as Clinton about Iraq’s WMD. But Iraq – not the CIA – was responsible to make us know about Iraq’s WMD stocks, programs, and intentions. Therefore, Clinton’s case for Operation Desert Fox and the US policy on Iraq enforced by both Presidents were based on Iraq’s failure to make us know. Iraq’s noncompliant behavior constituted material breach of the UNSC resolutions and was demonstrable without CIA intel. Bush’s case for Operation Iraqi Freedom should have followed Clinton’s case precedent with Operation Desert Fox.
11SEP12 Add: At the Belmont Club, I dive into the Iraq debate with multiple comments here.
15MAR13 Add: At bigWOWO, I attempt to correct misconceptions of the Iraq mission in the comments here.
Eric
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