* See 10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts and 10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: Columbia students rally to support US troops Spring 2003.
It's been 10 days. I've posted my thoughts on the 10th anniversary of OIF here, and shared my views on OIF in comments at Blackfive, Small Wars Journal, National Review, and Foreign Policy. That's enough.
Here's a good recap of the Duelfer Report. It confirms that we dodged a bomb by ousting Saddam, but OIF critics care more about the bullets that hit us while we dodged the bomb.
Views on Operation Iraqi Freedom haven't changed. They've just hardened. OIF supporters list the many justifications and the bad alternatives. OIF critics coalesce mainly around three points: the conviction that Bush lied, the cost, and the insistence that OIF made matters worse. The 'Bush lied' crowd ignore the justifications and the alternatives. They will stubbornly restate the one point and use it as a platform to legitimize every conspiracy. The 'cost' crowd either decries the whole mission or they support the war while decrying the post-war. The 'made matters worse' crowd is the 'I told you so' folks who are most likely to be nostalgic for Saddam.
My approach to discussing OIF has mainly focused on the contemporary context of wearing Bush's shoes at the decision point. I prefer to ask 'Why Iraq?', rather than the hindsight question of 'Was it worth it?'. I believe answering the 2nd question requires knowing the answer to the 1st question, and most people don't really know the answer to the 1st question. I have found that a better understanding of the context of the decision point at the start of OIF makes a difference in people's views.
For my final thoughts on the 10th anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, here is a selection of comments I made at the aforementioned sites:
In these comments, it's apparent that a lot of folks fundamentally misunderstood the procedure that led to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Clarifications:
Saddam's guilt was established in fact. Legally, Iraq's presumed guilt was the foundation of the Gulf War ceasefire and subsequent UNSC resolutions.
Based on the presumption of guilt, the burden of proof was entirely on Saddam to prove Iraq was rehabilitated according to weapons and humanitarian standards of compliance.
There was no burden on the US or UN, or the various intelligence agencies, to find or prove Iraqi violations.
UNMOVIC, like UNSCOM, was not designed to find Iraq's violations. UNMOVIC, like UNSCOM, was designed to test Iraq's compliance.
While weapons and humanitarian issues were the object of the compliance standards, the main subject purpose of the compliance standards was to test Saddam's behavior and intentions, and thereby resolve Saddam as a regional threat. (Note: Iran is not Iraq's only neighbor in the region.)
This criminal metaphor should help folks understand the rationale behind the enforcement of the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions that led to OIF:
Saddam was like a convicted yet unrepented dangerous recidivist (insert your felonies of choice) who lived in a residential family neighborhood. The label psychopathic could fairly be applied to Saddam. Folks don't much like his troublemaking direct neighbor, either, and were worried - but not too worried - when, at first, they were only making trouble for each other. But the trouble escalated between them and Saddam crossed taboo lines in their fight. That was bad. But Saddam made it worse when he then attacked, hurt, and threatened his other neighbors. Authorities intervened and Saddam was placed on a strict probation status with conditions he must meet in order to prove his rehabilitation. Probation status means you're no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty. Saddam was proven guilty and he held the burden to prove he was rehabilitated. Saddam could and should have met his burden and thereby removed the probation status in year one. Instead, Saddam thought he could beat the system. He perhaps failed to appreciate the high risk that was assigned to him or, perhaps, he did appreciate it and just reverted to his nature as a dangerous recidivist. Saddam continued to violate his probation and the probation became stricter in response. Finally, the authorities declared Saddam's Iraq had "abused its final chance" (President Clinton, Dec 1998). Saddam was given a 2nd final chance to rehabilitate by President Bush in 2002-2003, but Saddam failed again. And the 2nd final chance really was Saddam's final chance.
A main purpose of the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions was to ensure that Iraq would not threaten the region again. Saddam's failure at the compliance tests showed that he was not rehabilitated and remained a threat. Keep in mind that concurrent with the weapons standards, Saddam was noncompliant on humanitarian standards, too.
Bottom-line: While WMD was a chief form of Iraq's threat, the essential threat of Iraq was not possession of WMD. The essential threat of Iraq was the noncompliant, non-rehabilitated Saddam.
The end state for Iraq established by President Clinton and carried forward by President Bush was an Iraq in compliance, internally liberally reformed, and at peace with its neighbors, with or without Saddam. All three prongs have been achieved, though the 2nd prong is less to our standard than the other 2 prongs.
Under the 1st President Bush, the premise that Saddam would remain in power was based on the assumption that Saddam would rapidly comply with the ceasefire terms - in other words, meet his terms of probation. The 1st President Bush did not intend to contain Iraq indefinitely.
Except Saddam didn't comply. Instead, he made the situation worse and increased the standard of compliance.
When the disarmament failed and turned into de facto containment, Clinton threw out the accompanying premise that Saddam would remain in power. Instead, Clinton set the policy that Saddam would remain in power only if Saddam complied and instituted radical reforms to his regime.
By the close of the Clinton administration, we only had 3 choices with Iraq: Maintain indefinitely the toxic status quo ("containment"), free a noncompliant Saddam, or give Saddam a final chance to comply.
The containment was de facto; it was neither our policy with Iraq nor an end state. After Clinton exhausted all enforcement measures short of ground invasion, the containment was what we were forced to do in the absence of a viable alternative.
Freeing a noncompliant Saddam was out of the question.
Op Desert Fox set the bar at a "final chance" for Saddam to comply. The case and precedent for OIF were already in place. Giving Saddam a 2nd and final 'final chance' to comply only needed sufficient political will.
The status quo was toxic, costly, and unstable before 9/11. One way or another, with or without 9/11, we were going to crash land with Saddam. We could either try to control the landing by resolving the Iraq problem on our terms or maintain the status quo while waiting for Saddam to determine our fate. 9/11, by adding the risk of an unconventional front that Saddam could use by his own means or supplying the NBC black market, provided the political will for giving Saddam a final chance to comply.
President Bush moved to resolve the intractable Iraq problem that he inherited. The alternative choices weren't better.
Bush didn't actually take us to war with Iraq. He took us to the compliance test for Saddam with a credible threat of ground invasion. Saddam could have precluded OIF by complying with the weapons, humanitarian, and other standards, and thereby meeting the terms of Clinton's end state for Iraq.
End state ≠ exit strategy.
We achieved our war objectives in Iraq. While the controversy of OIF is fueled mostly by the costlier post-war, our desired end state in Iraq required that we stay to win the post-war in Iraq, too.
One of President Bush's main objectives for giving Saddam a final chance to comply in 2002-2003 was to bolster the UN as a credible enforcer on WMD proliferation. Bush faithfully followed the enforcement procedure on Iraq he inherited from President Clinton, although Bush deviated from Clinton's public case. However, although the UN sanctioned the post-war peace operations in Iraq, UN officials disclaimed the invasion of Iraq. By doing so, UN officials discredited the enforcement procedure that defined OIF, thus weakening the UN as a credible enforcer on WMD proliferation.
"Rogue" nations, such as Iran and north Korea, thus have been encouraged to advance their WMD pursuits.
How much study has been given to the idea that most or even all the trouble and outsized costs we experienced in our post-war occupation in Iraq were merely compounding downstream effects originating from the one point of failure to establish security and stability after Saddam?
And, if the *one* variable, SASO, had been flipped - if we had been able to establish and guarantee security from the outset of the immediate post-war - everything else about our peace operations in Iraq would have been different?
By curing which early 'viral vectors' could we have headed off the whole epidemic?
My understanding of the Iraq insurgency is that it was rooted on the Sunni side by Saddam loyalists, renowned for their own viciousness, welcoming in al Qaeda. And on the Shia side, the insurgency was rooted in Iran-sponsored Sadrists.
The Kurds were on board with us.
I can't think off the top of my head what could have been done to prevent the Saddam loyalists from mobilizing, but in hindsight, the Shia insurgency strikes me as having been preventable.
We didn't account for Muqtada al-Sadr because he was a minor figure in the Shia community before the war, while the major Shia leaders were on board with us. The coalition believed, with reason, the Shia, like the Kurds, supported our intentions for post-war Iraq. And most Shia did. It seems that if we had been able to identify Muqtada as a threat and neutralize the Sadrist threat early on, we would have stabilized the Shia.
Then that would have left us with only the Sunni problem. The Sunni problem may have been manageable if, like the Sadrists, we have been able to identify and cure the 'viral vectors' early enough.
It's barely remembered now that the international community was prepared to invest and pour peace-building assets into Iraq in the post-war, but only if we guaranteed security in Iraq.
In order to build a higher order social-political society, the universal needs of security and stability first, then law and order, services, and economy - the basics of governance - need to be in place. The insurgency basically beat us to 1st base on security and stability, and the rest of it couldn't work without the foundation. I believe most Iraqis were on board with our promise to build a better Iraq after Saddam. But a minority willing and able to force their politics by extreme violence will have an outsized effect.
The inefficient "adhocracy" in the management of the Iraq reconstruction was in large part due to hostile politics within the US, politically driven unreasonable expectations of immediate returns on investment, and adverse conditions on the ground that sabotaged reconstruction efforts.
If the domestic political frame can be fixed, a reasonable long-term planning approach applied, and initial security and stability mastered, then combined with general improvements, the cost of peace operations should be further driven down.
Of those 'ifs', the most important is establishing and maintaining security and stability from the outset of the post-war.
I believe most or all the inefficiencies in post-war Iraq followed from the initial failure to establish and maintain security and stability. Flip that one switch, and I believe the rest would have fallen into place for us in Iraq, including many fewer casualties for all parties, reasonable expectations and cost management on a long-term planning frame, a conducive political frame, and enough international funding and peace-building assets to reasonably offset our costs.
Regarding the insurgency, 2 nasty surprises:
Saddam loyalists, renowned for their own viciousness, welcoming in al Qaeda.
The Iran-sponsored Sadrists. Muqtada al-Sadr was at best a minor figure in the Iraqi Shia community. We didn't account for him. The major Shia leaders were on board with the US-led coalition. The coalition believed, with reason, the Shia, like the Kurds, were good with our plan - and most Shia were. But not all. The coalition forces were focused on the Sunnis and were surprised by the Jaish al-Mahdi attacks.
From what I've heard, most Iraqis were on-board with the US promise of building a liberal democratic Iraq after Saddam. But in order to build a higher order social-political society, the base of security and stability first, then services (governance) and economy need to be in place. The insurgency basically beat us to 1st base on security and stability. The insurgency did not represent the majority of Iraqis and, indeed, caused massive death and destruction to the Iraqis, but a minority willing and able to be very very violent can have an outsized effect. In politics, violence works.
Here's another angle to consider the justification for Bush's decisions on Iraq:
What debt of honor did we owe Iraq's Shiites for encouraging rebellion in 1991, including a pledge of support from the American President, only then to turn our backs when they took as at our word and rose up against Saddam? The penalty for the crime of trusting America was Saddam brutally putting down the revolt and subsequent reprisals while we assuaged our guilt by adding UNSC resolutions and the no-fly zone.
President Bush’s decisions on Iraq, especially his call on the Counterinsurgency “Surge” in 2006 despite tremendous pressure to cut and run from Iraq, stand in sharp contrast to his father's decision in 1991 that dishonored America in the precise moment that the world’s faith in America as a transformative “leader of the free world” was at its highest. Which signaled to Saddam at the outset the limit of American will to enforce the ceasefire, which set the path for our compounding problems with Iraq.
What we did to Iraq's Shiites in 1991 is why I can’t go all in on hating on Muqtada al Sadr. He’s a villain who’s caused a lot of damage no doubt, but he’s also a villain with a sympathetic origin story. Teenage Muqtada’s father and uncles were killed for trusting America and answering our call to action. While I view him as a problem that needed solving, I didn’t fault Muqtada for distrusting Bush’s son (through no fault of W's) and being murderously bitter against America. I wouldn’t forgive us either if I was in his place.
I can only imagine the level of trust and faith that Iraq's Shia had in America in 1991 to risk their lives and rise up against Saddam on the mere word of the American President. I can only imagine their grief and fury at America's craven self-serving betrayal. If we had kept our word to them in 1991, I wouldn’t be surprised if Muqtada became a cheerleader of the US, instead of an obsessed hater of the US.
It’s too bad because in 2003, when we entered Iraq, the major Iraqi Shia leaders were on board with the American goals for Iraq after Saddam. We failed to account for Muqtada because he was a minor figure. One wonders whether our nation-building occupation of Iraq would have unfolded differently if the Shia, like the Kurds, had stayed on board so that we could have focused on working the Sunni problem.
As is, the Sadrists and JAM surprised us, mixed lethally with the Saddam loyalists and their AQI guests, and it got a lot worse before the COIN “Surge” and Awakening. The interest accrued for Bush the father's debt of honor cost us and the Iraqis greatly.
Our hope, which admittedly was optimistic, was that Iraq's sectarian mix would become a model for liberal pluralism in the Middle East. The US position was that Iraqis would come together as Iraqis first.
From President Clinton's statement on signing the Iraq Liberation Act, October 1998:
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian makeup. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.
I'm late to the party, but here are my thoughts on Saddam in relation to Iran:
Saddam nostalgics are delusional.
Iraq and Iran are not the only 2 nations on an island. Saddam threatened the whole region and especially his other closest neighbors. Has everyone forgotten that we fought the Gulf War because of attacks and threats against his neighbors other than Iran?
The Iran-Iraq War was not a stabilizing event. Saddam-Iran is not a case of adding 2 unstable elements to form a stable compound. This notion of propping up Saddam to deal with Iran for us is like proposing the propping up of Hitler to deal with the Soviet Union for us. Hitler + USSR = worst of WW2, not peace in our time. Propping up Saddam to deal with Iran is not a recipe for regional security and stability.
Enough people already claim America's liberal promise as 'leader of the free world' is a lie. If we decided to reverse course and prop up Saddam after a decade enforcing UNSC and Congressional humanitarian resolutions and statutes for Iraq, all those people would be right.
Saddam was not our puppet to control. If we decided that a *noncompliant* Saddam should remain in power, how do we expect to control Saddam's behavior inside Iraq, in the region, even on the international level, given his track record and ambitions? Remove our constraints from the noncompliant Saddam and put on blinders? Make a deal with Saddam with 'rules' we actually expect him to honor?
Most likely, this fantasy relationship with Saddam would require a continuation of our indefinite, toxic, expensive, provocative, harmful, crumbling pre-OIF status quo mission with Iraq. And it probably would not work. By the way, pre-OIF status quo mission nostalgics are delusional, too.
It's like the Saddam nostalgics have wiped their memories of why we fought the Gulf War and tried to enforce the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions in the first place. The Saddam they've conjured up since his death is not the same Saddam we struggled with.
As I said up front, my approach to understanding OIF is based mainly on the contemporary "Bush's shoes" context of the question, 'Why Iraq', rather than the hindsight question of 'Was it worth it'. I believe answering the 2nd question requires knowing the answer to the 1st question, and most people don't really know the answer to the 1st question.
As such, my discussion points emphasize the "political rhetoric" of conditions, laws, policies, and precedents at the decision point rather than a post-mortem technocratic accounting.
"Who knows?"
We knew the standing US relationship with Iraq was toxic, indefinite, deteriorating, and stalemated.
We knew the official US determination - established under Clinton - that the noncompliant Saddam was a "clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere."
We knew the direct and second-order harms caused by the US status quo with Iraq.
We knew the laws and policies - established during the Clinton administration - that set the resolution for the Iraq problem.
We knew 9/11 had opened an unconventional front that Saddam could utilize with or without al Qaeda - al Qaeda did not own a monopoly on terrorism.
By the close of the Clinton administration, we knew our only way out of the toxic mess with Iraq, other than regime change (internally or externally generated), was Saddam complying with the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions.
Either/Or.
Both Clinton and Bush gave Saddam a "last chance" to comply. He declined. That left the US with one option for solving the toxic status quo with Iraq.
At the decision point of OIF, did you believe that Saddam would come around on his own accord on both the weapons and humanitarian fronts if we unilaterally ended the pre-OIF mission? Or, the US's Iraq problem would solve itself if we continued maintaining the pre-OIF status quo?
Before and after 9/11, did you believe the pre-OIF status quo with Iraq was stable, stabilizing, and sustainable?
When you place yourself in Bush's shoes at the decision point of OIF, keep in mind the humanitarian standards, too. They were not an after-thought to WMD. In fact, the most costly, invasive, provocative, and (arguably) controversial part of our pre-OIF status quo with Iraq - the no-fly zones with counter-fire - were enforcing humanitarian resolutions, not weapons-related resolutions.
So, even if Saddam had completely and unconditionally met his burden of proof on the weapons-related resolutions, the humanitarian issues still needed to be resolved in order to lift the pre-OIF mission and call off OIF.
There is no evidence, even after the fact, to argue that Saddam was in position to comply with the humanitarian resolutions.
I agree that the faulty intelligence "undermined our credibility globally". Again, however, context matters, and the context has been distorted in the public discussion.
The trigger for OIF was not based on an "assumption" by Bush officials. The trigger for OIF was based on the controlling *presumption* of Iraq's guilt on WMD. Plus, Saddam's violation of the concurrently mandated humanitarian standards is not disputed.
Iraq was on probation after the Gulf War, which meant the CIA was not responsible for proving the state of Iraqi WMD. Iraq's guilt on WMD was established. For the legal purpose of enforcing the ceasefire and UNSC resolutions, Iraq's guilt was presumed. Iraq was responsible to prove it was cured of WMD weapons, related technology and systems, development, and intent. Only Iraq - not the CIA - could cure Iraq's presumption of guilt.
In fact, the CIA Duelfer Report shows Saddam was holding back and Iraq was in violation. We only know (or believe we know) after the fact what Saddam was holding back.
"Assumption" isn't compelling from the legal standpoint on Iraq. As long as Iraq's presumption of guilt was controlling, US officials were *obligated* to interpret intelligence on Iraq in the unfavorable light cast by the presumption of guilt. That was true for Clinton officials as well as their successors.
In any case, we didn't go to war based on the intelligence. The trigger for OIF was Iraq's failure to comply, ie, meet its burden of proof on a mandated standard of compliance.
I explain this further in Regime Change in Iraq From Clinton to Bush, which I wrote for my National Security Law class, and its companion piece A problem of definition in the Iraq controversy: Was the issue Saddam's regime or Iraq's demonstrable WMD?, which explains the divergences in the public controversy.
They're easy reads, but here's the executive summary: Legally, Bush relied on Clinton's laws, policies, and precedents on Iraq, ie, the legal case, to resolve the Iraq problem. Publicly, Bush should have stuck closer to Clinton's public case because Clinton's public case against Iraq hewed close to the legal case against Iraq. That's the difference between a Harvard MBA and a Yale JD, I guess.
As you point out, the decision-point justification for OIF is a separate issue from analysis of the post-war in OIF (ie, occupation and peace operations after Saddam). However, the two issues are often conflated in the public discourse, which is where my decision-point contextual approach to the issue comes in.
On the issue of the post-war in Iraq ...
My understanding of de-Baathification is it did not apply a lifetime bar on soldiers and bureaucrats from government service. Rather re-hiring required a vetting process.
Bremer's plan made sense and the international community was initially willing to pour non-military assets into rebuilding Iraq. But the base requirement for everything else to build on was security and stability, and the enemy blew that up.
What if the military hadn't fallen behind the insurgency? What would be different in Iraq today if the COIN "Surge" has been employed in the 'golden hour' of the immediate post-war, rather than at the end of 2006, and precluded the damage to the peace process wrought by the insurgency?
So yes, I wish our military performance in post-war Iraq had been perfect from the outset, too. But I tend to be sympathetic because I realize the insufficient preparation by the Army for the post-war was caused by a deep-seated institutional flaw - the Vietnam War-traumatized, Powell Doctrine mindset. Our problem in the immediate post-war wasn't primarily insufficient troop numbers; it was insufficient method. Bush could control the numbers, but no Commander in Chief was going to overcome the Powell Doctrine mindset of the military before the fact.
I talk about my pre-9/11 brush with the Army's post-war doctrinal flaws in this post. Pre-mission planning and training wouldn't have solved the Powell Doctrine problem. The only realistic way the US was going to learn how to occupy Iraq properly was to occupy Iraq first, and then be driven to the correct method by necessity, assuming we didn't cut and run before we learned.
I'm also sympathetic because the standard applied by OIF critics to OIF is ahistorical. Getting it dramatically wrong at the start of a war, absorbing catastrophes, and then learning how to do it right along the way, is a consistent theme in US military history. It just happens that in OIF, our learning curve was steeper in the post-war than it was in the war.
For the Army, the road to right has always been paved with a lot of wrong, and a lot of our blood. The key has always been whether the US would stay the course long enough to turn wrong into right. The post-war in Iraq is far from our worst post-war. The Korean War happened 5 years into the post-war of WW2. Truman sent Task Force Smith into Korea on a suicide mission. Eisenhower used public discontent over the Korean War to break the Democratic stranglehold on the White House. Ike campaigned on the promise he'd get us out of Korea ASAP.
The US got a hell of a lot wrong - catastrophically wrong - in our post-war in Korea, but our military stayed long enough to get it right because Eisenhower, despite his campaign promise, established a long-term military presence in Korea to secure our gains that continues today.
If we had been able to control the security from the outset of the post-war, I think events in Iraq would have turned out very differently, even without the COIN "Surge". Still, our learning curve in Iraq, while costly, is consistent with US military history, and the post-war in Iraq looked like it had turned the corner at the point we left. It may still work out, but I just don't know at this point whether we stayed in Iraq long enough to secure our gains and foster a reliable (domestic) peace in Iraq, like we did with South Korea.
That is how the real world works for convicted unrepented defiant recidivists on probation status. They're held to a higher standard of behavior due to the greater risk they pose to society. Probation status means you're no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty. Saddam was proven guilty and he held the burden to prove he was innocent and rehabilitated. A main purpose of the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions was to ensure that Iraq would not threaten the region again, ie, rehabilitation. Saddam's failure at the compliance tests shows that he was not rehabilitated and remained a threat.
My approach to understanding why we invaded Iraq is based on the contemporary context of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In other words, to understand President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, one must place oneself in Bush's shoes at the decision point to invade Iraq.
I believe OIF was a war of choice. I understand the alternate choices to OIF were not better choices.
President Bush faced, as did President Clinton before him, 3 choices on Iraq:
A. The status quo, or maintain indefinitely and head-lining the invasive, provocative, harmful, and eroding bombing, sanctions, and 'containment' mission;
B. Unilaterally end the status quo mission and release a noncompliant Saddam from constraint, in power and triumphant; or
C. Give Saddam a final chance to comply with the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions under the ultimate threat of regime change, and if Saddam triggered the final enforcement step, move ahead with regime change.
Realistically, President Bush could choose either Option-A, the status quo, or Option-C, give Saddam a final chance. Option-B, or free a noncompliant Saddam, was out of the question.
At the decision point of OIF, what did we know about the status quo, Option-A?
We knew the standing US relationship with Iraq was toxic, indefinite, deteriorating, and stalemated.
We knew the official US determination - established by President Clinton - that noncompliant Saddam was a "clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere."
We knew the direct and second-order harms caused by the US status quo with Iraq.
We knew the laws and policies - again, established by President Clinton - that set the resolution for the Iraq problem.
We knew 9/11 had opened an unconventional front against the US that Saddam could utilize with or without al Qaeda - al Qaeda did not own a monopoly on terrorism.
By the close of the Clinton administration, we knew our only way out of the toxic mess with Iraq was either regime change (internally or externally generated) or Saddam complying with the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions.
Either/Or.
Both Clinton and Bush gave Saddam a "last chance" to comply. Saddam failed to comply both times. That left the US with one option for solving the toxic status quo with Iraq.
President Bush chose Option-C. If you would have chosen differently, either Option-A or Option-B, then place yourself in Bush's shoes:
At the decision point of OIF, did you believe that Saddam would come around on his own accord on both the weapons and humanitarian fronts if we unilaterally ended the pre-OIF status quo mission (Option-B)? Or, the US's Iraq problem would solve itself if we continued maintaining the pre-OIF status quo (Option-A)?
Before and after 9/11, did you believe the pre-OIF status quo with Iraq was stable, regionally stabilizing, and sustainable?
When you weigh your choice, keep in mind the humanitarian standards imposed on Iraq. They were not an after-thought to WMD. In fact, the most costly, invasive, provocative, and (arguably) controversial part of our pre-OIF status quo with Iraq - the no-fly zones with counter-fire - was enforcing humanitarian resolutions, not weapons-related resolutions.
That means even if Saddam had completely and unconditionally met his burden of proof on the weapons-related UNSC resolutions, the humanitarian requirements still needed to be resolved in order to lift the pre-OIF status quo mission and prevent OIF.
There is no evidence - even after the fact - that Saddam was in position to comply with the humanitarian resolutions.
Again, you're wearing Bush's shoes at the decision point of OIF: Option-A, Option-B, or Option-C?
I agree that the faulty intelligence "undermined our credibility globally". Again, however, context matters, and the context has been distorted in the public discussion.
The trigger for OIF was not based on an "assumption" by Bush officials. The trigger for OIF was based on the controlling *presumption* of Iraq's guilt on WMD. Plus, Saddam's violation of the concurrently mandated humanitarian standards is not disputed.
Iraq was on probation after the Gulf War, which meant the CIA was not responsible for proving the state of Iraqi WMD. Iraq's guilt on WMD was established. For the legal purpose of enforcing the ceasefire and UNSC resolutions, Iraq's guilt was presumed. Iraq was responsible to prove it was cured of WMD weapons, related technology and systems, development, and intent. Only Iraq - not the CIA - could cure Iraq's presumption of guilt.
In fact, the CIA Duelfer Report shows Saddam was holding back and Iraq was in violation. We only know (or believe we know) after the fact what Saddam was holding back.
"Assumption" isn't compelling from the legal standpoint on Iraq. As long as Iraq's presumption of guilt was controlling, US officials were *obligated* to interpret intelligence on Iraq in the unfavorable light cast by the presumption of guilt. That was true for Clinton officials as well as their successors.
In any case, we didn't go to war based on the intelligence. The trigger for OIF was Iraq's failure to comply, ie, meet its burden of proof on a mandated standard of compliance.
The notion that Operation Iraqi Freedom was triggered by faulty intelligence is a persistent, but false myth.
The intelligence on WMD did not and - by design - could not trigger Operation Iraqi Freedom. The only trigger for OIF was Iraq's failure to comply, ie, meet its burden of proof on a mandated standard of compliance.
Iraq was on probation after the Gulf War, which meant the CIA was not responsible for proving the state of Iraqi WMD. Iraq's guilt on WMD was established. For the legal purpose of enforcing the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions, Iraq's guilt was presumed. Iraq was solely responsible to prove it was cured of WMD weapons, related technology and systems, development, and intent. In addition, Iraq was responsible for meeting a mandated humanitarian standard. Only Iraq - not the CIA - could cure Iraq's presumption of guilt.
As long as Iraq's presumption of guilt was controlling, US officials were *obligated* to interpret intelligence on Iraq in the unfavorable light cast by the presumption of guilt. That was true for Clinton officials as well as their successors.
In fact, the 2004 CIA Duelfer Report shows Saddam was holding back and Iraq was in violation. We only know (or believe we know) after the fact what it was that Saddam was holding back. Of course, Saddam's violation of the concurrently mandated humanitarian standards is not disputed.
The intelligence could not trigger OIF. Only Saddam's failure to comply could trigger OIF. In order to cure Iraq's presumption of guilt and prevent Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam only had to meet his burden of proof on the mandated standard of compliance for the Gulf War ceasefire and the weapons and humanitarian resolutions. Saddam could and should have complied in 1991, let alone 2002-2003.
President Clinton gave Saddam a "final chance" to comply in 1998. President Bush gave Saddam a second last chance to comply in 2002-2003. Saddam failed to comply in both his last chances on both the weapons and humanitarian fronts.
And, that's why we invaded Iraq.
Our Iraq mission was trending as a success at the point that Obama and Biden badly bungled the SOFA negotiation. It's as though Eisenhower somehow fumbled away Germany, Japan, and Korea, for whom US-led nation-building also required many years, at their critical turning points.
By the close of the Bush administration, the US presence in geopolitically critical Iraq was settling into a stabilizing role like our long-term presence in Europe and Asia. Obama's failure in Iraq has led to, at the very least, a stronger position for Iran, decrease of US options in the region, and the heightened risk of reversing hard-won progress in Iraq. Like Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia, an empowered liberal Iraq should have been the lynchpin of our Middle East strategy. Now, we can only hope the US did enough for Iraq to resist corrupting influences and stand on its own before our premature exit.
Eric
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