After both houses of Congress granted the White House authorization for aUS-led military strike to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq,George W. Bush claimed that “America has spoken with one voice” aboutthe “mortal threat” posed by Iraq’s presumed programs for weapons ofmass destruction. But much of the US public remained unconvinced that

Iraq really imperiled the world’s sole superpower. The UN Security Councilresolution passed on November 8, 2002 reflected international consensus thatoutstanding questions about Iraq’s armaments should be answered through assertiveinspections, not war. Bush has failed to prove the existence of an urgent threatcoming from Iraq. His administration’s push for war begs for alternative explanations.

The Bush administration is liberally staffed with neo-conservatives who spent thedecade after the Gulf war criticizing President Bill Clinton’s policy on Iraq from theright. As the 1990s wore on, the US and, to a lesser extent, Britain, became frustratedby the breakdown of international and regional consensus behind the comprehensivesanctions on Iraq, as well as the failure of sanctions and “containment” to toppleSaddam Hussein. Instead of regime change, the US and Britain witnessed theincreasing success of the Iraqi regime in its strategies for rehabilitating itself, and agrowing belief in international public opinion that the devastating humanitarianimpact of sanctions was too high a price to pay for containment of Hussein. The neo-

S E C O N D E D I T I O ND E C E M B E R 2 0 0 2

Boy near open sewer on the outskirts of Basra in southern Iraq, March 1999. Karen Robinson/Panos Pictures

M I D D L E   E A S T   R E S E A R C H&   I N F O RM AT I O N   P R O J E C T

Sarah Graham-Brown is author of Sanctioning Saddam (I.B. Tauris, 1999). Chris Toensing is editor of Middle East Report,publication of the Middle East Research and Information Project.

Why Another War?A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

by Sarah Graham-Brown and Chris Toensing

conservatives argued, with considerable fervor, that Iraqi defiance warranted morerobust US military action than Clinton’s periodic missile strikes.

The convergence of these factors – declining consensus, the unpopularityof sanctions, the regime’s survival and the neo-conservatives’ ideologicalcommitment – made a showdown between Saddam Hussein and the Westpredictable when Bush captured the White House in 2000. After theSeptember 11 attacks in New York and Washington, the neo-conservativesseized the opportunity for a reckoning with their bête noire in Baghdad.

A Regime RisesThe Ba‘th party, now headed by Saddam Hussein, has been in powercontinuously since 1968. Regime functionaries developed an increasinglyauthoritarian system of government based on state control of burgeoning oilrevenues and fierce repression of any and all opponents and critics –Communists, Kurdish parties and religious parties associated with themajority Shia community. Through a combination of force and inducements,the regime has sustained its narrow power base. The party apparatus has nowfaded in importance, having been eclipsed by Saddam Hussein himself, hisfamily and close allies and selected security services. Early Ba‘thist ideologywas pan-Arabist, but in the 1980s, the party began to speak the language ofIraqi nationalism to rally the diverse population against external enemies.Iraqi Ba‘thist rhetoric remained largely secular until the 1980s and 1990s,when the regime increasingly invoked Islam to coopt potential Islamistopposition within Iraq and to exploit Islamic solidarity abroad. The words“God is great” were first emblazoned upon the Iraqi flag on January 13, 1991– three days before the US started bombing Baghdad.

Until the mid-1980s, oil wealth allowed the regime to build an impressivewelfare state, and government investment in irrigation, schools, health care andother fields contributed to steadily rising living standards for ordinary Iraqis.Iraq’s relative prosperity made the country a magnet for guest workers fromEgypt, Yemen and other poorer Arab countries until 1990. But eight years ofhighly destructive war against Iran began to undo these achievements,concentrating the country’s financial resources on expanding the size andweaponry of the Iraqi army, and subsequently on rearming and rebuilding. Anoil price collapse in 1986 further eroded the regime’s fiscal position.

Oil revenues and financial support from the Gulf states permitted SaddamHussein’s regime to survive the war with Iran. In addition to backing from Iraq’slong-time allies, the Soviet Union and France, more surreptitious support camefrom the US, Britain and Germany, which “tilted” in favor of Iraq against Iran.After the war, Western arms and construction companies competed for contractsin Iraq, with the governments of the US, Britain, Germany, France and Russiacontinuing to facilitate arms sales and business, especially by providing lines ofcredit. President Ronald Reagan’s administration only weakly protested Iraq’sappalling human rights record – including its use of chemical weapons againstIranian troops and against Iraqi Kurds during the Anfal operations of 1987-1988– and blocked a Senate resolution that would have imposed sanctions. But theattitudes of Western powers, in particular the US and Britain, toward Iraqchanged radically with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Desert StormWhile Iraqi governments had staked periodic claims upon Kuwait for years,the 1990 invasion was immediately motivated by severe financial pressures

1958 Iraqi monarchy overthrown in militarycoup led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.

1959 Saddam Hussein, 22, flees Iraq afterinvolvement in attempted assassination of Qasim.

1961 Qasim claims newly independent Kuwaitas part of Iraq. Kurds begin armed revoltagainst Baghdad.

1963 Ba‘th Party overthrows Qasim, then isedged out of power by allies in coup. Iraqrenounces claim to Kuwait.

1966 Ceasefire between Kurds and governmentforces.

1967 Iraq breaks diplomatic relations with theUS after Arab-Israeli war.

1968 Ba‘th Party returns to power in coup.Saddam Hussein seizes positions of vice president anddeputy head of the Revolutionary Command Council.

1970 Baghdad and Kurdish Democratic Partysign peace agreement.

1972 Iraq Petroleum Company – a consortiumof Western companies – is nationalized.

1974 Collapse of 1970 accord with KDP. FailedKurdish rebellion produces refugee crisis.

1975 Iraq and Iran sign treaty ending borderdisputes.

1979 Saddam Hussein becomes president andchairman of the Revolutionary Command Council.About 400 party members are executed.

1980 Iran shells Iraqi border towns. OnSeptember 17, Iraq abrogates 1975 treaty, andinvades Iran.

1981 Israel attacks Osirak nuclear reactor.

1982 Iranian counteroffensive reclaims muchground occupied by Iraq. Syria closes pipelineto Iraq.

1984 Iraq restores diplomatic relations withthe US.

1986 UN Secretary General reports Iraq’s useof mustard gas and nerve agents againstIranian soldiers.

1986-87 “Tanker war” between Iran and Iraqin Persian Gulf.

1988 Anfal operation results in over 100,000deaths in northern Iraq. On March 16, Iraq attacksKurdish town of Halabja with mix of poison gasand nerve agents, killing 5,000. Ceasefire with Iranon August 20. Iraq reasserts claim to Kuwait.

generated by the Iran-Iraq war. In need of revenue, Iraq sought forgiveness ofKuwaiti loans made during the Iran-Iraq war, disputed Kuwait’s oilproduction levels and charged Kuwait with tapping into the Rumaila oilfieldthat lies almost entirely inside Iraq. Saddam Hussein appears to have misreadUS and broader Arab interests in launching the invasion. He believed that,given its previously friendly disposition and eagerness for contracts, the USwould be amenable to negotiated solutions. Though Hussein knew ofWashington’s fears for the post-invasion security of Saudi Arabian oilfields, hewrongly calculated that the Saudi royal family would not allow non-Muslimsoldiers to be based on Saudi Arabian soil. The fact that Iraq invaded Kuwait,a sovereign state, allowed the UN Security Council to create a wide coalitionin favor of action against Iraq, including the key Arab states of Syria andEgypt, as well as traditional US allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

UN Security Council Resolution 661, passed in August 1990, imposedmandatory and comprehensive economic sanctions covering Iraq’s imports,exports and movement of funds. Sanctions were given only a few months toforce withdrawal of Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. Meanwhile, the US, supportedby Britain, began a massive troop buildup in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia,and pushed vigorously for military action. In November 1990, US insistencesecured UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 678, providing for the use of“all necessary means” to end the occupation of Kuwait. The Soviet Union, inpolitical turmoil at the time, was persuaded to go along with the other SecurityCouncil members. China abstained after strong pressure from the US.

Numerous Arab, European and Soviet diplomatic efforts to avert war cameto nothing, with the US sticking to the demand that Iraq withdraw fromKuwait without conditions. In December 1990, the press quoted US officialssaying that a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal was a “nightmare scenario,” becausethen Iraq might place its disputes with Kuwait on the negotiating table. TheUS and Britain also resisted attempts to link resolution of the Gulf crisis toresolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including an eleventh-hourFrench proposal that Iraq withdraw if the US agreed to convene aninternational conference on Middle East peace. The air war commenced onJanuary 16, 1991. Allied bombing caused major damage to Iraq’s civilianinfrastructure, including electricity generation, water and sanitation facilities.Despite concerns about Iraqi civilian casualties and Iraq’s firing of Scudmissiles at Israel, the Arab coalition held.

Operation Desert Storm, the brief ground war that followed the bombing,drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Allied troops pursued them only as far as theoutskirts of the southern cities of Basra and Nasriyya. President George Bushand other coalition leaders decided not to continue fighting inside Iraq,partly to assuage Saudi concern to forestall Iraqi Shiite autonomy, partly tolimit Iranian influence on post-war Iraq, and partly in fear of getting boggeddown in protracted battles.

The Day AfterThe retreat of the Iraqi army triggered an uprising against Hussein’s regime inthe Shiite south, in no small part due to Bush’s urgings during the war thatthe Iraqi military and the Iraqi people “take matters into their own hands.”Fearing the influence of Iran on the rebel forces, the coalition forces stood bywhile Baghdad forcibly suppressed the uprising. The ceasefire agreementsigned on March 2, 1991 stopped Iraq from flying warplanes over the southbut did not prevent the use of heavy armor, which became a significant factorin regime efforts to regain control.

1990 Iraq invades Kuwait on August 2. UNdemands withdrawal by January 15, 1991, andimposes economic embargo. On November 29, UNauthorizes use of “all necessary means” toliberate Kuwait.

1991 Bombardment of Iraq starts Operation DesertStorm on January 16. Ground war begins onFebruary 24, and liberation of Kuwait occursFebruary 27. On March 3, Iraq accepts ceasefire. Iraqiforces suppress rebellions in the south and northduring March and April, creating refugee crisis onborders with Turkey and Iran. Northern no-fly zoneestablished in April. UNSCOM established.

1992 No-fly zone established in southern Iraq.

1993 US cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligenceheadquarters in Baghdad, in response to allegedattempt on George Bush’s life in Kuwait in April.

1994 Saddam Hussein becomes prime ministerand president. Iraqi National Assembly recognizesKuwait’s borders and independence.

1994-1997 Fighting between KDP and rivalPatriotic Union of Kurdistan. Iraqi forces moveinto northern no-fly zone and help KDP defeatPUK in August 1996. Failed Iraqi NationalCongress coup attempt in 1996.

1995 UNSC 986 allows the partial resumption ofIraq’s oil exports to buy food and medicine in April.Resolution not accepted by Iraq until December.

1998 Inspectors withdraw from Iraq. US andBritain bomb Iraq from December 16-19 inOperation Desert Fox.

1999 UNSC 1284 creates UNMOVIC to replaceUNSCOM. Iraq rejects resolution.

2000 First domestic passenger flights in Iraq since1991. Commercial air links reestablished with Russia,Ireland and Middle East. Syria reopens pipeline.

2001 In February, US and Britain carry outmajor bombing raid. Rail link with Turkeyreopened in May for the first time since 1981.

2002 In March, Arab summit rejects military actionagainst Iraq. UNSC 1409 streamlines sanctions in May.Iraq rejects weapons inspections in talks with UNSecretary General in July. UN rejects Iraqi proposalfor readmitting inspectors in August.

October 2002 Both houses of Congress passresolutions authorizing George W. Bush to employforce to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.

November 2002 UNSC 1441 sets uptougher weapons inspections, threatening “seriousconsequences” for Iraq’s failure to comply.Inspectors reenter Iraq on November 27.

4 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

Iraq’s counterattack against rebels in the Kurdish-dominated north led to mass flight. At the Iranianborder, refugees were allowed to cross, but the Turkishgovernment refused to permit most of the refugeesaccess, leaving them stranded in snowboundmountains. This major humanitarian disaster promptedthe Gulf war coalition to send forces to secure a “safehaven” in the northwest corner of Iraq. A no-fly zonewas also established above the thirty-sixth parallel oflatitude, initially to protect allied troops. The zoneremained in place after the coalition troops withdrew inJune-July 1991. In October 1991, after a series ofclashes with Kurdish forces, the central governmentwithdrew all its troops and administrative staff from theKurdish-dominated areas of the north, halted allgovernment funding and placed an embargo on goodscrossing into Kurdish-controlled areas. The internalembargo was not relaxed until 1997.

In April 1991, the UN passed UNSC 687, whichlaid down the terms of the ceasefire: elimination ofIraq’s programs for developing chemical, biological andnuclear weapons, dismantlement of its long-rangemissiles, a system of inspections to verify compliance,acceptance of a UN-demarcated Iraq-Kuwait border,

payment of war compensation and the return ofKuwaiti property and prisoners of war. UNSC 687 hasformed the basis for most subsequent UN actionregarding Iraq. UNSC 688, passed a few days later,after Iraq had crushed the northern rebellion,demanded that Iraq “cease this repression,” but did notexplicitly call for enforcement by military action. TheUS and Britain, however, have consistently referred toUNSC 688 to justify the continued existence of, andperiodic bombing in, the no-fly zones and as a furthercondition for the lifting of sanctions.

Inspecting IraqThe UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) establishedto verify Iraq’s compliance with the weapons provisionsof UNSC 687 first entered Iraq in 1991, andinspections by UNSCOM and the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continued untilDecember 1998. Although UNSCOM succeeded inlocating and destroying the majority of Iraq’s weaponsof mass destruction sites, its inspections were frequentlycontested by the Iraqis, who resisted attempts to seecertain sites and withheld documents.

US serviceman paints bombs to symbolize each of the warplane's bombing runs during Operation Desert Fox, December 1998.

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A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis |5

From 1994, a clear rift opened among thePermanent Five members of the Security Council overthe progress of the inspections. France and Russiawanted to reward specific instances of Iraqi cooperationwith gradual amelioration of the country’s economicisolation, including a “road map” toward the lifting ofsanctions, while the US and Britain refused to considersuch measures. The dispute was fueled by criticalambiguities in the conditions for lifting the embargo inUNSC 687, contained in paragraphs 21 and 22 of theresolution. Paragraph 22 appears to allow the embargoon international imports from Iraq – primarily oil – tobe removed once Iraq had complied with all clausesrelating to weapons of mass destruction. France andRussia favored a focus on this provision. Paragraph 21was much broader: international exports to Iraq couldonly resume when it was judged to have complied with“all relevant UN resolutions.” The US and Britain tookthis reference to include UNSC 688, which dealt withIraq’s treatment of the Kurds and the Shia, and stroveto keep sanctions in place as a first priority.

The rift between the US and Britain on one side, andFrance and Russia on the other, widened, and weaponsinspections went on in an increasingly acrimoniousatmosphere. In 1997, evidence emerged that the US, andpossibly the Israelis, had been receiving intelligencegathered in the course of UNSCOM inspections. RolfEkeus, head of UNSCOM from 1991-1997, confirmedto Swedish radio in late July 2002 that US inspectorssought information outside the organization’s mandate,such as details on the movements of Saddam Hussein.Revelations of intelligence gathering lent credibility toIraq’s protests that inspections were infringing upon itssovereignty, and eroded international support forUNSCOM’s aggressive tactics.

Unanswered QuestionsDespite political obstacles, weapons inspections in the1990s achieved a great deal. UNSCOM inspectionsrevealed a clandestine nuclear program which, accordingto an IAEA assessment, might have produced a usableweapon by December 1992, had Iraq continued it. Thefinal reports of UNSCOM and IAEA filed after they leftIraq stated that Iraq’s nuclear stocks were gone andsuggested most of its long-range delivery systems hadbeen destroyed. Numerous outside studies, most recentlyone from the London-based International Institute forStrategic Studies, have concluded that while Iraq retainsthe scientific expertise to manufacture a nuclear bomb, itlacks the necessary fissile material.

Questions remain about Iraq’s chemical and biologicalweapons capacity. In the 1990s, inspectors destroyed

38,500 prohibited chemical warheads and millions ofliters of chemical agents. Iraq claims to have eliminatedover 30,000 more weapons and tons of additionalchemical agents of its own volition, but UNSCOM wasunable to verify this claim before leaving the country. InAugust 1995, Iraq admitted having produced largevolumes of weapons-grade biological materials for use inthe 1990-1991 Gulf war. UNSCOM never located thisstockpile, which Iraq also claimed to have destroyed.Some former inspectors, along with the US and Britishgovernments, refer to these chemical and biologicalmaterials as “missing” or “unaccounted for,” and believethat Iraq has successfully hidden them from scrutiny.

On the basis of IAEA reports in 1997, Russiarecommended that Iraq’s nuclear file be closed, again toestablish a “road map” toward Iraqi compliance and thelifting of sanctions, but Washington and Londonrefused. Successive inspections crises ensued in 1998.In February, Iraq declined to allow so-called“presidential” sites to be inspected, again on grounds ofsovereignty. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan defusedthis crisis by brokering an agreement under whichinternational diplomats would accompany inspectors tothese sites. UNSCOM continued to complain of Iraqinon-cooperation, and pulled out of Iraq in November,and again in December, the second time withoutconsulting the Security Council. From December 16-19, the US and Britain heavily bombed allegedweapons sites throughout southern and central Iraq.This bombardment – known as Operation Desert Fox– took place without Security Council authorization,following a pattern established by the US and Britainover the 1990s.

Rules of EngagementThe US and Britain have regularly resorted to militaryaction to enforce Security Council resolutions on Iraqwithout express UN approval. In 1991, the US andBritain designated a part of the Kurdish-controlledregion lying above the thirty-sixth parallel as a no-flyzone for Iraqi aircraft. A second no-fly zone wasestablished in the south up to the thirty-second parallelin August 1992, and extended to the thirty-third parallel,close to Baghdad, in 1996. The two no-fly zones wereinitially policed by the US, Britain and France. In 1996,France withdrew from the northern zone, and in 1998from the southern zone – in protest over Desert Fox. TheUS and Britain have continued daily patrols of the no-flyzones, with periodic attacks on Iraqi anti-aircraftemplacements and major bombing episodes triggered byalleged large-scale movements of Iraqi armor in borderareas or intensified anti-aircraft fire.

6 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

Following Desert Fox, the US and Britain changed therules of engagement in the no-fly zones, allowing pilots tostrike at any part of the Iraqi air defense system, not justthose that directly targeted their aircraft, by firing uponthem or by “locking on” radar detectors to the planes. Thescale of action in the no-fly zones since that time hasincreased dramatically. According to British Ministry ofDefense figures quoted by the Times (London) in June2000, the average monthly release of bombs rose from0.025 tons to five tons. After a lull in early 2002, airstrikes increased in intensity and frequency in the fall. ByOctober, US and British planes had bombed Iraqi targets46 times, and “clashes” in the no-fly zones picked up againafter the November 8 UN resolution.

A year after Desert Fox, UN Security CouncilResolution 1284 created a new arms monitoring bodycalled UNMOVIC, headed by Hans Blix. In 2001,negotiations sporadically took place between the UN andIraq over the readmission of inspectors, but Iraq did notallow UNMOVIC into the country until November 27,2002. Pending UNMOVIC’s report due in January 2003,assertions by Iraqi defectors and the US and Britishgovernments that Iraq persists in developing weapons ofmass destruction are impossible to confirm or rebut.

The Sanctions DecadeBetween Desert Fox and the crisis of 2002,international diplomacy on Iraq focused almostexclusively on the various proposals for reinvigorated,“smarter” sanctions. Since their introduction in 1990,comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq have raisedsubstantial concerns about the impact of coercivemeasures against governments when the populations inquestion have no democratic rights. Both SecurityCouncil members and Iraq frequently allowedhumanitarian issues to become bargaining chips instruggles over the fulfillment of UNSC 687. No cleardefinition was agreed upon for “humanitarian goods” –those commodities to be excluded from the embargo.The US in particular sought to limit the definition asfar as possible, initially only to include food andmedicine. As time went on, the Security Councilallowed the purchase of more types of goods, butcontracts were frequently challenged because thesought-after items might prove to be “dual-use.”

Accurate assessments of the humanitarian situationhave been difficult to obtain. Most international NGOswithdrew from government-controlled areas of Iraq by

-200% -150% -100% -50% 0 50%

Iraq -160%

Kenya -24%

South Africa -17%

Rwanda -13%

Azerbijan -3%

Uzbekistan 0%

Chad 0%

Somalia 2%

Jordan 9%

Yemen 18%

Yugoslavia 26%

Syria 35%

Iran 39%

Turkey 42%

Egypt 54%

Portugal 64%

100%

Under-five mortality rate – Cross-country comparison

Percentage change in mortality rates among children under five, from 1990-2000. Egypt's rate was 54 percent lower in 2000 than in 1990. Iraq's rate was 160 percent higher.

UNICE

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A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis |7

mid-1992, when the Iraqi government imposed stringentrestrictions on their operations. Only in 1998 wasUNICEF able to carry out a nationwide survey of healthand nutrition, which found, for instance, that mortalityrates among children under five in central and southernIraq had doubled from the previous decade. Mostindependent observers would endorse the March 1999conclusion of the UN Security Council’s Panel onHumanitarian Issues: “Even if not all suffering in Iraqcan be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions,the Iraqi people would not be undergoing suchdeprivations in the absence of the prolonged measuresimposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.”

The Security Council’s punitive approach wascompounded by the fact that Gulf war bombing hadinflicted extensive infrastructural damage, compromisingthe provision of clean water, sanitation and electricalpower to the Iraqi population. The resulting publichealth emergency, rather than hunger, has been andcontinues to be the primary cause of increased mortality,especially among children under five. UNICEFestimated in 2002 that 70 percent of child deaths resultfrom diarrhea and acute respiratory infections.

For its part the Iraqi government, while providing abasic food ration, placed military and security concerns

over civilian needs, especially when makingdecisions on reconstruction. Poor planningand public education, and shortages of trainedpersonnel caused by the catastrophic decline ofreal wages in the public sector, exacerbated thehumanitarian crisis.

In late 1991, under pressure from UNagencies reporting acute humanitarian needs inIraq, the Security Council passed Resolutions706 and 712, designed to allow Iraq to use theproceeds of limited oil sales to purchase“humanitarian goods” outside Iraq. Afterprolonged negotiations, Iraq rejected the capson its oil sales as too stringent, and called forthe lifting of sanctions. By 1993, the Iraqieconomy under sanctions stood at one-fifth itssize in 1979, and then took a further nose divein 1994. Meager rations lasted only about onethird to half a month. With shrinkingincomes, Iraqis could not afford the spiralingprices of goods on the open market. SoonFrance and Russia began to float the conceptof certifying Iraqi compliance withinspections, and lifting sanctions, at theSecurity Council. The summer 1995 defectionof Hussein Kamil, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, who came bearing detailed informationon Iraq’s previously unacknowledged biological

weapons program, only temporarily stalled French andRussian efforts to seek an exit from sanctions.

Oil for FoodTo stymie the progress of the French-Russian proposals,the US encouraged Britain to formulate UN SecurityCouncil Resolution 986 – reviving the “oil for food” ideaof UNSC 706 and 712 – in early 1995. The newresolution made some concessions to Iraq’s earlierobjections, though Iraq initially held out for more. TheOil-for-Food program established by UNSC 986 finallycame into operation at the end of 1996. Under thisprogram, Iraq could sell specified amounts of oil duringevery six-month period. The proceeds, deposited in anUN-controlled escrow account outside Iraq, would beused to fill orders for humanitarian goods from the Iraqigovernment. Until 2002, a committee of all SecurityCouncil members (known as the 661 Committee)scrutinized the operation of the Oil-for-Food program.The US, and to a lesser extent Britain, made a commonpractice of placing “holds” on large numbers of orders –over $5.3 billion worth in early 2002 – ostensiblybecause the requested items might have military uses.This practice, combined with Iraq’s bureaucratic delays,

Women wash clothes near Basra oilfields in southern Iraq.

Karim Sahib/AFP

8 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

interruptions of oil sales and a prolonged dispute withthe Security Council over oil pricing, reduced thevolume of goods getting into Iraq. Holds havedisproportionately affected Iraq’s ability to rebuild itswater, sanitation and electricity infrastructure.

Modifications to the Oil-for-Food program laterraised the ceiling on oil sales and widened the scope ofgoods that could be purchased, to include some itemsneeded to refurbish Iraq’s oil industry and otherinfrastructure. In 2001, a further resolution removed thelimit on the amount of oil Iraq could sell. In 2002,Resolution 1409 shrank the role of the 661 Committeein vetting orders and placed the job of determiningwhich items were “dual-use” in the purview ofUNMOVIC, the new weapons inspection agency, andthe IAEA. These “smart sanctions” – designed to deflectcriticism of sanctions in general and Oil-for-Food inparticular – arguably came too little, too late.

Stopgap MeasureThe US and Britain often present the Oil-for-Foodprogram as a vast humanitarian relief effort, but it was

intended as a stopgap measure to sustain economicsanctions while allowing more humanitarian goods intothe country. It was never conceived as a full-scaleprogram of economic rehabilitation. Oil-for-Food hasbrought commodities into Iraq, rather than restoringIraqis’ purchasing power or the country’s infrastructureto anything approaching pre-war levels.

In central and southern Iraq, where the governmentadministers Oil-for-Food, the increase in size and caloricvalue of monthly rations (to 2,472 calories per personper day) has brought some improvement in nutrition,especially among young children. Market prices have alsobeen reduced from hyperinflationary levels of the mid-1990s. Oil-for-Food, however, has also perpetuateddependence on rations, shoring up central control overfood supplies. Meanwhile, systems of publictransportation, water, sanitation and electricity remain ina precarious state, the last two imperiled further byseveral years of drought. UNICEF figures showcontinuing high levels of mortality and morbidity fromacute respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases.

In the Kurdish-controlled areas of the north, wherethe UN implements the program, a different set of

Kurdish children climb on sculpture atop former Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Suleimaniyya in northern Iraq. Frits Meyst/Panos Pictures

A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis |9

factors has influenced the humanitarian situation.Because the Iraqi regime embargoed the north, between1992 and 1997 the Kurdish enclaves received significantamounts of humanitarian assistance via Turkey. Between30 and 60 international NGOs worked in the north,though sporadic internal conflict and displacementbetween 1994 and 1997 kept the humanitarian situationunstable. Since 1997, food imports under the Oil-for-Food program have helped the Kurdish urbanpopulation, but effectively undermined the revival of thelocal economy, especially in the key area of agriculture. Arecent survey by Save the Children-UK found that up to60 percent of the northern population has nothing to fallback on should Oil-for-Food stop.

Oil-for-Food heightens the vulnerability of the wholeIraqi economy to disruption by political decisions andexternal factors, such as a military confrontation and thereduction or termination of oil sales. If the government ofIraq closed the de facto border with the Kurdish-controlled area, delivery of food and medical suppliespurchased for the north by the Iraqi government would beinterrupted. The entire ration distribution system ingovernment areas could be disrupted if there wasprolonged fighting or bombing or if large numbers ofrefugees fled elsewhere within the country or across theborders. In the north, because parts of the Kurdish regiondepend on the national grid for electricity, Baghdad is ableto cut off the power supply, as it has done in the past.

Sanctions CrumbleAfter the passage of UNSC 986, Baghdad used trade towoo international support for modifying or liftingsanctions. From 1997-2001, companies from theSecurity Council member states most sympathetic toIraq’s position – France, Russia and China – garnered$5.48 billion of the $18.29 billion in contractsapproved by the UN. Firms based in Egypt and theUnited Arab Emirates, whose governments also movedcloser to Baghdad at the end of the decade, wereawarded 30 percent of Iraq’s import contracts under theOil-for-Food program in 2000.

By 2001, sanctions were crumbling around the edges.Most of Iraq’s neighbors, including its adversary Syria,and countries friendly to the West, like Turkey, Jordanand some Gulf states, were involved in sanctions-bustingtrade with Baghdad. In comparison with the large-scaleevasion of comprehensive UN sanctions on Rhodesiaand Serbia, there has been little illegal transfer of goodsin and out of Iraq, but the resulting revenues weresufficient to keep the Iraqi regime well-financed despitesanctions. Illicit trade – especially oil smuggling – alsoforged economic ties of mutual advantage which made

Iraq’s neighbors resistant to US and British schemes for“enhanced containment.”

Since 1997, illicit revenues amounting to roughly $2billion per year have accrued to the regime in Baghdad. Arecent report from the Coalition for International Justice,which advocates the trial of Iraqi leaders for crimes againsthumanity, states that 90 percent of these monies comefrom oil smuggling. The most remunerative smugglingroute runs through Syria’s pipeline to oilfields in northernIraq, reopened on November 6, 2000 after being closedsince 1982, when Hafiz al-Asad’s regime backed Tehran inthe Iran-Iraq war. As many as 150,000 barrels ofdiscounted Iraqi crude per day pass through the pipeline,enabling Syria to export more of its own oil. Another thirdof Iraq’s contraband oil finds its way to Iranian ports,where it is reportedly mixed with outgoing Iranian oilproducts to conserve Tehran’s domestic reserves.

The Kurdish enclave bordering Turkey has benefitedhandsomely from imposing exit taxes on diesel andcrude smuggled into Turkey, though Turkey took stepsto curtail this trade beginning in March 2002, perhapsbecause smuggling revenue was finding its way to Iraq-based militia units of the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan(PKK), which fought a separatist war against Turkey inthe 1990s. Officially, Iraq exports 110,000 barrels perday of oil to Jordan, with the tacit approval of theSecurity Council, in return for preferential prices onJordanian consumer goods. Jordan is particularlydependent on the Iraqi market.

End of ConsensusThree times since the winter of 1999, the regime hashalted oil exports, calculating that the resulting pricespike would pressure the UN into concessions in reviewsof the sanctions. Each time the maneuver failed, becauseSaudi Arabia and Kuwait filled the gap in supply toprevent the price from rising too high. Iraq has twicestopped its exports during major Israeli offensives in thePalestinian territories, rather transparently to pose as thechampion of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world,also to negligible effect on the oil markets.

Smuggling and illegal surcharges on sales approvedthrough the Oil-for-Food program have proven moreeffective for Iraq than direct use of the “oil weapon.”Although the benefits of smuggling and sanctions-busting trade to Baghdad are well-known in Washingtonand London, the US has been unable (or unwilling) tocut off these sources of revenue, revealing the complexityof its relations with front-line states. Turkey and Jordanhave been allowed to break sanctions with impunity,arguing that their fragile economies could not afford tolose Iraqi trade, though Iran has received harsh criticism.

10 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

Syria has rebuffed US demands that it close down itspipeline to Iraq, and even offers of UN compensation forlost oil revenue, without apparent penalty. The US hasbacked down from calls to debate Syrian smuggling inthe Security Council, because France has insisted ondebating Turkish smuggling as well.

The general non-cooperation of Arab governmentswith US-British attempts to plug holes in the embargoalso signaled their displeasure with Washington’sincreasingly unequivocal support of Israel in itscampaign to defeat the Palestinian uprising by force ofarms. Arab governments, anxious about their ownstability in the event of war, maintained vocal publicopposition to military intervention in Iraq as theintention of the Bush administration to topple SaddamHussein by force became clear.

Dick Cheney returned from a Middle East tour inmid-March 2002 without inducing any government tochange its public line against forcible “regime change”in Iraq. The surprise rapprochement between Iraq andKuwait at the March 2002 Arab summit – which alsoproduced an unprecedented agreement among all Arabcountries (including Iraq) to recognize the state ofIsrael inside its pre-1967 borders – marked the formalend of the Arab consensus behind the sanctions andcontainment policies of the previous decade. Iraqrecognized Kuwaiti sovereignty for the first time, andthe two countries issued a pledge (so far unfulfilled) toresolve Kuwaiti missing persons and stolen propertyclaims from the Gulf war. The summit concluded witha unified call to lift the UN sanctions. Arab diplomatsworked to persuade the Iraqi regime to accept thereturn of weapons inspectors.

Meanwhile, the logic of inspections and sanctions –that they would be lifted once Iraq complied withUNSC 687 – has been undermined by US and Britishstatements that “regime change” is their preferredpolicy toward Iraq.

From Rogue State to Regime ChangeSince 1991, there has been a constant tension in officialUS thinking between regime change and efforts to secureIraqi compliance with UN resolutions. At the time of theGulf war, Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, persuaded theUS that a military coup in Iraq was preferable to anallied drive on Baghdad. The Saudis and other coalitionmembers regarded the post-war uprisings in the Shiitesouth with fear because of Iran’s influence on the rebels,and possible repercussions among their own Shiitepopulations. In the north, Turkey, embroiled in war withthe PKK until 1998, expressed loud concerns thatautonomy for the Iraqi Kurds would encourage Turkish

Kurds in their aspirations to independence. Until the lastyear of the first Bush administration, Washington heldout hope that Saddam Hussein could not survive theimpact of war and punitive sanctions. Yet despite anumber of attempts since 1991, no coup has succeeded,with or without outside help.

By 1993, lack of progress in any direction led theClinton administration to espouse the notion of “dualcontainment” of Iraq and Iran, defined henceforth as“rogue states.” The primary aim of dual containmentwas to protect US friends in the region – Israel, Turkeyand Saudi Arabia – while keeping Saddam Hussein “ina box.” According to this argument, Saddam Hussein’sregime could not and would not meet the requirementsfor lifting sanctions, so sanctions would remain in placeindefinitely, or until the regime collapsed. In a majorspeech on March 27, 1997, Secretary of StateMadeleine Albright said the US would back sanctions“as long as it takes” to usher in a “successor regime” thatwould comply with UN resolutions.

But attempts to promote regime change during bothterms of Bill Clinton’s presidency were only sporadic.Clinton’s advisers were profoundly reluctant to commitground troops after the disastrous Somalian operationand the difficulties over Bosnia. Support for the externalIraqi opposition was lukewarm, and the administrationwas often divided on how far to encourage it. Successiveadministrations distrusted the Iraqi National Congress(INC), the ostensible umbrella organization based inBritain and the US, though the US has done much tofoster its claim to be representative. The INC’s shiftingmembership has proven difficult to pin down to specificpolicies beyond regime change, while doubts persistwhether (aside from the Kurds) INC-affiliated groupscan muster any significant social support inside Iraq.

The Kurds – the part of the INC with forces and a basewithin Iraq – were engaged in internecine warfare fromthe end of 1993 until 1997. A CIA-backed effort to usenorthern Iraq as a base for an assault on the regime in1995-1996 ended in catastrophe when Washingtonaborted an INC challenge to Iraqi forces along the defacto border and a planned coup in Baghdad failed. At theinvitation of one Kurdish faction, the Kurdish DemocraticParty, the Iraqi army moved into Erbil within the no-flyzone soon thereafter, killing many INC cadres andmilitary defectors, and helping the KDP to defeat itsrivals, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. This episodereinforced the message of the 1991 uprisings, which stillresonates among those seeking to overthrow SaddamHussein’s regime, that the US is not a reliable ally.

Pressure from the INC’s Republican allies inCongress pushed Clinton to sign the Iraq LiberationAct in late 1998, which appeared to signal more active

A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis |11

support for the opposition and made regime changeofficial US policy. But the State Department continuedto have little trust in the effectiveness of the INC, andonly $8 million of the $97 million allotted by the billwas disbursed by the time Clinton left office. Since2000, the opposition has energetically burnished itsimage, but the question of what sort of governmentwould replace the clique around Saddam Hussein hasnot been answered, at least in the public domain. Howto bring about the regime’s overthrow? Options rangedfrom all-out invasion to Special Forces action with theopposition in Iraq to support for a coup staged by theINC and other opposition forces, on the model of UStactics in Afghanistan.

The Bush DoctrineIn George W. Bush’s administration, Iraq policy has been amatter of heated internal debate – over how, not whether,to accomplish regime change. Secretary of State ColinPowell advocated “reenergizing” sanctions and inspectionsbehind a reconstructed Security Council consensus, whileDick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldpushed for US “leadership” in military action, whether ornot it met with international approval.

Beginning early in Bush’s tenure inthe White House, Cheney, Rumsfeldand their subordinates promoted a newforeign policy strategy focusing onpreemptive and, if necessary, unilateralaction capitalizing on the“overwhelming” military power of theUS to preserve Washington’s superpowerstatus indefinitely. Drafts of this strategyhad been prepared before the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, but only after theattacks of September 11, 2001 did adoctrine of preemption become thestated policy of the Bush administration.In September 2002 Bush sent a nationalsecurity strategy to Congress, whichread: “As a matter of common sense andself-defense, America will act againstsuch emerging threats [posed bydangerous technologies] before they arefully formed. We cannot defend Americaand our friends by hoping for the best.”

Leading hawks, such as DeputyDefense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,succeeded in pushing military optionsfor overthrowing Hussein to the top ofthe agenda in the post-September 11climate. To prepare American public

opinion, Bush revived his predecessor’s concept of roguestates, embellishing the rhetoric by labeling Iraq, Iranand North Korea as “an axis of evil.” Like the previoustwo administrations, the Bush team continued to focuson the person of Saddam Hussein, rather than thesystem he presides over, and it remains unclear whowould be acceptable as a leader of Iraq if he weretoppled, and how far the US would insist that structuresof power built over several decades be dismantled.

Although the core of the US case against Iraq concernsthe weapons of mass destruction proscribed by theSecurity Council, the radicals in the Bush administrationat first wanted to sideline the UN entirely, rather thanseeking to work though it and manipulate it, as did thefirst Bush administration and then the Clintonadministration. The more outspoken members of theBush team, especially Rumsfeld, openly disparaged theutility of restarting weapons inspections. But the need toretain at least some allies, especially Britain, and Iraq’sexpressed willingness to accept the weapons inspectorsback finally created pressure to go to the Security Council.

Bush’s speech to the UN on September 12, 2002challenged the UN to endorse new, tougher measures toenforce Iraq’s compliance with UNSC 687, promisingunilateral US action if the UN failed to do so. The

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz with George W. Bush.

Paul Richards/AFP

12 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

subsequent flurry of Arab and international diplomacypersuaded the Iraqi regime to announce four days laterits willingness to readmit inspectors “withoutconditions,” though it subsequently stipulated somerestrictions on inspections of “presidential sites.” The USand Britain commenced eight weeks of intensivelobbying for a new resolution enabling unfettered andmore aggressive inspections, and making war the penaltyfor non-cooperation. Washington engaged in the kind ofbargaining and arm-twisting in the Council that is onlyavailable to a global power. In a speech in Cincinnati onOctober 7, Bush repeated his warnings that the UNwould “prove irrelevant to the problems of our time” ifthe Council did not deliver. Days later, Powell convincedUNMOVIC head Hans Blix to delay new inspectionsuntil a new resolution could be accepted. Meanwhile,apparent Pentagon preparations for war even as the UNdeliberated signaled that the US would attempt to forma “coalition of the willing” behind de facto unilateralmilitary action. Largely to avert that eventuality, Franceand Russia helped the US and Britain secure unanimouspassage of UNSC 1441 on November 8, giving Iraq a“final opportunity” to demonstrate its full disarmamentand threatening “serious consequences” for failure tocomply.

War and International LawIn its draft resolution seeking Congressionalauthorization of force against Iraq, the Bushadministration invoked “the inherent right [of the US],

as acknowledged in the UN Charter, to use force inorder to defend itself.” Article 51 of the UN Charterdoes authorize the use of military force in self-defense,but only if a country has been attacked by another, or isunder imminent threat of attack. The charter goes on tospecify that the right of self-defense only obtains untilthe Security Council has taken measures to restore peaceand security. Following World War II, the internationalcommunity set the bar very high for member statesseeking to justify military action, to prevent a repeat ofthe expansionist aggression of the Axis powers. Aftermaking the political decision to remove SaddamHussein’s regime by force, the Bush administrationpursued a two-track strategy to address the standard setby the UN Charter – one track which (nominally)would meet the standard and another which seeksradically to redefine it.

Given that Iraq has not attacked the US, the USmust demonstrate an imminent threat of Iraqi attack.Hence the Bush war powers resolution also cited “thehigh risk that Iraq will employ [its weapons of massdestruction] to launch a surprise attack against the USor its armed forces or provide them to internationalterrorists,” and top administration officials spokeominously of the “mortal threat” posed by Iraq.

Without reports from inspectors on the ground, theWhite House cannot proffer solid evidence that Iraqpossesses weapons of mass destruction that could targetUS interests. Instead, the Bush administration,buttressed by the media interviews of former inspectors,posited that UNSCOM’s inability to confirm the

eradication of Iraq’s entire weaponsstockpile in 1998 meant that theregime probably retained some ofits arsenal. A dossier on Iraq’sweapons of mass destructionreleased by the British governmenton September 24, 2002 repeatedthe conclusions of publiclyavailable reports on Iraqi weaponscapacity. Evidence in the dossierthat Iraq continued to build illicitweapons after 1998 – such as thecountry’s retention of manyscientists who had worked on thesecret nuclear program before1991 – was circumstantial and notnew. A CIA report published inOctober reached similar andhardly alarming conclusions.

To bolster the urgency of itscase, the British dossier added thecontention – based on unnamedUNSCOM members return from inspection of destroyed warehouse at the Muhammadiyat storage site.

H. Arvidsson/United Nations

A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis |13

intelligence sources – that “as part of Iraq’s militaryplanning, Saddam is willing to use” chemical andbiological weapons. Along with similar claims advancedby US officials, also based on classified intelligence, asof December 2002 this contention was the onlyattempt to prove that the Iraqi regime constituted a“mortal threat.” The lack of fresh evidence in theBritish dossier suggested that the goal of US-Britishpolicy was not to prove the existence of, and eliminate,weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but rather toprovide a casus belli. But most of the Security Councilagreed with the Canadian foreign minister, who saidthat “[the dossier] shows why…inspectors have to getinto Iraq and get in there quickly. I do not read this as asuggestion that Mr. Blair is advocating that we attackIraq immediately.”

The second track of the Bush team’s strategy, muchmore in keeping with its unilateralist philosophy, focusedon the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destructionmight in the future target the West – meaning that theWest should strike first to obviate the threat. Asked tosupply material evidence of the Iraqi threat, NationalSecurity Adviser Condoleezza Rice commented that “wedon’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”Rice’s argument, restated by other administration officials,relied on emotional appeal generated by the September 11attacks: wouldn’t any reasonable person have supported apreemptive strike to stop the hijackers from carrying outtheir plot? Although the Bush administration has yet topresent this case in a sustained fashion, Rice seemed to becontending that, after September 11, 2001, the stringentrequirements of the UN Charter should be replaced withthe far more flexible Bush doctrine of the preemptivestrike. Along with Bush’s vow to attack Iraq unilaterally ifthe Security Council refused to authorize it, theadministration’s strategy revealed its estimation thatinternational law was an obstacle to be overcome ratherthan a guidepost for US policy.

Human RightsThe US and British dossiers calling for regime changealso rely on raising the Iraqi regime’s dismal humanrights record, despite a decade of virtual Westernindifference to these concerns in the 1980s. After the UScited Amnesty International’s reports on Iraq in itsbackground briefing accompanying Bush’s September 14speech to the UN General Assembly, Amnesty observedthat “once again, the human rights record of a country isused selectively to legitimize military actions.” In the1990s, the US and other outside powers have done verylittle to promote human rights protections in Iraq –there is no Security Council resolution mandating, for

instance, that Iraq cooperate with UN human rightsmonitors – not to mention the disregard of the US andother governments for the very severe humanitarianconsequences of economic sanctions.

Iraq’s human rights record is, without question, amongthe very worst in the world. The current government,since it came to power in 1968, has relentlessly suppressedbasic civil and political rights in the country, and sharesresponsibility with the UN Security Council for thehumanitarian disaster caused by more than a decade ofsanctions. Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, masskillings, assassinations of political critics and routinetorture have left the country devastated.

The wars caused by Iraqi aggression, the UN-imposedsanctions and the government’s relentless politicalrepression against virtually all sectors of the populationhave caused massive suffering and dislocation. As manyas five million Iraqis – over 20 percent of the country’spopulation – now live abroad. A recent report by theNorwegian Refugee Council estimated there are 700,000to 1 million internally displaced persons in Iraq.

Exile was not, for many, a matter of choice. Hundredsof thousands of Shiite families – Arabs and Kurds – wereforcibly exiled to Iran in the 1980s, typically with onlythe clothes on their backs. Thousands of villages weresystematically razed in the counter-insurgency campaignagainst Iraq’s Kurds in the north and the marshlandssouth of Baghdad. Conservative estimates place thenumber of Iraqi Kurds systematically put to death in1988 alone at more than 100,000.

“Protecting” the North and SouthThe US and Britain have claimed that the no-fly zonein the north has helped to protect the lives of KurdishIraqis. In practice, such protection as has been providedhas applied only to shelter from Iraqi aircraft, not theTurkish or Iranian air forces. The Turks, pursuing theirwar with the PKK, used both air and ground troops ona regular basis, often causing civilian deaths, injuriesand destruction of property. The US has neverchallenged Turkey’s incursions – though the EuropeanUnion and UN periodically made ineffectual protests.Iraq has claimed substantial civilian casualties from theincreasingly regular US-British bombing raids afterDesert Fox. Fact-finders working for UN SpecialObserver Hans von Sponeck verified that 144 peoplewere killed in the no-fly zones in 1999.

Further, the northern no-fly zone does not coincideexactly with the “de facto” line to which Iraqi troopswithdrew in 1991. The no-fly zone therefore includesMosul, still under government control, but excludesSuleimaniyya, the largest city of the Kurdish-controlled

14 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

region now ruled by two party-based administrations,along with the southern part of that governorate. Alsooutside the zone is the city of Kirkuk, a center of theIraqi oil industry that remains under governmentcontrol. In the Kirkuk region, Kurds are at most directrisk from the Iraqi regime, which has pursued a policyof “Arabization” of the city and its environs. By theconservative estimate of the US Committee forRefugees, in the past ten years nearly 100,000 Kurdshave been expelled from their homes in Kirkuk, infavor of Iraqi Arabs resettled by the regime.

In the south, low-level armed resistance continued after1991, mainly in the marshland areas between the Tigrisand Euphrates, but a southern US-enforced no-fly zoneprovided precious little by way of protection. Thegovernment’s counter-insurgency campaign includedsystematic drainage of the marshes – the utter destructionin less than a decade of the largest wetland ecosystem inthe Middle East. What the UN Environmental Programtermed “one of the world’s greatest environmentaldisasters” led to the nearly complete displacement ofhundreds of thousands of residents.

Dangers AheadEach year sees credible reports from the IraqiCommunist Party and other dissident groups ofhundreds – sometimes thousands – of killings andexecutions. The government has imposed mandatorydeath sentences for non-violent political “crimes” such asrecruiting a current or former Ba‘th Party member intoany other political organization, or publicly insulting the

president or the party. Since 1998,when a directive from the Office ofthe President authorized thecreation of “supervisorycommittees” to “clean up Iraqiprisons,” the government hasconducted mass executions ofpolitical detainees.

Many of these reports have beenverified by interviews withwitnesses and family members whohave fled the government-controlled areas to the north or toother countries. The governmenthas refused entry to independenthuman rights monitors and to thelong-time UN Special Rapporteuron Iraq, Max van der Stoel, whoseone visit occurred in 1992. Thegovernment never permitted himto return. A new rapporteur,

Andreas Mavrommatis, appointed by the UNCommission on Human Rights in 2000, made a brief,four-day visit in February 2002, as “a first step indialogue,” but conducted no fact-finding. Iraq’s well-publicized release of thousands of prisoners in October2002 was most likely a last-minute ploy to disruptSecurity Council negotiations over toughenedinspections, rather than evidence of newfoundwillingness to respect international human rights norms.

The human rights and humanitarian consequencesof any coming war will likely be significant, however.From one side will be potential civilian casualties froma US-led air war and ground invasion. From the Iraqigovernment side, one real danger is the practice of“human shielding” – placing troops and high-valuemilitary targets amidst civilian populations. There isalso a great danger from any chemical and/or biologicalweapons that the government of Iraq may possess –either from a government decision to deploy thoseweapons or from a US decision to target such sites fordestruction. Finally, but not least, a war is likely toproduce a vast refugee crisis and internal displacement,and neighboring countries, especially Jordan, haveindicated they plan to use armed force if necessary toprevent any large influx of Iraqi refugees.

Oil and WarThe Iraqi Ministry of Oil estimated in the mid-1990sthat Iraq could produce six million barrels per daywithin seven years of ending the UN embargo, with$30 billion in foreign investment. But throughout the

Ceyhan

Banias

Oil pipelines

Projected pipeline

Export terminal

Oil field

Gas field

Refinery

10

Oil fields

1 West Qurna2 Rumaila3 Ratawi4 Bin Umar5 Majnoon6 Halfaya7 Nasiriya8 Al-Ahdab9 Kirkuk10 Suba

Gas fields

10 Chemchemal11 Mansuriya

To Red Sea(closed)

Iraq’s oil infrastructure

Petroleum Argus

Iraqi oilfields and pipelines. The Syrian pipeline is now open.

A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis |15

1990s, sanctions prevented major energy conglomeratesfrom exploiting Iraq’s 115 billion barrels of provenpetroleum reserves – second only to those of SaudiArabia – despite the willingness of the Iraqi regimeafter mid-1991 to relax its control of the rigidlynationalized oil industry. Since no geological survey hasbeen conducted in Iraq since the 1970s, experts believethat the proven reserves underestimate the country’sactual oil wealth, which could be as large as 250 billionbarrels. Three decades of political instability and warhave kept Iraq from developing 55 of its 70 provenoilfields. Eight of these untapped reservoirs couldharbor more than a billion barrels each of “easy oil”which is close to the surface and inexpensive to extract.

Sanctions and US law barred American firmscompletely from exploring Iraqi fields, but beginning in1994 international companies signed lucrative contractswith Baghdad in anticipation of the lifting of sanctions.Paris-based companies negotiated an (unsigned)agreement to develop the 18 billion-barrel Majnoonfield, as well as the smaller Nahr bin Umar field, while aRussian consortium inked a deal to develop the WestQurna field, containing an estimated 15 billion barrels.Baghdad also signed contracts with Chinese firms.Frustrated that none of its partners would begin workwhile sanctions remained in place, the Ba‘thist regimefirst threatened to revoke the agreements and todowngrade their attractive terms. Nevertheless, theprospect that oil exploration might start gave Baghdad alifeline of sorts to the UN Security Council. In June2001, France and Russia proposed removing restrictionson foreign investment in the Iraqi oil industry duringSecurity Council deliberations over “smart sanctions.”These attempts to reconstitute Iraq’s oil revenue – andrefill the government’s coffers – ran into staunchopposition from Washington and London. Due todeteriorating infrastructure and a pricing dispute withthe Security Council, in September 2002 Iraq waspumping at less than half its capacity, its legitimate oilsales tightly regulated under the Oil-for-Food program.

In the thinking of the neo-conservatives who pressfor war on Iraq in the Bush White House, the primarybenefit of regime change is to enshrine the Bushdoctrine, but Iraq’s oil reserves offer an importantsecondary benefit. In concert with other producers, aUS-allied Iraqi government might in the future exportenough oil to displace Saudi Arabia as primary arbiterof world oil prices, reducing what influence the Saudiscan exert on US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinianconflict and giving the US more freedom of maneuverin the Gulf.

It is uncertain that a post-war Iraq would be willing orable to assume that role, but the possibility, combined

with the sheer size of Iraqi reserves, has led manyobservers to conclude that oil motivates the US policy ofregime change. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the oppositionIraqi National Congress, fueled these theories when hetold the Washington Post in September 2002 that“American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil.”Under Oil-for-Food, the US has been the leadingconsumer of Iraqi oil, and the long-standing US interestin free access to Persian Gulf oil will doubtless continueto be a pillar of Middle East policy. Cheney’s nationalenergy policy report, released in May 2001, projects thatUS demand for oil will climb 32 percent by 2020, whiledomestic production remains steady. Two thirds of globalpetroleum reserves are found in the Persian Gulf, and theUS military presence in the Gulf certainly aims to securethe westward flow of oil in the future.

But the dogged intensification of sanctions,containment and regime change rhetoric by the US andBritain, when Iraq was prepared to open its oil industryto Western investment, suggests that oil has played amore complicated part in the 12-year confrontationbetween Washington, London and Baghdad. The Iraqiregime has tried to use oil exploration contracts toundermine international support for the sanctions,while using illicit exports to rebuild ties with itsneighbors. Determined to stop the rehabilitation of theregime, but unable to foil its economic survivalstrategies completely through diplomacy, the US andBritain gradually hardened their resolve to removeSaddam Hussein by force.

Toward the DenouementThe Bush team’s determination to topple SaddamHussein both builds on, and radically departs from,international policy on Iraq since 1991, whichessentially has been made by the five permanentmembers of the Security Council. In obtaining UNSC1441, Washington chose to exploit its dominantposition on the Council rather than circumvent thebody. Further disputes, however, are likely. Despite theresolution’s declaration that Iraq is in “material breach”of past resolutions – words that the Bush team takes towarrant the use of force – France, Russia and Chinamaintain that UNSC 1441 contains no “hiddentrigger” authorizing war. Rumsfeld and White Housespokesmen have insisted that Iraqi firing upon US andBritish planes in the no-fly zones is a violation ofArticle 8 of the resolution, which proscribes “hostileactions” directed at the personnel of Security Councilmember states, and hence might justify a US attack.Secretary-General Annan and other Security Councilmembers vocally disagree with this interpretation.

16 | A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis

Conflicting signals emanate from Washington andLondon about what “pattern of Iraqi non-cooperation”would provoke an attack. Meanwhile, Bush, Powell andother high--ranking officials avow that the US will not be“handcuffed” by other Council members’ interpretationsof UNSC 1441. In late November 2002, US Ambassadorto the UN John Negroponte pressed for adding nerve gasantidotes, high-speed computers and parts for heavytrucks to the painstakingly negotiated list of “dual-use”items subject to UN review under Oil-for-Food – afurther indicator that Washington views inspections as aprelude to war, rather than Iraq’s disarmament.

The international atmosphere is not conducive tothe rapid coalition building that was possible before the1991 war. Middle Eastern states in particular are upsetby Bush’s failure to intervene positively in the escalatedIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, by seemingly clumsyattempts to link Iraq to al-Qaeda and by the possibleregional implications of a new war. Regional concernsover an attack on Iraq have been rejected by the Bushadministration as mere public show. Internationalopinion increasingly asks why Security Councildemands upon Iraq should be enforced by militaryaction, when that body’s numerous demands uponIsrael, India, Pakistan, Turkey and Morocco remain

conspicuously unmet. Reports that the US wouldinstall a military administration to govern post-war Iraqprompted nervous comparisons to British and Frenchcolonialism in the Middle East. But in the end manystates may quietly acquiesce in a war, rather than riskangering the Bush administration.

A military assault to remove Saddam Hussein canonly deepen the problems that any new Iraqigovernment will face after two decades of war andsanctions. Civilian infrastructure remains severelydegraded. The once vibrant Iraqi professional classeshave been cut off from advances in knowledge andtechnology since 1990, the work force is deskilled, andthe school system is in grave disrepair. The regime’ssurvival strategies – encouraging tribal and personalloyalties – have widened existing rifts between Iraq’sethnic, religious and tribal groups that may erupt intocommunal strife.

As UNMOVIC inspections proceed, internal Bushadministration debates over the precise trigger for warand the necessity of coalition-building – if not thenecessity of war – will be revived. Still, the 2002 crisisin the Gulf seems to be nearing the denouementdesired by hard-line policymakers in the White House:a test of the Bush doctrine of the preemptive strike.

Available online at www.merip.org or from the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), 1500 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC, 20005 USA

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