Why invade when the U.N. system is disarming Iraq? LINDA MCQUAIG
Every
war has its galvanizing image, aimed at rousing all decent people to
take up arms. In the last Gulf War, it was the image of Iraqi soldiers
ripping Kuwaiti babies out of incubators. (Only afterwards did it come
out that no such thing actually happened.)The
galvanizing image of the upcoming invasion of Iraq has been the story
that Saddam Hussein "gassed his own people." By constantly raising this
1988 atrocity — including in his recent State of the Union address —
U.S. President George W. Bush has managed to paint an image of Saddam
as so uniquely, horrifyingly evil that a war to dethrone him is
justified. As a galvanizing image and call-to-arms, it's hard to beat. It's also, apparently, not true. Given
its sheer centrality to the case against Saddam, one might have thought
that a New York Times article late last month casting doubt on the
"Saddam-gassed-his-own-people" story would have stirred a little
interest, even prompted some skepticism about how much the Bush
administration can be trusted on Iraq.
What makes The Times story compelling is the source — Stephen
Pelletiere, who served as the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq
throughout the 1980s and later taught at the U.S. Army War College in
Pennsylvania. So we're not talking pinko or Saddam-lover.Pelletiere
says that the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq
occurred as part of the fighting in the Iran-Iraq war, after Iranians
seized the town.
Both sides are believed to have used some form of gas on enemy troops,
but the condition of the dead Kurds' bodies in Halabja indicated they
were killed by a cyanide-based gas, which Iran had — and Iraq didn't.
Pelletiere notes that an investigation by the U.S. Defence Intelligence
Agency concluded it was gas released by Iran — not Iraq — that killed
the Kurdish civilians.Using
gas against enemy troops (who are also using it back) is hardly good
behaviour, but it doesn't conjure up the same level of depravity as
gassing one's own defenceless citizens. So the Bush administration,
although it presumably had access to the same inside intelligence as
Pelletiere, didn't hesitate to alter the story considerably, thereby
pushing Saddam's reputation for evil into the stratosphere.
All this provides an interesting backdrop to the dossier presented at
the U.N. last week by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell — a dossier
based on unnamed sources, ambiguous aerial photos and snippets of
overheard conversations, all of which we're supposed to take on faith
that this administration is presenting and interpreting honestly.
(Among the many allegations in the dossier was the claim that Saddam
gassed the Kurds.) One
odd aspect of the whole spectacle was Powell's insistence that war is
immediately necessary to disarm Iraq. But the U.N. is already in the
process of disarming Iraq. The inspectors are on the job, they are
being given unfettered access, nobody in Iraq is threatening to kick
them out. (If more inspectors or more equipment for the inspections are
needed, these can be provided.)In
other words, the U.N. system is working — working so well that we
should consider imposing it on other countries defying U.N. Security
Council resolutions, including Israel, Turkey and Morocco. Interestingly,
the only country hampering the U.N. inspectors from truly getting on
with the job of disarming Iraq is the U.S., which wants to replace this
peaceful process of disarmament with a violent disarmament brought
about by war. Nobody has explained why this would be preferable.In
fact, it would be a clear violation of international law. The U.N.
Charter (chapters 6 and 7) establishes that an attack on another nation
can only be justified in cases of immediate self-defence (hardly
applicable here) or a Security Council decision to use force, which can
be taken only after every possible peaceful channel has been exhausted
(certainly not applicable here!). Ironically, if the U.S. invades now,
it will actually be interrupting the U.N.'s process of disarming Iraq.New
York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who is unabashedly eager for an
invasion, wrote last week that disarming Iraq is Washington's "stated
purpose" while its "unstated purpose" is to transform Iraq into a
"progressive model to spur reform ... around the Arab world." Let's
leave aside the sheer arrogance of this line, and marvel instead at the
heavy-handed way that Friedman envisions this happening. "Iraq will be
controlled by the iron fist of the U.S. army and its allies, with an
Iraqi civilian `advisory' administration gradually emerging behind this
iron fist," he wrote.The
amazing thing is that these lines are written with enthusiasm; Friedman
doesn't even understand that what he's describing is commonly referred
to as imperialism. Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and political commentator. Her column appears every Sunday.
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