A Tiny Revolution: Understanding And Misunderstanding Iraq

You may only read this site if you've purchased Our Kampf from Amazon or Powell's or me
• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming

August 14, 2007

Understanding And Misunderstanding Iraq

UPDATE: Michael Cohen has responded to this here.

Yesterday Atrios got into a blog dust-up with Michael Cohen, who posts at Democracy Arsenal. (Democracy Arsenal is a Democratic foreign policy group blog founded by Suzanne Nossel, who worked for Richard Holbrooke when he was US Ambassador to the UN. Michael Cohen was chief speechwriter for Chris Dodd as well as Bill Richardson when he was US Ambassador to the UN.)

The basic point of contention (see Atrios, Cohen, and Atrios again) is Cohen's view that "Like it or not, there was a defensible case for war in Iraq." Thus, Cohen feels that even though he personally opposed the war, liberal hawk war supporters like his friend Will Marshall shouldn't be mocked. And Atrios doing so is "exactly what is wrong with some elements of the anti-war left -- an inability and unwillingness to even consider the arguments of their opponents." Cohen went on to ask bloggers to refrain from name-calling and instead "advance the debate."

So, I'm going to take Cohen at his word and attempt to do that here. I'll focus on this statement by Cohen, which is the heart of his argument:

I'm not really interested in re-debating the rationale for the war in Iraq, although I will make a few important points, which have seemingly been forgotten:
• Saddam kicked out UN inspectors in 1997 and prevented them from doing their job for more than 5 years.
• It wasn't just the US that believed Saddam had WMD. Read the UNSCOM reports, they make clear that the United Nations believed Iraq was not being honest about its WMD programs.
• The UN Security Council voted 15-0 in 2002 that Iraq was in "material breach" of UN resolutions regarding their WMD program. Moreover, the Council warned of "serious consequences" for continued Iraqi recalcitrance. (Read the UN resolution here).

So the UN Security Council did in fact determine that there was a "defensible case" for war in Iraq -- it wasn't just Will Marshall.

Each of these statements is either factually inaccurate or technically correct but highly misleading. However, I emphasize I'm not claiming Cohen is lying or arguing in bad faith; I'm simply pointing out he's mistaken. Here are the details:

Saddam kicked out UN inspectors in 1997

Inaccurate.

In fact, the UN inspectors were withdrawn at the request of the US on December 16, 1998 (not 1997) after a report by UNSCOM stating that it still "did not enjoy full cooperation from Iraq." The request was made so inspectors would not be endangered by Operation Desert Fox (named, weirdly enough, after Nazi general Erwin Rommel), a four day US/UK bombing campaign conducted December 16-19. The authoritative sources for this are the official UNSCOM chronology (see the December 16, 1998 entry), and The Greatest Threat by Richard Butler, then head of UNSCOM (Butler recounts his conversation with America's acting UN Secretary Peter Burleigh on p. 210).

It was only after Desert Fox—which was undertaken with no UN authorization, and harshly criticized by France, Russia and China—that Iraq announced that it would not permit inspectors to return.

[Saddam] prevented them from doing their job for more than 5 years

Highly misleading.

First of all, it was known before the current war that UNSCOM accomplished a great deal, despite the very real obstructionism of Iraq. (For details of extensive Iraqi non-compliance with inspections, see the UNSCOM chronology.) Rolf Ekeus, Butler's predecessor as head of UNSCOM from 1991-97, said in 2000 that "we felt that in all areas we have eliminated Iraq's capabilities fundamentally." More recently, Ekeus has stated he "was getting close to certifying that Iraq was in compliance with Resolution 687 [the original UN resolution requiring Iraqi disarmament]."

Secondly, and even more importantly, Iraq provided an explanation for its frequent non-compliance: it claimed the US and UK had infiltrated UNSCOM with spies who were attempting to overthrow the regime. For instance, this was the rationale given for Iraq's October, 1997 demand that UNSCOM no longer include American personnel.

There are three critical points to be made about this:

(a) While the US called Iraq's accusations "unfathomable," Iraq was, in fact, correct. The Washington Post's Barton Gellman reported extensively on the subject in March, 1999. (Gellman quotes Butler as telling a friend, "If all this stuff turns out to be true, then Rolf Ekeus and I have been played for suckers, haven't we?") Scott Ritter discusses details of US attempts to use UNSCOM for the purposes of a coup in chapter 13 of his book Iraq Confidential.

(b) We now know Iraq was telling the truth about its motivations for blocking inspections. For instance, one of the main instances of Iraqi non-compliance mentioned in the December 16, 1998 UNSCOM report was Iraq's refusal to allow UNSCOM to inspect a Baath party headquarters. Indeed, Bill Clinton specifically mentioned the headquarters incident in his address to the nation on Desert Fox. Here is the Iraqi perspective, as reported in the CIA's postwar WMD report:

Iraq engaged in denial and deception activities to safeguard national security and Saddam's position in the Regime...Saddam was convinced that the UN inspectors could pinpoint his exact location, allowing US warplanes to bomb him, according to a former high-level Iraqi Government official. As a result, in late 1998 when inspectors visited a Baath Party Headquarters, Saddam issued orders not to give them access. Saddam did this to prevent the inspectors from knowing his whereabouts, not because he had something to hide...

(c) The US infiltration of UNSCOM, which of course was well known to the US government, was never mentioned by the Bush administration in the lead up to war. Instead, Iraqi obstructionism in the nineties was presented as completely illogical unless Iraq were hiding WMD. Moreover, it's still being presented that way. Here's Michael O'Hanlon in his recent interview with Glenn Greenwald:

[T]he circumstantial case that Saddam, who was one of the great users of chemical weapons in history as you know, would have voluntarily given these things up, when he refused to let inspectors verify the fact and therefore deprived himself and his country of tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue. It was just a very hard concept to believe.

In fact, anyone familiar with the circumstances should not have found it "a very hard concept to believe." I found the idea that Saddam Hussein wouldn't want US spies trying to kill him wandering around his palaces a very easy concept to believe—which is one of the reasons I was willing to bet someone $1000 that Iraq had nothing.

It wasn't just the US that believed Saddam had WMD. Read the UNSCOM reports, they make clear that the United Nations believed Iraq was not being honest about its WMD programs.

Highly misleading.

Obviously the US officially "believed" that Saddam had WMD (although there's never been an honest investigation into the pressure exerted on US analysts). It's also the case that UNSCOM, officially speaking, believed that Iraq had never come completely clean about its WMD programs.

But the UN believing Iraq hadn't come completely clean and the UN believing Iraq actually had WMD are two different things. An extremely important point to understand about UNSCOM and Iraq is that UNSCOM never discovered evidence of continuing Iraqi WMD programs after the Gulf War in 1991. What the UN wasn't able to verify was that they had uncovered every last detail of what Iraq had done before 1991. Once again, here's how Rolf Ekeus put it in 2000: "[W]e felt that in all areas we have eliminated Iraq's capabilities fundamentally. There are some question marks left."

Scott Ritter's perspective is well known, of course. And here's the view of Ron Cleminson, a Canadian member of UNSCOM:

"I used to say: 'You know, we basically know amongst ourselves there are no weapons and we're unlikely to find any'...My take on it is that this information was known, and in spades. But this stuff was being pushed on a political level. They [in Washington] were just absolutely ignoring what was obvious. My guess is that with full American cooperation and without all this politics, [UNSCOM's mission] could have been wrapped up in three to four years."

This by no means is to say that everyone at the UN believed Iraq had disarmed. Richard Butler, Ekeus' successor, clearly did believe Iraq was hiding something substantial. And Hans Blix, Butler's successor, has written that his initial "gut feeling" was Iraq had something (though Blix also says by early 2003 he and his team "became doubtful.")

In any case, the UN simply cannot be enlisted as part of a claim that everyone agreed with the US.

The UN Security Council voted 15-0 in 2002 that Iraq was in "material breach" of UN resolutions regarding their WMD program. Moreover, the Council warned of "serious consequences" for continued Iraqi recalcitrance. (Read the UN resolution here). So the UN Security Council did in fact determine that there was a "defensible case" for war in Iraq.

Partly inaccurate, partly highly misleading.

It is, of course, true that UN resolution 1441 included language about Iraq being in "material breach" of its obligations and warned of "serious consequences." However, it absolutely does not follow that the Security Council determined there was a "defensible case" for war. In fact, such a claim doesn't make any sense. The Security Council is not in the business of declaring that a "defensible case" for war exists. Rather, it either grants authorization for war, or it does not. If the Security Council had wished to grant authorization for war, it would have used very specific language: that member states were permitted to use "all necessary means" to enforce the relevant resolutions. (For example, see paragraph 2 of UN Security Council Resolution 678, which authorized the Gulf War in 1991.)

And indeed, when 1441 was passed, Security Council members explicitly stated that they had voted for it in the belief it did not provide "automaticity" for the use of force. Instead, the resolution says that the Security Council would "remain seized of the matter"—i.e., the Security Council, and no one else, remained in charge of what happened next. Here's John Negroponte, then US Ambassador to the UN:

The resolution contained...no “hidden triggers” and no “automaticity” with the use of force.

Jeremy Greenstock, UK Ambassador to the UN:

...there was no “automaticity” in the resolution. If there was a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter would return to the Council for discussion.

France:

If the inspection authorities reported to the Council Iraq had not complied with its obligations, the Council would meet immediately and decide on a course of action. France welcomed the lack of “automaticity” in the final resolution.

Mexico:

Those who had advocated the automatic recourse to the use of force had agreed to afford Iraq a final chance...The resolution had eliminated “automaticity” in the use of force as a result of material breach. He welcomed the acceptance of the two-stage approach.

Joint statement by France, China and Russia:

Resolution 1441 (2002) adopted today by the Security Council excludes any automaticity in the use of force. In this regard, we register with satisfaction the declarations of the representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom confirming this understanding in their explanations of vote...
In case of failure by Iraq to comply with its obligations...It will be then for the Council to take position on the basis of that report.

So there's really no question how 1441 was understood by the countries voting for it. Furthermore, just two weeks before the US and UK went to war without a second resolution (after Bush lied and claimed he'd demand a vote), the UK attorney general believed such a war would be illegal. Indeed, his assistant Elizabeth Wilmshurst ended up resigning because she believed the invasion would be a "crime of aggression."

Later Kofi Annan said the invasion was illegal, as did even Richard Perle. Essentially the only people who earth who believe the war didn't violate international law are George Bush and Tony Blair.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that the Security Council "defensible case" gambit is not one Will Marshall or anyone else in the US foreign policy establishment is likely to embrace as a general principle. For example, by that standard, given the numerous UN resolutions that Israel has defied, any country on earth could claim authorization to attack them.

• • •

So that's it as far as the basic facts go. I'll send this to Michael Cohen and ask him to respond.

But there's one last important point: if I can speak for Atrios and most progressive bloggers, their perspective is not that they're refusing to "advance the debate." Rather, their point is that as far as US foreign policy goes, there is no debate. We can screw around on blogs for the rest of our lives, we could be proven correct about 100 more wars, and no one with our perspective would ever be allowed on TV. Likewise, Kenneth Pollack could be catastrophically wrong about 100 more wars, and he would still be on Nightline every week. That's because being right has absolutely nothing to do with "the debate." That's the way it is, and unless it changes, all the time I spent writing this was absolutely pointless. I hope Cohen can appreciate that it's a bit frustrating to be asked to "advance the debate" under these circumstances, and to be told we have "seemingly forgotten" things that never happened.

But maybe the system's more open than I think. If Michael wants to give this post to his former bosses now running for president—Richardson and Dodd—and they start talking about everything I examined here, then I'll admit there's a real debate and one the anti-war left should join, with no namecalling. It would be particularly fruitful if Richardson could talk about the US infiltration of UNSCOM, given that he had a front row seat when he was US Ambassador to the UN.

Somebody should let me know if that happens, though, because I won't be waiting up.

Posted at August 14, 2007 02:13 PM | TrackBack

Comments

When you nail them on facts and specifics, they switch to moralizing (i.e.: Saddam was a bad guy, etc). When you expose the hypocrisy of their moralizing, they'll switch back to silly legalistics and loose interpretation of facts without missing a beat. That's just how the game is played - with Iraq, with Palestine, with Iran, you name it. Nothing you can do here; there is no rational debate and can't be. We're in different dimensions, on different planets.

Posted by: abb1 at August 14, 2007 04:18 PM

well done, anyhow.

cohen:

Like many who commented, I believed the benefit of getting rid of Saddam did not outweigh the cost to America's national interests.

somewhere out there, there's a bag of benefits large enough to make a nuclear war worthwhile, isn't there. i wonder what it looks like. how big it is.

Posted by: hapa at August 14, 2007 05:07 PM

Cohen includes the following quote from Will Marshall, saying, "I absolutely agree."

The challenge for Democrats, then, is neither to blindly support nor reflexively oppose Bush's plans toward Iraq. It is to articulate their own case against Saddam, one that is grounded in the party's tradition of progressive internationalism and that allays any lingering public doubts about its willingness to confront those who threaten our country, our friends, and the ideals we share.

So there's your foreign policy "debate" right there. Republicans decide that the #1 threat to America is Saddam Hussein, and Democrats are given the the option of "articulat[ing] their own case against Saddam." And if they don't, they're being irresponsible.

And now, five years later, Republicans have decided that the #1 threat to America is Iran. Democrats, you know what to do: articulate your own case against Iran, and do it pronto.

Posted by: SteveB at August 14, 2007 05:07 PM

I'm awestruck and grateful. Bravo!!

Typo alert: In the paragraph that begins with "Later Kofi Annan..." and ends with "George Bush and Tony Blair", I'm sure you meant to say "violate international law".

Posted by: Nell at August 14, 2007 05:58 PM

Jon: This is an awesome post!

(I'll bookmark it for future reference.)

Atrios and Glen Greenwald need to link to it!

Posted by: Bernard Chazellec at August 14, 2007 06:52 PM

So the problem, from the existing establishment perspective with the internet debate, vs the print/tv debate is that no one can frame the discussion to within the "official" boundaries.

Cohen can pull bullshit all day long in the media circles his backers control, because he knows it's a one sided medium. Ultimately the backers views will be the ones carried by the media. Wouldn't work in a real world discussion, but it's previous decades of effectiveness has made the think tank class lazy. The worst thing they ever did to themselves was to shout down Chomsky off the TV. They have grown fat and ineffective, while the rest of us have gotten lean and hungry.

So Jonathan how bout some regional meetups so that we can start fund raising to develop some real internet based Video and Print Services?

Your argument today was not wasted, as it is very illustrative of the problem, and will serve as a permanent guide post to anyone googling for answers.

The solution is to build our own media. Our own newspapers, our own video and audio services with the intention that they feed and clothe the people who work them.

If Alex Jones can thrive, if Michael Moore can thrive, why not us?

Posted by: patience at August 14, 2007 06:53 PM

Nossel's blog is called "Democracy Arsenal" ...

Which raises two scholarly questions:

1. Hasn't the English language suffered enough?

2. Why is it all foreign policy experts, male and female, suffer from penis envy?

Posted by: Bernard Chazelle at August 14, 2007 07:10 PM

I wonder for whose benefit they put out crap like this? Gen-Ys that didn't follow it in real time? If they gave it a few more years that may play out.

I really think you spent too much effort on the last one,

"The UN Security Council voted 15-0..."

since the UN security council would vote for whatever would give them immediate advantage in supporting US policy. But one could only get that impression if one actually follows UN activities during times of sabre-rattling; otherwise one could easily assume that UN voting was detached from US backdoor diplomacy.

Posted by: Ted at August 14, 2007 08:17 PM

Incredibly well done Jonathan, You did a service to all of us DFH anti-war types :-) Thank you very much and kudos.

Posted by: Dee Loralei at August 14, 2007 09:30 PM

People who oppose war are left with the burden of proof. I'll never understand that.

Posted by: Weston at August 14, 2007 09:53 PM

I hope this post of yours gets a response, not just from Cohen, but also from some of the big name bloggers. What's really great about the blogosphere is that people can not only snark at the people with influence, they can also take them apart on factual grounds.

I wouldn't expect to see something like this on the op ed page of the NYT, because it's written somewhere in the book of Revelation that truthful commentary there other than by Krugman and Herbert is one of the signs of an impending Apocalypse, but it deserves widespread bloggy coverage.

Posted by: Donald Johnson at August 14, 2007 10:16 PM

burden of proof. when all you have is a hammer, and you work for a hammer manufacturer based in hammertown, NH, and belong to the hammer-of-the-month club, co-host the slam-jam-hammer radio show with another member of your saturday morning hammer salon, and are the most winning contestant ever on hammer island -- what nail? who cares if there's a nail?

Posted by: hapa at August 14, 2007 10:26 PM

The facts are so transparently clear that anyone who denies them — particularly having been in a position with clear access to all of the available information — is a lying sack of shit.

So, Michael Cohen, you're a lying sack of shit.

Fuck civility.

Posted by: Mike at August 15, 2007 01:33 AM

Suzanne Nossel is a Neo-Zionist, as is her strap-on victim Michael Cohen. They dish bias. What's the mystery?

Even worse, Nossel used to work as a consultant for McKinsey. Now that's kinky!

Marc

Posted by: MarcLord at August 15, 2007 01:58 AM

Love this: "Like many who commented, I believed the benefit of getting rid of Saddam did not outweigh the cost to America's national interests."

It's not surprising his ethical calculus doesn't extend beyond whatever the U.S.'s national interests are said to be today. It would be nice if he could also acknowledge that invading countries for our "national interest" is wrong.

Posted by: StO at August 15, 2007 04:12 AM

Jon Schwarz simply destroys with pinpoint accuracy from here on out any and all arguments for the "defensible case" theory of the Iraq war.

Any time I see or hear anyone from now on blathering on about how the US was forced into the conflict etc. All I will have to do is to send them the link to this post and say "read this first and then come back to me"

I have heard this more times than I can remember from my "enlightened" lib colleagues. At least the right wing dudes I meet readily admit that they like the idea of the US Military kicking the shit out of the Arabs so there is no sense in any discussion on any level with them. They do not try to justify "hard decisions" like the majority Democretins.

Unfortunately Jon's devastating analysis won't do much as Atrios, KOS and rest of the Dems are willing to sugar coat anything their leaders want them to eat

So in the end, they will eat the shit sandwich (with lots of sugar) and find it very tasty I'm sure! see Dennis Perrin (http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html)

Posted by: Sam at August 15, 2007 04:53 AM

It's debates such as I read above, with real Americans participating, which gives me hope for all our futures. I always knew the Spirit of America lives on.

Posted by: The Sea Dreamer at August 15, 2007 06:44 AM

Your effort in writing this was *not* pointless. Please don't lose hope. Even if the MSM never tell the story, more people every day are turning to alternate sources -- like YOU -- to resolve the contradictions that they sense in the conventional wisdom. That's how I got here.

Peter Gabriel has these words for facing a seemingly hopeless situation: I will do what I can do.

Posted by: peteb at August 15, 2007 08:57 AM

Jon, I cannot agree with your hateful, hateful post. Are you saying that Saddam Hussein was not a bad man? I disagree. Saddan Hussein was a very, very bad man.

Posted by: Autumn Harvest at August 15, 2007 10:05 AM

Why the Brian Williamses and Katie Courics, with their crack staffs(?) of researchers can't be bothered to connect the dots is beyond me-- do you have a crack staff, or just your Mac and your noggin? Anyway, this is the thing you do better than just about everybody in th' internets-- bravo.

well, that and the funny stuff. but again, bravo.

Posted by: Jonathan versen at August 15, 2007 10:27 AM

Many of us got it right in early 2003. Although the essay below was turned down by nearly all U.S. media outlets, it was picked up and featured prominently by the New Zealand Herald, and as a result I was even interviewed on a NZ nationally broadcast radio show. In some places around the world, a real debate did take place . . .

REASONS FOR WAR RING FALSE

AJ Oliver, February, 2003

We who soldiered for our country in Vietnam learned some painful
lessons: one was that our government is not always truthful about why it sends
young Americans off to kill and die. The reason that I write this is that –
now, in 2003 - it looks like they’re at it again.

When I was sent to Vietnam as a soldier, I had faith in our political
leaders, and believed what they were saying about the war. Trust in the
government was high back then, and it just never occurred to most of us that
our highest officials were not being forthcoming as to why we were being taken
from our homes and families and sent away to fight in a far off land.

We were so naive. It turned out that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
that authorized an expanded war in 1964 was based on events that never
happened. There was no light at the end of the tunnel because the body counts
were fictional, and contrary to what we were told, South Vietnamese governments
never had the support of their own people. Richard Nixon later admitted that
he never really had a “secret plan” to end the war.

I could go on, but you get the point. Deception and delusion led, probably
inevitably, to a disastrous outcome for both countries; hundreds of thousands
of young Americans were torn from their homes and communities – many never to
return – for phony reasons. A more grievous insult to the American people by
their own leaders cannot be imagined.

Sadly, the evidence is overwhelming that government deception did not
end with the war in Vietnam. Many of the same officials who are now leading
the rush to war are the same ones who in 1990 orchestrated a campaign of
propaganda to rally public support for Desert Storm.

Here’s the evidence. During the run-up to the first Gulf War, we were
treated to the vision of a weeping young Kuwaiti girl testifying before
Congress about the brutal Iraqi soldiers who she had seen in a Kuwaiti
hospital, taking babies from incubators and stealing the machines. And then
there was the claim that U.S. troops had to be rushed to Saudi Arabia to defend
it against hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops and hundreds of tanks that
were massed for an invasion.

The incubator story, it turned out, was totally invented. The teary-
eyed girl was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., and
had not even been in Kuwait when the alleged offenses occurred. The troop
build-up story was almost certainly black propaganda. Commercial satellite
photos showed no Iraqi forces massing in the area at that time, and the U.S.
government has for twelve years refused to de-classify the photos it claimed as
evidence.

Now, in 2003, we are witnessing a continuation of the same pattern of
deception. The Bush national security team, sitting at the apex of a
gargantuan intelligence bureaucracy with a combined annual budget in excess of
fifty billion dollars, seems wholly unable to organize a factual case as to why
war is necessary.

For example, all their impressive intelligence resources didn’t reveal
the fact that the British “intelligence dossier” that Colin Powell praised in
his UN speech was mostly clumsy plagiarism: key parts had been lifted from an
out-of-date paper written by a student who had never been to Iraq.

In a September 7 speech, the President referred to a 1998 International Atomic
Energy report revealing that Iraq was only months away from having nuclear
weapons. There was no such report. On the contrary, IAEA chief inspector
ElBaradei denies that Iraq has an active nuclear weapons program.

The UN weapons inspectors have also denied there is proof that important files
are being hidden, that Iraqi officials are being tipped off on the sites to be
visited, and – most importantly – that there is an imminent threat from weapons
of mass destruction.

It is also the case that no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks has
been established, or that – in Powell’s words – Iraq and Al Qaeda
are “partners”. In recent days the Bush team has tried to convince us that
they are deeply concerned about the freedom and human rights of the Iraqi
people – a concern that was notably absent when some of the same people were
arming and supporting Saddam.

The Bush administration’s persuasive techniques consist mostly of
throwing crap at the wall in the hope that something might stick, and never
admitting – much less correcting - any mistakes. This singular lack of candor
does a grave disservice to the American people, especially to those being torn
from their families and communities and sent away to fight. Unless and until
they can be straight with us, they have no right to disrupt and risk the lives
of our youth.

In centuries past, arrogant and unaccountable elites considered average
people to be expendable, as pawns in the great game, as mere fodder for
cannons. The idea that they might have a responsibility to communicate
honestly with their subjects would have been greeted with total incredulity.
It is time that we left those days behind.

-END-

Posted by: AJ Oliver at August 15, 2007 10:28 AM

"Like many who commented, I believed the benefit of getting rid of Saddam did not outweigh the cost to America's national interests."

Hmmm. I see Stratego or Risk, or even Monopoly; not The Game of Life.

America's national interests are things like affordable healthcare, good and affordable education, control of our energy use and ending the erosion of our climate. No?

Or perhaps America's national interests have nothing to do with Americans. To extend the game board metaphor, Saddam was only a pawn in their game. Someone should write a song.

Posted by: Bob In Pacifica at August 15, 2007 10:49 AM

Jonathan, there is great value in taking up Cohen on his offer, although it is difficult to choke back the nausea and dispassionately debate a question that has emptied so many chairs at so many family gatherings and broken so many hearts - all to keep American SUVs well-supplied with petrol.

Remember the prize in this contest is not the choir of (justifiably) angry anti-war true believers, but those who are on the fence, who don't get the outrage, who are checked out precisely because of the emotionalism that marks expressions from both ends of the spectrum.

The contrast between your willingness to deal in facts and the emotion-mongering of our opponents on the other side of the polico-cultural divide is just what is needed to convert those who see us as no different than our screaming, sloganeering opponents.

Thanks for this. I will refer doubters to this writing. Keep it coming, and publish it wherever you can.

My grandpa taught me how to fight. He had a lot of experience. He told me you might as well lie down and let the other guy stomp on you once you loose your cool.

So keep your head, and keep punching, Champ.

Posted by: David Keith Johnson at August 15, 2007 10:55 AM

This is an awesome post, one that should form a reference point for future conversations on the subject. I'll also add that Iraq cooperated quite well with the inspectors following resolution 1441, allowing them unrestricted access to all sites including presidential palaces, and producing a 12,000 page report detailing how it had disposed of its various weapons programs. Blix gave a speech on Jan 30 describing some failures in compliance - namely, that Iraq was not pro-active enough, and it should do better, and that he needed some specific things, e.g. a list of people who could be interviewed verifying that anthrax stockpiles had been destroyed, etc. It's obvious that Blix is stating all this as simply a report on the progress of the investigations, and fully expects further improvement on the part of Iraq (as he states). But this speech was used by the US and UK as evidence of Iraqi non-compliance to declare Iraq in "material breach", when this is hardly the spirit of what was happening in Iraq at the time.

Posted by: saurabh at August 15, 2007 11:05 AM

Many of the points that Jonathan makes appear in the comments to Michael Cohen's post (although not as nicely tied together and explained as in Jonathan's lovely post). Here's Cohen's defense of the first war rationale:

Junius Brutus:

Saddam did not kick out the inspectors in 1997. Clinton took them out so he could launch missile attacks. You don't even have the most basic facts straight.

Michael Cohen:

Actually, Junius, that is wrong. Saddam kicked the inspectors out in 1997. Look it up.

Based on this, I'm guessing that Jonathan isn't going to get a detailed response from Cohen any time soon. Incidentally, it's not that hard to "look it up." If anyone's unclear which side is right on this fact, just go to google and type "saddam kicked out weapons inspectors".

Posted by: Autumn Harvest at August 15, 2007 11:50 AM

WAR is always a bad move, a poor choice at best, to be used when it is your ONLY choice. Although ENTERTAINING, rehashing the lies that go us here IS moot. WE are in Iraq for the long haul and it has been a long haul to this point. WE will learn NOTHING from this experience (just as we learned nothing from Viet Nam)and will make the SAME MISTAKES in OUR next misadventure. (Iran/Pakistan)(it's the "leaders" we hire) Playing the blame game is ok if you are going to punish the perpitraitors, if not, then it's just stirring shit to make it smell worse. I want to see these criminals punished (I have a Dream) which is why I urge people to call Nancy Pelosi @ 1-202-225-0100 and discuss IMPEACHMENT. I do it in the hope of seeing JUSTICE DONE. Call today.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at August 15, 2007 12:20 PM

Great post. I'd read this all before here and there, but it's nice to see it all tied together.

Altogether lacking in this debate, though, is the point that, even if Saddam did have WMDs, and even if inspections verified their existence (which of course they didn't), that was not, in itself, a justification for invasion. There was no evidence (that I know of) that Saddam intended to attack the US, or even that he'd done any saber-rattling in our direction.

Yes, one could make the argument that he was a threat to the region that was the primary supplier of America's oil addiction, and thus an indirect danger to "national security", but using the price of gas as a justification for war would not sit well with a lot of people (the Bush admin apparently believed that, anyway).

This is exacty why so many pundits are now peddling the "islamofacist" threat - to the point of having many conservative (and some liberal) Americans believing that there a actual danger of our country being overrun by militant Muslims. They need people to believe that there is a concrete and immediate threat to our homes and families, because there are a still a lot of folks who couldn't stomach the idea of going to war over oil (especially once the footage of burned children's bodies being pulled from the rubble began circulating).

In that light, the details being debated here seem mainly irrelevant to me. There are plenty of unstable dictatorships with WMDs still in existence - many of whom are supplied by and allied with the US (and often created by us in the first place - to insure the continued flow of cheap resources), and we aren't invading them...yet (at least until they decide to renegotiate their contract - then all the trivial details of UN resolutions and weapons inspections will suddenly become oh-so-important).

Posted by: Daldude at August 15, 2007 01:02 PM

That was what I thought when reading Cohens arguments. But of course I didn't do the hard work like you, but instead lost my cool and called Cohen a liar.
But he must be a liar. After all he is foreign policy professional and can't be that stupid.

Posted by: IM at August 15, 2007 02:02 PM

Thank you to Autumn Harvest for quoting me from my comments on Cohen's blog. Cohen is pathetic. I've offered detailed point-by-point refutations. He repeatedly pretends to respond to my arguments by being completely unresponsive and simply repeating what he already said. Schwarz's post here is fantastic. You should post it in the comments on Cohen's blog.

Let me add a little to the fisking by reprinting here my latest response to Cohen's non-response. There is more detail in my comments upthread on Cohen's blog, but here is the gist:

1) Re whether Saddam kicked out the inspectors:

a) You're simply and obviously equivocating. The primary meaning of saying that someone has been "kicked out" is that they have been removed by physical force or commanded by someone in a position of authority to leave. Hussein did not physically expel the inspectors, nor did he order them to vacate the country. You could imagine an evil dictator doing just that or even worse. Hussein did not do that. Richard Butler did that. This is the plain meaning of words.

b) Your disingenuous fallback position is that you didn't literally mean that Hussein had kicked them out, just that he had effectively forced them out. But that is precisely the point of the material I posted from Scott Ritter. But you didn't choose to address Ritter's claims. Ritter says it was the UN that stopped cooperating first. He said that in 98% of the cases Hussein was cooperating and in the other cases he was invoking an agreement that he had with the UN that allowed him to limit the inspection teams to 4 people. In the case the UN cites as Hussein's lack of cooperation, Hussein agreed to allow the smaller team in but Butler said forget it.

Its possible Ritter is lying. As far as I know he isn't. But did you make an argument that Ritter is lying or wrong? No. You didn't address it at all. That's what I mean by non-responsiveness.

2) Re your other claim that It wasn't just the US that believed Saddam had WMD. Read the UNSCOM reports, they make clear that the United Nations believed Iraq was not being honest about its WMD programs.

You finally at least give the appearance of addressing the objection by quoting the following, "The history of the Special Commission's work in Iraq has been plagued by coordinated efforts to thwart full discovery of Iraq's proscribed programmes."

But again this non-responsive to the objection I made. My objection was that you were playing a sophistic little trick. On the one hand you were claiming that the UN believed Saddam had WMD. But to "support" this claim, in the next sentence you cite a UN report that says Iraq wasn't being honest about its WMD. It is true that the UN believed Hussein wasn't being honest. They said that he had not fully documented the destruction of some old chemical weapons. But the dishonesty they are alleging is that Hussein is withholding documents, not WMD. What's worse is that UNMOVIC explicitly warns against leaping from the allegation of dishonesty to the assumption of WMD possession. I quoted the UNMOVIC report on exactly this point and put it in bold. But despite being warned by me and UNMOVIC that that is an illegitmate move, you simply make that same move all over again. Merely repeating the same sophistic argument does not count as being responsive.

3) Re your point that The UN Security Council voted 15-0 in 2002 that Iraq was in "material breach" of UN resolutions regarding their WMD program.

I argued that the later UNMOVIC report moots this argument. As of February 2003, as I quoted above, UNMOVIC said Hussein was cooperating fully and they had found nothing. The only unresolved issue was the unaccounted for chemical weapons agent.

But, as I argued above:

As we now know, Hussein was telling the truth. There simply wasn't enough documentation to prove it. There also was no evidence that he had WMD. The fact that he can't prove he doesn't doesn't mean that you can prove he does. But if you want to launch a aggressive preventive war, you need more cause than the fact that a 3rd world country doesn't have complete documentation for their weapons. Hell, the U.S. right now can't account for $19 billion or hundreds of thousands of weapons in Iraq. The DOD can't account for literally a trillion dollars it was appropriated over the last 20-30 years. Lack of documentation is very weak and at best merely suggestive "evidence". There was plenty of other evidence far more strongly showing that he didn't, including inspections, the testimony of Hussein Kamel, whose testimony we accepted on every other point, and the fact that all of our other intelligence failed to prove the case.

Of course, you haven't responded to that either.