What If Iraq Was Never Invaded?
World Scott Malensek, Featured Writer
November 13, 2007
The Iraq War is the debate of the new millennium. Five years after the fact, people should be able to look at the decision to invade more as a matter of history than through political partisanship. That’s certainly not always the case, but as more time passes the clarity and focus of hindsight increases. First and foremost, one thing is clear: the debate over the decision to invade is over. Saddam’s regime was invaded, removed, and the decision was made. Now, the debate is not what to DO in terms of Saddam’s regime, but what could have been DONE (the so-called “coulda-should-woulda” discussion).
In September 2002, after four years without a single human intelligence asset inside Saddam’s regime, the United States government began getting reports from a spy inside his inner circle. This spy was so valuable, and in such danger, that it wasn’t until years after the invasion of Iraq that his presence was even quietly revealed. Between 2002 and 2006, only a handful of people in the Bush Administration’s national security team, and no more than 4 people in all of the Central Intelligence Agency even knew of this spy’s reporting.
“In September 2002, the CIA obtained, from a source, information that allegedly came from a high-level Iraqi official with direct access to Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. The information this source provided was considered so important and so sensitive that the CIA’s Directorate of Operations prepared a highly restricted intelligence report to alert senior policymakers about the reporting. Because of the sensitivity, however, that it was not disseminated to Intelligence Community analysts. The intelligence report conveyed information from the source attributed to the Iraqi official which said:”
? “Iraq was not in possession of a nuclear weapon. However, Iraq was aggressively and covertly developing such a weapon. Saddam, irate that Iraq did not yet have a nuclear weapon because money was no object and because Iraq possessed the scientific know how, had recently called meeting his Nuclear Weapons Committee.”
? “The Committee told Saddam that a nuclear weapon would be ready within 18-24 months of acquiring the fissile material. The return of UN inspectors would cause minimal disruption because Iraq was expert at denial and deception.”
? “Iraq was currently producing and stockpiling chemical weapons
? “Iraqi scientists were dabbling with biological weapons with limited success, but the quantities were not sufficient to constitute a real weapons program.”
? “Iraq’s weapons of last resort were mobile launchers armed with chemical weapons which would be fired at enemy forces and Israel.”
-Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II pt2 report on “Pre-War Intelligence and Assessments”; “Additional Views” section, pg. 142
Aside from this high level intelligence asset, the Bush Administration was getting intelligence reporting from all over the world. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarrak, Jordan’s King Hussein, Saudi high princes, United Arab Emirate princes, German intelligence, French intelligence, Italian intelligence, British intelligence, independent intelligence groups like Jane’s Defence and the International Institute of Strategic Studies…all of these and many more were informing the Bush administration that Saddam’s regime: had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, had close ties to Al Qaeda leadership, and many reports claimed that his regime was pursuing a nuclear bomb.
Since the United States had only been able to get one spy inside Iraq, and since foreign intelligence indicated there was great reason to be concerned, the United States turned to its electronic spies. Satellite intelligence seemed to confirm many of these reports (as well as satellite intelligence possibly can). Images taken over many of Saddam’s chemical, biological, and nuclear production facilities (facilities destroyed by the Clinton Administration in the December 1998 Desert Fox strikes) showed that these facilities had been rebuilt in the past four years. NSA electronic eavesdropping seemed to confirm many of these reports.
The intelligence was suggesting there was a threat, but it wasn’t proving it. Prior to the September 11th attacks a year earlier, the Bush Administration and America’s intelligence agencies had been accused of dismissing intelligence reports that indicated threats. In the presence of the human intelligence reports, the international threat reports, and the apparently corroborating satellite intelligence reports, the Bush Administration was loathe to dismiss the possibility of a re-armed Saddam with ties to Al Qaeda. The possibility of Saddam attacking the United States using a deniable proxy to wage the attack (Al Qaeda) was too dangerous to dismiss.
At the very least, the United States needed to take diplomatic efforts to get United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq to try and monitor, observe, and if possible verify that Saddam’s WMD stockpiles and production capabilities were in compliance with the terms of the 1991 cease fire agreement and the subsequent 17 United Nations resolutions demanding he prove to the world that he had disarmed his nation of various “proscribed” munitions. In the eleven previous years, Saddam had failed to do comply, and, in fact, rather than show an effort to comply, he was often caught manipulating and skirting the UN inspectors so as to maintain an illegal WMD capability; one that would have certified the 1991 cease fire and officially ended the war (a conflict that was on hold with tense brinkmanship every 4-6 months for 11 years as well as air combat every few weeks).
Diplomacy had been tried with Saddam and his regime for decades. It had almost always failed. Only when there was the credible threat of military force did the regime respond even partially to diplomatic efforts. On four separate occasions, the previous Bush and Clinton Administrations had sent troops to the Persian Gulf in preparation for invading Iraq. There had been three missile attacks on Saddam’s regime, four large scale air bombings, two on-going air supremacy operations controlling the airspace above Saddam’s regime, and a naval blockade (sanctioned by the UN). All of these efforts only managed to get minor concessions from Saddam, and after eleven years the dangerous question of whether or not the dictatorial regime with ties to Al Qaeda still had weapons of mass destruction; weapons capable of being given to Al Qaeda and used to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans in a deniable, proxy, terrorist attack that would benefit Saddam and Al Qaeda without being traced back to Saddam and thus retaliation by the United States (recall that even today, many people refuse to recognize and connect the American war with Saddam on the September 11, 2001 attacks).
Thus, for the Bush Administration to confirm or dismiss the threatening intelligence reports in September 2002 for diplomatic efforts to succeed the credible threat of force was needed. The threat had to be real. In the past, the earlier Bush and Clinton Administrations had tried to use the military to bluff Saddam into compliance with international resolutions, and had failed increasingly. By the end of the Clinton Administration, Saddam was freely flaunting threats of US military action, and he was right to do so. The American people and government had no desire or resolve for war as demonstrated by the soft effect of the 1998 Desert Fox strikes, the weak response to other attacks on the U.S. (a few missiles in response to the devastating attacks in Kenya and Tanzania), and the absolute failure to respond at all to the U.S.S. Cole attack.
“Saddam later regarded the air strikes associated with Desert Fox in December 1998 as the worst he could expect from Western military pressure.” - Iraq Survey Group, vol 1, pg. 49
By 2001, it was clear to Saddam, Bin Laden, and everyone in the world that the American people and their government preferred to respond to any action with less and less military force; specifically, no military force by 2001. And so in September 2002, for diplomacy to succeed, a credible threat of military force would be needed, and the previous years of less and less military response to Saddam made this more difficult.
However, America had changed. In the wake of the 911 attacks, the American people were roused to war, and the nation recognized that it was at war. The Taliban in Afghanistan tried to use diplomatic efforts almost identical to Saddam’s stalling tactics, but after 911, and with a different President in command, the full force of the US military was no longer held back for fear of political consequences and popularity. Saddam did not recognize the new American political courage and commitment.
The post-911 focus on national security, the danger of the threatening intelligence on Iraq from multiple sources, the commitment to not dismiss such intelligence (as was alleged part of the cause of the 911 attacks), and the factual need to present a credible threat of military force to Saddam as the only chance of making diplomacy confirm/disprove the warnings from around the world, all of these combined and made the Bush Administration place the US/Iraq relationship on a path that would either lead the peaceful end to the 1991 Gulf War after all those years of skirmishing, or the invasion of Iraq and the violent end to the skirmishing and constant acts of war that had allegedly left a million Iraqis dead from USAF bombings, the US Naval blockade (UN sanctions), and as many as half a million Americans dead and dying from ‘Gulf-War Syndrome’ which resulted from exposure to destroyed WMD and the toxic effects of being stationed in the area where Saddam had set fire to hundreds of Kuwait’s oil wells and deliberately let loose the largest oil spill in world history.
After eleven years the 1991 war had to end, and President Bush was committed to making that happen. The presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia (forces that were there to maintain air supremacy over Iraq), the US-led blockade/sanctions of Iraq, and the US support for Israel were the three major, reoccurring themes in all of Osama Bin Laden’s declarations of war against the United States before and since 911. (911 Commission, pg 48-49). Resolving the long simmering war that seemed to boil every 4-6 months would remove 2/3 of Osama Bin Laden’s excuses for attacking the US.
In September 2002 more Israelis had died in suicide bus bombings than Americans had died in the 911 attacks, and so the Bush Administration was seeking diplomatic efforts with the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and moderate Arab leaders as a means to ending that terror campaign, and in the course of those discussions President Bush was the first President in American history to openly, specifically advocate Palestinian Statehood. Support for Israel lessened a bit with constrictions added to some arms sales, but parallel to the diplomatic/military effort at ending the long drawn-out war with Saddam was an effort to remove the Israel issue from Osama Bin Laden’s casus belli. If all three of Al Qaeda’s core excuses for war were removed, then it was hoped that support for the organization would dwindle in correlation. This was yet another motivating factor (among many factors) that put the US on a course towards finality with Iraq-a course which began with President Bush’s address to the United Nations on September 12th, 2002.
As was the historic trend in previous US/Iraq relations (1980-2003), diplomacy failed. After the war members of Saddam’s inner circle were captured and every single one claimed that Saddam never really believed that the US was willing to do more than throw a few missiles or drop a few bombs.
“Saddam speculated that the United States would instead seek to avoid casualties and, if Iraq was attacked at all, the campaign would resemble Desert Fox.” - Iraq Survey Group, vol 1, pg. 32
It wasn’t until it was too late to prove that he was in compliance with the UN that he finally recognized the US and its Coalition partners were willing to invade. Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s Foreign Minister confirmed this to international media sources as well as to the Iraq Survey Group.
“Debriefer: Wasn’t he aware of the buildup of forces in the region?
‘Aziz: Of course he was aware, it was all over the television screen. He thought they would not fight a ground war because it would be too costly to the Americans. He was overconfident. He was clever, but his calculations were poor. It wasn’t that he wasn’t receiving the information. It was right there on television, but he didn’t understand international relations perfectly.” - Iraq Survey Group, vol 1, pg. 67
Saddam’s personal body guard, his brother in law, his WMD “Special Weapons” minister, and others also confirmed this to the Iraq Survey Group. His successor and subsequent insurgency leader, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri confirmed Saddam’s threat assessment failure to western media sources. Even his most trusted generals have come forth and written books detailing how Saddam believed:
1) The United States would at worst launch a few days of weak airstrikes as it had done in the past
2) Iraq’s own diplomatic efforts (using bribes and payoffs to China, Russia, France, and Germany) would ensure a UN prohibition on substantive military action; ie remove the credible threat of military force
3) International pressure from around the world would prevent the United States from using substantial military force (see also ISG rpt, vol. 1, Key Points pg. 12 as well as other sections of vol 1).
Five months after diplomatic efforts to prove Saddam’s regime was not a threat (UN resolutions put the onus of proof on Saddam’s regime-not on inspectors), the largest anti-war protests in human history called not for Saddam’s compliance, but for American acquiescence and even appeasement of Saddam’s demand that sanctions be lifted and inspections ended. How could anyone in Saddam’s position be threatened by another nation when that other nation was under more popular political pressure to back down than any other nation in history? Such protests surely didn’t deter or inspire fear and/or convince him that his regime was under popular political pressure when the message was specifically the contrary as well as identical to his own diplomatic message: “Don’t attack Iraq.”
Diplomatic efforts take time. Military efforts take time. Both were given half a year (ignoring the previous 11 years of failed diplomatic and tacit military efforts). Unlike diplomatic efforts which can always be stopped by a single phone call and order or a stroke of a pen, military efforts cannot always be so turned on/off. Once forces are set in motion there is a point where the artillery shells are fired, the planes have dropped their bombs, and soldiers have pulled their triggers. Once that happens, the military effort is very difficult to stop. In fact, as military forces are deployed for action, the closer and closer they are to being ready to fight, the harder it is to stop them.
This is why traditionally the mere “mobilization” and/or deployment of forces-poising for a military strike-has been considered a casus belli in and of itself. One can argue successfully that it was the mobilization of the Russian Army in World War One that took a mere local assassination and turned it into one of mankind’s greatest catastrophes. The reason that the Cold War was such a dangerous situation was that NATO and Warsaw Pact forces mobilized and deployed for action at a moment’s notice-both sides had casus belli, and could have used the threat posed by the other as a reason to start shooting. Once forces are mobilized and deployed (and especially in that time period between when the order to attack is given and when the first bombs fall) it is increasingly difficult to stop combat.
It’s called momentum. It’s dangerous, and after six months of dual-track diplomatic and military efforts, the momentum had built up. The United Nations inspectors had failed to monitor, observe, and verify that the threatening intelligence claiming Saddam was still a WMD threat was false. Saddam had waited too long to make the effort to prove he wasn’t a threat as was his obligation in the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement. And the end phase of America’s War with Saddam began.
While even the Bush Administration has often referred to Operation Iraqi Freedom as a pre-emptive attack, it was not. A glance at the timeline of US/Iraq relations shows quite clearly that the 1991 war never really ended. The terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement were broken before it was even accepted by the United Nations, and within days after it had been. By 1998 (five years before the US invaded Iraq for the second time), even Saddam had officially recognized that the cease-fire was moot, and that Iraq and the United States were at war.
“According to ‘Abd Hamid Mahmud, on the second day of Desert Fox, Saddam said, ‘[T]he cease-fire principle is over [emphasis added]; the US broke the international law and attacked a country, which is a member in the UN.’ He drafted a resolution which called for the RCC “to cancel all the international obligations and resolutions, which Iraq has agreed upon.’ ‘Abd said that Saddam blamed the United States for attacking ‘Iraq without the UN permission, and [pulling] the inspectors out of Iraq.’ As a result, ‘Iraq [had] the right to cancel all these resolutions to get rid of the sanction which was imposed for more than seven years.’” - Iraq Survey Group, vol 1, pg. 58
This is where historians can now look and ask, “WHAT IF.” What if Saddam had complied with the UN immediately? What if President Bush had just ordered another tacit, Desert-Fox-style air campaign as Saddam expected? What if President Bush had just backed down in February? What if Saddam had been assassinated? What if Saddam’s regime had been overthrown in a coup or rebellion?
Iraqi Compliance
If Saddam Hussein had heard President Bush’s Sept 12, 2002 address to the United Nations, and instead of obfuscating the effort to prove that his regime was in compliance with the 1991 cease-fire agreement, if he had instead immediately gone to every effort to prove his disarmament and compliance, then on March 6, 2003 UNMOVIC chairman Hans Blix never would have had to release his Unresolved Disarmament Issues report. That report listed hundreds of compliance issues, ways in which Iraq could have demonstrated compliance even if evidence, documents, and more were long gone. Blix complained that Iraq was refusing to provide witnesses to disarmament and couldn’t even provide reports (even short fictional reports would have done) describing how disarmament and compliance on the issues had been performed. Had Saddam complied immediately by assisting the UN inspectors in monitoring, observing, and/or verifying that his regime was in compliance, there’d have been no war.
And if there was no war, Saddam would have remained in power. The ICBM’s he had paid North Korea to develop would have been delivered. The intermediate ballistic missiles he’d been developing would have been developed. The chemical and biological missile warheads he was still manufacturing could have been filled with industrial “dual use” chemicals such as “concentrated pesticides” (ie, nerve agents) or chlorine (which Dr Blix quipped, Iraq had enough of to purify all the water in the entire Middle East). The UN’s sanctions/blockade would have ended, Saddam’s regime would have been flooded with oil revenue, and his family’s grip on dictatorial power would have been ensured for generations. America’s no-fly-zones would have been removed, and while that would have allowed US forces to leave the region and comply with 2/3 of Al Qaeda’s excuses for war, it also would have allowed Saddam to kill hundreds of thousands more Shia and Kurds (in particular) who were alive mostly because of the protection allotted by American airpower. France, Germany, Russia, China, the United Nations, AND President Bush would have soared in international prowess, prestige, and popularity as peacemakers (French Pres Chirac himself said that if there were to be peace with Iraq through a diplomatic solution, the credit would go primarily to President Bush’s “credible threat of American military force.”). Most of all, free of sanctions in place for non-compliance with the 1991 cease-fire, Saddam would have been free to restart his WMD programs which had been camouflaged (per the Iraq Survey Group’s findings) to appear as benign dual-use facilities and programs, and which were ready to make fresh WMD in months, weeks, or in the case of bio-weapons hours (per UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler’s book, The Greatest Threat, 2000 edition).
Yes, there would have been peace, but how long would a dictator who had invaded each of his neighbors remained peaceful? Flush with new funding, a reinforced grip on power, international prestige as a peacemaker, and armed to the teeth with both theatre and inter-continental ballistic missiles, how long would Saddam and his family remained peaceful? Given the historical trend of invading neighbors, the historical trend of using WMD, and the increased insanity of his heirs, it’s reasonable to say that such a regime would have been a bigger regional threat than it was in March 2003.
Believing that Saddam and his regime were in compliance and that they were no threat if in compliance with the UN was not a substantive or viable option by March 2003.
Limited Air Strikes
What if President Bush had only ordered Desert-Fox-style air strikes as was done by previous administrations (including his father’s), and as was expected by Saddam? Saddam’s power would have been increased within his regime as the credible threat of force from the US would have been demonstrated as a weak political demonstration rather than substantive action. The Iraq Survey Group’s three-volume, 1000+page report shows beyond a doubt that the sanctions regime was irrevocably decayed and neither sanctions nor inspections could be effectively revived due to Iraq’s illicit bribery-based relationship with French, German, Russian, and Chinese officials as well as the hundreds of fake companies around the world by which Saddam’s grip-by-greed diplomacy had taken over. With sanctions and inspections hopeless, the effects of a Desert-Fox-style air campaign would be the same as mentioned earlier in the event Saddam remained in power by demonstrating compliance with the United Nations: tighter grip on power, bigger regional threat, a threat to the US directly and indirectly, generations of increasingly insane Hussein family dictators, and a renewed and unchecked WMD threat. Most importantly, unlike the earlier scenario where the UN and US would have been lauded as peacemakers, in this case, the US would have (as was the case during and after Desert Fox in 1998) been denounced as a warmongering nation (which is what happened anyway). The UN would have been at odds with the US for years (which is also what happened anyway).
Limited air strikes were not an effective option in December 1998, and were neither an effective nor a viable option in March 2003
American Retreat
Prior to the December 1998 Desert Fox strikes on Iraq, President Clinton had ordered air strikes on Saddam’s regime in November 1998. With the bombers in the air, and the missiles (luckily) late in firing, the President was able to halt the attack (it was later revealed by several members of President Clinton’s national security team that the military officers involved with the strike lacked confidence in their Commander in Chief’s resolve, so without letting him know it, they had rescheduled the unstoppable missile portions of the air strikes. Their prudence proved serendipitous). In 1998, this failure to follow-through with threats diminished the required credible threat of force aspect needed to make Saddam’s regime comply with diplomatic efforts, and as such barely a month later the attack was launched anyway (for the second attack, Operation Desert Fox, CENTCOM commander Gen. Zinni later revealed that his strike plans were designed to ensure surprise and irrevocability of command decision. As such, the plans were re-designed so that the missile launching components of the strikes which could not be recalled were moved to the top of the orders list. As soon as President Clinton gave the order, the strikes could not be recalled, and Saddam’s regime could not move suspected targets from target areas.).
After Desert Fox in 1998, Saddam’s power was unchecked. In fact, according to post-war investigations and interviews, his international power and influence grew exponentially. The barely effective bombing campaign launched by the Clinton Administration clearly emboldened Saddam and comforted him in his primary concern: he could stay in power. President Clinton’s tactic of backing down in exchange for promises of UN compliance had proven completely useless, as did his subsequent limited 4-day air war in 1998.
If President Bush had backed down in March 2003 as President Clinton had in November 1998, there’s no reason to believe that Saddam would have reacted differently. As such, all of the effects of another Desert-Fox-style air war would have been in place, but the negative effects of a Saddam who remained in power as described earlier in the event that he had complied with the UN readily and effectively starting in September 2002 would have also taken place. Backing down was not a viable option for the United States in November 1998 nor was it so in March 2003.
Assassination
Opponents of the invasion of Iraq often wonder, “Why couldn’t the U.S. just assassinate Saddam, and have the whole thing go away?” Of course, there’s a great deal of debate over the legality of assassinating political leaders. Many say that it’s illegal, others argue that “command and control” targets in war are perfectly legitimate and such legitimacy extends to the highest levels of command and control. Aside from the legal debate, there are three reasons the pundit-driven assassination option is not viable. Even if Saddam were killed before the second invasion of Iraq, his sons (arguably even more despotic) would have taken over and likely been more intractable, more dictatorial, and more of a regional and international threat. Another reason against the assassination option is that Saddam was protected by several body guards who never left his side, 100 more who were always within protection distance, thousands of Fedayeen Saddam fanatics who were ready to protect him, and as many as seven intelligence agencies all of which an assassin would have to elude. Of course, that brings out the final and ultimate reason that the assassination option was just rhetoric: it had been tried. Before the invasion the US tried to assassinate Saddam and his henchmen, and failed, then the next night as many as 50 air strikes were launched all around Iraq with the same intent. Later, Saddam escaped capture (and obviously assassination as well) for six full months even when Iraq was occupied. Assassination was not a real option.
Coup, Rebellion, and Other Forms of Non-Invasion Regime Change
Like the assassination idea, many opponents of the second invasion of Iraq have asked, “Why can’t we just back a coup or something-have someone else take down Saddam?” In fact, that’s exactly what the US has been trying to do since 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. Back then, American Special Forces inside Iraq convinced the Iraq Kurds, Shia, and other groups opposed to Saddam that if they rose up in rebellion, the United States would support them and help them. They rose up, but no American support was given. Instead, Saddam slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis while US troops marched triumphantly down Pennsylvania Avenue and in victory parades around the country. From 1991 through 1996 the US government gave varying forms of support and encouragement to other groups that tried to remove Saddam, but each attempt failed worse than the previous. In fact, the last attempted coup was detected by Saddam’s vast security networks before it even got off the ground, and Iraqi intelligence (the IIS) even called the US on captured communications equipment provided by the CIA, warning the US government not to try another coup. Despite passing the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998 which called for the support of indigenous uprisings against Saddam, the US gave barely any support at all to additional efforts. Like the barriers that prevented Saddam from being assassinated, so too was he protected from coup and rebellion.
Ultimately, there were many reasons for invading Saddam’s Iraq a second time. Besides those reasons typically debated (oil, regional influence, Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction), what needs to be understood is that Operation Iraqi Freedom was in fact an operation of last resort. While often described as pre-emptive attack, it was much more an operation aimed at ending the status quo: a simmering war without end.
And after all of the years of fighting, after the missile and air attacks, after the bombings, IEDs, snipers, etc., what do we know about the September 2002 intelligence reports that reignited the conflict? In the year between the September 11, 2001 attacks and President Bush’s challenge to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, the Bush Administration barely mentioned Iraq and regime change at all (far less than previous administrations had in similar time frames). Was the source inside Saddam’s regime correct?
“In September 2002, the CIA obtained, from a source, information that allegedly came from a high-level Iraqi official with direct access to Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. The information this source provided was considered so important and so sensitive that the CIA’s Directorate of Operations prepared a highly restricted intelligence report to alert senior policymakers about the reporting. Because of the sensitivity, however, that it was not disseminated to Intelligence Community analysts. The intelligence report conveyed information from the source attributed to the Iraqi official which said:”
? “Iraq was not in possession of a nuclear weapon. However, Iraq was aggressively and covertly developing such a weapon. Saddam, irate that Iraq did not yet have a nuclear weapon because money was no object and because Iraq possessed the scientific know how, had recently called meeting his Nuclear Weapons Committee.”
Post-war investigations by the Iraq Survey Group confirmed this after meeting with several members of a group of scientists Saddam called his, “Nuclear Mujahedeen.”
? “The Committee told Saddam that a nuclear weapon would be ready within 18-24 months of acquiring the fissile material. The return of UN inspectors would cause minimal disruption because Iraq was expert at denial and deception.”
Post-war investigations by the Iraq Survey Group confirmed this as documents used to build the crude nuclear device he had ready in 1992 were uncovered in 2003 by the American Iraq Survey Group.
? “Iraq was currently producing and stockpiling chemical weapons.”
Post-war investigations by the Iraq Survey Group were unable to confirm this, but there are innumerable reports that stockpiles of WMD were removed from Iraq in the nine months prior to the war. These reports come from members of Saddam’s regime as well as the USAF’s geospatial command which tracked convoys of trucks moving from WMD storage facilities to Syria as well as radar tracking of cargo planes leaving Iraq to Syria, Russia, and Belarus. The US Navy also closely monitored two Russian cargo ships that were escorted into Basra, Iraq through four US carrier battlegroups by a pair of Russian Navy warships. Captured documents recovered by the Iraq Survey Group after the war support the claims that stockpiles of WMD and other assets were moved. “A recovered 2002 document outlines the Iraqi evacuation plan to protect key military industries and equipment from Coalition air strikes or threats. The former Regime developed these concepts in response to lessons learned after Desert Storm and Desert Fox. The report outlines the importance of utilizing a properly concealed Iraqi railroad system along with trucks and pre-equipped trailers to move important laboratories, equipment, and machinery.”-ISG rpt, vol.1, pg. 65. All of these reports and many more leave the issue open-not closed.
? “Iraqi scientists were dabbling with biological weapons with limited success, but the quantities were not sufficient to constitute a real weapons program.”
Post-war investigations by the Iraq Survey Group confirmed this.
? “Iraq’s weapons of last resort were mobile launchers armed with chemical weapons which would be fired at enemy forces and Israel.”
Post-war investigations by the Iraq Survey Group as well as interviews with detainees from Saddam’s regime confirmed this, but only a handful of missiles were used during the invasion, and while Saddam’s regime was still building ‘empty’ chemical warheads, none of the missiles used during the invasion were armed with chemical or biological warheads. Why Saddam’s regime continued to make chemical and biological warheads for missiles it was not allowed to have and apparently didn’t while being inspected by the UN remains a mystery.
Given the long list of reasons for finishing the war between the United States and Saddam’s regime, given the additional war with Al Qaeda and the threat that Al Qaeda could offer to serve as a proxy WMD delivery means against the United States, and given the lack of viable options besides invasion…history can only record the pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom period as a time of increasing threat and tension that created so much momentum as to make peace less attractive than war. In such a circumstance where there is more to be gained by invading than by any other course of action, the decision to invade became arguably inevitable.
Scott Malensek is a Featured Writer for The New Media Journal. He is the author of: Black Rain For Christmas, The Secret War in South Asia, Sixth Fleet Under: Aircraft Carrier Combat in The Eastern Mediterranean, The X-MAS War, The Weekend Warriors, and 50+ Ways to Play With Your Paintballs. He's also written several books on the Global War on Terror and Iraq under the pen name, Sam Pender. These books include: Iraq's Smoking Gun, The Ignored War, America's War With Saddam, How Did It Come To This?, and Saddam's Ties to Al Qaeda.
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