Slate's Bizbox
fighting words: A wartime lexicon.

My Ideal WarHow the international community should have responded to Bush's September 2002 U.N. speech.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 20, 2006, at 2:06 PM ET
Iraq: Three years on Click image to expand.

Up until now, I have resisted all urges to assume the mantle of generalship and to describe how I personally would have waged a campaign to liberate Iraq. I became involved in this argument before the Bush administration had been elected, and for me it always was (and still is) a matter of solidarity with the democratic forces in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan and of the need for the United States to change its policy and be on their side. I am now authoritatively told that we should have been on their side to the tune of 100,000 or so extra troops, and I must say I do not object. Nor would I have objected then. However, it's the point of principle that matters. And one simply cannot turn to international friends and say, look, what with the state of the opinion polls, I think we'll have to be seeing a bit less of each other.

This commitment doesn't override truth, and I know that a lot of people feel that they were cheated or even lied into the war. It seems amazing to me that so many people have adopted the "Saddam Hussein? No problem!" view before the documents captured from his regime have even been translated, let alone analyzed. I am sure that when this task has been completed, history will make fools of those who believed that he was no threat, had no terror connections, was "in his box," and so forth. A couple of recent disclosures lend some point to my view. The first are the findings published in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, and the second is the steady work of Stephen Hayes, over at the Weekly Standard, aimed at getting some of the captured documents declassified.

The long report in the May-June Foreign Affairs gives us a view of the regime that confirms the essential contours of Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear. A system of hideous cruelty we have learned to take for granted, but this also reminds us of a system of amazing irrationality. Saddam Hussein wanted, until the very last days, to maintain ambiguity about his possession of weapons of mass destruction. Given his past record, there was absolutely no reason why any serious government should have taken his word that he had dropped this stance. (And we also know, from the Duelfer report and many other sources, that he hoped to retain his latent ability to restart production once the sanctions—which were themselves a crime against the Iraqi people—had been lifted or rendered ineffective.) It is in the light of that last point that one of the article's crucial discoveries must be read. Saddam believed until the end that the French and Russian governments would save him. He also knew what we—at the time—did not: The oil-for-food system had turned into a self-sustaining racket that cemented his support in French and Russian circles. He thought that contracts would speak louder than words, and in this instance he wasn't completely crazy to do so.

As for the "terror" connection, Hayes in a series of unrebutted articles has laid out a tranche of suggestive and incriminating connections, based on a mere fraction of the declassified documents, showing Iraqi Baathist involvement with jihadist and Bin Ladenist groups from Sudan to Afghanistan to Western Asia. If you choose to doubt this, you might want to look at the threat, neglected by the U.S. military, of the "Fedayeen Saddam." (See also Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor's admirable new book Cobra II.) This interestingly named outfit, known to many of us for some time, did most of the serious fighting against the coalition after the ignominious and predictable collapse of the Iraqi army and the Republican Guard. Its ranks were heavily augmented with foreign jihadists, and from this para-state formation and its recruitment pattern, we get an idea of the way in which things would have gone in Iraq if it had been left alone. Never mind "imminent threat," if that phrase upsets you. How does "permanent threat" sound?

So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.

Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.

Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
Photograph of soldiers by Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty Images. Photograph of soldiers on the Slate home page by John Moore/Getty Images.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

I keep trying to be persuaded by Hitchens. I read each of his articles on this subject hoping to find a reason to believe in the actions my country has taken. But for all of his obvious talent as a writer and analyst, the case he has made for the invasion of Iraq (both before the action and throughout it) has never been compelling.

To a certain point I am with him. His support for a policy of regime change is well founded- in fact it was already the policy adopted under Clinton before Bush was ever in office - but a solid argument could be made that the policy did not have enough teeth. For this reason, it is easy to agree with Hitchens when he argues that the US needed to show "solidarity with the democratic forces in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan". Doing so is clearly a central part of any policy of regime change - and no doubt the morally correct stance to take.

Where Hitchens goes off the deep end in my opinion is in the huge leap he makes from "supporting democratic forces in Iraq" to occupying it. Was invasion truly the only way to support the people of Iraq?

Looking into Hitchens past work, the argument is made that Sadaam's days were likely numbered, and that the real issue is what would become of Iraq once he was gone. Hitchen's argued that it was better for us to control this process than to let it happen from afar. Other times he argues that Sadaam was not "in a box" and remained a terrible threat to the rest of the world. Perhaps both takes on Sadaam are true, but again, there is a huge leap to go from arguing that we should not let Iraq fall into chaos when and if regime change does occur, to arguing that we should militarily occupy it ourselves and force the process. Hitchens never explains these leaps - he simply acts as if they don't exist.

My last observation about our protagonist is that he often puts words in the mouth of the "phony pacifists" and "liberals" that he has such disdain for. However he seldom takes the Right to task for not bothering to make their arguments for this invasion on the same criteria he is peddling. While he chides his imaginary liberal war critic for accusing the Bush administration for lying, he never bothers to acknowledge their changing justification for this war, their attempts to tie it to 9/11, and their divisive cries of 'traitor' to anyone who dares question them. Further - he seems unmoved by the administration's habit of dodging established checks and balances in the name of the 'war on terror" - a moniker that itself hardly fits Hitchen's vision of what it is we are engaged in.

Mr. Hitchens' articles always seem to carry the subtext that he is simply more informed on these issues than the rest of us. I don't doubt that he is more informed than I. But if his job is to take a POV and support it clearly, he has failed repeatedly. So once more with feeling Mr. Hitchens. What say you make your case for preemption? Please explain to us in plain English how "supporting the democratic forces in Iraq" and occupying them is the same thing.

--AdamSmithsHand

(To reply, click here.)

That Sadaam was evil, and that life in Iraq under his rule was hellish is beyond denial. But the continued survival of Sadaam accomplished one major thing: a lid was kept on the perpetually bubbling tensions between shiites and sunnis. As in all dictatorships, internecine ethnic/religious conflicts are put on the back burner, as all can at least agree that the man in power is opressing everyone. Once the tyrant is deposed, all those long-simmering hatreds bubble over, and that is the case at present in Iraq. Forget the nespapers that report we are "crawling toward" civil war in Iraq---we are there already, babe. As Iraqi seeks to kill Iraqi, it begs the question, "What are we doing there anymore?" We're certainly not stopping or slowing down the slaughter, as dozens or hundreds die every week through car bombs or rocket attacks. How long can we remain there, before both sides realize that what they have in common a desire to get us out, once and for all? Then, it will be open season on American troops to an extent we haven't yet seen there. Are we supposed to babysit this country for the next several decades? We must at some point say, "Look, we've done all we can do. We got rid of your dictator. The rest is up to you." Will it continue to be a bloodbath there? Of course. But this fight started long before we got there, and buzzwords like "democracy" really don't count for much in an 800-year-old family squabble.

--wordman

(To reply, click here.)

The preponderance of data just over 3 years ago said Saddam had no nuclear weapons, no biological weapons and only a small amount of chemical weapons left over from before Desert Storm. As you can see, even the preponderance of data got some things wrong. Sure, you can find tiny bits of data to back up your predetermined concepts -- fit the intelligence around the policy, if you will.

Further, if Bush did not want WMD to be the key element for the reason to invade Iraq, why did he insist on constantly using the term "mushroom cloud" to make the case. Also, remember that we knew within days that the "case" Powell made before the UN was plagarized from a student thesis covering the period leading up to Desert Storm. The material was worthless.

And no, after 3 years Hitchens still can't fit the intelligence around the policy in a convincing manner. He should give up trying.

--DallasNE

(To reply, click here.)

(3/21)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
A Grand Tour
David Broder | While the stars align for Obama, McCain is looking like the odd-man-out on foreign policy.
Annette Heuser: A Honeymoon
PLUS » Achenblog: The New Capitalism Socialism