Sunday afternoon, I got a phone call from my good friend Philippe who lives in California. “Gail just saw a great movie, Green Zone! It’s right up your alley. It’s about the Iraqi WMD thing. You have to go see it. It’s great! It’s particularly timely since Karl Rove just came out with a book saying the Bush administration did not deliberately lie about the presence of WMDs in Iraq.” He went on to give me a brief summary of the film which is apparently an indictment of Bush’s Iraq strategy.
After our conversation ended, I went online to check out the reviews for the movie. Roger Ebert is my favorite reviewer so I decided to see what he thought of the film. He gave it a rave but I was disturbed by one of his comments: “Green Zone will no doubt be under fire from those who are still defending the fabricated intelligence used as an excuse to invade Iraq”.
I poured myself a glass of wine, sat down in my favorite chair and decided to see where my thoughts took me. I’m not sure why but I have been extremely reluctant to go see any movie about our conflict in Iraq. I’m a Gulf War veteran so I suppose that explains some of my reluctance; but as I gave it some more thought I realized it goes deeper than that. I’m also a veteran of what Time Magazine once called “The Forgotten War” the time period between when the first Gulf War ended in March of 1991 and the second began in March of 2003. Many have either forgotten or are unaware that the first Gulf War never really ended. Saddam refused to abide by all of the terms that ended that first conflict and as a result every day we had large numbers of military forces in the Persian Gulf enforcing the UN sanctions. At times it got pretty intense. I don’t believe you can make any conclusions about the Iraqi WMD situation if you don’t factor in the events of the Forgotten War.
I don’t believe the Bush administration fabricated intelligence. I’ve talked in earlier blogs about how complex intelligence analysis is. I think the Bush administration’s senior intelligence advisors either failed to drive home the point that available intelligence could not prove or disprove the status of Saddam’s WMD program or they were not listened to. During the Forgotten War Saddam had frequently refused to cooperate with the UN inspectors and was acting like a man with something to hide. His Scud missiles had caused havoc during the Gulf War. Available intelligence was unable to locate the missiles before he fired them or discover them before they could be used. When you add that to his post war lack of cooperation, it tended to make you very suspicious of claims he had destroyed all of his WMD.
I have my own theory about the Iraqi WMD situation. What if the Clinton administration’s policy during the Forgotten War was more successful and effective than we realized? In December 1998 United States Central Command, under orders from the Clinton Administration, launched Operation Desert Fox a four day operation as stated in that organization’s official history, “aimed at installations associated with development of weapons of mass destruction, units providing security to such programs, and Iraq’s national command and control network. Additional targets included selected Republican Guard facilities, airfields, and the Basrah oil refinery that was involved in production of illegal gas and oil exports.” On just the first day of operations 280 cruise missiles were launched and as stated in a December 28, 1998 Time Magazine article, that total was almost as many as was used during the entire first Gulf War.
Desert Fox was only one of a series of intense military operations conducted during the “Forgotten War”. As stated in the United States Central Command’s official history, on January 13 and 18, 1993 strikes were conducted against selected air defense targets. On January 17, 1993 the Navy launched 44 TLAM cruise missile strikes against the Zaafaraniyah nuclear related facility because of Iraq’s refusal to comply with UN nuclear inspection requirements. On June 27, 1993 another Navy strike was launched against the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence service “in response to the discovery of Iraqi plans to assassinate former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait.”
In October 1994 “in response to a clear threat of Iraqi aggression against Kuwait and associated troop movements in Southern Iraq” Centcom, under what was called Operation Vigilant Warrior, deployed over 28,000 troops and 200 additional aircraft to the Gulf Region. In September 1996 as part of Operation Desert Strike the command launched 12 cruise missiles against surface to air missile sites and command and control facilities in southern Iraq.
What if these combined attacks coupled with vigorous enforcement of UN sanctions not only destroyed a large number of suspected WMD stocks that had not been uncovered by the UN inspectors but also so severely damaged Iraq’s military/industrial infrastructure that it prevented that country from having the capability to significantly rebuild their weapons program? If and I say if this was the case, it would not have been an easy thing to know for sure given the challenge of the intelligence gathering in the aftermath of Iraq’s refusal to allow UN inspectors in country at the end of 1998.
A December 17, 1998 article in the New York Times quoted senior U.S. officials discussing Desert Fox as stating “that the air strikes would significantly hamper Iraq’s programs to make poison gas and nuclear weapons, they readily acknowledged that the weapons programs would continue…Without the U.N. inspection program…the Clinton administration would have only a limited ability to determine whether Iraq is manufacturing and stockpiling weapons of massed destruction…” The same article quoted Pentagon officials as saying “It’s a very unpalatable scenario…We can keep track of some of what’s going on the ground with satellites and surveillance planes. But that’s not the same as having inspectors on the ground, poking around or at least trying to poke around Iraqi installation.”
The nature of intelligence is that you will seldom have the luxury of enough information to present a case that will stand up in court. I’ve always thought that the real question that should have been asked before we began this most recent Iraq War was had our Iraq policies neutralized Saddam and his capability to reconstitute his WMD force? I have no doubt he was trying to keep the capability to build up his WMD force once the UN sanctions ended based on his lack of cooperation with UN inspectors.
I’ll throw out one last point. Shortly before the second Iraq war I was interviewed on a radio program and asked if I thought Saddam would use WMD on U.S. and British troops. I replied it depended on whether Saddam wanted to win the battle or the war. Putting on my old war gaming hat, I said if I were Saddam if I had any WMD left I would get rid of them. There was a precedent for this. During the first Gulf War when it became apparent that Saddam would no longer be able to maintain air superiority, he flew what was left of his Air Force to Iran. Since He had just been in a long war with that nation, it was a curious choice. When no WMD would be found, the U.S. and Great Britain would be left with egg on their face.
As always, my thoughts are my own.
