[A-List] Britain/US split: Iraq

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Both the military and the spooks are opposed to war on Iraq

Blair hasn't even convinced his own security establishment

Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday February 24, 2003
The Guardian

Why now? The question is of course being asked by those opposed to a war
against Iraq, and those who have not made up their minds. But it has also
been asked by one of the most senior Whitehall officials at the centre of
the fight against terrorism. The message was clear: the threat posed by
Islamist extremists is much greater than that posed by Saddam Hussein. And
it will get worse when the US and Britain attack Iraq.

Tony Blair may not want to admit it, but this is the common view throughout
the higher reaches of government. As a leaked secret document from the
defence intelligence staff puts it: "Al-Qaida will take advantage of the
situation for its own aims but it will not be acting as a proxy group on
behalf of the Iraqi regime." Osama bin Laden must be praying for a US
assault on Iraq.

"Do we help or hinder the essential struggle against terrorism by attacking
Iraq?" asks the former Conservative foreign minister, Lord Hurd. "Would we
thus turn the Middle East into a set of friendly democratic capitalist
societies ready to make peace with Israel, or into a region of sullen
humiliation, a fertile and almost inexhaustible recruiting ground for
further terrorists for whom Britain is a main target?" He poses the
rhetorical questions in the latest journal of the Royal United Services
Institute.

Blair says "now" because George Bush says so. Put it another way, had
Washington decided to continue with a policy of containment, Blair would
have followed suit. This, too, is the common view in Whitehall. It helps
explain the government's problem in justifying a war.

Claims that the Iraqi regime is linked with al-Qaida were dropped when
ministers failed to provide the evidence. Blair and his ministers follow the
wind from Washington and then counter public opinion at home. First, the
objective was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. When the UN
inspectors reported progress and "intelligence" dossiers were seen to be
bogus, the emphasis shifted to regime change. When this was met with
objections, notably of legality, Blair went for the moral high ground.

The objectives were muddied further when Blair defended the "moral case" for
war as follows: "It is not the reason we act. That must be according to the
UN mandate on weapons of mass destruction. But it is the reason, frankly,
why if we do have to act, we should do so with a clear conscience."

Then, as Blair added the humanitarian case for war to the moral one, his
spokesman further confused the message. "If Saddam cooperates," he said,
"then he can stay in power." A senior adviser to Blair remarked recently
that the Bush administration's aim is the "export of American democracy"
throughout the Middle East; and Blair shared this vision.

In his new book, Paradise and Power, the former US state department official
Robert Kagan argues: "America did not change on September 11. It only became
more itself. The myth of America's 'isolationist' tradition is remarkably
resilient. But it is a myth. Expansion of territory and influence has been
the inescapable reality of American history."

British and American military commanders are hoping for a quick collapse of
the regime, leaving the existing Iraqi state infrastructure, including the
Republican Guard, to maintain law and order. Iraqi forces will be
"monitored" by British and American officers to keep them in line.
Hopelessly optimistic or not, the scenario has little to do with democracy.

But let's say the objectives do include exporting democracy. Does that mean
giving the Shi'a majority in Iraq a free vote? What if the Kurds vote for
independence? Turkey's generals are calling for a return to emergency rule
in the Kurdish areas of south-eastern Turkey. Does the export of democracy
cover Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, including authoritarian Oman, in
effect a British protectorate? Or Egypt, one of the largest recipients of
American aid?

The latest issue of Le Monde Diplomatique reminds us that the US supported
Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, the Shah in Iran, Somoza in
Nicaragua, Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, and Mobutu in Congo/Zaire.
"Some of the bloodiest tyrants are still supported by the US," it adds,
noting that Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea was received with full
honours by Bush last September. Now the US is cuddling up to Uzbekistan,
another country with an appalling human-rights record, because it is
convenient for US bases.

Ah, says the government, but Saddam poses a unique threat, not only to his
own citizens - ministers now claim they have intelligence that the Iraqi
dictator is planning to poison all Iraqi Shi'as - but to the national
security of Britain and the US.

The US, meanwhile, barters with Turkey for bases from which to attack Iraq.
How much is a decision opposing the will of more than 90% of Turks worth in
dollars? What is the morality in bribing the UN security council to support
a war waged, we are told, on moral grounds?

Every time Blair and his ministers repeat a truth - that Saddam used gas
against the Kurds and Iranian troops in the 1980s - they remind us that
Britain responded by secretly encouraging exports of even more nuclear and
other arms-related equipment to Iraq while Washington supplied the regime
with more crucial intelligence.

In his speech on the "moral case" for war last Friday, Jack Straw referred
to Saddam's "ethnic cleansing" of the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s. That was
after the US and Britain encouraged the south, and the Kurds in the north,
to rise up following the 1991 Gulf war, only to betray them. The southern
"no-fly" zone is said by Britain and the US to be a humanitarian initiative,
yet it has not achieved any humanitarian purpose, any more than sanctions
have. Its purpose is to disable potential threats to US and British forces
rather than to protect the Iraqi people - US and British planes have bombed
Iraqi missile, radar and communications systems 40 times this year, the last
occasion on Saturday.

While those responsible for protecting Britain's national security are
concerned about the increased threat of terrorism from a military attack on
Iraq, there is deep disquiet in Britain's military establishment about the
confused objectives of a war and a pre-emptive strike against a country that
poses no threat to the attackers. The latest dispute over the marginal
excess range of Iraq's Samoud 2 missiles only highlights the weakness of the
US-British argument.

Saddam may believe he has nothing to gain by cooperating fully with UN
inspectors if the Bush administration has already decided to invade,
whatever concessions he makes. But those advocating war have yet to make
anything like a convincing case for military action.

· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security editor