By David Aaronovitch
GuardianFebruary 11, 2003
Miryam writes to ask me if she can't persuade me to change my mind on the war. All too easily, I think. My reasons for reluctantly supporting military action in Iraq aren't even the main ones being given by those preparing to go to war. I detest the stupid propaganda ploys and schoolkid errors of the pro-war camp, and can only roll my eyes at the arrogant and counter-productive way in which the Bush administration has dealt with the sensibilities of its allies.
But could I change Miryam's mind? Miryam, I guess, will be on the march on Saturday, along with several members of my own family. It will be a huge, diverse affair, with kids in pushchairs and pensioners. Miryam may take one of the placards depicting a bomb with a red line through it, or a photo of an Iraqi child with big eyes, a child like the ones who may die under allied bombs, no matter how much the military might want to avoid such killings. Even Charles Kennedy will address the rally.
Where will I be? Holding my own march of five sceptical journalists and academics, all clutching placards of a smiley bomb with "On balance, I think this may be the only way" written on it. None of this, though, will make Miryam right and me wrong. Because, as she marches and I skulk, both of us must accept that were our view to prevail, we would have blood on our hands, she as surely as I.
My bloody hands first. Let's say there is a second resolution of the UN security council for war and - some day in the next month or so - 300 cruise missiles and God knows what else besides smack into command posts, ministries, Scud sites and Chinese embassies. Even in an optimistic scenario many Iraqi soldiers are likely to die in the ensuing conflict, as well as hundreds of civilians. A UN report, based on World Health Organisation estimates, says that there will be 500,000 people requiring treatment "to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries", including food shortages, power disruption and disease (this figure, incidentally, somehow became 500,000 war-related deaths, when wielded by the comedian Mark Thomas in the New Statesman last week).
Then let's add to my gory account any allied casualties, the cost of rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, a possible upsurge in anti-western terrorism (though this really is speculative), splits in Nato and the EU and - above all - the danger of the creation of a highly unilateral Pax Americana. Not good.
Right Miryam. Now we'll look at your hands. You are on the side of peace and light, so they ought to be spotless. But hold them up to the light and you'll see that they aren't. The most obvious stain on them comes from the continuation of the Saddam regime. I am not going to detain you once again with the reports from Amnesty, nor the (from your point of view) disquieting amount of evidence that Iraqis would like to see him deposed by force if necessary. You must know it by now.
And then there is the question of what you think ought to be done about the famous weapons. You could take the risk that the Iraqis don't really have any, that they won't build any and that (as some analysts argue) they will never be used because we could always nuke Iraq if it dropped anthrax on, say, Israel.
But you might prefer to go along with the French and Germans and opt for a continuation of what is known as "vigilant containment". This consists of policing the no-fly zones (which also entails the occasional bombing of Iraqi air defences), extending the flights ban, beefing up the inspectors and - should Saddam fail to cooperate - continuing the regime of sanctions on Iraq. Given that Saddam has never voluntarily cooperated with the inspectors, save when under the threat of military action, a tough sanctions regime would seem a cert. I cannot for the life of me see what UN peacekeeping forces would add to this equation.
Sanctions are blunt weapons. Aware of the effect they were having on the Iraqi people, the UN has several times refined its sanctions policy. Opponents of sanctions argue that, even as changed, they increase child mortality through disruption of the country's infrastructure and the prohibition of certain "dual use" imports. Some talk of half a million extra dead children. Whether this can be blamed on Saddam is almost irrelevant, since the policy itself is, essentially, Saddam plus sanctions.
You don't fancy that? Don't want it on your conscience? I don't blame you. The failure of "vigilant containment" to help the people of Iraq is just about the biggest reason I have for supporting war. Which, of course, you can't.
So perhaps you will argue for no war and no sanctions. Possibly you will (as some of your fellow campaigners do) also call for the end of the no-fly zones. In this peace Saddam will stay (and Uday, his eldest son, will get ready to take over), the Iraqi government will use air power against the Kurds and any other anti-Saddam rebels, and the chances are pretty good that the Iraqi tyrant will resume chemical and biological weapons manufacture, if he ever stopped it.
Would you like to calculate how many people will die, if you have your way? There will be the direct victims of the Saddam regime, but you have already decided (however reluctantly) to live with those. There will be the consequences of the overwhelming proof of the powerlessness of the UN, and I can't compute that. There is the chance that Tony Blair is not so mad when he raises the possibility of a future link between terrorism and the availability of terror weapons in states such as Iraq - we would certainly find out in the most interesting way. There will be the chance of a pre-emptive strike by Sharon's Israel (we can all protest against that, much good that it will do us).
I think, Miryam, that what I'm saying is this. You can march, but you can't hide.
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