Global Policy Forum

By Scott Burchill

"Particular states or groups of states that set themselves up as the authoritative judges of the world common good, in disregard of the views of others, are in fact a menace to international order." (Bull 1983, p.14).

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of "phoney peace" is that despite intelligence dossiers, parliamentary speeches and months of disingenuous government propaganda portraying Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to life on earth, only 6% of Australians support an unauthorised unilateral strike by Washington against Baghdad. The figure rises to around 60% if there is UN backing for an attack.

We can be confident the Australian Government is concerned by these figures when the Prime Minister starts conjuring implausible "what if in 5 years time..." scenarios to bolster his case for war (The Australian, 1 January, 2003). It's not easy making "the current peace seem unacceptably dangerous" (Mearsheimer & Walt 2002, p.14). And when a nation's foreign policy is increasingly seen as vicariously sourced from an ally with very different global interests, a casus belli, as opposed to a contrived pretext for war, is proving elusive. Spin doctors and PR consultants are working hard to close the gap between public opposition to a war against Iraq and government enthusiasm thinly disguised as a commitment to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) process.

Their work will be made considerably easier by the support of loyal servants of state power within the fourth estate who will again prove to be reliable conduits for opinion management by governments in Canberra, London and Washington. Amongst the agitprop, disinformation and outright fabrications by commissars and politicians, the following questions and themes are prominent in the public discourse. Each of them deserves careful analysis.

Is Saddam Hussein likely to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against the US and its allies?

First, many states, including the US, the UK and Israel, acquire these weapons for deterrence against external attack. You've got to wonder how Prime Minister Howard and the pro-war lobby have failed to understand the lesson that the Iraq-North Korea comparison is teaching the world: if you want to deter the war addicts in Washington, you'd better have weapons of mass destruction and resources of terror. Nothing else will work.

Why wouldn't Iraq develop WMD for deterrence purposes given threats by Washington and London? We are discouraged from seeing things from Iraq's point of view, but in many ways WMD make sense for vulnerable states. As the realist theorist Kenneth Waltz argues, "North Korea, Iraq, Iran and others know that the United States can be held at bay only by deterrence. Weapons of mass destruction are the only means by which they can hope to deter the United States. They cannot hope to do so by relying on conventional weapons" (Waltz 2002, p.351-2). As with every country, Iraq's weapons inventory and systems tell us precisely nothing about its strategic intentions. Secondly, Iraq had chemical and biological weapons during the Gulf War in 1991 and chose not to use them. Why would Saddam Hussein be more inclined to use them now knowing the horrendous consequences (as they were explained to him by Brent Scowcroft in 1991), unless his personal survival was at stake and he had nothing left to lose? AS CIA head George Tenet reminded President George W. Bush, Saddam was unlikely to launch WMD against the US unless the survival of his regime was threatened.

As Mearsheimer and Walt argue: "The threat of Iraqi nuclear blackmail is not credible. Not surprisingly, hawks do not explain how Saddam could blackmail the United States and its allies when a rival superpower like the Soviet Union [with 40,000 nuclear weapons] never seriously attempted to blackmail Washington, much less did it." (Mearsheimer & Walt 2002, pp.10-11).

Saddam Hussein has form: he has used WMD before

It is true that Saddam Hussein has used these weapons before, against those who couldn't respond in kind - Iranian soldiers and perhaps most infamously on 17 March 1988 against "his own people" in the Kurdish city of Halabja. Within half an hour of this attack over 5000 men, women and children were dead from chemical weapons containing a range of pathogens which were dropped on them. If Washington and London are genuinely concerned about Iraq's WMD, why did they continue to supply him with the means to acquire them for 18 months after the attack on Halabja?

Initially, the US blamed Iran for the Halabja attack, a particularly cynical ploy given Saddam had also used chemical weapons against Teheran's forces during their nine-year conflict in the 1980s. In fact Washington continued to treat Saddam as a favoured ally and trading partner long after the attack on Halabja was exposed as his handiwork. At the time, the Reagan Administration tried to prevent criticism of Saddam's chemical attack on the Kurds in the Congress and in December 1989, George Bush's father authorised new loans to Saddam in order to achieve the "goal of increasing US exports and put us in a better position to deal with Iraq regarding its human rights record ." Surprisingly, the goal was never reached. In February 1989, eleven months after Halabja, John Kelly, US Assistant Secretary of State, flew to Baghdad to tell Saddam Hussein that "you are a source for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq."

According to the reports of a Senate Banking Committee, the "United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual-use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs. According to the report, this assistance included "chemical warfare-agent precursors; chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings; chemical warfare-filling equipment; biological warfare-related materials; missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment." These technologies were sent to Iraq until December 1989, 20 months after Halabja.

According to William Blum a "veritable witch's brew of biological materials were exported to Iraq by private American suppliers," including Bacillus Anthracis (cause of anthrax), Clostridium Botulinum (a source of botulinum toxin), Histoplasma Capsulatam (causes disease which attacks lungs, brain, spinal chord and heart), Brucella Melitensis (bacteria which attacks vital organs) and other toxic agents. The US Senate Committee said "these biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," and it was later discovered that "these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program" (Blum 2002, pp.121-2). After the recent leaking in Germany of Iraq's 12,000 page declaration of its weapons program, it is now known that at least 150 companies, mostly in Europe, the United States and Japan, provided components and know-how needed by Saddam Hussein to build atomic bombs, chemical and biological weapons (for the list, see http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/*BLOWN MEASURE*01/22/1042911434942.ht=ml Always willing, we're off to war again). Unsurprisingly, the US was keen to excise these details from Iraq's report before its wider dissemination to non-permanent members of the Security Council (Newsday (US), 13 December, 2002; The Independent (UK), 18 and 19 December, 2002; Scotland on Sunday (UK), 22 December, 2002).

Historian Gabriel Kolko claims that "the United Stares supplied Iraq with intelligence throughout the war [with Iran] and provided it with more than $US5 billion in food credits, technology, and industrial products, most coming after it began to use mustard, cyanide, and nerve gases against both Iranians and dissident Iraqi Kurds" (Kolko 2002, p.34). If the US is genuinely concerned by Saddam's WMD, why did Donald Rumsfeld (then a presidential envoy for President Reagan, currently President George W. Bush's Defence Secretary) fly to Baghdad in December 1983 to meet Saddam and normalise the US-Iraq relationship, at a time when Washington new Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis against Iran (Washington Post, 30 December, 2002)? Why were no concerns about the use of these weapons raised with Baghdad? Saddam has been successfully deterred from using WMD against other states with WMD. There is no reason to believe this situation has changed or will.

Saddam Hussein has invaded his neighbours twice

True, but this can hardly be a source of outrage for Western governments or a pretext for his removal from power given they actively supported his invasion of Iran in the 1980s with intelligence (eg satellite imagery of Iranian troop positions) and weaponry and, in the case of Washington, told Saddam it was agnostic about his border dispute with Kuwait just prior to Iraq's invasion in August 1990 (US Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam in 1990 that "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait". The U.S. State Department reinforced this message by declaring that Washington had "no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait" (Mearsheimer & Walt 2002, p.5). This is mock outrage at best.

Saddam's behaviour is no worse than several of his neighbours. As Mearsheimer and Walt remind us, "Saddam's past behavior is no worse than that of several other states in the Middle East, and it may even be marginally better. Egypt fought six wars between 1948 and 1973 (five against Israel, plus the civil war in Yemen), and played a key role in starting four of them. Israel initiated wars on three occasions (the Suez War in 1956, the Six Day War in 1967, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon), and has conducted innumerable air strikes and commando raids against its various Arab adversaries" (Mearsheimer & Walt 2002, p.3).

Saddam Hussein is a monster who runs a violent, oppressive regime

True again, though this didn't prevent him from being a favoured ally and trading partner of the West at the peak of his crimes in the 1980s. As Mark Thomas notes, the conspicuous aspect of British Labour's attitude to Iraq has been the failure of Blair, Straw, Prescott, Blunkett, Cook or Hoon to register any concerns about Iraq's human rights record whenever the opportunities arose in the British Parliament during the 1980s and 1990s (New Statesman, 9 December, 2002). Washington, London and Canberra never had reservations about General Suharto's brutal rule in Indonesia, to take on one example of relations between the West and autocratic regimes around the world, and were in fact overjoyed when he came to power over the bodies of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens in 1965.

Only the threat of force by the US has forced Iraq to accept weapons inspectors

Possibly true, although this ignores the fact that the last time force was used against Iraq on a significant scale because of its non-compliance with UN Security Resolutions, the opposite effect was produced. After the Clinton Administration and Blair Government attacked Iraq from 16-19 December, 1998 (Operation Desert Fox), the result was the collapse of Richard Butler's UNSCOM and the absence of weapons inspectors from Iraq for the next four years. Hardly a testament to the use of force, to say nothing of the precedent this kind of behaviour sets. The Prime Minister's claim that "Hussein effectively expelled weapons inspectors during 1998" is untrue and he knows it (The Australian, 1 January, 2003). Richard Butler withdrew his weapons inspectors on Washington's advice only hours before the Anglo-American attacks in December 1998.

Why wasn't the threat of force an appropriate strategy for the West in response to Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation of East Timor? Or South Africa's occupation of Namibia? Or Turkey's occupation of northern Cyprus? Or Israel's occupation of Palestine? Etc, etc,. What lessons should we draw from this claim? Presumably one is that if a state wants to get its way in international politics, it should threaten to annihilate its adversaries. Apart from the morality of such behaviour, the consequences of the broad adoption of such behaviour are worth pondering.

Has the threat posed by Saddam Hussein increased recently?

The West, particularly London and Washington, was solidly supporting Saddam when he committed the worst of his crimes at the zenith of his power and influence in the 1980s. In terms of international support - especially Western and Soviet backing, the strength of his armed forces and the state of his industry and equipment, Saddam was considerably more dangerous then than he is now under harsh UN sanctions, (illegal) no-fly zones in the north (since 1991) and south (since 1993) of the country, political isolation and a degraded civilian infrastructure. His armed forces have not been re-built since their decimation in 1991. Why are Saddam's attempts to develop WMD a concern now if they weren't when he actually used them?

The events of September 11, 2001 have made disarming Iraq more urgent

The problem with this argument is that those in Washington who are now urging war against Iraq are the very same people who publicly called for Saddam Hussein's overthrow well before 9/11. The argument about Saddam's WMD and the likelihood that he will pass them on to terrorists has only been 'added on' to earlier calls for his removal by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Armitage, et al, which were made during the Clinton Administration. For example, in 1998 the US Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act which said that "It should be the policy of the United States to seek to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." The question of Iraq's WMD should therefore be seen as merely the latest pretext for a policy of regime change taken well before terrorists attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre.

Saddam Hussein will pass WMD on to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda

Despite forensic efforts by Washington to produce a pretext for war, no credible evidence for this claim has been found. All we are left with is unsubstantiated assertions by Bush Administration officials such as Richard Armitage that he has no doubts Iraq would pass WMD on to terrorists (though he doesn't explain how an obvious return address resulting in reciprocal annihilation could be concealed). This may be enough for faithful conduits in the Australian media, but it cannot withstand even a cursory examination. Where is the evidence for such a claim? Osama bin Laden offered the Saudi Government the resources of his organisation to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1990 instead of Riyadh relying on the US, such is the animosity between Islamic fundamentalists and secular nationalists in the Arab world. Saddam has responded by repressing fundamentalist groups within Iraq. Would Saddam be likely to hand over to Al Qaeda nuclear weapons so painstakingly built when he, himself might be the first victim of their use? Remarkably, the pro-war lobby reads this history as evidence of likely future co-operation between Baghdad and Al Qaeda.

Much of this is a smokescreen designed to conceal who the real proliferators of WMD are. Which states, for example assisted Israel to develop nuclear weapons - France and the US? What role did Pakistan and China play in helping North Korea build its nuclear stockpile? Why can't we read the list of European, Asian and US companies which proliferated WMD technologies to Iraq? Instead of imaginary scenarios asking 'what if Iraq acquires nuclear weapons in five years and what if it passes them on to terrorist organisations?," why not more sensible questions about which rogue states (most of whom are members of the so called 'war against terrorism') are already responsible for the proliferation of WMD?

What happens if terrorists acquire nuclear weapons?

Conventional wisdom claims this is "the ultimate nightmare." But is it? The nature of the threat posed by terrorists with nuclear devices is presupposed, but rarely examined. The discussion below is by Kenneth Waltz, a US conservative and the leading theorist of neo-realism in international relations. It helps to place this "ultimate nightmare" in some perspective.

"With the devolution of nuclear weapons to three of the parts of the former Soviet Union, with shaky control of nuclear weapons materials in Russia, with the revelation in 1994 that the United States had lost track of some of its nuclear materials, with increased numbers of countries able and perhaps willing to sell components needed to develop nuclear capability to countries that lack them, and with a flourishing market in systems for the delivery of weapons, fear has grown that terrorists may obtain nuclear explosives and means of placing them on targets they choose. The worry is real, especially if terrorists are eager to have nuclear explosives and are backed by a state bent on disrupting international society. "Terrorists have done a good bit of damage by using conventional weapons and have sometimes got their way by threatening to use them. By their lights, might terrorists not do better still by threatening to explode nuclear weapons on cities of countries they may wish to bend to their bidding? "If we believe that terrorists could, if they wished to, wield nuclear weapons to threaten or damage their chosen enemies, then the important question becomes: Why would they want to? To answer this question, we have to ask further what terrorists are trying to do and what means best suit their ends. "Terrorists do not play their deadly games to win in the near term. Their horizons are distant. Instead they try to offer a voice to the unheard, to give a glimmer of hope to the forlorn, to force established societies to recognise alienated others previously unseen, and ultimately to transcend given societies and found their own.

"Terrorists live precarious lives. Nobody trusts them, not even those who finance, train, and hide them. If apprehended, they cannot count on the help of others. They have learned how to use conventional weapons to some effect. Nuclear weapons would thrust them into a world fraught with new dangers. "Terrorists work in small groups. Secrecy is safety, yet to obtain and maintain nuclear weapons would require enlarging the terrorist band through multiplication of suppliers, transporters, technicians, and guardians. Inspiring devotion, instilling discipline, and ensuring secrecy become harder tasks to accomplish as numbers grow. Moreover, as the demands of terrorists increase, compliance with their demands becomes harder to secure. If, for example, terrorists had told Israel to abandon the occupied territories or suffer the nuclear destruction of Tel Aviv, Israel's compliance would have required that a lengthy and difficult political process be carried through. However they may be armed, terrorists are not capable of maintaining pressure while lengthy efforts toward compliance are made. "One more point should be made before concluding this section. If terrorists should unexpectedly decide to abandon tactics of disruption and harassment in favour of dealing in threats of wholesale death and destruction, instruments other than nuclear weapons are more easily available. Poisons are easier to get and use than nuclear weapons, and poisoning a city's water supply is more easily done than blowing the city up.

"Fear of nuclear terror arises from the assumption that if terrorists can get nuclear weapons they will get them, and that then all hell will break lose. This is comparable to assuming that if weak states get nuclear weapons, they will use them for aggression. Both assumptions are false. Would the courses of action we fear, if followed, promise more gains than losses or more pains than profit? The answers are obvious. Terrorists have some hope of reaching their long-term goals through patient pressure and constant harassment. They cannot hope to do so by issuing unsustainable threats to wreck great destruction, threats they would not want to execute anyway." (Waltz 1995, pp.94-6)

The US wants to democratise Iraq

There is no serious US interest in a democratic transition in Iraq, because this could ultimately encourage the Shi'ite majority in the country to pursue a closer relationship with Shi'ite Iran - a nightmare scenario for Washington. Washington was content for Saddam Hussein to stay in office for as long as he was useful to its geo-strategic interests in the region. There was no mention of a transition to democracy in Iraq during the 1980s. It's more likely that a dissident former General, possibly involved in war crimes against Iraq's Kurdish or Shi'ite communities, will be returned from exile and presented as the "democratic opposition" to Saddam Hussein. The US is interested in compliance and obedience rather than democracy. It has rarely, if ever, expressed an interest in democracy in the Middle East where all but one of its friends and interlocutors are authoritarian states. Ideally, a pro-Western, anti-Iranian, secular "iron fist" would do. The recently rehabilitated Iraqi opposition in exile (with whom until recently the US refused to deal) has no democratic credibility and is largely unknown inside Iraq (or in the US for that matter).

What is the status of pre-emptive strikes in international law?

There is a regime of international law, binding on all states, based on the UN Charter, UN Security Council resolutions and World Court decisions. In summary, the threat or use of force is banned unless explicitly authorised by the Security Council after it has determined that all peaceful means for resolving a conflict have failed, or in self-defence against armed attack until the Security Council acts. A number of points can be made about Canberra's interest in retrospectively amending international law to legitimise a shift of strategic doctrine from deterrence to pre-emption. It would establish a precedent that others (Pakistan & India; North & South Korea) might be encouraged to follow; it would have a destabilising effect on international order; the difficulty (impossibility) of getting changes through the UN Security Council; the heightened sense of vulnerability for smaller states and for states in the region, etc, etc,. It would open up a can of worms.

Significantly, there is currently only one country which could seriously consider exercising a right to anticipatory self-defence under existing international law - Iraq. It has been directly threatened with attack by both the US and UK. There has been no reciprocal threat from Iraq. The term 'pre-emptive war' isn't strictly accurate. As Steven Miller explains:

"Though Bush's approach has been almost universally described, in the media and elsewhere, as a doctrine of preemption, this is incorrect. Preemption refers to a military strike provoked by indications that an opponent is preparing to attack. The logic is: better to strike than be struck. But no one is suggesting that Saddam is preparing to strike the United States. There are no indications that this is the case. Bush is instead making the case for preventive war, for removing today a threat that may be more menacing and difficult in the future. The administration may prefer to label its policy preemption because that is an easier case to make. But it is not an accurate use of the term as traditionally defined." (Miller 2002, p.8)

According to international law specialist Michael Byers, "there is almost no support for a right of anticipatory self-defence as such in present-day customary international law" (Byers 2002, p.124). To the extent that pre-emptive action is permissible under Article 51 of the UN Charter, it requires very strong evidence and there is a heavy burden of justification. The United States, for example, would have to be facing a specific, grave and imminent threat from Iraq which could only be averted by the use of force. According to the test established in the mid-nineteenth century by US Secretary of State Daniel Webster - criteria applied in 1945 at Nuremberg - the need for pre-emptive action must be "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation". Otherwise a unilateral strike not authorised by the UN Security Council would be an act of aggression and a breach of international law. As claimed earlier, Iraq has a stronger case at this point in time (given US troop and equipment movements in Qatar, to say nothing of Bush's stated threats).

Christine Gray, author of a seminal modern text on the use of force under international law, argues that the reluctance of states "to invoke anticipatory self-defence is in itself a clear indication of the doubtful status of this jurisdiction for the use of force". According to Gray, in cases where Israel (Beirut 1968, Tunis 1985) and the US (Libya 1986, Iraq 1993, Sudan & Afghanistan 1998) have invoked anticipatory self-defence under Article 51 to justify attacks on their enemies, "the actions look more like reprisals, because they were punitive rather than defensive". The problem for the US and Israel, she argues, "is that all states agree that in principle forcible reprisals are unlawful" (Gray 2000, pp.112, 114, 115, 118).

By definition, pre-emptive strikes depend on conclusive intelligence. If the intelligence is wrong, as it was on 20 August 1998 when the Clinton Administration attacked the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, mistakenly believing it was an Al Qaeda chemical weapons factory, the results can be catastrophic for the innocent - self-defence becomes aggression. Interestingly, the US has not always supported the 'doctrine' of anticipatory self-defence, even when its closest allies invoked it. On 7 June 1981 unmarked American-built F-16 aircraft of the Israeli airforce attacked and destroyed a nuclear reactor at Osirak in Iraq. The raid was authorised by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, but had been internally opposed by Yitzhak Hofi, the director of Mossad, and Major-General Yehoshua Saguy, chief of military intelligence, because there was no evidence that Iraq was capable of building a nuclear bomb. This was also the view of the International Atomic Energy Authority. At the time of the attack, Israel itself had been developing and accumulating nuclear weapons for thirteen years, primarily at its nuclear facility at Dimona.

In response to Israel's unprovoked pre-emptive strike, US Vice President George Bush Snr argued that sanctions had to be imposed on Israel. The US State Department condemned the bombing for its destabilising impact "which cannot but seriously add to the already tense situation in the area". The basis of Washington's concern, it must be said, was not its opposition to anticipatory self-defence per se but that Israel had violated the UN Charter by not exhausting all peaceful means for the resolution of the conflict - in truth no peaceful resolution had been sought. A few days after the raid, Ronald Reagan's White House announced that the planned delivery of four additional F-16s to Israel would be suspended in protest against the attack. The suspension was discretely lifted soon after (Hersh 1993, pp.9-16).

Significantly, Israel's pre-emptive attack against the Osirak reactor had the opposite effect to the one that was intended. As Kenneth Waltz explained: "Israel's act and its consequences...made it clear that the likelihood of useful accomplishment is low. Israel's action increased the determination of Arabs to produce nuclear weapons. Israel's strike, far from foreclosing Iraq's nuclear career, gained Iraq support from some other Arab states to pursue it" . (Waltz 1995, pp.18-19). In the current climate when pre-emptive attacks are being invoked as just responses to terrorism, it is worth recalling Princeton University historian Arno Mayer comments in Le Monde shortly after the 9/11 attacks:

"...since 1947 America has been the chief and pioneering perpetrator of "pre-emptive" state terror, exclusively in the Third World and therefore widely dissembled. Besides the unexceptional subversion and overthrow of governments in competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Washington has resorted to political assassinations, surrogate death squads, and unseemly freedom fighters (e.g., bin Laden). It masterminded the killing of Lumumba and Allende; and it unsuccessfully tried to put to death Castro, Khadafi, and Saddam Hussein... and vetoed all efforts to rein in not only Israel's violation of international agreements and UN resolutions but also its practice of pre-emptive state terror."

The question of oil: access or control?

From the middle of last century Washington's foreign policy priority in the Middle East was to establish US control over what the State Department described as "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the great material prizes in world history", namely the region's vast reserves of crude oil. Middle Eastern oil was regarded in Washington as "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment", in what President Eisenhower described as the most "strategically important area in the world".

Control could be most easily maintained via a number of despotic feudal oligarchies in the Gulf which ensured the extraordinary wealth of region would be shared between a small number of ruling families and US oil companies, rather than European commercial competitors or the population of these states. Until recently the US has not required the oil for itself though it needed to ensure that the oil price stayed within a desirable range or band - not too low for profit making or too high to discourage consumption and induce inflation. A side benefit of this control over such a vital industrial resource is the influence it gives the US over economic development in rival countries such as Japan. The greatest threat to this control has always been independent economic nationalism, especially nationalist politicians within the oil-producing region who, unlike the feudal oligarchies of the Gulf states, would channel wealth into endogenous development priorities rather than to US transnationals.

The US wants to secure reliable access to the world's second largest oil reserves, 112 billion barrels already known with possibly double that figure still to be mapped and claimed, thus depriving France and Russia of commercial advantages they have developed in Iraq over the last decade when US companies have been excluded. Just as importantly, access to Iraqi oil would also make the US less reliant upon - and therefore less supportive of - the regime in Saudi Arabia. The geo-political dynamics of the Middle East would be transformed. If Russia and France maintain their inside track on Iraqi oil, then US corporations will be partially shut out from an enormous resource prize. No US administration is likely to accept that scenario. Meanwhile, Iraqi dissidents close to Washington have promised to cancel all existing oil contracts awarded to firms which do not assist the US to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Regime change in Baghdad could therefore be a bonanza for US oil companies and a disaster for Russian and French companies which have painstakingly built up their relations with the Iraqi dictator since the Gulf war. When Iraq's oil comes fully back on stream, as many as 5 million barrels of oil (or 6.5%) could be added to the world's daily supply. The implications of this for existing suppliers, the global spot price, economic growth, OPEC and the world's consumers are enormous.

This is not an issue of access, it is primarily about control. The US was just as concerned to control Middle East oil producing regions when it didn't depend on them at all. Until about 30 years ago, North America was the largest producer and the US scarcely used Middle East oil at all. Since then Venezuela has normally been the largest oil exporter to the United States. US intelligence projections suggest that in coming years the US will rely primarily on Western Hemisphere resources: primarily the Atlantic basin - Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, probably Colombia, but also possibly Canada, which has huge potential reserves if they become economically competitive. Imported supplies accounted for 50% of US oil consumption in 2000 and by 2020 the figure is expected to rise to 66%.

Control over the world's greatest concentration of energy resources has two goals: (1) economic: huge profits for energy corporations, construction firms, arms producers, as well as petrodollars recycled to US treasury, etc; and (2) it's a lever of global geo-political control. For those trying to understand the motives behind US behaviour towards Iraq, it is impossible to underestimate the importance which oil has in the minds of Washington's strategic planners. Attempts to discredit arguments about US access to Iraqi oil by claiming that it if it is interested in access to supplies it could more easily strike a deal with Saddam to satisfy its "thirst for oil" rather than overthrow him, entirely miss the crucial issue - control. (The Australian, 2 January, 2003)

The credibility of the UN and Canberra

In September 2002, the Iraq issue in Australia suddenly centred on the honour and integrity of the UN, a subject not previously thought to have concerned the Howard Government. The international community "can't afford" to have its authority "brushed aside," argued foreign minister Alexander Downer, otherwise it will "look meaningless and weak, completely ineffectual." According to the Prime Minister, "if the United Nations Security Council doesn't rise to its responsibilities on this occasion it will badly weaken its credibility". Former chief weapons inspector and Australian Ambassador to the UN, Richard Butler, argued that the Security Council faces the "challenge of its life" and its future would be "terminal" if it didn't hold Iraq to account this time. His predecessor at the UN, Michael Costello, agrees. "If the UN Security Council won't enforce its own resolutions against Iraq, the whole UN collective security system will be badly wounded, perhaps fatally."

One might have thought that the credibility of the UN Security Council had been badly weakened before now, say in Bosnia in 1993, Rwanda in 1994 or in East Timor in 1999 to cite only three recent cases when it failed to protect defenceless civilians from slaughter. Palestinians might wonder why the organisation's authority hasn't been "brushed aside" by Israel's consistent non-compliance with numerous Security Council resolutions calling for its withdrawal from occupied territories, from resolution 242 in 1967 to resolution 1402 in March 2002. Washington clearly has an idiosyncratic view about states complying with UN Security Council resolutions. If the US objects to non-compliance, the country is attacked. If the US favors non-compliance it either vetoes the resolution or disregards it, in which case it is as good as vetoed. Since the early 1970s, for example, the US has vetoed 22 draft Security Council resolutions on Palestine alone - this figure doesn't include 7 vetoes relating to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s.

At the National Press Club and later on commercial talkback radio, Mr Howard seemed to think that because Israel was a democracy it shouldn't be judged by the same standards as Iraq. The future of the UN Security Council is not apparently terminal when its resolutions regarding Palestine and Israel are flouted. He should be reminded that democracies are just as obliged to observe international law as authoritarian dictatorships - there is no exemption. In fact we should expect a higher commitment to the rule of law from countries which pronounce their democratic credentials. Later, the argument shifted slightly. Israel wasn't obliged to observe UN Security Council Resolutions because they are only invoked under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, rather than Chapter 7. This is a novel interpretation of international law, to put it kindly.

Despite rhetoric which portrays the UN as a foreign body at its moment of truth, it is nothing more than the states which comprise it - including Australia and the US. If it has become dysfunctional, it is those member states which manipulate it for their own individual purposes which are to blame. Those who think the credibility of the UN is suddenly at risk over the question of Iraq might like to explain why non-compliance now is suddenly a pretext for an imminent attack on Iraq when Baghdad has been in violation of UN Security Council resolutions for four years. The Prime Minister asks if Iraq has "nothing to hide and nothing to conceal from the world community, why has it repeatedly refused to comply with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council"?

Perhaps it's for the same reason that he restricts the UN from entering Australia's refugee detention centres? Or for the same reason Israel would not allow the UN to inspect its research institute at Nes Ziona near Tel Aviv which produces chemical and biological weapons, a stockpile of chemical agents Mr Howard claims he is "not aware" of. If he had bothered to inquire, Mr Howard would have found that "there is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weaponswhich is not manufactured at the institute", according to a biologist who held a senior post in Israeli intelligence. Nes Ziona does not work on defensive and protective devices, but only biological weapons for attack, claims the British Foreign Report (Chomsky 1999, pp.xiii-xiv).

The Prime Minister believes that Iraq's "aspiration to develop a nuclear capacity" might be a sufficient pretext for war. He has repeatedly claimed that "there is already a mountain of evidence in the public domain," though he didn't say what any of it actually proved beyond the existing public record, or how it established that the United States faces a specific, grave and imminent threat from Iraq which can only be averted by the use of force. According to the Prime Minister, the mountain of evidence includes an IISS report which actually found Saddam was much less dangerous now than in the past when he was backed by the West. Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, described the IISS report as little more than conjecture. "It's absurd. It has zero factual basis. It's all rhetoric...speculative and meaningless." There was a similar response to President Bush's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 12 September, which outlined Iraq's breaches of international law. According to conservative Middle East expert Anthony Cordesman, Bush's speech was "clumsy and shallow" and little more than "a glorified press release." It offered little, if anything, that wasn't already on the public record. More a trough than a mountain.

At the UN on 13 September, Foreign Minister Downer claimed that "Iraq's flagrant and persistent defiance is a direct challenge to the United Nations, to the authority of the Security Council, to international law, and to the will of the international community". Four days later in the Australian Parliament Mr Downer repeated the charges, that Iraq "directly challenges the authority of the United Nations and international law," that it poses "a grave threat" to the world, that it "has flouted and frustrated UN resolutionspersistently defied legally binding obligations" and is therefore "a serial transgressor." Every one of these comments could also have been made about Israel. However, for reasons not explained there are to be no dossiers presented to the Parliament outlining its breaches of UN resolutions, it won't be called "a serial transgressor" of international law, nor has it's long history of defying Security Council resolutions ever meant that "the authority of the United Nations was at stake." If Washington bypasses the Security Council or cannot get UN authorisation for a strike against Iraq but unilaterally attacks the country regardless, it will have done much greater damage to the UN's credibility than years of Iraqi non-compliance with Security Council resolutions.

Canberra's new approach to the United Nations

"We have no intention, as Australians, of playing any part in anything which would be illegal in breach of the law Australia has no intention of doing anything which is in breach of international law (Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Lateline, ABC TV 24 September, 2002)."Until I know and the Government knows what has come out of the United Nations Security Council position - I mean you could have a situation where you have a resolution carried 13-2, and one of the two is a permanent member, and the permanent member says "I am going to veto the resolution." "Now in those circumstances we would have to make a decision, the Americans would have to make a decision, and potentially others. And I know there are other countries that would in those circumstances regard such a veto as capricious and regard a vote of 13-2 in favour of action as being Security Council endorsement and they wouldn't allow that capricious veto to hold them back." (Prime Minister John Howard, 7.30 Report, ABC TV, 23 January, 2003).

There is an obvious contraction in these two remarks. Five points are worth noting about the Prime Minister's new attitude to United Nations Security Council resolutions.

(1) The process whereby international law is made - via the passing of UN Security Council Resolutions - can now be disregarded if the outcome isn't welcome. The veto powers of the permanent five members apparently don't count if the desired result doesn't eventuate. This is an interesting approach to 'due process' and displays extraordinary contempt for the UN Charter which specifies the respective powers of UN Security Council members and the process for passing resolutions.

(2) If the UN Security Council decides not to authorise an attack against Iraq, the use of force against Baghdad would constitute a crime of aggression - a breach of international law. Few credible international lawyers argue that existing breaches of UN Security Council resolutions by Iraq provide a legal defence for the use of force against it. The international community doesn't only express its views when UN Security Council resolutions are passed. It is speaking just as loudly when it rejects draft resolutions passed by member-states. The rule of law may not be a high priority for Washington given that the United States is the only country to have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on all states to obey international law, but this is not a precedent which Canberra should follow (Chomsky 1999a, p.74).

(3) If Canberra opposes the current process which allows the permanent five members of the Security Council to veto resolutions, what steps has it taken to alter this power through proposals to reform the UN?

(4) What are the implications of this new policy for relations with Israel? Since the early 1970s, the US has vetoed 22 draft Security Council resolutions on Palestine alone - this figure doesn't include 7 vetoes relating to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s. The US has normally been outvoted 14-1 on these resolutions, though it is difficult to recall Mr Howard condemning Washington's "capricious" use of its veto in these cases. According to the principle Mr Howard has recently articulated, 14-1 votes in the Security Council where the single vote against is a veto can nevertheless be regarded as constituting Security Council endorsement for, not against, the resolution. The Howard Government has stated that one reason Israel's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions cannot be compared with Iraq's is because the resolutions Israel ignores are not Chapter 7 enforcement resolutions (as Iraq's are). The reason for this is because Washington routinely and capriciously vetoes all enforcement resolutions against Tel Aviv. Presumably these vetoes can be dismissed in the future? Or according to Mr Howard's new principle, from now on member states of the UN shouldn't allow Washington's "capricious" use of its veto power to "hold them back" from bringing Israel to account for its breaches of international law.

(5) Canberra's new policy echoes both the ALP's and the British Government's positions. According to the Leader of the Opposition, "the exception to this position [of only supporting UN authorised action against Iraq] might occur in the case of overwhelming UN Security Council support for military action, but where support for such action was subject to veto" (The Australian Financial Review, 15 January, 2003). Prime Minister Blair has said that if one country on the Security Council imposed an "unreasonable or unilateral" block "we can't be in a position where we are confined in that way" (The Age, 15 January, 2003).

Crean, Blair and now Howard are saying that the moral authority of the UN depends on whether it does the bidding of Washington and its allies. If it reflects a different view, it's very legitimacy is in question and therefore the process by which it has been passing Security Council resolutions since the 1940s can be disregarded. You can see what they mean when they say that the future of the UN is at stake over the question of Iraq.

As the possibility of a new UN Security Council resolution authorising the use of force fades, it is increasingly clear that Washington, London and possibly Canberra will construct tortured and unconvincing legal arguments which claim that existing resolutions breached by Iraq since 1990 already legitimate the use of force (see Rai 2002, pp.145-50). This is disputed by most independent international lawyers. In Australia the argument has taken a novel turn. Neil Mitchell: It does seem the United Nations is the key to it and the public support seems to be predicated on support for action with United Nations approval. Is there a possibility of the Australian Government supporting action without United Nations approval?

Prime Minister Howard: You can't give a clear cut answer to that until you know the final outcome of the UN process and the reason for that is that the final outcome is very likely to be either black or white. People assume that at the end of the day the UN will either 15-0 explicitly, without argument, authorise the use of force or alternatively heavily say under no circumstances should force at any time be used. Now, I'm afraid that it's not going to quite end up that way. You're going to have something in between. You may remember the NATO intervention in Kosovo at the time when the NATO countries decided to attack Serbia because of the ethnic cleansing that was occurring in Kosovo. That was not authorised by the United Nations. (24 January 2003, Radio 3AW).

Washington's wars in Indochina were never bought before the United Nations, for obvious legal and political reasons. However, the problem with the Kosovo precedent is that NATO's attack on Serbia was almost certainly illegal. Security Council authorisation was not sought by Washington or London in 1999 because of Moscow's likely use of its veto power, thus a very dubious claim to 'the right of humanitarian intervention' was invoked (Gray 2000, pp.31-42). No such right to humanitarian intervention can be, or is being claimed in the case of Iraq, so the Kosovo precedent is irrelevant to contemporary events.

Conclusion

Neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Minister have answered the key question: where is the new evidence that makes military action against Iraq more urgent now than it has been since December 1998 when Richard Butler withdrew UNSCOM from Iraq? Prime Minister Howard claims the onus is on the critics of his Government's approach to articulate an alternative (The Australian, 1 January, 2003). What about the policy of containment his Government comfortably lived with between 1996 and 2002? As two conservative realists have noted"

"... the belief that Saddam's past behaviour shows that he cannot be contained rests on distorted history and dubious logic. In fact, the historical record shows that the United States can contain Iraq effectively - even if Saddam has nuclear weapons - just as it contained the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And that conclusion carries an obvious implication: there is no good reason to attack Iraq at this time" (Mearsheimer & Walt 2002).

References

William Blum, Rogue State (rev ed, Zed Books, London 2002).

Hedley Bull, 1983 Hagey Lectures (University of Waterloo, Ontario 1983).

Michael Byers, 'Terror and the Future of International Law' in Ken Booth & Tim Dunne (eds), Worlds in Collision (Palgrave, London 2002).

Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle (rev ed, South End Press, Boston 1999).

Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism: Lesson From Kosovo (Common Courage Press, Monroe ME 1999a).

Christine Gray, International Law and the Use of Force (OUP, Oxford 2000).

Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option (Faber & Faber, London 1993).

Gabriel Kolko, Another Century of War? (The New Press, New York 2002).

John J. Mearsheimer & Stephen M. Walt, Can Saddam Be Contained? History Says Yes, (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, Cambridge MA November 2002).

Steven E. Miller, 'Gambling on War: Force, Order, and the Implications of Attacking Iraq' in Carl Kaysen et al, War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Committee on International Security Studies, Cambridge MA 2002).

Anthony Parsons, From Cold War to Hot Peace (Penguin, London 1995).

Milan Rai, War Plan Iraq (Verso, London 2002).

Kenneth N. Waltz in Scott D. Sagan & Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (W.W. Norton & Company, New York/London 1995).

Kenneth N. Waltz, 'The Continuity of International Politics' in Ken Booth & Tim Dunne (eds), Worlds in Collision (Palgrave, London 2002).

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