Iraq's New Old Chemical Arsenal

Yesterday, a student asked me about the recent news reports indicating that Iraq did, in fact, have "weapons of mass destruction" back in 2002 and 2003 when the U.S. was attempting to justify a "preemptive" war. The New York Times reported that American soldiers were injured in the past decade by chemically-armed munitions found in Iraq.

Already, a slew of articles in the media have debunked the claim that this vindicates George W. Bush and his Iraq misadventure. This Washington Post piece is perhaps the best since it primarily quotes Bush administration claims from the pre-war period.

The Times piece certainly does not try to claim that Bush is vindicated:

The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government’s invasion rationale. 

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Hussein was hiding an active weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of international will and at the world’s risk. United Nations inspectors said they could not find evidence for these claims. 

Then, during the long occupation, American troops began encountering old chemical munitions in hidden caches and roadside bombs. Typically 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets, they were remnants of an arms program Iraq had rushed into production in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. 

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them. 

In case after case, participants said, analysis of these warheads and shells reaffirmed intelligence failures. First, the American government did not find what it had been looking for at the war’s outset, then it failed to prepare its troops and medical corps for the aged weapons it did find.

Read the piece and it offers more reason to believe that these revelations do not help the save the Bush administration's reputation:

Participants in the chemical weapons discoveries said the United States suppressed knowledge of finds for multiple reasons, including that the government bristled at further acknowledgment it had been wrong. “They needed something to say that after Sept. 11 Saddam used chemical rounds,” Mr. Lampier [“a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war”] said. “And all of this was from the pre-1991 era.” 

Others pointed to another embarrassment. In five of six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been designed in the United States, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies.

A decade ago, when I was blogging regularly about this, the media would occasionally report about old chemical munitions found it Iraq. I posted this passage on May 19, 2004:

What is very clear is that there was no vast infrastructure of WMD programs and no readily deployable arsenal. The nuclear program was dead. No one denies Iraq had chemical weapons in the 1980s and that scientists could again make them. What is the appropriate level of threat justifying preventive war? 

I ended up writing and publishing a number of pieces about that question and the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of "preemptive war." In one of them, I quoted from this exchange involving David Kay, who was the head of the Iraq Survey Group in 2003 (the original team looking for WMD) and then-U.S. Senator Mark Dayton:

DAYTON: Which weapons of mass destruction qualify in that upper echelon of truly mass destruction? 

KAY: Well, I think all of us have and would continue to put the nuclear weapons in a different category. It's a single weapon that can do tremendous damage, as opposed to multiple weapons that can do the same order of damage. As you know, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, in terms of number of people killed, was roughly equivalent to a single bomb in Nagasaki, but it took a lot more aircraft to do it. 

So I still treat, and I think we should politically treat, nuclear as a difference. But I must say, the revolution of biology, some developments in cyber -- I think we're going to have a blurring out there of capabilities. And that makes the control and makes the intelligence problem far more difficult to estimate. 

DAYTON: Just based on your general knowledge, how many countries would you say in the world today would qualify under the category of developing weapons of mass destruction-related program activities or having such activities?

KAY: Senator Dayton, I hesitate to give you an off-the-cuff number because I know it'll probably is going to be like the 85 percent; I'm going to have to live with it for longer than I want to.I would say that in the nuclear area, in addition to those that we know have possessed nuclear weapons, that includes India... 

DAYTON: I want to go to the vernacular that we're using in this broader category. 

KAY: The broader category. Oh, I suspect you're talking about probably 50 countries that have programs that would fall somewhere in that broader vernacular. 

DAYTON: So if we're going to take out those countries or their governments which are engaged in what we would call weapons of mass destruction-related program activities, we're going to be cutting quite a world swathe. 

KAY: Well, Senator Dayton, I think you're on to the issue. We no longer are going to be living in a world in which we can control capabilities. Intentions are what are going to be important.

Kay is correct. The war was primarily justified based on the threat allegedly posed by Iraq's nuclear program. If the bar for preemptive war is lowered to justify attacks against states with potentially menacing chemical or biological capabilities, then states with such preemptive doctrines could launch attacks against thousands of universities or industries in dozens of states.


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Service odds and ends

I neglected to blog about a couple of service contributions in mid-to-late December 2013.

First, I was interviewed by a former student about the new U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal. You can find his piece at Rudaw, a Kurdish Iraqi English-language outlet. I'm quoted at the end of the December 30 story:

Rodger Payne, Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville, Kentucky said that the new deal may help the Iranian economy, but might also raise fears among some of Iran’s neighbors. 

“The states that are unhappy either fear that Iran will become more powerful as a result of easing economic sanctions or by secretly continuing its nuclear program in violation of the agreement,” Payne told Rudaw. 

He said that some countries may still be in favor of a military strike to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or advocate tougher sanctions. But “the world wants Iran’s oil, so there are limits on just how extensive sanctions can be in this case.”

That was accurate, but I was questioned about why some neighboring states oppose the deal. I personally think these fears are over-stated and that the deal looks very good, especially when contrasted to the prospect of American or multilateral military strikes.

On December 12, I traveled up to Antioch College to speak as part of their Global Seminar in Governance. Most of the school's (very small) student body turned out to hear me talk about "Democratic Governance in a Global Context." I addressed various possible meanings of this phrase and favored global deliberation about American use of force in the alleged service of international purposes.


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Read the Duck

Virtually all of my recent blogging has been posted at Duck of Minerva:

Today, September 30, I posted Flashback: Afghanistan "Mission Accomplished." The post recalls something goofy Donald Rumsfeld said in May 2003.

Tuesday, September 28: Another war on terror outrage: asylum denied. Read about yet another way the U.S. has been screwing Iraqi civilians.

Thursday, September 16: The Latest in Mole Whacking. The post is about proposed escalation of the "war on terror" -- in Yemen.

Monday, September 6: "Debate Day." I reminisce about how Labor Day was traditionally an important work day for the University of Kansas debate team. The post takes note of recent articles and books by other former debaters.

Wednesday, September 1: "Preemption News." The Pentagon is gearing up to launch "preemptive" wars against potential cyber-attackers.


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Preventive war update: NATO edition

January 22, The Guardian newspaper ran a story about what they called "a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists."

General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK

What was their report about? According the The Guardian,

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction...the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

That's newsworthy, eh?

The document is now available on-line. This is the money quote from the newspaper, p. 97 of the report:

"Regrettably, nuclear weapons - and with them the option of first use - are indispensable, since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world. On the contrary, the risk of further proliferation is imminent and with it, the danger that nuclear war-fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible. This development must be prevented. It should therefore be kept in mind that technology could produce options that go beyond the traditional role of nuclear weapons in preventing a nuclear armed opponent from using nuclear weapons. In sum, nuclear weapons remain indispensable, and nuclear escalation continues to remain an element of any modern strategy."

The report clearly states that nuclear proliferation poses such a great threat that it "must be prevented."

Interestingly, to justify their favored policies, the report authors use the language of deterrence. However, it is clear on pp. 95-6 that they are changing the traditional meaning of the term. It is now going to be the idea that enemies can never feel safe -- and the uncertainty/threat will be generated by proactive denial as well as reactive response to undesired action (like proliferation of WMD).

Orwellians should love these sentences:

"As deterrence might occasionally either be lost or fail, the ability to restore deterrence through escalation at any time is another element of a proactive strategy.

Escalation is intimately linked to the option of using an instrument first. A strategy that views escalation as an element can, therefore, neither rule out first use nor regard escalation as pre-programmed and inevitable."

The authors go on to use a phrase often used by Colin Gray and others 25 years ago: "escalation dominance."

The report also fairly clearly reserves the right for preemptive war -- and preventive war, arguably blurring the difference as the Bush administration has done. On p. 98, the authors go out of their way to say that force need not be a last resort. It "might very well be the first option to be used." Then, on p. 99, they note that "early decisive action" may be necessary and that a "coordinated media campaign" might pave the pathway for preferred action. Given the paragraphs prior to their discussion of media campaigns, it seems obvious that such an effort would apparently be needed to blur the lines between reactive preemption policies (which are clearly legal) versus proactive preventive action (the question of legality "remains unanswered").

Finally, on p. 106, they write that "

most democratic nations will consider enforcement as politically acceptable if

*no other option is left to achieve the agreed political objective, because the crucial interests of a nation or an alliance are at stake;

*an attack is imminent or has taken place by state or non-state actors launched from the country or region in which enforcement will be conducted;

*no other option exists to prevent or terminate genocide."

Given the third bullet point, it seems clear that the authors are not listing multiple requirements for enforcement actions. They do not include "and" in this section.

The following paragraphs, in fact, go on to describe threats that are not imminent, but that might nonetheless require action. A specific named possibility is acquisition of WMD -- even though that threat is "unlikely to lead to UN authorisation for a preventive military operation" (p. 107).

In the case of likely UN Security Council deadlock, they say that enforcement "action taken by an individual state or group of states might be the answer."

The Europeans have been moving toward the Bush Doctrine logic on preventive war for some years, the problem is they disagree with the US about agent of decision and action. This document hints that at least some Europeans might be willing to relent on these points.


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A New Preemption Doctrine

Bumper sticker observed, Christmas Eve 2007, Portland, Oregon: I hope everyone has a great holiday!


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Pakistan and the Presidential candidates

Barack Obama threatened to attack Pakistan on August 1, 2007:

As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

To an AP reporter, Obama initially implied that nuclear weapons would not be used against Pakistan -- but he quickly clarified that he was not "going that far afield."

Allegedly, Hillary Clinton told the National Association of Pakistani Americans (NAPA) that she would not attack Pakistan unilaterally with U.S. troops. This is from Dawn (which calls itself "Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper") on July 27:

US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said if America sends its troops to the tribal region, they should go with Pakistani troops and not on their own.

At a fund-raising dinner arranged for her by the National Association of Pakistani-Americans, she rejected the suggestion by some US officials and lawmakers that the United States should conduct unilateral military operations in the tribal region to destroy alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens.

Such a move, she said, would not produce the desired results and would create new problems. Only a combined effort by the Pakistani and US troops could destroy militant hideouts in the area, she added.

NAPA does not seem to have a web presence and I cannot find the original source for this quote.

In fact, some sources are reporting that Clinton seems to agree with Obama. This is from the August 2 Des Moines Register.

"I've long believed that we needed tougher, smarter action against terrorists by deploying more troops to Afghanistan, and if we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan, I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured. And that will be my highest priority because they pose the highest threat to America," she said Wednesday in an interview with American Urban Radio News Networks.

Generally, the Democrat candidates appear to be united in this election cycle -- the real war on terror should be targeted at al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They want the US to withdraw from Iraq and change the focus of the fight.

What about the Republicans? What are they saying about Pakistan?

Mitt Romney, in the Boston Globe, August 5, specifically criticized Obama's widely quoted speech:

"We want as a civilized world to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme within them," Romney said. "That doesn't mean that our troops are going to go all over the world."

Romney said the remarks were not helpful to the American effort.

"I think his comments were ill-timed and ill-considered," Romney said.

"He’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr Strangelove in one week," added Romney.

According to that last linked Reuters stiry, Rudy Giuliani seems to agree with Obama, while John McCain is critical.


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Pakistan & the Limits of the Bush Doctrine

U.S. government officials continue to limit the Bush Doctrine. Recently, some have pointed out that the U.S. would likely only attack Pakistan if the threat is nearly certain -- and if Islamabad agrees to the strike.

The Washington Post story of July 26 (by Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick) is illustrative:

R. Nicholas Burns, the State Department's undersecretary for political affairs, suggested that a unilateral strike would be a last resort.

"Given the primacy of the fight against al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, if we have in the future certainty of knowledge, then of course the United States would always have the option of taking action on its own," Burns said during questioning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "But we prefer to work with the Pakistani forces, and we, in most situations -- nearly every situation -- do work with them."

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry continues to be strongly opposed to an American military strike:

"We have stated in the clearest terms that any attack inside our territory would be unacceptable," the ministry said in a formal statement released Tuesday in Islamabad.

In a separate story from the July 31 Post, David Ignatius finds a former CIA officer who wants the CIA to mount a covert effort against Pakistan -- just as it previously did in Afghanistan.

[Henry Crumpton argues that] The right model for a Waziristan campaign is the CIA-led operation in Afghanistan, not the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Teams of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers are best suited to work with tribal leaders, providing them weapons and money to fight an al-Qaeda network that has implanted itself brutally in Waziristan through the assassination of more than 100 tribal leaders during the past six years. It would be better to conduct such operations jointly with Pakistan, but if the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf can't or won't cooperate, the United States should be prepared to go it alone, Crumpton argues.

"The United States has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens," says Crumpton. "We either do it now, or we do it after the next attack."

Crumpton proposed a detailed plan last year for rolling up these sanctuaries, which he called the Regional Strategic Initiative. It would combine economic assistance and paramilitary operations in a broad counterinsurgency campaign. In Waziristan, U.S. and Pakistani operatives would give tribal warlords guns and money, to be sure, but they would coordinate this covert action with economic aid to help tribal leaders operate their local stone quarries more efficiently, say, or install windmills and solar panels to generate electricity for their remote mountain villages.

Ignatius wants to see a plan somewhat like JFK's "Alliance for Progress" in Latin America -- but he clearly wants to act now, rather than later.


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War with Pakistan

Pakistan has long been a concern on this blog -- both for its pre-9/11 ties to al Qaeda and its horrible nonproliferation record.

What should be done about Pakistan?

Like the Washington Post's editorial board, former Iraq Study Group co-chair Lee Hamilton sounds like he's calling for war against Pakistan -- or at least invocation of the Bush Doctrine.

The Christian Science Monitor reported some of his recent comments on July 19:

"I think that our relationship with Pakistan needs to be reconsidered, reevaluated.… What has driven our relationship with Pakistan has been the fear that the alternative to Musharraf would be a radical government with a nuclear bomb. I think that fear is overstated…. I believe it is necessary for the United States to be able to go after the sanctuaries in Pakistan," he said.

When he was asked whether such action could cause the Musharraf government to fall, Mr. Hamilton responded, "It is a risk, and it is a risk I would be willing to take."

Hamilton continued:

"The thing that is most worrisome to me about Al Qaeda is the sanctuary. It seems to me that, if anything, we have learned that we must not permit the terrorists to have a sanctuary from which to regroup, train, plan, and launch strikes within Europe or here or elsewhere," Hamilton said.

Listen carefully and you can hear the drums of war beating.

They may not be pounding for Iran.


Note: Photo credit, US Department of State

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Iran: Deterrence vs. compellence

In regard to Iran, this story published in The Guardian on February 8 provides the most definitive denial of "war fever" that I've read yet from someone in the Bush administration:

president Bush has made it clear we have no intention of going to war with Iran," said Gordon Johndroe, the spokesman for the White House national security council.

Maybe Johndroe forgot what the President said when he was in Belgium two years ago.

The rest of the newspaper story is about Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's recent deterrent threats directed at the US:

"The enemies know any aggression will give way to a wide reaction from Iranian people toward them and their interests in all parts of the world," Iranian state television quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying...

"We believe that no one will make such an unwise and wrong move (to attack Iran) that would endanger their country and interests," Mr Khamenei said. "Some say that the US president is not the type who acts based on calculations or thinks about the consequences of his action. But even these people can be brought to their senses."

An Iranian naval commander apparently claimed that Iran has tested missiles that could sink big US warships in the Persian Gulf.

Would these kinds of threats be sufficient to deter the US from any kind of attack? Maybe. A nuclear weapon would work even better -- as North Korea would probably advise.

Note also that Khamenei said "enemies" because he's well aware of Israel's latest open efforts to beat the war drums. The LA Times, reported Israel's attempts to compel action on February 7:

Israeli officials have begun an unusually open campaign to muster international political and economic pressures against Iran. They warn that time is growing short and hint that they will resort to force if those pressures fail to prevent Iran's development of an atomic weapon.

Israeli leaders fear that an Iranian bomb would undermine their nation's security even if Tehran never detonated it. That Israel has its own nuclear arsenal would not counteract the psychological and strategic blow, they believe.

Israel began secretly preparing in the early 1990s for a possible air raid on Iran's then-nascent nuclear facilities and has been making oblique public statements about such planning for three years.

What is new is Israel's abandonment of quiet diplomacy to rally others to its side.

Israel has been making hostile threats against Iran fairly overtly since at least fall 2004.

As any student of Thomas Schelling would warn, it is much more difficult to compel than to deter.

Since there's some dispute about how much threat Iran is to Israel, they might want to rethink their strategy.


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