Abstract
In 1991, the United Nations Security Council set up a weapons inspection and disarmament regime that remained intact for several years before withering under bureaucracy. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the success and failures of this regime were brought into the spotlight as Bush established US leadership at the United Nations and announced an international war on terror. The United States deemed inspections, and their contemporary incarnation, as less than satisfactory, as Bush sought alternative measures to disarm Iraq. The result was an obstinate administration, unrestrained by the international community, in its pursuit of what they deemed an unacceptable threat. What can be seen is Bush’s belief that Saddam’s intentions as Iraqi leader were more important than his capabilities, and that made Saddam an unacceptable risk to US national security.
Iraq is a centrepiece of American foreign policy, influencing how the United States is viewed in the region and around the world…Because events in Iraq have been set in motion by American decisions and actions, the United States has both a national and a moral interest in doing what it can to give Iraqis an opportunity to avert anarchy.
—James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton (The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward, A New Approach, 2006. Available at http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html)
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Notes
- 1.
George Bush, Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1998), 490.
- 2.
Ole R. Holsti, American Public Opinion on the Iraq War (University of Michigan Press, 2011), 20.
- 3.
Plan for future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq’s compliance with relevant parts of Section C of Security Council resolution 687 (1991) paragraph 17.
- 4.
Ibid. paragraph 18.
- 5.
Mohamed El-Baradei, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (Bloomsbury, 2011), 23.
- 6.
Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (Bloomsbury, 2005), 26.
- 7.
Ibid. 37.
- 8.
Report from the executive chairman of the special commission, s/1998/719, Annex.
- 9.
Ibid. paragraph 27.
- 10.
Ibid. paragraph 34.
- 11.
Ibid. paragraph 54.
- 12.
Ibid. paragraph 60.
- 13.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 35.
- 14.
Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (Random House: New York, 2002), 94. Clinton also signed the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 that meant the United States officially supported regime change in Iraq.
- 15.
United Nations Security Council Report of the first panel established pursuant to the note by the president of the Security Council on 30 January 1999 (S/1999/100), concerning disarmament and current and future ongoing monitoring and verification issues, Document Number s/1999/356, 30 March, 1999, annex 1, paragraph 14.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid. paragraph 25.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Ibid. paragraph 32.
- 20.
Ibid. paragraph 61.
- 21.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 40.
- 22.
Pollack, The Threatening Storm, 100.
- 23.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 44.
- 24.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4120, 24 March, 2000, 2.
- 25.
Ibid. 6.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Ibid. 16–17.
- 28.
Ibid. 7.
- 29.
Ibid. 8.
- 30.
Ibid. 10.
- 31.
Pollack, The Threatening Storm, 102.
- 32.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4152, 8 June, 2000, 3.
- 33.
Ibid.
- 34.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4241, 5 December, 2000, 4.
- 35.
Ibid. 8.
- 36.
Pollack, The Threatening Storm, 103.
- 37.
Tony Blair, A Journey (Hutchinson: London, 2010), 392–3.
- 38.
Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (Simon and Schuster: New York, 2009), 174–75.
- 39.
Ibid. 175.
- 40.
James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (Viking, 2004), 290.
- 41.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4336, 26 June, 2001, 3.
- 42.
Ibid. 11.
- 43.
Ibid. 4.
- 44.
Ibid. 6.
- 45.
Ibid. 9.
- 46.
Ibid. 7.
- 47.
Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 182.
- 48.
Ibid. 173.
- 49.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4336 (Resumption 1), 28 June, 2001, 25.
- 50.
Ibid. 27.
- 51.
Ibid. 28.
- 52.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4344, 3 July, 2001, 3.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy, (Harvard University Press, 2002), 225.
- 55.
United Nations Security Council, Threats to International Peace and Security Caused by Terrorist Acts, Document Number S/PV.4370, 12 September, 2001, 3.
- 56.
Ibid. 5.
- 57.
Ibid. 7.
- 58.
Ibid. 7–8.
- 59.
A running theme in Blair’s memoirs is the United Kingdom standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the United States. The September 11 attacks, according to Blair, were not just an attack on the United States, but on the United Kingdom as well. As a consequence of the September 11 attacks, Blair stressed, “I believed then, as I do now, that the US could not afford to lose this battle, that our job as an ally who faced a common threat should be to be with them in our hour of need.” Blair, A Journey, 401.
- 60.
Osama bin Laden was one of the more pressing and urgent security threats to the United States, having had a long history of jihad first against the Soviet, and then the United States. In fact, the staging of US troops in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 war with Iraq was used as a justification for attacking US targets throughout the 1990s. See Mustafa Hamid, Leah Farrall, The Arabs at War in Afghanistan (Hurst & Company: London, 2015).
- 61.
Phillip Zelikow, “US strategic planning in 2001–2002,” in ed. Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro, In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin Wall and 9/11 (Cornell University Press, 2011), 103.
- 62.
Holsti, American Public Opinion on the Iraq War, 26.
- 63.
Zelikow, “US strategic planning in 2001–2002,” 109.
- 64.
Ibid. 112.
- 65.
Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 213.
- 66.
Ibid.
- 67.
Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 335–6.
- 68.
Blair, A Journey, 404.
- 69.
United Nations General Assembly, General Debate, 57th Session (S/57/PV.2), 12 September 2002, 2–3.
- 70.
Ibid.
- 71.
Ibid. 7.
- 72.
Ibid.
- 73.
Ibid. 8.
- 74.
Ibid. 9.
- 75.
Blair, A Journey, 396.
- 76.
Alexander Thompson, in Channels of Power, observes that US persistence in the Security Council for a resolution that confronted Iraq was not because Bush believed that United Nations approval was necessary for a successful military operation. According to Thompson, United Nations approval “would demonstrate to the international community that the United States was willing to be constrained and to accommodate the interests of others. This would diminish the threat posed by a US intervention in the region to the interests of various politically important governments. Second, and most important, the Bush administration was concerned with the reactions of domestic publics abroad…Security Council approval would signal to their publics that the coercive policy being pursued was designed to provide broad international benefits—beyond the narrow interests of the United States.” Alexander Thompson, Channels of Power: The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq (Cornell University Press, 2009), 161–62.
- 77.
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, 15.
- 78.
Ibid.
- 79.
Zelikow, “US strategic planning in 2001–2002,” 111.
- 80.
Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 215.
- 81.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4625, 16 October 2002, 4.
- 82.
Ibid. 4.
- 83.
Ibid. 5.
- 84.
Ibid.
- 85.
Security Council, S/PV.4625 (Resumption 1), 9.
- 86.
Ibid. 10.
- 87.
Joseph Siracusa, “John Howard, Australia, and the Coalition of the Willing,” Yale Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring (2006). Siracusa notes, “the Bush administration views Australia as one of the United States’ most loyal allies. Howard, in turn, has cashed in by strengthening diplomatic ties between Canberra and Washington, particularly on trade and defense matters. The reinvigoration of the US-Australia relationship can be ascribed to consensual strategic behaviour in response to a changing global security environment” (p 48). Australia’s vocal support of the United States in the early stages of confronting Saddam Hussein was one part of the “consensual strategic behaviour” between Australia and the United States.
- 88.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 86.
- 89.
Ibid.
- 90.
Ibid.
- 91.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4625 (Resumption 1), 16 October 2002, 8.
- 92.
Ibid.
- 93.
Ibid. 12.
- 94.
Ibid.
- 95.
Ibid. 12–13.
- 96.
Ibid. 13.
- 97.
Blair, A Journey, 401.
- 98.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4644, 8 November, 2002, 3.
- 99.
Ibid. 5.
- 100.
Ibid. 13.
- 101.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 89.
- 102.
Ibid.
- 103.
Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 350.
- 104.
United Nations Security Council, High-level Meeting of the Security Council: Combating Terrorism, Document Number S/PV.4688, 20 January 2003, 5.
- 105.
Ibid. 8.
- 106.
Ibid. 15.
- 107.
Ibid. 18.
- 108.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4692, 27 January, 2003, 5.
- 109.
Ibid.
- 110.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 142.
- 111.
Ibid. 141–142.
- 112.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4692, 27 January, 2003, 10.
- 113.
Ibid.
- 114.
Ibid. 12.
- 115.
El-Baradei, The Age of Deception, 61.
- 116.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4701, 5 February, 2003, 7.
- 117.
Ibid. 10.
- 118.
Ibid. 13.
- 119.
Ibid. 15.
- 120.
Ibid. 16.
- 121.
Ibid. 17.
- 122.
Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honour: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (Simon and Schuster, 2011), 200.
- 123.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4701, 5 February 2003, 18.
- 124.
Ibid. 20.
- 125.
Ibid. 18.
- 126.
Ibid. 21.
- 127.
Ibid. 25.
- 128.
Ibid. 24.
- 129.
Ibid. 38.
- 130.
Ibid. 38.
- 131.
Rice, No Higher Honor, 201.
- 132.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4707, 14 February 2003, 2.
- 133.
Ibid. 3.
- 134.
Ibid. 5.
- 135.
Ibid. 6.
- 136.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 176.
- 137.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4707, 14 February, 2003, 9.
- 138.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 178–179.
- 139.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4707, 14 February 2003, 18.
- 140.
Ibid.
- 141.
Ibid. 20.
- 142.
Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 355.
- 143.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4707, 14 February 2003, 15.
- 144.
Ibid. 21.
- 145.
Ibid. 12.
- 146.
Ibid. 13.
- 147.
El-Baradei, The Age of Deception, 61–62.
- 148.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4709, 18 February 2003; United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4709 (resumption 1), 19 February 2003.
- 149.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4714, 7 March, 2003, 3.
- 150.
Ibid.
- 151.
Ibid. 4.
- 152.
Ibid.
- 153.
Ibid. 6.
- 154.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 210.
- 155.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4714, 7 March, 2003, 6.
- 156.
Ibid. 7.
- 157.
Ibid. 8.
- 158.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 211.
- 159.
El-Baradei, The Age of Deception, 70.
- 160.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4714, 7 March, 2003, 14.
- 161.
Ibid. 15.
- 162.
Ibid. 26.
- 163.
Ibid. 27.
- 164.
Ibid. 18.
- 165.
Ibid. 20.
- 166.
Ibid. 19.
- 167.
El-Baradei, The Age of Deception, 73.
- 168.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4714, 7 March, 2003, 36.
- 169.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4717, 11 March, 2003; United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4717 (resumption 1), 12 March 2003.
- 170.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 248.
- 171.
Rice, No Higher Honor, 203.
- 172.
Blix, Disarming Iraq, 252.
- 173.
According to Sarah Kreps, in Coalitions of Power, the failure of the United Nations Security Council to approve armed intervention in Iraq was because of the different interpretations of the role of the Security Council in the decade after the Cold War. The United States had shown, in 1991, that the United Nations could pool resources together if the United States accepted the constraints of multilateral intervention. In 2003, however, this understanding of the Security Council clashed with Bush’s intentions in the war on terror. Put simply, Kreps writes, “the United States did not expect to need the resources of these regional actors as it had in 1991. It just needed them not to interfere.” Sarah E. Kreps, Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions After the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2011), 148.
- 174.
Rice, No Higher Honor, 204.
- 175.
United Nations Security Council, The Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait, Document Number S/PV.4721, 19 March, 2003, 22.
- 176.
Ibid. 23.
- 177.
Blair, A Journey, 412.
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Siracusa, J.M., Visser, L.J. (2020). The Land of Harun al-Rashid, 2001–2003. In: Going to War with Iraq. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30163-7_5
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