The Dartmouth Beacon

The only Republican war of the past century was the 1990 Gulf War when the US led an international coalition of 34 nations (including our sworn enemy, the USSR) to free Kuwait from Iraqi forces. In hindsight, we can again contend that America could have prevented the war by making her intentions of protecting Kuwait clearer to Hussein. However, we can always criticize the actions of past administrations when we have the advantage of retrospection.

Quite obviously, the decision to go to war against any nation is a complex one based on intelligence regarding the state’s threat-factor. It involves analyzing available intelligence regarding the state’s military intentions (including a historical perspective) and making informed yet quick decisions. When an entire nation’s security is dependent upon a single decision, the administration cannot spend months and years determining when the enemy will attack, especially when it is clear that the enemy poses a significant danger. The idea of pre-emptive war is thus born – when a state poses a significant threat and has shown aggressive intentions, the state under danger must attack preemptively to protect itself. This is not a new idea. The Soviet Union's attack on Nazi-supported Finland at the onset of World War II springs to mind as a prominent modern example.

There can be little doubt about Iraq’s ignoble intentions. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 without warrant. In April 1991, Hussein accepted a UN resolution requiring it to end production of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to allow monitoring by the UN special commission inspection team.

Within only a few years, however, Saddam was openly flouting the UN resolution. Between 1995 and 1998, Hussein prevented inspectors from visiting a large number of sensitive sites, forcing them to withdraw in December 1998. Despite a series of bombings in 1999-2001 and debilitating sanctions since 1990, Hussein refused to allow UN weapons inspectors back. Even when the UN offered to ease anti-Iraq sanctions in 1999, Hussein did not relent.

In July 2002, Saddam withdrew from disarmament talks, but he invited the inspectors back a month later. UN personnel, however, were barred from visiting several Presidential palaces. In December 2002, Hussein submitted a 12,000-page report to the UN on its Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons (NBCW) program but left out several important details, including 12 warheads designed to carry chemical weapons and updated information about his nuclear ambitions. Under critical international pressure, Hussein agreed “in principle” to destroy his illegal Samoud 2 missiles, but provided no such guarantees.

He was clearly in breach of UN resolutions 1441 (2002), 1205 (1998), 1154 (1998), 1060 (1996) and 687 (1991), all of which required him to dismantle his unconventional weapons and provide UN personnel with unhindered access to all sites. These are but clear signs of a man who is desperate to reinstate his WMD program.

Leading Democrats have also accepted reports of Iraqi weapons programs in the past. President Clinton and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger admitted in 1998 that Iraq possessed WMDs and he was very likely to “use them again.” In 1998, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader said: “Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.” Even Senators Ted Kennedy and Bob Byrd have admitted that Saddam possessed NBCWs.

David Kay, head of the UN team, said in late 2003, “We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.” His team had discovered a network of underground laboratories that were “suitable for continuing CBW [Chemical and Biological Weapons] research” and a prison laboratory complex used in “human testing of BW-agents.” Despite the recent brouhaha about the lack of any unconventional weapons in Iraq, Kay’s team had found significant evidence of Saddam’s clandestine program to develop such armaments.

In July 2004, American forces discovered more than 2 tons of low-enriched uranium and approximately 1,000 highly radioactive items at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex, which were clearly banned under the numerous UN resolutions. Recently, UN officials discovered twenty missile engines designed for nuclear-warheads, in addition to a large number of dual-use materials, including fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, parts of missiles and a reactor vessel – all used for making biological or chemical weapons. Recent reports show that equipment and materials that could be employed for developing unconventional weapons have disappeared from Iraq, including entire buildings housing high-precision nuclear paraphernalia, such as milling and turning machines, electron-beam welders, and high-strength aluminum. Polish troops have also discovered warheads containing the deadly nerve gas, cyclosarin, in southern Iraq. Cyclosarin is five times more powerful than sarin, the nerve gas that killed over one-hundred Japanese in a subway attack a decade ago.

We also have evidence that Saddam Hussein utilized revenues from the UN Oil-for-Food program to finance his military projects. He bribed senior officials in the French, Russian, and Vatican administrations, the Coastal Corporation of Texas (not a Halliburton associate) and Kojo Annan, the UN Secretary-General's son, to sell Iraqi oil for cash at below-market prices, siphoning off billions of dollars away from the program meant as humanitarian aid. It has been reported that he personally pocketed a significant portion of these revenues and utilized the remainder to fund his military adventurism.

Saddam’s human rights record is abysmal. In 1988, he used chemical weapons to kill Kurds in Northern Iraq – he first conducted aerial bombardments to force Kurds into underground shelters, and then unleashed “a lethal brew of mustard gas and nerve agents” with full knowledge that the gases being heavier than air would soon penetrate all shelters killing all their residents. Over 100,000 Kurds were killed, most of them women and children. The effects of the deadly gases continue to haunt the Kurds, with long-term disabilities and continued contamination of water supplies.

Saddam conducted “much larger-scale chemical attacks on Iranian forces.” He is also reported to have used chemical weapons against American troops in the First Gulf War. He again bombed Kurdish villages in 1991, reportedly using chemical weapons, killing thousands of innocent civilians. Hussein has literally starved his people while constructing dozens of Presidential palaces. His refusal to allow UN inspections has led to a decade of devastating sanctions, which have killed thousands.

Saddam’s ties with terrorist organizations cannot be denied. He bankrolled the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has a 30-year history of terrorist attacks on Israeli and American targets. Saddam provided the PFLP with more then $60 million in Oil-for-Food vouchers, laundering through a front company in Syria. He paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers more than $25,000 for each attack on Israel. He extended financial support to Abu Abbas’ Palestinian Liberation Front and Palestinian Liberation Organization, providing them with millions of barrels of oil through the UN Oil-for-Food program. Despite lack of conclusive proof of a link with Al-Qaeda, the 9/11 Commission reports that that Osama Bin Laden had cooperated with Baghdad over the establishment of anti-Kurdish Ansar Al-Islam forces in Northern Iraq. In 1998, Al-Qaeda operatives met several Iraqi officials and there were even talks of setting up terrorist training camps in Iraq. An Iraqi delegation traveled to offer Bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq in 1999. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s Deputy, had links of his own with Baghdad.

Peaceniks are raising doubts whether the Bush administration was justified in going to war against Iraq. If Saddam’s long-standing commitment to developing WMDs, the progress he had made in building them, his extensive ties with terrorist organizations, and his outrageous human rights record are not sufficient justifications for the war, I do not know what can be.