#9. The Violence that Brings Silence: When Diplomacy Fails

Many of America’s European and Arab allies were not on board with the United States for any sort of military action against Iraq. Important members of the UN Security Council, the group of UN members who have the power to obligate the UN, opposed a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Russia, Germany, and France, for example, wanted to see a diplomatic solution. Only Tony Blair, prime minister of Britain, stood squarely behind the U.S. position. “Also, as noted by David Gergen, a special adviser to President Bill Clinton and White House staff member in previous administrations, the Arab world was strongly opposed” to any action against Iraq because of possible anti- American uprisings: “Closer to Iraq, almost every country says don’t go; they are more worried about bedlam on their streets than about threats by Saddam.” European leaders made their opposition to a U.S. military strike especially clear. French president Jacques Chirac, for example, in a September 9, 2002, interview, urged the United States not to go it alone and to consult with the United Nations Security Council concerning any military action against Saddam Hussein. Chirac argued that weapons inspectors must be returned to Iraq and that changing the government of Iraq was not authorized by the United Nations. President Bush initially appeared to respond to the pressure from European. nations such as France and Britain for diplomacy and cooperation with the UN to contain the Iraqi threat. On September 12, 2002, in a much-anticipated address to the United Nations, Bush asked for UN help and for renewed weapons inspections in Iraq. In the speech Bush set forth his case against Saddam Hussein, citing Iraq’s failure to disarm, as required by numerous UN resolutions, and the four-year opportunity Iraq had to rebuild its weapons arsenals since UN inspectors were last allowed into Iraq. The president insisted that Iraq disarm, stop its support for terrorism, cease persecution of Iraqi civilians, resolve issues of unaccounted-for Gulf War personnel, and end illicit trade that violated economic sanctions. Finally, Bush urged the United Nations to develop a resolution to combat the Iraqi threat. Bush’s UN speech was immediately praised by European and some Arab countries, as well as domestically, and U.S. diplomats began working with other countries to develop the appropriate UN resolution to renew weapons inspections. Meanwhile, Bush and his British ally, Tony Blair, continued to warn about the dangers of Iraq. They alleged, for example, that Iraq sought to acquire uranium in Africa that could be used to make nuclear weapons. The evidence for this claim, however, was judged by the CIA to be doubtful even at the time Bush and Blair made the charge; later it was conclusively proved to be a forgery. After much behind-the-scenes negotiating, the United States and Britain succeeded in getting Resolution 1441 adopted by a unanimous vote of the UN Security Council on November 8, 2002. The resolution provided Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with [UN] disarmament obligations” and set up a new inspections process. The resolution called on Iraq to provide immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to weapons inspectors. In addition, the resolution gave Iraq thirty days to provide the UN with an accurate and complete declaration of all aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems.

In January 2003 UNMOVIC and IAEA reported to the UN that they had received free access to Iraqi facilities and had been able to conduct more than 350 on-site inspections but that no weapons of mass destruction had been discovered. UNMOVIC chairman Dr.Hans Blix, for example, told the Security Council on January 9, 2003, “If we had found any ‘smoking gun’ we would have reported it to the Council. . . . We have not submitted any such reports.” IAEA director general Dr. Mohamed El Baradei similarly reported that no evidence of nuclear activities had been detected. Although twelve thousand pages in length, Blix said the Iraqi weapons declaration of December 7, 2002, was practically devoid of new evidence and failed to resolve many of the unanswered questions about Iraqi weapons capabilities that remained from the earlier UN weapons inspection process. Subsequent reports by Blix in February and March similarly reported that inspectors found no prohibited weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq was offering only limited cooperation. In his speech Powell revealed a seemingly impressive list of U.S. intelligence information, including not only information obtained from Iraqi defectors but also audio tapes of cell phone conversations between Iraqi military officers (purportedly discussing how to hide evidence from inspectors) and satellite photos (showing that Iraq had recently moved banned weapons materials from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities). Powell also claimed U.S. intelligence showed that Iraq had mobile laboratories used to make biological weapons and conceal these activities from the UN. Powell also claimed that Iraqi officials had met with al-Qaeda terrorists on several occasions since the early 1990s.

Nevertheless, on February 24 the United States, Britain, and Spain circulated a second UN resolution to authorize war against Iraq; the proposed resolution concluded that “Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it [by] resolution 1441 (2002).”

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