Rebuke of and advice to Charles Duelfer
PREFACE: Charles Duelfer directed the Iraq Survey Group. He advocates for restoration of sufficiently competitive, robust American liberal leadership with Iraq of a kind with the intensive peace operations that President Obama cut off. Yet Duelfer self-defeatingly also upholds the keystone premise in the politics disqualifying the fundamental policy course correction he advocates: namely, the demonstrably faulty assertion that the Iraq intervention was unjustified in the first place. Here, I advise him on the change he must make for his advocacy to be politically effectual.
from: [Eric]
to: info@charlesduelfer.com
date: Mar 17, 2024, 8:30 AM
subject: Critique of Charles Duelfer's "Things to Consider: Iraq War at 20"
Mr. Duelfer,
I clarify the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ. My critique of your 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom post is very belated, but at least it's in time for the 21st anniversary. I also posted it as a comment at "Things to Consider: Iraq War at 20".
Duelfer:
Indeed. From the start, revisionist experts have misled the public with faulty premises and historical distortion about the Iraq intervention. Fortunately, the primary sources of the mission, i.e., the basic law and facts that define the actual justification of Operation Iraqi Freedom, provide a reliable litmus test for the "accuracy" of anyone's "writing/commenting about the Iraq war".
Primary source authority precedes and outranks secondary expert authority on merit, and applies equally to layman and expert alike. When the Iraq issue is properly aligned with OIF's primary sources, we can accurately assess where "Everyone (and their dog)" credibly accord with the operative law and facts and where anyone, no matter their resume, has misinformed the public contra the operative law and facts.
Duelfer:
In the case of Iraq, the President's belief in Saddam's threat followed the controlling law and policy of the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement. Saddam's manifold standing threat was definitively established with the Gulf War and thereafter presumed until Iraq proved it was no longer that threat in accordance with the purpose-designed Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441). The Saddam regime never came close to resolving its standing threat via the mandated compliance. As you confirmed, Saddam never intended to comply with the ceasefire terms.
In fact, we know now that Saddam's violations of the UNSCR 687 terrorism and UNSCR 688 human rights mandates, which defined Saddam's threat along with his UNSCR 687 WMD violations, were substantially underestimated.
Duelfer:
That's easy to answer. President Bush by procedure, like Presidents HW Bush and Clinton, believed the UN weapons inspectors who constantly verified that the Saddam regime failed to disarm in accordance with the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441). (Your "…or not" contradicts the UNSCR 687 standard and fact record.)
President Bush was "still very new to the office when 9-11 happened". But the controlling law and policy that enforced the Gulf War ceasefire UNSC resolutions pursuant to UNSCR 678, the determinative fact status of Iraq's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire not limited to WMD, and the governing procedure that Bush inherited were already mature. The "very new" President followed the very established governing procedure for Iraq.
President Bush believed the UN weapons inspectors by procedure because the controlling mandate to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235) meant that the UNSCR 687 compliance-based UN inspections were determinative for US action on Iraq.
The intelligence community, which as you point out, itself depended on the UN inspections, was ancillary in the compliance-based UNSCR 687 disarmament. Belief or disbelief in the intelligence was not determinative for a US-led UNSCR 678 action.
The national security team was beholden to the US law and policy that enforced UNSCR 687 pursuant to UNSCR 678, same as their boss. Other world leaders were beholden to UNSCRs 678 and 687, same as the American president.
While Iraqi oppositionists did contribute some to the intelligence, they were relevant in the context of UNSCR 688, which the US enforced alongside UNSCR 687 pursuant to UNSCR 678. The Saddam regime's extreme violation of the UNSCR 688 human rights mandates, "the consequences of which threaten international peace and security in the region" (UNSCR 688), is confirmed.
For Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) with UNSCR 687, UNSCOM established, the UN Security Council decided, and UNMOVIC confirmed Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441). When the UNMOVIC Clusters document's "unresolved disarmament issues" established casus belli like the UNSCOM Butler report did in 1998, President Bush properly followed the governing procedure pursuant to UNSCR 678. You yourself corroborated that President Bush's decision was correct as "ISG judges that Iraq failed to comply with UNSCRs" and "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (Iraq Survey Group).
The procedural record of the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement is straightforward, including the Presidential decisions that plainly responded to the compliance-based UN inspections in accordance with the compliance-based US law and policy pursuant to compliance-based UNSCR 678. So I'm disappointed that in your "writing/commenting about the Iraq war 20 years later" you've misinformed the public about President Bush's decision on Iraq by asserting a revisionist ambiguity that contradicts the operative law and facts.
Duelfer:
The UN weapons inspectors provided the President with full certainty from 1991 to 2003 that the Saddam regime was noncompliant with UNSCR 687, which was determinative. (The Saddam-induced absence of UNSCOM/UNMOVIC in Iraq between UNSCR 1205 and UNSCR 1441 meant that Iraq was ipso facto noncompliant with UNSCR 687 with its status effectively stuck on the UNSCOM findings that triggered Operation Desert Fox.)
However, the UN weapons inspectors did not limit uncertainty about the "disposition of Iraq’s full WMD programs" because, one, the very design of UNSCR 687 meant that only verification of Iraq's mandated compliance with UNSCR 687 could do that. In that regard, as you confirmed, "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions...Outward acts of compliance belied a covert desire to resume WMD activities" (ISG). Two, the misconception that the UN inspections limited uncertainty about Saddam's WMD was conclusively dispelled in 1995 by the Hussein Kamel al-Majid revelation.
Furthermore, the Iraq Survey Group's ex post findings confirm that the idea that the UN inspections limited uncertainty was a dangerous misconception. For example, among the UNSCR 687 violations you found in Iraq, "ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories...The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts...The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN" (ISG).
You also discovered proscribed biological capability that was hidden by the IIS from the UN inspections.
In other words, ISG confirmed that in Iraq's "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" (UNSCR 1441), Saddam instead had ready and hidden at least terrorism-level WMD capability under the noses of the UN weapons inspectors. Keep in mind that the IIS also managed Saddam's world-leading "regional and global terrorism" (Iraqi Perspectives Project), which also breached the ceasefire for casus belli.
Duelfer:
Set aside the ancillary relevance of the intelligence community in the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement. Set aside the UNSCR 687 violations you found which show an active WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687. Do we actually know that the "stories of dubious defectors" were wholly fabricated? The ISG report fails to definitively answer that question.
You emphasized in the ISG's Transmittal Message, Scope Note, and the report's various sections that Iraq's non-pareil "denial and deception operations" (ISG), which in and of themselves breached the ceasefire and continued after the regime change, substantially undermined not only the pre-war UN inspections and intelligence assessments, but also your ex post investigation.
The evidence you found in hand is definitive proof of an Iraqi WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687. However, ISG non-findings that are commonly characterized in the politics as definitive proof of Iraq's innocence are in fact heavily qualified in the ISG report due to "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well" (David Kay, 28JAN04).
Therefore, the WMD evidence that you failed to find cannot be definitive proof of Iraq's innocence, even if we ignore the UNSCR 687 violations that you did find.
The Iraqi denial of evidence to the ISG investigation by "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program" (Kay) logically infers that "Iraq’s full WMD programs" were greater than the UNSCR 687 violations you discovered despite Iraq's "denial and deception operations" (ISG). We can't know how much greater "Iraq’s full WMD programs" actually were because Saddam's agents successfully kept that from you. But we can assume that Iraq had higher value items than what they left behind, and based on your findings on Iraq's proscribed procurement, we can presume there was a lot of it.
As far as "Fabricators got a much better hearing than they deserved", it stands out that the "extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence" (ISG) that you found in Iraq includes claims by officials that are similar to the "stories of dubious defectors". For example, "ISG has investigated claims by former IIS officials—a former IIS chemist and his former supervisor, the late Dr. Al Azmirli—that the IIS produced ricin until at least 1995 and possibly until 2003" (ISG). Notably, you did not disprove the claim like you did Secretary Powell's mobile BW labs. Instead, typically, you were stymied by "ISG could not confirm that ricin work had occurred there because of extensive looting" (ISG).
Duelfer:
Set aside that Iraq was obligated to declare and present all its UNSCR 687-proscribed items and activities to UNSCOM, and UNSCOM was not mandated to uncover Saddam's WMD. The fact is you still don't know how successful UNSCOM was or wasn't. The Iraq Survey Group's heavily qualified non-findings mean that while you can guess, you can't really know that "UNSCOM dogmatically uncovered virtually all his WMD between 1991 and 1998".
I'm disappointed that in your "writing/commenting about the Iraq war 20 years later" you've misinformed the public by omitting both the heavily qualified character of ISG's non-findings, despite that it's a constant theme in the ISG report, and the UNSCR 687 violations that you did find.
Duelfer:
I guess you mean Saddam wondered "whether WMD was retained in Iraq" beyond the UNSCR 687 violations that you found, including the "extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD" (ISG), and the mass of WMD evidence that was denied to you by "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well" (Kay).
Duelfer:
Again, setting aside the UNSCR 687 violations that you found and the heavily qualified character of your non-findings, this seems impossible but...Is it possible that Saddam really did not understand that since 1991, the American president's decisions on Iraq were made in accordance with the controlling law and policy that enforced Iraq's mandated compliance with the Gulf War ceasefire terms, including UNSCR 687, pursuant to UNSCR 678? And that in the ceasefire disarmament process, the role of the "intelligence system" was merely ancillary?
Since 1990-1991, the US law and policy on Iraq pursuant to UNSCR 678 was openly broadcast, public domain, consistent, reiterated, straightforward and plainly stated. Did Saddam really not understand that his intransigent flagrant "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire, which includes his self-incriminating comments, would eventually compel the UNSCR 678 enforcers to resume the Gulf War and this time complete it? The ISG report implies as much, but again, it seems impossible. Extremely, dangerously delusional on Saddam's part, if true.
Duelfer:
Hence UNSCR 687's compliance-based enforcement.
The burden or "onus" (UNMOVIC Clusters document) was on Iraq to prove it disarmed per UNSCR 687 as a necessary condition to forestall resumption of the Gulf War. There was no burden on the UNSCR 678 enforcers to prove Iraq was armed as estimated by the intelligence community, which obviated the "hard target" issue.
Your statement "Judgements were made on very little real new data" is incorrect. At the decision point of Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), the determinative data of the Saddam regime's noncompliance with the Gulf War ceasefire terms was up to date. In fact, President Bush's 18MAR03 determination for OIF mainly cites to the 06MAR03 UNMOVIC Clusters document. Subsequent fact findings, including yours, have only piled on redundantly to the already dispositive evidence of Saddam's sweeping "material breach" (UNSCR 1441).
Casus belli was always Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441), whose determinative data was open to the public, not the intelligence estimates. While "Curveball" illustrates a problem for the intelligence community, it doesn't significantly affect the ceasefire disarmament process that established OIF's casus belli. Procedurally speaking, there's no relevant reason for "The fact that the intelligence assessments relied on such limited information and was such low confidence should have been emphasized".
Duelfer:
You're misleading the public here.
First, there was no either/or. After 12 years of successful intransigence, particularly Saddam's victory over the diplomatic coercive alternative, i.e., sanctions, after 1996 and over UNSCOM and the UNSCR 678 enforcers in 1998, the viability of the "diplomatic solution" offered by UNSCR 1441 wholly depended on a military threat that was sufficient to compel Saddam's cooperation with the UNSCR 1441 inspections. In other words, the "massive undertaking...of putting all that military capacity in place" was the only way "to give diplomacy a chance".
Second, the diplomatic "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) was given a full chance and then some. The “point of no return” moment for the OIF invasion force build-up coincided with the UNMOVIC Clusters document, which concluded the UNSCR 1441 compliance test with Saddam's utter failure to prove the required "full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions" (UNSCR 1441). In fact, according to the timeline spelled out in UNSCR 1441, President Bush technically could have ordered OIF based on Hans Blix's scathing 27JAN03 report. Instead, Bush opted to give Saddam more leeway to fulfill Iraq's ceasefire obligations, and Saddam threw away the extra chance.
In the end, even when the UNMOVIC Clusters document had established casus belli for the UNSCR 1441 "final opportunity to comply" and the OIF invasion force build-up was at the “point of no return”, the US and UK still tried to carve out yet another chance for Saddam to switch off the military threat with Iraq's mandated compliance. But Saddam and his accomplices on the UNSC rejected the attempt.
Three, Saddam leaving Iraq was not the only way, nor the way preferred by President Bush to forestall resumption of the Gulf War. To make the Gulf War ceasefire permanent and stay in power, Saddam only had to prove full compliance with the ceasefire terms that were purpose-designed to cure Iraq's Gulf War-established threat, which Iraq had agreed to do in 1991. But instead of choosing peace with Iraq's mandated compliance in his "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), Saddam chose to resume the Gulf War by keeping Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441).
Duelfer:
Yes, you should. First things first: Correcting the fundamental flaws in your own consideration of President Bush's decision requires that you step back and lay a proper foundation for the Iraq issue with the primary sources that define OIF's justification. The OIF FAQ is purpose-designed to teach you how to do that.
Once you've clarified the Iraq issue for yourself, you need to go back to the "over 7000...intelligence officers" and "various participants—including Iraqis" whom you've evidently misinformed and clarify OIF's justification for them, too.
Duelfer:
It's important to remember that for any highly competitive endeavor, it's normal for an initial plan, once engaged, to face setbacks that compel adjustment. History shows that pattern is normal for military contests, no less than when competing against vicious unbounded opponents like Saddamists.
We know now that the initial post-war plan, which was valid based on what we knew before OIF, failed in part because Western analysts severely underestimated Saddam's radical sectarian turn, extreme corruption of Iraqi society, and deep domestic, regional, and global terrorism. Outsiders, including Iraqi expats and UN personnel like you who'd been to Iraq, failed to understand how depraved the Saddam regime had become.
The initial post-war plan failed because at first Saddamists were better at killing and terrorizing Iraqis than we were at protecting the Iraqi people per Public Law 105-338, UNSCR 1483 etc.. As a product of Saddam's distinctive governance, Saddamists entered the contest as the world's top experts at inflicting genocide and terrorism on the Iraqi people, and they zealously carried over their expertise to the terrorist insurgency against post-Saddam Iraq.
But setback and adjustment are normal in any kind of real competition, no less in military contests. American leaders and the US forces mandated to defend the Iraqi people adjusted to the Saddamists' vicious opening advantage in relatively short order.
So, "Did it really need to be that bad afterwards?"
An accurate and precise pre-war assessment of the extreme character of the Saddam regime's UNSCR 687 terrorism violations, including Saddam's "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with al Qaeda, and UNSCR 688 human rights violations might have helped.
Realistically, the solution is that the Iraqi regime change should have happened long before 2003, if not in Operation Desert Storm, then as soon as it became apparent that Saddam would not comply with Iraq's Gulf War ceasefire obligations. We should not have kept trying for over a decade(!) to convince a clearly intransigent Saddam to comply with the ceasefire terms as Iraq festered, all the while raising the cost and difficulty of regime change.
Knowing what we know now, the Iraqi regime change happened much later than it should have. But that's not President Bush's fault. It's mainly his father's fault. The lesson of Iraq is that a malignant cancer like the Saddam regime needs to be solved comprehensively as soon as possible. As is, it's better that the Iraqi regime change happened in 2003 than any later. The Saddam problem was already "far worse" (UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq, 18MAR04) than we knew, and it was only growing worse the longer we let it fester.
Duelfer:
While the Iraq Survey Group is not technically a primary source of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as it's ex post to the President's determination for OIF, I cite the ISG report extensively and often as a 'chief corroborative source', more than I do many of OIF's primary sources.
That being said, the ISG report is not without fundamental flaws. Excerpt from the OIF FAQ retrospective #duelferreport section:
I hope you find this critique useful. I look forward to your response, and I invite you to review my work at https://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
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Comment:
Dr. [Mr.] Duelfer,
You're incorrect that "the Iraq WMD assessments were wrong" in terms of the US presidential determination for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The controlling law, policy, and precedent for the OIF decision plainly show the determination for enforcement with the Saddam regime pivoted on whether Iraq proved it complied and disarmed as mandated, not whether the US proved Iraq was armed as estimated.
I recommend to you (again), your fellow advocates for reviving responsible American leadership, and to the Trump administration, my OIF FAQ explanation that sets the record straight on the law and policy, fact justification of the Iraq intervention by synthesizing the mission's primary source authorities.
Contrary to your assertion that "the Iraq WMD assessments were wrong", in terms of the US presidential determination, the actual "reality" is that UNSCOM to UNMOVIC to the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) as well as non-armament fact findings, such as the Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) and UNCHR, "broadly" corroborate your assessment "that Iraq failed to comply with UNSCRs up to OIF" (ISG).
The legally prescribed and practically necessary determinative measurement for Saddam's WMD-related threat was not rooted in the intelligence estimates but rather the UNSCOM and UNMOVIC findings on Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441), inasmuch the WMD-related intelligence estimates were not themselves rooted in the UNSCR 687 inspections.
On law and fact, President Bush and the US (with Prime Minister Blair and the UK) demonstrably were right on Iraq. The OIF decision is a straightforward fact pattern with an exceptionally well developed, decade+ law, policy, precedent, fact record. Iraq's categorical "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire is confirmed by you and other fact-finding authorities.
Beyond the correct US presidential determination for OIF, the US-led, UN-mandated peace operations with Iraq were succeeding before President Obama's deviation.
At the dawn of the Arab Spring, the UN Security Council (on 15DEC10) and President Obama (on 19MAY11) benchmarked the historic opportunity to build a generational peace in the Middle East with the hard-won cornerstone where “In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy … poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress” (Obama).
However, the window to build a generational peace evident in 2010-2011 required American leadership to stay the course with Iraq and the Bush Freedom Agenda.
Instead, President Obama radically changed course with Iraq and dropped the Bush Freedom Agenda. Obama's deviant rationale has been based on the demonstrably false notion which you promote, that with Iraq, "Political leaders made decisions based on ... broadly wrong assessments of reality".
Your basic law-and-fact error, exploited by President Obama, has had a catastrophic ripple effect. OIF stigma - comprised largely of conjecture, distorted context, and readily debunkeddis[mis]information - has been the keystone premise for President Obama's critical choices that sabotaged nascent post-Saddam Iraq and doomed the Syrian people by disqualifying American leadership of the free world at the very historical moment where the steadfast American leadership epitomized by President Bush with Iraq was most needed. Avid actors such as Iran and Russia have accepted Obama's effective invitation to fill the vacuum and alter the international order in their expected illiberal manner.
The 1990-2011 Iraq intervention, especially OIF and its peace operations, is paradigmatic as it embodied the principles of American leadership of the free world. As long as the stigmatization of the Iraq intervention prevails in domestic and international politics, your current advocacy for reviving responsible American leadership with Iraq, Iran, Syria, and indeed the rest of the world, will continue to be disqualified at the premise level of politics and policy.
The viability of your advocacy fundamentally depends upon you first de-stigmatizing the Iraq intervention. Before you can advocate on current events effectively, you must establish at the premise level of the politics that in principle and policy, President Bush and America were fundamentally right and by the same token, President Obama has been fundamentally wrong to deviate from President Bush with Iraq and the Freedom Agenda.
The following points are included in my OIF FAQ explanation. But as an introduction to setting the record straight on OIF's justification, note:
Iraq's guilt of UNSCR 687-proscribed armament was established by UNSCOM and decided by the UN Security Council. Upon the UNSCOM-established fact of Iraqi WMD, "the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security" (UNSCR 1441) was presumed until Iraq proved it complied and disarmed as mandated. In other words, noncompliant Iraq was ipso facto a proscriptively armed threat irrespective of the intelligence estimates. The operative enforcement procedure for the Gulf War ceasefire, including the UNSCR 687 disarmament process, was built upon the burden of proof on Iraq. There was no operative burden of proof on the US, UK, and UN.
Therefore, the principal trigger for Operation Iraqi Freedom was not and could not be the intelligence estimates. By procedure, casus belli was primarily established by the 06MAR03 UNMOVIC report confirming Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" in "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire with the same operative enforcement procedure by which the 15DEC98 UNSCOM report triggered Operation Desert Fox in 1998.
The "assessments of reality" that established casus belli with Iraq from UNSCR 660 (1990) onward were the prescribed measurements of Iraq's compliance with the UNSCR 660 series, in particular Iraq's obligations under the Gulf War ceasefire pursuant to UNSCRs 687 and 688 and related resolutions.
The controlling law, policy, and precedent that defined the operative enforcement procedure plainly show that the moment that UNSCR 687 inspectors re-entered Iraq pursuant to UNSCR 1441, the intelligence estimates could not trigger enforcement to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235). Rather, the US-led, UN-mandated ceasefire enforcement with Iraq always pivoted on the prescribed measurement of Iraq's compliance with the "measures" mandated to satisfy "the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions [and] ... to secure peace and security in the area" (UNSCR 687).
Based on the determinative "assessments of reality" for the OIF decision, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair clearly were correct according to the operative context - eg, "The Security Council resolutions will be enforced -- the just demands of peace and security will be met -- or action will be unavoidable" (Bush at UNGA, 12SEP02), "Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences" (Powell at UNSC, 05FEB03), "ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" (Public Law 107-243), and "ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions" (UNSCR 1441).
Contrary to your unfounded assertion that the OIF decision was based on "broadly wrong assessments of reality", the Saddam regime was evidentially in categorical breach of the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for the Gulf War ceasefire in Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), especially with the disarmament mandates of UNSCR 687, terrorism mandates of UNSCR 687, and human rights mandates of UNSCR 688. [FYI, it's evident the pre-war assessments significantly under-estimated the Saddam regime's human rights abuses in breach of UNSCR 688 and "regional and global terrorism", including Saddam's "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with the al Qaeda network, in breach of UNSCR 687, which were also enforcement triggers.]
At the decision point for OIF upon UNMOVIC's 06MAR03 report, Saddam was far beyond the 'red line' with no intention of fully and immediately complying with the Gulf War ceasefire as was required to switch off the threat of regime change that enforced Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) . As you found, "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (ISG) per paragraphs 8 to 13 of UNSCR 687, let alone the spectrum of ceasefire mandates, especially on terrorism per UNSCR 687 and human rights per UNSCR 688.
... The assessment of reality is you are responsible for the current events and degraded US foreign policy that you protest.
You've used your preeminent reputation to validate the plainly false narrative of OIF that America's rivals - Russia and France chief among them - have employed to stigmatize the Iraq intervention and thereby disqualify the American leadership needed for current events.
For your current advocacy to be effective, it requires the re-normalization of the particular "strong horse" American leadership of the free world that manifested with OIF. Which first requires your mea culpa while you disabuse the myth, "Political leaders made decisions [for the Iraq intervention] based on ... broadly wrong assessments of reality".
Once you've set the record straight on OIF's law-and-fact justification at the premise level of our politics to de-stigmatize the Iraq intervention in order to re-qualify the OIF-embodied principles of American leadership in our policy, then - and only then - can your current advocacy hope to become viable.
Re-framing the discourse by establishing that President Bush and the US (with Prime Minister Blair and the UK) were right on Iraq - and by the same token that OIF critics, including yourself and President Obama, have been wrong - lays the foundation needed for the only real path for your current advocacy to succeed.
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Comment:
Mr. Duelfer,
Your premise that "Saddam didn’t have WMD" is clearly incorrect.
In fact, according to the operative definition or "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for an Iraq WMD program set by paragraphs 8 to 13 of UNSCR 687 and related resolutions, the Iraq Survey Group -- you -- uncovered an active WMD program in Iraq.
In terms of ISG's affirmative findings, you reported, inter alia, "we have clear evidence of his [Saddam's] intent to resume WMD" with "preserved capability" that amounted to a ready chemical and biological weapon capability with an IIS undeclared covert "ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts", "secret biological work in the small IIS laboratories", "Iraq also possessed declarable equipment for chemical production, which it had not declared to the UN...it would have been possible for Iraq to assemble a CW production plant", and "The UN deemed Iraq’s accounting of its production and use of BW agent simulants...to be inadequate...the equipment used for their manufacture can also be quickly converted to make BW agent" (ISG). And, "until he was deposed in April 2003, Saddam’s conventional weapons and WMD-related procurement programs steadily grew in scale, variety, and efficiency" (ISG).
In addition, the WMD munitions confiscated by Operation Avarice outside of the ISG investigation reinforced your caveat that "ISG cannot discount the possibility that a few large caches of munitions remain to be discovered within Iraq" and "ISG cannot determine the fate of Iraq’s stocks of bulk BW agents...[which is] of particular concern, as they relate to the possibility of a retained BW capability".
In terms of the ISG non-findings that presumably underlie your misstatement "Saddam didn’t have WMD", you made clear in the ISG report's Transmittal Message, Scope Note, and throughout its various sections that severe practical limitations significantly handicapped the ISG investigation. Conclusions such as "it appears that Iraq, by the mid-1990s, was essentially free of militarily significant WMD stocks" (ISG) that are commonly valuated as unequivocal fact in political and scholarly treatments alike are in reality no better than heavily qualified guesses.
Or, as your predecessor David Kay cautioned the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 28, 2004: "I regret to say that I think at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity about what happened. A lot of that traces to the failure on April 9 to establish immediately physical security in Iraq -- the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well, a lot of which was what we simply called Ali Baba looting. ... we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here."
The heavily qualified character of ISG's non-findings infers that absence of evidence in the ISG investigation is *not* evidence of absence, but rather evidence of Iraqi "denial and deception operations" (ISG) that in and of themselves violated the Gulf War ceasefire for casus belli.
It also infers that ISG's affirmative findings constitute a floor only, not a complete account of Saddam's WMD. ISG found many UNSCR 687 WMD violations. Yet what you found were just the scraps left over after Iraq rid presumably higher-value evidence of UNSCR 687-proscribed items and activities with "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well" (Kay).
Properly understood, ISG's non-findings do not infer that missing WMD stocks and program elements did not exist or "Saddam didn’t have WMD". Rather, they infer that you were unable to account for them as mandated by UNSCR 687 due to the same Iraqi "denial and deception operations" (ISG) that denied the mandated account of Saddam's WMD to UNSCOM and UNMOVIC.
We're compelled by Iraq's UNSCR 707 violations to speculate about the "unparalleled" (Kay) mass of evidence that Saddam's agents successfully kept from you. At the same time, the Silberman-Robb WMD Commission, CIA WMD retrospective, and other influential sources are wrong to misinform the public by pretending the "unparalleled" (Kay) mass of missing evidence never existed at all.
Whatever was in the evidence "sanitized" (ISG) by Iraq, in terms of a floor, ISG demonstrated that Saddam covertly possessed at minimum the terrorist-level WMD capability that chiefly concerned Presidents Clinton and Bush, if not a ready battlefield-level WMD capability.
In concert with your confirmation of a ready Iraqi terrorist-level WMD capability, the Iraqi Perspectives Project (the ISG-equivalent investigation of Saddam's terrorism) showed that Saddam's UNSCR 687 terrorism violations (which also violated the UNSCR 949 aggression and UNSCR 688 humanitarian mandates) were significantly underestimated by pre-war analysts, including notably Saddam's "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with al Qaeda.
As a threat, Saddam didn't need to partner with bin Laden to stealthily deploy Iraq's ready terrorist-level WMD capability anywhere in the Middle East and the world. Saddam had developed a world-leading terror "cartel" (IPP) of his own, in which bin Laden's terrorists were in effect simultaneously Saddam's terrorists.
Worse, IPP's findings show that our intelligence agencies had significantly underestimated Saddam's terrorism at the same time that, as ISG's findings show, our intelligence agencies had failed to track Saddam's undeclared covert ready terrorist-level WMD capability.
Your IPP counterpart, Jim Lacey concluded when he weighed IPP and ISG's findings together, "Given the evidence, it appears that we removed Saddam’s regime not a moment too soon" (National Review, 14SEP11).
Again, your premise "Saddam didn’t have WMD" is clearly incorrect according to the operative definition or "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for an Iraq WMD program.
The upcoming landmark 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom is a distinctive opportunity for you to set the record straight on the UNSCR 687 disarmament element of OIF's justification.
Your special stature as an UNSCOM and Iraq Survey Group leader means that it's essential that you in particular correct the prevalent misconception "Saddam didn’t have WMD" (Duelfer) to the public, especially anywhere it has metastasized with compounding harmful consequences. For example, the Silberman-Robb WMD Commission's widely influential analysis is corrupted at foundation by its false core premise, "In retrospect, as found by the ISG, it is clear that the [Iraqi WMD] stockpiles and programs were not there to be found", which contradicts that UNMOVIC and ISG's findings are rife with UNSCR 687 WMD violations and ISG's non-findings are heavily qualified.
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Comment (posted 311823ZDEC17 with a modified version, below, re-posted 061540ZJUL18; "Your comment is awaiting moderation"):
Mr. Duelfer,
The law-and-fact record belies your belief that "Worse were the US decisions to disband the army and condemn Baathists to having no future in Iraq."
First, the de-Ba'athification process simply carried forward the standing human rights policy for Iraq, which is referenced inthe UNSCR 1483, "Affirming the need for accountability for crimes and atrocities committed by the previous Iraqi regime".
Second, I suggest you see this clarification of the de-Ba'athification process and the CPA decision to build anew rather than reconstitute Saddam's security forces.
Third, knowing what we know now, de-Ba'athification was necessary. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) post-war assessment of Saddam's Iraq found that the Saddam regime's "systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror" (19APR02) - already marked at the far end of the scale before the 2003 regime change - in fact "were far worse than originally reported to the Special Rapporteur in the past" (18-19MAR04). In other words, the Saddam regime's human rights violations were off the charts. As such, immediately incorporating Saddam's security forces, besides the practical obstacles of reconstituting them, would have been a diametric contradiction of the US-led, UN-mandated coalition's longstanding human-rights policies for Iraq per UNSCRs 688, 1483, etc, that were key components of the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement and set the guiding parameters for the occupation and peace operations.
In the same vein, we also know now that pre-OIF analysis vastly underestimated Saddam's "regional and global terrorism" wherein "[t]he predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq" (Iraqi Perspectives Project). IPP found Saddam's terrorism included "considerable operational overlap" with the al Qaeda network, which also carried forward to the terrorist insurgency. All of which of course breached the Gulf War ceasefire per UNSCRs 687 and 688 to add to OIF's casus belli on top of the UNMOVIC findings that by the operative procedure confirmed Iraq's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) to trigger the OIF decision.
A case in point for the CPA's sensible decision to build anew rather than reconstitute Saddam's security forces is the 2003 assassination of UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. Note that Vieira opted to retain the guards assigned by the Saddam regime in lieu of American military protection, a mistake that likely cost him and his team members their lives. I can imagine Vieira was swayed to his fatal choice by appeals like the April 2003 appeals described in your post.
Could the de-Ba'athification have been better calibrated and undertaken? Of course. But preemptive perfection in any complex endeavor is not the norm. Adjustment, including with necessary measures like de-Ba'athification, is normal.
Moreover, knowing what we know now, it's likely that the terrorist insurgency was principally a premeditated guerilla adaptation of Saddam's ceasefire-breaching, vastly underestimated domestic "widespread terror" (UNCHR) and "regional and global terrorism" (IPP) rather than a spontaneous post-war reaction to an over-broad de-Ba'athification process.
*** In nations, as well as in persons, curing an extreme malignant cancer is hard, even in the rare instance that doctors do everything right. Cancers are known to fight back. Even without understanding the far depths that Saddam had corrupted Iraqi society and the far extent of the terrorist danger he posed, the international community understood long before OIF that curing Iraq would be a generational endeavor. Yet in relatively short order, despite the zealous efforts of vicious enemies aided by cruel accomplices, the US-led peace operations responded resolutely to post-war setbacks with necessary adjustments on track with a normal pattern of competition.
If you're sincere about advocating your prescription for "Iraq - avoiding the next insurgency", then you must delineate the right track and the wrong track with Iraq. The wrong track is President Obama's disastrous, profoundly inhumane, radical course deviation that prematurely disengaged the vital US-led peace operations from Iraq. The keystone premise for Obama's deviation is the stigmatization of the Iraq intervention, for which you're complicit and which has been carried forward by the Trump administration. Therefore, to return the US to the right track with Iraq according to your advocacy, you must clarify in the politics that President Bush's decision on Iraq was correct in the first place and the US-led peace operations with Iraq were succeeding until President Obama deviated US policy onto the wrong track.
---------------
Comment:
Mr. Duelfer,
Your equivalence of US decisions regarding Iraq's Saddam and north Korea's Kim is inapposite in that US policy on Saddam was based on the longstanding, well established, clearly spelled out UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement whose "measures acting under Chapter VII of the Charter" (UNSCR 687) composed the purpose-designed "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) which the "Government of Iraq", eg, the Saddam regime, was mandated to fulfill in order to satisfy "the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions in the light of its unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait" (UNSCR 687).
As such, the operative context for US decisions regarding Saddam was founded on "Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security" (UNSCR 1441). The set condition meant Saddam's threat, including his WMD-related threat, was measured by Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441) per the manifold ceasefire terms purpose-designed to resolve Saddam's Gulf War-established manifold threat. The continuing "threat [of] Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions" (UNSCR 1441) related to aggression (UNSCR 949), WMD and conventional armament (UNSCR 687), terrorism (UNSCR 687), and repression (UNSCR 688). At the decision point for OIF, the WMD-related "threat [of] Iraq's non-compliance" (UNSCR 1441) was confirmed by UNMOVIC's measurement of "about 100 unresolved disarmament issues" for casus belli. Today, with corroboration of Iraq's noncompliance piled high from the UNSCR 1441 inspections and post-war ISG, IPP, IIC, and UNCHR investigations - eg, "[i]n addition to preserved capability, we have clear evidence of his [Saddam's] intent to resume WMD" (ISG), "the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power" (IPP), and "[t]he new evidence, particularly that of eyewitnesses, added another dimension to the systematic crimes of the former regime, revealing unparalleled cruelty" (UNCHR) - Saddam's threatening breach of the Gulf War ceasefire can now be seen as categorical.
The UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement since 1990 meant US leaders were not positioned to guess at Saddam's motivations via diplomacy near or far. Making decisions regarding Saddam as you would have had US leaders make them would have been remiss since Saddam's "intentions" (UNSCR 687) were objectively assessed according to the fact measurement of Iraq's mandated compliance in the operative context of "the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions ... poses to international peace and security" (UNSCR 1441). As such, President Bush's decision on Iraq responded to the mandated measurement of Saddam's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) in good faith with the decade+ controlling law, policy, and precedent that defined the operative enforcement procedure for the Gulf War ceasefire mandates.
When a recidivist convicted manifold felon, who for some reason has been allowed to fester in society, continually, categorically, and flagrantly violates his terms of probation, including in his "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), with escalating intransigence, threat, and harm until lesser enforcement measures have been exhausted and the compliance enforcement is on the verge of defeat, there's no burden on the compliance enforcement authority to guess at the felon's motivations on top of the felon's evidential "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) in order to impose the originally suspended sentence. President HW Bush, 27FEB91: "Iraq must comply fully with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. ... If Iraq violates these terms, coalition forces will be free to resume military operations."
As far as I know, there isn't a clear-cut compliance test for Kim's motivations comparable to the Gulf War ceasefire mandates "Determined to secure full compliance with its [UNSC] decisions, Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations" (UNSCR 1441) by which US leaders objectively measured Saddam's "intentions" (UNSCR 687). There ought to be a comparable compliance test that can ensure the US decision on north Korea's Kim will be as plainly correct as the US decision on Iraq's Saddam. Perhaps if the Iraq intervention is de-stigmatized and publicly upheld, while Saddam's accomplices who've obfuscated the actual why of the Iraq intervention are publicly discredited, then a comparable compliance test can be effectuated for north Korea's Kim.
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Comment:
Dr. [Mr.] Duelfer,
Last week on Twitter (original tweet was July 6), @BrunoTertrais and @mraillet (Michel Miraillet) claimed that there is no evidence France was complicit in Saddam’s breach of the Gulf War ceasefire involving the Oil for Food scandal and UNSCR 687-proscribed procurement. Mr. Miraillet claimed insider diplomatic knowledge that UNSCOM found no evidence of French suppliers among Iraq’s WMD-related items. I cited the Regime Finance and Procurement section of the ISG report. They dismissed it out of hand. Mr. Tertrais says he’s a longtime friend of yours; I suggested he should ask you about French complicity in the Oil for Food scandal and UNSCR 687-proscribed procurement.
I doubt Mr. Tertrais will actually reach out to you over a Twitter argument. Nonetheless, what do you think of their denials of French complicity in Saddam’s breach of the Gulf War ceasefire?
...
Dr. [Mr.] Duelfer,
Thank you.
I don’t have a paper copy or paginated electronic copy of the ISG report. I refer to the on-line version of the ISG report at https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/, which isn’t paginated as such, so I can’t match pages 93 and 111 to content. Section title and key word to search should work.
Since the supplier data isn’t public, Mr. Miraillet had the advantage of me when he said UNSCOM found no WMD-related materials of French origin. As a layman without his access to the subject material, I could only retort on that count with the 2nd-hand report at http://www.iraqwatch.org/suppliers/Iraq-oped-nyt-2003.htm:
My understanding of French complicity with Saddam’s noncompliance, the casus belli for OIF, is grounded in France’s opposition since the mid-1990s to the “hyperpower” US-led enforcement of the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire that was carried forward from Operation Desert Fox to Operation Iraqi Freedom. As you have explained, the opposition by France, Russia, and others to the US-led enforcement of Iraq’s mandated compliance factored prominently in Saddam’s calculation for declining to comply as mandated with the UNSCR 660 series, including and especially UNSCRs 687 and 688.
I was moved to respond on Twitter because your friends and Ambassador Gerard Araud (who wrote the original tweet) were derisive of President Bush’s decision for OIF, and I was dissatisfied with Professor Eliot Cohen’s retort. The argument took on a different light when I clarified the casus belli was the Saddam regime’s evidential categorical breach of the Gulf War ceasefire and spotlighted French complicity with Saddam’s noncompliance which triggered enforcement with OIF.
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Comment:
Mr. Duelfer,
For your information and review, this link goes to my criticism of Jon Schwarz's 10APR15 article in The Intercept, "Twelve Years Later, US Media Still Can’t Get Iraqi WMD Story Right", which quotes you yet is based on stark misrepresentation of Iraq Survey Group findings: [Link].
Set aside Schwarz's fundamental misrepresentation of ISG findings about UNSCOM/UNMOVIC's actual control over the al Muthanna site and the actual effect of Saddam's order to cooperate with the UNSCR 1441 inspections. I was struck by your insistence, as quoted by Schwarz, that Saddam didn't know about the WMD munitions confiscated by Operation Avarice, because that speculation isn't backed up by your ISG findings. Contrary to Schwarz's quote of you, ISG findings emphasize that Iraq's "denial and deception operations" and "concealment and deception activities" continued up to and even beyond the regime change. By the same token, ISG's failure to uncover WMD stocks is heavily qualified in the ISG report by the substantial limitations of the ISG investigation, e.g., Saddam's agents systematically rid evidence practically unfettered even in the midst of the ISG investigation.
P.S. Comments no longer show on your blog, so please respond by e-mail. Or show the comments again.
Also see Decision Points suggests President Bush has not read key fact findings on Iraq carefully and Criticisms and suggestions for "International Law and the War in Iraq" (John Yoo, 2003).
Eric
from: [Eric]
to: info@charlesduelfer.com
date: Mar 17, 2024, 8:30 AM
subject: Critique of Charles Duelfer's "Things to Consider: Iraq War at 20"
Mr. Duelfer,
I clarify the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ. My critique of your 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom post is very belated, but at least it's in time for the 21st anniversary. I also posted it as a comment at "Things to Consider: Iraq War at 20".
Duelfer:
Everyone (and their dog) is writing/commenting about the Iraq war 20 years later. I doubt more accuracy is achieved in these tales after 20 years.
... TV Experts
Experts in think tanks, universities, etc., all derive stature by being in the media. Just look at their resumes. They list the various media outlets on which they have appeared. (I have been guilty of this.) If they are on some television or other media, does that imply credibility? Or do they just generate clicks? Being controversial and of deep conviction is better for media, than nuance. Being good on TV is a separate talent from Iraq expertise. Cable networks particularly tend to sustain their preferred narrative. When Iraq (or anything else) is hot, their bookers need to fill time and their talking heads may know no more than what they read in their morning internet feed.
... TV Experts
Experts in think tanks, universities, etc., all derive stature by being in the media. Just look at their resumes. They list the various media outlets on which they have appeared. (I have been guilty of this.) If they are on some television or other media, does that imply credibility? Or do they just generate clicks? Being controversial and of deep conviction is better for media, than nuance. Being good on TV is a separate talent from Iraq expertise. Cable networks particularly tend to sustain their preferred narrative. When Iraq (or anything else) is hot, their bookers need to fill time and their talking heads may know no more than what they read in their morning internet feed.
Indeed. From the start, revisionist experts have misled the public with faulty premises and historical distortion about the Iraq intervention. Fortunately, the primary sources of the mission, i.e., the basic law and facts that define the actual justification of Operation Iraqi Freedom, provide a reliable litmus test for the "accuracy" of anyone's "writing/commenting about the Iraq war".
Primary source authority precedes and outranks secondary expert authority on merit, and applies equally to layman and expert alike. When the Iraq issue is properly aligned with OIF's primary sources, we can accurately assess where "Everyone (and their dog)" credibly accord with the operative law and facts and where anyone, no matter their resume, has misinformed the public contra the operative law and facts.
Duelfer:
“I told you so…”
Bear in mind when you hear the next, “I told you so”, even if the actor really did, so what? Why should a top-level decision maker believe them or me? There are always plenty of “experts” who warn of pending threats.
Bear in mind when you hear the next, “I told you so”, even if the actor really did, so what? Why should a top-level decision maker believe them or me? There are always plenty of “experts” who warn of pending threats.
In the case of Iraq, the President's belief in Saddam's threat followed the controlling law and policy of the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement. Saddam's manifold standing threat was definitively established with the Gulf War and thereafter presumed until Iraq proved it was no longer that threat in accordance with the purpose-designed Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441). The Saddam regime never came close to resolving its standing threat via the mandated compliance. As you confirmed, Saddam never intended to comply with the ceasefire terms.
In fact, we know now that Saddam's violations of the UNSCR 687 terrorism and UNSCR 688 human rights mandates, which defined Saddam's threat along with his UNSCR 687 WMD violations, were substantially underestimated.
Duelfer:
Who should a president believe?
The intelligence community? Maybe, but they certainly have gotten things wrong in the past. The national security team? What do they know really? And they disagree in fundamental ways. Do you listen to other world leaders? They have their own spin and may be completely wrong. Iraqi oppositionists? They may sound knowledgeable, but they haven’t been in Iraq in decades. The UN weapons inspectors (UNSCOM)? They were in Iraq for many years, but couldn’t verify that Saddam disarmed…or not.
The intelligence community? Maybe, but they certainly have gotten things wrong in the past. The national security team? What do they know really? And they disagree in fundamental ways. Do you listen to other world leaders? They have their own spin and may be completely wrong. Iraqi oppositionists? They may sound knowledgeable, but they haven’t been in Iraq in decades. The UN weapons inspectors (UNSCOM)? They were in Iraq for many years, but couldn’t verify that Saddam disarmed…or not.
That's easy to answer. President Bush by procedure, like Presidents HW Bush and Clinton, believed the UN weapons inspectors who constantly verified that the Saddam regime failed to disarm in accordance with the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441). (Your "…or not" contradicts the UNSCR 687 standard and fact record.)
President Bush was "still very new to the office when 9-11 happened". But the controlling law and policy that enforced the Gulf War ceasefire UNSC resolutions pursuant to UNSCR 678, the determinative fact status of Iraq's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire not limited to WMD, and the governing procedure that Bush inherited were already mature. The "very new" President followed the very established governing procedure for Iraq.
President Bush believed the UN weapons inspectors by procedure because the controlling mandate to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235) meant that the UNSCR 687 compliance-based UN inspections were determinative for US action on Iraq.
The intelligence community, which as you point out, itself depended on the UN inspections, was ancillary in the compliance-based UNSCR 687 disarmament. Belief or disbelief in the intelligence was not determinative for a US-led UNSCR 678 action.
The national security team was beholden to the US law and policy that enforced UNSCR 687 pursuant to UNSCR 678, same as their boss. Other world leaders were beholden to UNSCRs 678 and 687, same as the American president.
While Iraqi oppositionists did contribute some to the intelligence, they were relevant in the context of UNSCR 688, which the US enforced alongside UNSCR 687 pursuant to UNSCR 678. The Saddam regime's extreme violation of the UNSCR 688 human rights mandates, "the consequences of which threaten international peace and security in the region" (UNSCR 688), is confirmed.
For Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) with UNSCR 687, UNSCOM established, the UN Security Council decided, and UNMOVIC confirmed Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441). When the UNMOVIC Clusters document's "unresolved disarmament issues" established casus belli like the UNSCOM Butler report did in 1998, President Bush properly followed the governing procedure pursuant to UNSCR 678. You yourself corroborated that President Bush's decision was correct as "ISG judges that Iraq failed to comply with UNSCRs" and "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (Iraq Survey Group).
The procedural record of the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement is straightforward, including the Presidential decisions that plainly responded to the compliance-based UN inspections in accordance with the compliance-based US law and policy pursuant to compliance-based UNSCR 678. So I'm disappointed that in your "writing/commenting about the Iraq war 20 years later" you've misinformed the public about President Bush's decision on Iraq by asserting a revisionist ambiguity that contradicts the operative law and facts.
Duelfer:
While inspectors would not confirm the disposition of Iraq’s full WMD programs, they nevertheless provided a continuous presence that limited uncertainty.
The UN weapons inspectors provided the President with full certainty from 1991 to 2003 that the Saddam regime was noncompliant with UNSCR 687, which was determinative. (The Saddam-induced absence of UNSCOM/UNMOVIC in Iraq between UNSCR 1205 and UNSCR 1441 meant that Iraq was ipso facto noncompliant with UNSCR 687 with its status effectively stuck on the UNSCOM findings that triggered Operation Desert Fox.)
However, the UN weapons inspectors did not limit uncertainty about the "disposition of Iraq’s full WMD programs" because, one, the very design of UNSCR 687 meant that only verification of Iraq's mandated compliance with UNSCR 687 could do that. In that regard, as you confirmed, "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions...Outward acts of compliance belied a covert desire to resume WMD activities" (ISG). Two, the misconception that the UN inspections limited uncertainty about Saddam's WMD was conclusively dispelled in 1995 by the Hussein Kamel al-Majid revelation.
Furthermore, the Iraq Survey Group's ex post findings confirm that the idea that the UN inspections limited uncertainty was a dangerous misconception. For example, among the UNSCR 687 violations you found in Iraq, "ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories...The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts...The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN" (ISG).
You also discovered proscribed biological capability that was hidden by the IIS from the UN inspections.
In other words, ISG confirmed that in Iraq's "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" (UNSCR 1441), Saddam instead had ready and hidden at least terrorism-level WMD capability under the noses of the UN weapons inspectors. Keep in mind that the IIS also managed Saddam's world-leading "regional and global terrorism" (Iraqi Perspectives Project), which also breached the ceasefire for casus belli.
Duelfer:
The intelligence community still had to make assessments…but based on less data and growing uncertainty. Moreover, the stories of dubious defectors could not be checked by having inspectors on the ground. Fabricators got a much better hearing than they deserved.
Set aside the ancillary relevance of the intelligence community in the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement. Set aside the UNSCR 687 violations you found which show an active WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687. Do we actually know that the "stories of dubious defectors" were wholly fabricated? The ISG report fails to definitively answer that question.
You emphasized in the ISG's Transmittal Message, Scope Note, and the report's various sections that Iraq's non-pareil "denial and deception operations" (ISG), which in and of themselves breached the ceasefire and continued after the regime change, substantially undermined not only the pre-war UN inspections and intelligence assessments, but also your ex post investigation.
The evidence you found in hand is definitive proof of an Iraqi WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687. However, ISG non-findings that are commonly characterized in the politics as definitive proof of Iraq's innocence are in fact heavily qualified in the ISG report due to "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well" (David Kay, 28JAN04).
Therefore, the WMD evidence that you failed to find cannot be definitive proof of Iraq's innocence, even if we ignore the UNSCR 687 violations that you did find.
The Iraqi denial of evidence to the ISG investigation by "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program" (Kay) logically infers that "Iraq’s full WMD programs" were greater than the UNSCR 687 violations you discovered despite Iraq's "denial and deception operations" (ISG). We can't know how much greater "Iraq’s full WMD programs" actually were because Saddam's agents successfully kept that from you. But we can assume that Iraq had higher value items than what they left behind, and based on your findings on Iraq's proscribed procurement, we can presume there was a lot of it.
As far as "Fabricators got a much better hearing than they deserved", it stands out that the "extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence" (ISG) that you found in Iraq includes claims by officials that are similar to the "stories of dubious defectors". For example, "ISG has investigated claims by former IIS officials—a former IIS chemist and his former supervisor, the late Dr. Al Azmirli—that the IIS produced ricin until at least 1995 and possibly until 2003" (ISG). Notably, you did not disprove the claim like you did Secretary Powell's mobile BW labs. Instead, typically, you were stymied by "ISG could not confirm that ricin work had occurred there because of extensive looting" (ISG).
Duelfer:
While UNSCOM dogmatically uncovered virtually all his WMD between 1991 and 1998, we did not know how successful we were.
Set aside that Iraq was obligated to declare and present all its UNSCR 687-proscribed items and activities to UNSCOM, and UNSCOM was not mandated to uncover Saddam's WMD. The fact is you still don't know how successful UNSCOM was or wasn't. The Iraq Survey Group's heavily qualified non-findings mean that while you can guess, you can't really know that "UNSCOM dogmatically uncovered virtually all his WMD between 1991 and 1998".
I'm disappointed that in your "writing/commenting about the Iraq war 20 years later" you've misinformed the public by omitting both the heavily qualified character of ISG's non-findings, despite that it's a constant theme in the ISG report, and the UNSCR 687 violations that you did find.
Duelfer:
Saddam wondered if US intelligence was possibly correct.
Saddam and those around him, had occasional doubts about whether WMD was retained in Iraq. At one point, reacting to the strength of US WMD accusations, he asked his top advisors (at a Revolutionary Command Council meeting) whether there was something they weren’t telling him about Iraq WMD?
Saddam and those around him, had occasional doubts about whether WMD was retained in Iraq. At one point, reacting to the strength of US WMD accusations, he asked his top advisors (at a Revolutionary Command Council meeting) whether there was something they weren’t telling him about Iraq WMD?
I guess you mean Saddam wondered "whether WMD was retained in Iraq" beyond the UNSCR 687 violations that you found, including the "extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD" (ISG), and the mass of WMD evidence that was denied to you by "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well" (Kay).
Duelfer:
[2] Later in detention Saddam said these comments were aimed at Iran. He assumed the US, with its great (expensive anyway) intelligence system, must really know the truth.
Again, setting aside the UNSCR 687 violations that you found and the heavily qualified character of your non-findings, this seems impossible but...Is it possible that Saddam really did not understand that since 1991, the American president's decisions on Iraq were made in accordance with the controlling law and policy that enforced Iraq's mandated compliance with the Gulf War ceasefire terms, including UNSCR 687, pursuant to UNSCR 678? And that in the ceasefire disarmament process, the role of the "intelligence system" was merely ancillary?
Since 1990-1991, the US law and policy on Iraq pursuant to UNSCR 678 was openly broadcast, public domain, consistent, reiterated, straightforward and plainly stated. Did Saddam really not understand that his intransigent flagrant "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire, which includes his self-incriminating comments, would eventually compel the UNSCR 678 enforcers to resume the Gulf War and this time complete it? The ISG report implies as much, but again, it seems impossible. Extremely, dangerously delusional on Saddam's part, if true.
Duelfer:
Iraq was a hard target.
Access to Iraq was very limited. It was like North Korea is today. Remember, Iraq did not have internet (except for a few senior officials). The data that came out of Iraq was limited and therefore the bits that did emerge often received out of proportion attention. The outsized role of bogus defectors like the one dubbed “Curveball” illustrates the problem. Judgements were made on very little real new data.
... [3] The fact that the intelligence assessments relied on such limited information and was such low confidence should have been emphasized. This was one of the terrible faults in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). It’s now on-line and worth reading to see how you would react to that intelligence judgment.
Access to Iraq was very limited. It was like North Korea is today. Remember, Iraq did not have internet (except for a few senior officials). The data that came out of Iraq was limited and therefore the bits that did emerge often received out of proportion attention. The outsized role of bogus defectors like the one dubbed “Curveball” illustrates the problem. Judgements were made on very little real new data.
... [3] The fact that the intelligence assessments relied on such limited information and was such low confidence should have been emphasized. This was one of the terrible faults in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). It’s now on-line and worth reading to see how you would react to that intelligence judgment.
Hence UNSCR 687's compliance-based enforcement.
The burden or "onus" (UNMOVIC Clusters document) was on Iraq to prove it disarmed per UNSCR 687 as a necessary condition to forestall resumption of the Gulf War. There was no burden on the UNSCR 678 enforcers to prove Iraq was armed as estimated by the intelligence community, which obviated the "hard target" issue.
Your statement "Judgements were made on very little real new data" is incorrect. At the decision point of Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), the determinative data of the Saddam regime's noncompliance with the Gulf War ceasefire terms was up to date. In fact, President Bush's 18MAR03 determination for OIF mainly cites to the 06MAR03 UNMOVIC Clusters document. Subsequent fact findings, including yours, have only piled on redundantly to the already dispositive evidence of Saddam's sweeping "material breach" (UNSCR 1441).
Casus belli was always Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441), whose determinative data was open to the public, not the intelligence estimates. While "Curveball" illustrates a problem for the intelligence community, it doesn't significantly affect the ceasefire disarmament process that established OIF's casus belli. Procedurally speaking, there's no relevant reason for "The fact that the intelligence assessments relied on such limited information and was such low confidence should have been emphasized".
Duelfer:
Diminishing flexibility as military prepares.
The political decision to prepare a military option to bolster a diplomatic solution is seductive. However, military preparations acquire their own momentum and before too long become virtually unstoppable. Once the military is instructed to begin to put in place a capability to achieve regime change by force huge things start to move. Tanks, munitions, repair and maintenance facilities, fuel, aircraft support and spares parts, hospitals, search and rescue capabilities etc., take months to deploy forward. It is a massive undertaking and once in place, cannot be held in abeyance or the capability begins to decay. The notion of putting all that military capacity in place and then wait “to give diplomacy a chance” is unfortunately impossible. “Use it or lose it” takes over. What may begin as an option to increase diplomatic leverage for a peaceful solution gradually becomes a factor that makes a peaceful outcome almost impossible. Somewhere in the Iraq build-up there was a “point of no return”. Unless, or course, if Saddam left. That was his choice.
The political decision to prepare a military option to bolster a diplomatic solution is seductive. However, military preparations acquire their own momentum and before too long become virtually unstoppable. Once the military is instructed to begin to put in place a capability to achieve regime change by force huge things start to move. Tanks, munitions, repair and maintenance facilities, fuel, aircraft support and spares parts, hospitals, search and rescue capabilities etc., take months to deploy forward. It is a massive undertaking and once in place, cannot be held in abeyance or the capability begins to decay. The notion of putting all that military capacity in place and then wait “to give diplomacy a chance” is unfortunately impossible. “Use it or lose it” takes over. What may begin as an option to increase diplomatic leverage for a peaceful solution gradually becomes a factor that makes a peaceful outcome almost impossible. Somewhere in the Iraq build-up there was a “point of no return”. Unless, or course, if Saddam left. That was his choice.
You're misleading the public here.
First, there was no either/or. After 12 years of successful intransigence, particularly Saddam's victory over the diplomatic coercive alternative, i.e., sanctions, after 1996 and over UNSCOM and the UNSCR 678 enforcers in 1998, the viability of the "diplomatic solution" offered by UNSCR 1441 wholly depended on a military threat that was sufficient to compel Saddam's cooperation with the UNSCR 1441 inspections. In other words, the "massive undertaking...of putting all that military capacity in place" was the only way "to give diplomacy a chance".
Second, the diplomatic "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) was given a full chance and then some. The “point of no return” moment for the OIF invasion force build-up coincided with the UNMOVIC Clusters document, which concluded the UNSCR 1441 compliance test with Saddam's utter failure to prove the required "full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions" (UNSCR 1441). In fact, according to the timeline spelled out in UNSCR 1441, President Bush technically could have ordered OIF based on Hans Blix's scathing 27JAN03 report. Instead, Bush opted to give Saddam more leeway to fulfill Iraq's ceasefire obligations, and Saddam threw away the extra chance.
In the end, even when the UNMOVIC Clusters document had established casus belli for the UNSCR 1441 "final opportunity to comply" and the OIF invasion force build-up was at the “point of no return”, the US and UK still tried to carve out yet another chance for Saddam to switch off the military threat with Iraq's mandated compliance. But Saddam and his accomplices on the UNSC rejected the attempt.
Three, Saddam leaving Iraq was not the only way, nor the way preferred by President Bush to forestall resumption of the Gulf War. To make the Gulf War ceasefire permanent and stay in power, Saddam only had to prove full compliance with the ceasefire terms that were purpose-designed to cure Iraq's Gulf War-established threat, which Iraq had agreed to do in 1991. But instead of choosing peace with Iraq's mandated compliance in his "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), Saddam chose to resume the Gulf War by keeping Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441).
Duelfer:
So, before quickly concluding that you know Iraq was a huge avoidable mistake, take a moment to consider the circumstances at the time and whether a different decision would have been possible.
... I had the opportunity to provide my version of “lessons-learned” from Iraq for over 7000 new intelligence officers (mostly analysts) in the years since. It’s something I have spent many years considering and discussing with various participants—including Iraqis who by the accident of birth were in Saddam’s Iraq.
... I had the opportunity to provide my version of “lessons-learned” from Iraq for over 7000 new intelligence officers (mostly analysts) in the years since. It’s something I have spent many years considering and discussing with various participants—including Iraqis who by the accident of birth were in Saddam’s Iraq.
Yes, you should. First things first: Correcting the fundamental flaws in your own consideration of President Bush's decision requires that you step back and lay a proper foundation for the Iraq issue with the primary sources that define OIF's justification. The OIF FAQ is purpose-designed to teach you how to do that.
Once you've clarified the Iraq issue for yourself, you need to go back to the "over 7000...intelligence officers" and "various participants—including Iraqis" whom you've evidently misinformed and clarify OIF's justification for them, too.
Duelfer:
It is also worth considering whether regime change could have been done differently. But that’s a separate series of questions.
... I stayed in touch with Iraq and Iraqis up to and during the invasion of 2003. I saw Iraqis I had known for years—sometimes at their homes, sometimes in detention. It was not pleasant. Saddam was removed, but…did it really need to be that bad afterwards?
... I stayed in touch with Iraq and Iraqis up to and during the invasion of 2003. I saw Iraqis I had known for years—sometimes at their homes, sometimes in detention. It was not pleasant. Saddam was removed, but…did it really need to be that bad afterwards?
It's important to remember that for any highly competitive endeavor, it's normal for an initial plan, once engaged, to face setbacks that compel adjustment. History shows that pattern is normal for military contests, no less than when competing against vicious unbounded opponents like Saddamists.
We know now that the initial post-war plan, which was valid based on what we knew before OIF, failed in part because Western analysts severely underestimated Saddam's radical sectarian turn, extreme corruption of Iraqi society, and deep domestic, regional, and global terrorism. Outsiders, including Iraqi expats and UN personnel like you who'd been to Iraq, failed to understand how depraved the Saddam regime had become.
The initial post-war plan failed because at first Saddamists were better at killing and terrorizing Iraqis than we were at protecting the Iraqi people per Public Law 105-338, UNSCR 1483 etc.. As a product of Saddam's distinctive governance, Saddamists entered the contest as the world's top experts at inflicting genocide and terrorism on the Iraqi people, and they zealously carried over their expertise to the terrorist insurgency against post-Saddam Iraq.
But setback and adjustment are normal in any kind of real competition, no less in military contests. American leaders and the US forces mandated to defend the Iraqi people adjusted to the Saddamists' vicious opening advantage in relatively short order.
So, "Did it really need to be that bad afterwards?"
An accurate and precise pre-war assessment of the extreme character of the Saddam regime's UNSCR 687 terrorism violations, including Saddam's "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with al Qaeda, and UNSCR 688 human rights violations might have helped.
Realistically, the solution is that the Iraqi regime change should have happened long before 2003, if not in Operation Desert Storm, then as soon as it became apparent that Saddam would not comply with Iraq's Gulf War ceasefire obligations. We should not have kept trying for over a decade(!) to convince a clearly intransigent Saddam to comply with the ceasefire terms as Iraq festered, all the while raising the cost and difficulty of regime change.
Knowing what we know now, the Iraqi regime change happened much later than it should have. But that's not President Bush's fault. It's mainly his father's fault. The lesson of Iraq is that a malignant cancer like the Saddam regime needs to be solved comprehensively as soon as possible. As is, it's better that the Iraqi regime change happened in 2003 than any later. The Saddam problem was already "far worse" (UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq, 18MAR04) than we knew, and it was only growing worse the longer we let it fester.
Duelfer:
I was also responsible for the Iraq Survey Group’s comprehensive report on Iraq WMD (so-called Duelfer Report) issued a month before the November 2004 presidential elections. That report has stood the test of time.
While the Iraq Survey Group is not technically a primary source of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as it's ex post to the President's determination for OIF, I cite the ISG report extensively and often as a 'chief corroborative source', more than I do many of OIF's primary sources.
That being said, the ISG report is not without fundamental flaws. Excerpt from the OIF FAQ retrospective #duelferreport section:
The whole ISG Duelfer report, including all 3 volumes, is worth reading. While doing so, it is critical for readers to take it upon themselves to apply the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) to the ISG findings because, although the Iraq Survey Group says it adhered to the UNSCR 687 standard, ISG fundamentally deviated from UNSCR 687 by inventing a distinction between WMD activities and "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG) that does not exist under the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441).
According to UNSCR 687, Iraqi "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG), such as the IIS "large covert procurement program ... for conventional weapons, WMD precursors, and dual-use technology" (ISG), were WMD activities. Yet ISG's inapposite arbitrary distinction between WMD activities and "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG) enabled OIF opponents to claim the Iraq Survey Group found Iraq WMD-free when in fact ISG's findings are rife with UNSCR 687 WMD violations.
As well as inapposite of UNSCR 687, the arbitrary distinction between WMD activities and "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG) is also impractical since the Iraq-induced "degradation" (ISG) of the "extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD" (ISG) made it impossible for ISG to parse that distinction.
According to UNSCR 687, Iraqi "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG), such as the IIS "large covert procurement program ... for conventional weapons, WMD precursors, and dual-use technology" (ISG), were WMD activities. Yet ISG's inapposite arbitrary distinction between WMD activities and "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG) enabled OIF opponents to claim the Iraq Survey Group found Iraq WMD-free when in fact ISG's findings are rife with UNSCR 687 WMD violations.
As well as inapposite of UNSCR 687, the arbitrary distinction between WMD activities and "activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG) is also impractical since the Iraq-induced "degradation" (ISG) of the "extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD" (ISG) made it impossible for ISG to parse that distinction.
I hope you find this critique useful. I look forward to your response, and I invite you to review my work at https://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
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Comment:
You're incorrect that "the Iraq WMD assessments were wrong" in terms of the US presidential determination for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The controlling law, policy, and precedent for the OIF decision plainly show the determination for enforcement with the Saddam regime pivoted on whether Iraq proved it complied and disarmed as mandated, not whether the US proved Iraq was armed as estimated.
I recommend to you (again), your fellow advocates for reviving responsible American leadership, and to the Trump administration, my OIF FAQ explanation that sets the record straight on the law and policy, fact justification of the Iraq intervention by synthesizing the mission's primary source authorities.
Contrary to your assertion that "the Iraq WMD assessments were wrong", in terms of the US presidential determination, the actual "reality" is that UNSCOM to UNMOVIC to the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) as well as non-armament fact findings, such as the Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) and UNCHR, "broadly" corroborate your assessment "that Iraq failed to comply with UNSCRs up to OIF" (ISG).
The legally prescribed and practically necessary determinative measurement for Saddam's WMD-related threat was not rooted in the intelligence estimates but rather the UNSCOM and UNMOVIC findings on Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441), inasmuch the WMD-related intelligence estimates were not themselves rooted in the UNSCR 687 inspections.
On law and fact, President Bush and the US (with Prime Minister Blair and the UK) demonstrably were right on Iraq. The OIF decision is a straightforward fact pattern with an exceptionally well developed, decade+ law, policy, precedent, fact record. Iraq's categorical "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire is confirmed by you and other fact-finding authorities.
Beyond the correct US presidential determination for OIF, the US-led, UN-mandated peace operations with Iraq were succeeding before President Obama's deviation.
At the dawn of the Arab Spring, the UN Security Council (on 15DEC10) and President Obama (on 19MAY11) benchmarked the historic opportunity to build a generational peace in the Middle East with the hard-won cornerstone where “In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy … poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress” (Obama).
However, the window to build a generational peace evident in 2010-2011 required American leadership to stay the course with Iraq and the Bush Freedom Agenda.
Instead, President Obama radically changed course with Iraq and dropped the Bush Freedom Agenda. Obama's deviant rationale has been based on the demonstrably false notion which you promote, that with Iraq, "Political leaders made decisions based on ... broadly wrong assessments of reality".
Your basic law-and-fact error, exploited by President Obama, has had a catastrophic ripple effect. OIF stigma - comprised largely of conjecture, distorted context, and readily debunked
The 1990-2011 Iraq intervention, especially OIF and its peace operations, is paradigmatic as it embodied the principles of American leadership of the free world. As long as the stigmatization of the Iraq intervention prevails in domestic and international politics, your current advocacy for reviving responsible American leadership with Iraq, Iran, Syria, and indeed the rest of the world, will continue to be disqualified at the premise level of politics and policy.
The viability of your advocacy fundamentally depends upon you first de-stigmatizing the Iraq intervention. Before you can advocate on current events effectively, you must establish at the premise level of the politics that in principle and policy, President Bush and America were fundamentally right and by the same token, President Obama has been fundamentally wrong to deviate from President Bush with Iraq and the Freedom Agenda.
The following points are included in my OIF FAQ explanation. But as an introduction to setting the record straight on OIF's justification, note:
Iraq's guilt of UNSCR 687-proscribed armament was established by UNSCOM and decided by the UN Security Council. Upon the UNSCOM-established fact of Iraqi WMD, "the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security" (UNSCR 1441) was presumed until Iraq proved it complied and disarmed as mandated. In other words, noncompliant Iraq was ipso facto a proscriptively armed threat irrespective of the intelligence estimates. The operative enforcement procedure for the Gulf War ceasefire, including the UNSCR 687 disarmament process, was built upon the burden of proof on Iraq. There was no operative burden of proof on the US, UK, and UN.
Therefore, the principal trigger for Operation Iraqi Freedom was not and could not be the intelligence estimates. By procedure, casus belli was primarily established by the 06MAR03 UNMOVIC report confirming Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" in "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire with the same operative enforcement procedure by which the 15DEC98 UNSCOM report triggered Operation Desert Fox in 1998.
The "assessments of reality" that established casus belli with Iraq from UNSCR 660 (1990) onward were the prescribed measurements of Iraq's compliance with the UNSCR 660 series, in particular Iraq's obligations under the Gulf War ceasefire pursuant to UNSCRs 687 and 688 and related resolutions.
The controlling law, policy, and precedent that defined the operative enforcement procedure plainly show that the moment that UNSCR 687 inspectors re-entered Iraq pursuant to UNSCR 1441, the intelligence estimates could not trigger enforcement to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235). Rather, the US-led, UN-mandated ceasefire enforcement with Iraq always pivoted on the prescribed measurement of Iraq's compliance with the "measures" mandated to satisfy "the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions [and] ... to secure peace and security in the area" (UNSCR 687).
Based on the determinative "assessments of reality" for the OIF decision, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair clearly were correct according to the operative context - eg, "The Security Council resolutions will be enforced -- the just demands of peace and security will be met -- or action will be unavoidable" (Bush at UNGA, 12SEP02), "Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences" (Powell at UNSC, 05FEB03), "ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" (Public Law 107-243), and "ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions" (UNSCR 1441).
Contrary to your unfounded assertion that the OIF decision was based on "broadly wrong assessments of reality", the Saddam regime was evidentially in categorical breach of the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for the Gulf War ceasefire in Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), especially with the disarmament mandates of UNSCR 687, terrorism mandates of UNSCR 687, and human rights mandates of UNSCR 688. [FYI, it's evident the pre-war assessments significantly under-estimated the Saddam regime's human rights abuses in breach of UNSCR 688 and "regional and global terrorism", including Saddam's "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with the al Qaeda network, in breach of UNSCR 687, which were also enforcement triggers.]
At the decision point for OIF upon UNMOVIC's 06MAR03 report, Saddam was far beyond the 'red line' with no intention of fully and immediately complying with the Gulf War ceasefire as was required to switch off the threat of regime change that enforced Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) . As you found, "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (ISG) per paragraphs 8 to 13 of UNSCR 687, let alone the spectrum of ceasefire mandates, especially on terrorism per UNSCR 687 and human rights per UNSCR 688.
... The assessment of reality is you are responsible for the current events and degraded US foreign policy that you protest.
You've used your preeminent reputation to validate the plainly false narrative of OIF that America's rivals - Russia and France chief among them - have employed to stigmatize the Iraq intervention and thereby disqualify the American leadership needed for current events.
For your current advocacy to be effective, it requires the re-normalization of the particular "strong horse" American leadership of the free world that manifested with OIF. Which first requires your mea culpa while you disabuse the myth, "Political leaders made decisions [for the Iraq intervention] based on ... broadly wrong assessments of reality".
Once you've set the record straight on OIF's law-and-fact justification at the premise level of our politics to de-stigmatize the Iraq intervention in order to re-qualify the OIF-embodied principles of American leadership in our policy, then - and only then - can your current advocacy hope to become viable.
Re-framing the discourse by establishing that President Bush and the US (with Prime Minister Blair and the UK) were right on Iraq - and by the same token that OIF critics, including yourself and President Obama, have been wrong - lays the foundation needed for the only real path for your current advocacy to succeed.
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Comment:
Mr. Duelfer,
Your premise that "Saddam didn’t have WMD" is clearly incorrect.
In fact, according to the operative definition or "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for an Iraq WMD program set by paragraphs 8 to 13 of UNSCR 687 and related resolutions, the Iraq Survey Group -- you -- uncovered an active WMD program in Iraq.
In terms of ISG's affirmative findings, you reported, inter alia, "we have clear evidence of his [Saddam's] intent to resume WMD" with "preserved capability" that amounted to a ready chemical and biological weapon capability with an IIS undeclared covert "ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts", "secret biological work in the small IIS laboratories", "Iraq also possessed declarable equipment for chemical production, which it had not declared to the UN...it would have been possible for Iraq to assemble a CW production plant", and "The UN deemed Iraq’s accounting of its production and use of BW agent simulants...to be inadequate...the equipment used for their manufacture can also be quickly converted to make BW agent" (ISG). And, "until he was deposed in April 2003, Saddam’s conventional weapons and WMD-related procurement programs steadily grew in scale, variety, and efficiency" (ISG).
In addition, the WMD munitions confiscated by Operation Avarice outside of the ISG investigation reinforced your caveat that "ISG cannot discount the possibility that a few large caches of munitions remain to be discovered within Iraq" and "ISG cannot determine the fate of Iraq’s stocks of bulk BW agents...[which is] of particular concern, as they relate to the possibility of a retained BW capability".
In terms of the ISG non-findings that presumably underlie your misstatement "Saddam didn’t have WMD", you made clear in the ISG report's Transmittal Message, Scope Note, and throughout its various sections that severe practical limitations significantly handicapped the ISG investigation. Conclusions such as "it appears that Iraq, by the mid-1990s, was essentially free of militarily significant WMD stocks" (ISG) that are commonly valuated as unequivocal fact in political and scholarly treatments alike are in reality no better than heavily qualified guesses.
Or, as your predecessor David Kay cautioned the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 28, 2004: "I regret to say that I think at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity about what happened. A lot of that traces to the failure on April 9 to establish immediately physical security in Iraq -- the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well, a lot of which was what we simply called Ali Baba looting. ... we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here."
The heavily qualified character of ISG's non-findings infers that absence of evidence in the ISG investigation is *not* evidence of absence, but rather evidence of Iraqi "denial and deception operations" (ISG) that in and of themselves violated the Gulf War ceasefire for casus belli.
It also infers that ISG's affirmative findings constitute a floor only, not a complete account of Saddam's WMD. ISG found many UNSCR 687 WMD violations. Yet what you found were just the scraps left over after Iraq rid presumably higher-value evidence of UNSCR 687-proscribed items and activities with "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well" (Kay).
Properly understood, ISG's non-findings do not infer that missing WMD stocks and program elements did not exist or "Saddam didn’t have WMD". Rather, they infer that you were unable to account for them as mandated by UNSCR 687 due to the same Iraqi "denial and deception operations" (ISG) that denied the mandated account of Saddam's WMD to UNSCOM and UNMOVIC.
We're compelled by Iraq's UNSCR 707 violations to speculate about the "unparalleled" (Kay) mass of evidence that Saddam's agents successfully kept from you. At the same time, the Silberman-Robb WMD Commission, CIA WMD retrospective, and other influential sources are wrong to misinform the public by pretending the "unparalleled" (Kay) mass of missing evidence never existed at all.
Whatever was in the evidence "sanitized" (ISG) by Iraq, in terms of a floor, ISG demonstrated that Saddam covertly possessed at minimum the terrorist-level WMD capability that chiefly concerned Presidents Clinton and Bush, if not a ready battlefield-level WMD capability.
In concert with your confirmation of a ready Iraqi terrorist-level WMD capability, the Iraqi Perspectives Project (the ISG-equivalent investigation of Saddam's terrorism) showed that Saddam's UNSCR 687 terrorism violations (which also violated the UNSCR 949 aggression and UNSCR 688 humanitarian mandates) were significantly underestimated by pre-war analysts, including notably Saddam's "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with al Qaeda.
As a threat, Saddam didn't need to partner with bin Laden to stealthily deploy Iraq's ready terrorist-level WMD capability anywhere in the Middle East and the world. Saddam had developed a world-leading terror "cartel" (IPP) of his own, in which bin Laden's terrorists were in effect simultaneously Saddam's terrorists.
Worse, IPP's findings show that our intelligence agencies had significantly underestimated Saddam's terrorism at the same time that, as ISG's findings show, our intelligence agencies had failed to track Saddam's undeclared covert ready terrorist-level WMD capability.
Your IPP counterpart, Jim Lacey concluded when he weighed IPP and ISG's findings together, "Given the evidence, it appears that we removed Saddam’s regime not a moment too soon" (National Review, 14SEP11).
Again, your premise "Saddam didn’t have WMD" is clearly incorrect according to the operative definition or "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for an Iraq WMD program.
The upcoming landmark 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom is a distinctive opportunity for you to set the record straight on the UNSCR 687 disarmament element of OIF's justification.
Your special stature as an UNSCOM and Iraq Survey Group leader means that it's essential that you in particular correct the prevalent misconception "Saddam didn’t have WMD" (Duelfer) to the public, especially anywhere it has metastasized with compounding harmful consequences. For example, the Silberman-Robb WMD Commission's widely influential analysis is corrupted at foundation by its false core premise, "In retrospect, as found by the ISG, it is clear that the [Iraqi WMD] stockpiles and programs were not there to be found", which contradicts that UNMOVIC and ISG's findings are rife with UNSCR 687 WMD violations and ISG's non-findings are heavily qualified.
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Comment (posted 311823ZDEC17 with a modified version, below, re-posted 061540ZJUL18; "Your comment is awaiting moderation"):
Mr. Duelfer,
The law-and-fact record belies your belief that "Worse were the US decisions to disband the army and condemn Baathists to having no future in Iraq."
First, the de-Ba'athification process simply carried forward the standing human rights policy for Iraq, which is referenced in
Second, I suggest you see this clarification of the de-Ba'athification process and the CPA decision to build anew rather than reconstitute Saddam's security forces.
Third, knowing what we know now, de-Ba'athification was necessary. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) post-war assessment of Saddam's Iraq found that the Saddam regime's "systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror" (19APR02) - already marked at the far end of the scale before the 2003 regime change - in fact "were far worse than originally reported to the Special Rapporteur in the past" (18-19MAR04). In other words, the Saddam regime's human rights violations were off the charts. As such, immediately incorporating Saddam's security forces, besides the practical obstacles of reconstituting them, would have been a diametric contradiction of the US-led, UN-mandated coalition's longstanding human-rights policies for Iraq per UNSCRs 688, 1483, etc, that were key components of the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement and set the guiding parameters for the occupation and peace operations.
In the same vein, we also know now that pre-OIF analysis vastly underestimated Saddam's "regional and global terrorism" wherein "[t]he predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq" (Iraqi Perspectives Project). IPP found Saddam's terrorism included "considerable operational overlap" with the al Qaeda network, which also carried forward to the terrorist insurgency. All of which of course breached the Gulf War ceasefire per UNSCRs 687 and 688 to add to OIF's casus belli on top of the UNMOVIC findings that by the operative procedure confirmed Iraq's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) to trigger the OIF decision.
A case in point for the CPA's sensible decision to build anew rather than reconstitute Saddam's security forces is the 2003 assassination of UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. Note that Vieira opted to retain the guards assigned by the Saddam regime in lieu of American military protection, a mistake that likely cost him and his team members their lives. I can imagine Vieira was swayed to his fatal choice by appeals like the April 2003 appeals described in your post.
Could the de-Ba'athification have been better calibrated and undertaken? Of course. But preemptive perfection in any complex endeavor is not the norm. Adjustment, including with necessary measures like de-Ba'athification, is normal.
Moreover, knowing what we know now, it's likely that the terrorist insurgency was principally a premeditated guerilla adaptation of Saddam's ceasefire-breaching, vastly underestimated domestic "widespread terror" (UNCHR) and "regional and global terrorism" (IPP) rather than a spontaneous post-war reaction to an over-broad de-Ba'athification process.
*** In nations, as well as in persons, curing an extreme malignant cancer is hard, even in the rare instance that doctors do everything right. Cancers are known to fight back. Even without understanding the far depths that Saddam had corrupted Iraqi society and the far extent of the terrorist danger he posed, the international community understood long before OIF that curing Iraq would be a generational endeavor. Yet in relatively short order, despite the zealous efforts of vicious enemies aided by cruel accomplices, the US-led peace operations responded resolutely to post-war setbacks with necessary adjustments on track with a normal pattern of competition.
If you're sincere about advocating your prescription for "Iraq - avoiding the next insurgency", then you must delineate the right track and the wrong track with Iraq. The wrong track is President Obama's disastrous, profoundly inhumane, radical course deviation that prematurely disengaged the vital US-led peace operations from Iraq. The keystone premise for Obama's deviation is the stigmatization of the Iraq intervention, for which you're complicit and which has been carried forward by the Trump administration. Therefore, to return the US to the right track with Iraq according to your advocacy, you must clarify in the politics that President Bush's decision on Iraq was correct in the first place and the US-led peace operations with Iraq were succeeding until President Obama deviated US policy onto the wrong track.
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Comment:
Mr. Duelfer,
Your equivalence of US decisions regarding Iraq's Saddam and north Korea's Kim is inapposite in that US policy on Saddam was based on the longstanding, well established, clearly spelled out UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement whose "measures acting under Chapter VII of the Charter" (UNSCR 687) composed the purpose-designed "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) which the "Government of Iraq", eg, the Saddam regime, was mandated to fulfill in order to satisfy "the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions in the light of its unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait" (UNSCR 687).
As such, the operative context for US decisions regarding Saddam was founded on "Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security" (UNSCR 1441). The set condition meant Saddam's threat, including his WMD-related threat, was measured by Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441) per the manifold ceasefire terms purpose-designed to resolve Saddam's Gulf War-established manifold threat. The continuing "threat [of] Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions" (UNSCR 1441) related to aggression (UNSCR 949), WMD and conventional armament (UNSCR 687), terrorism (UNSCR 687), and repression (UNSCR 688). At the decision point for OIF, the WMD-related "threat [of] Iraq's non-compliance" (UNSCR 1441) was confirmed by UNMOVIC's measurement of "about 100 unresolved disarmament issues" for casus belli. Today, with corroboration of Iraq's noncompliance piled high from the UNSCR 1441 inspections and post-war ISG, IPP, IIC, and UNCHR investigations - eg, "[i]n addition to preserved capability, we have clear evidence of his [Saddam's] intent to resume WMD" (ISG), "the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power" (IPP), and "[t]he new evidence, particularly that of eyewitnesses, added another dimension to the systematic crimes of the former regime, revealing unparalleled cruelty" (UNCHR) - Saddam's threatening breach of the Gulf War ceasefire can now be seen as categorical.
The UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement since 1990 meant US leaders were not positioned to guess at Saddam's motivations via diplomacy near or far. Making decisions regarding Saddam as you would have had US leaders make them would have been remiss since Saddam's "intentions" (UNSCR 687) were objectively assessed according to the fact measurement of Iraq's mandated compliance in the operative context of "the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions ... poses to international peace and security" (UNSCR 1441). As such, President Bush's decision on Iraq responded to the mandated measurement of Saddam's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) in good faith with the decade+ controlling law, policy, and precedent that defined the operative enforcement procedure for the Gulf War ceasefire mandates.
When a recidivist convicted manifold felon, who for some reason has been allowed to fester in society, continually, categorically, and flagrantly violates his terms of probation, including in his "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), with escalating intransigence, threat, and harm until lesser enforcement measures have been exhausted and the compliance enforcement is on the verge of defeat, there's no burden on the compliance enforcement authority to guess at the felon's motivations on top of the felon's evidential "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) in order to impose the originally suspended sentence. President HW Bush, 27FEB91: "Iraq must comply fully with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. ... If Iraq violates these terms, coalition forces will be free to resume military operations."
As far as I know, there isn't a clear-cut compliance test for Kim's motivations comparable to the Gulf War ceasefire mandates "Determined to secure full compliance with its [UNSC] decisions, Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations" (UNSCR 1441) by which US leaders objectively measured Saddam's "intentions" (UNSCR 687). There ought to be a comparable compliance test that can ensure the US decision on north Korea's Kim will be as plainly correct as the US decision on Iraq's Saddam. Perhaps if the Iraq intervention is de-stigmatized and publicly upheld, while Saddam's accomplices who've obfuscated the actual why of the Iraq intervention are publicly discredited, then a comparable compliance test can be effectuated for north Korea's Kim.
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Comment:
Last week on Twitter (original tweet was July 6), @BrunoTertrais and @mraillet (Michel Miraillet) claimed that there is no evidence France was complicit in Saddam’s breach of the Gulf War ceasefire involving the Oil for Food scandal and UNSCR 687-proscribed procurement. Mr. Miraillet claimed insider diplomatic knowledge that UNSCOM found no evidence of French suppliers among Iraq’s WMD-related items. I cited the Regime Finance and Procurement section of the ISG report. They dismissed it out of hand. Mr. Tertrais says he’s a longtime friend of yours; I suggested he should ask you about French complicity in the Oil for Food scandal and UNSCR 687-proscribed procurement.
I doubt Mr. Tertrais will actually reach out to you over a Twitter argument. Nonetheless, what do you think of their denials of French complicity in Saddam’s breach of the Gulf War ceasefire?
...
Thank you.
I don’t have a paper copy or paginated electronic copy of the ISG report. I refer to the on-line version of the ISG report at https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/, which isn’t paginated as such, so I can’t match pages 93 and 111 to content. Section title and key word to search should work.
Since the supplier data isn’t public, Mr. Miraillet had the advantage of me when he said UNSCOM found no WMD-related materials of French origin. As a layman without his access to the subject material, I could only retort on that count with the 2nd-hand report at http://www.iraqwatch.org/suppliers/Iraq-oped-nyt-2003.htm:
The [supplier] data was given to United Nations inspectors in the late 1990’s, and was reconfirmed in Iraq’s 12,000-page declaration last fall. But the statistical material on which it is based remained confidential until recently.I mainly cited to the suspect Iraqi-French diplomacy and, related, UNSCR 687-proscribed conventional and WMD-related procurement activity you described in the ISG report. I was particularly offended that France would trade anti-aircraft items to the Saddam regime in contravention of UNSCR 687 despite that American and allied craft enforced the no-fly zones pursuant to UNSCR 688 under threat of Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.
The data reveals that firms in Germany and France outstripped all others in selling the most important thing — specialized chemical-industry equipment that is particularly useful for producing poison gas. Without this equipment, none of the other imports would have been of much use.
My understanding of French complicity with Saddam’s noncompliance, the casus belli for OIF, is grounded in France’s opposition since the mid-1990s to the “hyperpower” US-led enforcement of the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire that was carried forward from Operation Desert Fox to Operation Iraqi Freedom. As you have explained, the opposition by France, Russia, and others to the US-led enforcement of Iraq’s mandated compliance factored prominently in Saddam’s calculation for declining to comply as mandated with the UNSCR 660 series, including and especially UNSCRs 687 and 688.
I was moved to respond on Twitter because your friends and Ambassador Gerard Araud (who wrote the original tweet) were derisive of President Bush’s decision for OIF, and I was dissatisfied with Professor Eliot Cohen’s retort. The argument took on a different light when I clarified the casus belli was the Saddam regime’s evidential categorical breach of the Gulf War ceasefire and spotlighted French complicity with Saddam’s noncompliance which triggered enforcement with OIF.
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Comment:
Mr. Duelfer,
For your information and review, this link goes to my criticism of Jon Schwarz's 10APR15 article in The Intercept, "Twelve Years Later, US Media Still Can’t Get Iraqi WMD Story Right", which quotes you yet is based on stark misrepresentation of Iraq Survey Group findings: [Link].
Set aside Schwarz's fundamental misrepresentation of ISG findings about UNSCOM/UNMOVIC's actual control over the al Muthanna site and the actual effect of Saddam's order to cooperate with the UNSCR 1441 inspections. I was struck by your insistence, as quoted by Schwarz, that Saddam didn't know about the WMD munitions confiscated by Operation Avarice, because that speculation isn't backed up by your ISG findings. Contrary to Schwarz's quote of you, ISG findings emphasize that Iraq's "denial and deception operations" and "concealment and deception activities" continued up to and even beyond the regime change. By the same token, ISG's failure to uncover WMD stocks is heavily qualified in the ISG report by the substantial limitations of the ISG investigation, e.g., Saddam's agents systematically rid evidence practically unfettered even in the midst of the ISG investigation.
P.S. Comments no longer show on your blog, so please respond by e-mail. Or show the comments again.
Also see Decision Points suggests President Bush has not read key fact findings on Iraq carefully and Criticisms and suggestions for "International Law and the War in Iraq" (John Yoo, 2003).
Eric
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posted by Eric at 12/12/2016 03:58:00 PM
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