Chilcot Report Sec 1.1 UK Iraq Strategy 1990 To 2000

The Chilcot Inquiry was created to explain the decisions that led to England’s participation in the Iraq War. The first section covered the United Kingdom’s strategy towards Iraq from the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to 2000. London’s main concern during this period all the way to 2003 was Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and nuclear programs. British intelligence believed that Iraq was close to getting a nuclear bomb and had a large and active chemical and biological weapons arsenal. After the Gulf War, the UK committed itself to a containment policy that backed United Nations’ inspectors to destroy Iraq’s weapons programs and a no fly zone to deter any further aggression.

Chilcot Report Sec 1.1 UK Iraq Strategy 1990 To 2000

The Chilcott Inquiry was created to explain the decisions that led to England’s participation in the Iraq War. The first section covered the United Kingdom’s strategy towards Iraq from the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to 2000. London’s main concern during this period all the way to 2003 was Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and nuclear programs. British intelligence believed that Iraq was close to getting a nuclear bomb and had a large and active chemical and biological weapons arsenal. After the Gulf War, the UK committed itself to a containment policy that backed United Nations’ inspectors to destroy Iraq’s weapons programs and a no fly zone to deter any further aggression. This set the stage for Downing Streets’ Iraq strategy all the way up to 2003.

UN Inspectors and CIA Spying On Iraq In The 90s

On July 30, 2001, former U.N. weapons inspector chief Rolf Ekeus told Swedish Radio that the U.S. manipulated the inspections in the 1990s. Ekeus led the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) from 1991-97. He said that the U.S. spied upon the Iraqi security forces, tried to find the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, and wanted to create crises that would justify American military action against Baghdad. At first, the U.S. was interested in disarming Iraq, but a year into the process as Saddam continuously refused to cooperate Washington decided to exploit the regime for its own purposes.

How Operation Desert Fox Finished Off Iraq’s WMD Programs

In December 1998, the United States and England launched the largest attack upon Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War. Dubbed Operation Desert Fox, the campaign turned out to be a short one of just four days of bombing and missile strikes. The cause was Saddam Hussein’s continued refusal to cooperate with the United Nations’ weapons inspectors, who withdrew from the country shortly before the operation started, and would not return again until the end of 2002. At the time, Desert Fox was highly controversial within the United States, because it came on the heels of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Many politicians and analysts derided the attack as being a diversion from American domestic politics, and ineffective due to its short duration, and because Iraq was left to operate with no inspectors in the country. Supporters said it almost caused a coup. After the fall of the regime, investigators found that the program ended Iraq’s hopes of rebuilding its chemical and biological weapons operations. In the end, Operation Desert Fox proved to have far more effects upon Iraq than initially thought.

In December 1998, President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair announced an air campaign against Iraq called Operation Desert Fox. U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said that the two countries would focus upon degrading Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, and its ability to project military power. Cohen went on to say that the strikes were meant to make Saddam Hussein comply with United Nations’ resolutions and weapons inspections. President Clinton went on television saying that Saddam had lost his last chance to cooperate with the U.N., and that he should be removed. Thus started the largest military operation against Iraq since the Gulf War. 

Some of the government targets struck in Baghdad during Desert Fox

The operation lasted just four days, starting on December 16. That night 250 Tomahawk missiles and 40 sorties by planes from the U.S.S. Enterprise struck Iraq. A total of 415 cruise missiles and 600 bombs were used against 100 targets, 97 of which were hit. 49 of the strikes were against elements of the government. That included three palaces in Baghdad, the offices of Abed Hamid Mahmoud, Saddam’s chief of staff, the Baath Party headquarters in the capital, the Mukhabarat intelligence agency offices, along with the Defense and Industry Ministries. Several military and domestic security agencies were hit as well including two corps and four division headquarters of the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard, the Secret Security Organization’s computer center and intelligence archives, a helicopter base in Samarra, and airfields in Baiji, Taji, and Kut. Eavesdropping and jamming facilities, telephone exchanges, radio and television transmitters in Baghdad and Basra were knocked out too. Iraq’s WMD and missiles sites were also targeted. That included the Biological Research Center at Baghdad University, which had been in the lead of the country’s biological weapons program, the Fallujah III and Habaniya Castor Oil plants both of which were believed to be behind the production of ricin, the missile research and development centers in Anbar and Ninewa, and liquid engine and missile fabrication sites. Two of the airbases struck were also believed to house drones that could be used to deliver WMD. The targets could be divided up into four distinct categories. First hit was the country’s air defense network, so that planes could operate safely over Iraq. Second, were the WMD facilities. Those were a combination of factories that produced components for biological and chemicals weapons and research labs. Third, was the missile industry. The West believed that missiles were the main way Saddam planned on delivering his WMD against other countries, so it went after the plants that produced parts for them. General Anthony Zinni, who was in charge of the operation, limited the number of WMD and missile sites to those that could be hit with certainty. Finally, were the government offices. These appeared to be aimed at denying Saddam the ability to maintain his totalitarian control over society, and put down any revolt that might follow Desert Fox. Helicopters for example, were used to suppress the 1991 uprisings by Shiites and Kurds following the Gulf War. The secret services, Republican Guard, and communication targets denied Baghdad the ability to collect information, give orders, spread propaganda, monitor the public, destroyed files on the population, and damaged the units that were supposed to protect the regime. All together they were meant to bring down Saddam.

The cause of Operation Desert Fox was Saddam’s continued skirting of United Nations’ resolutions about his weapons programs. From 1997-1998 Baghdad had tried to stifle inspections by clearing sites, hiding and destroying documents, and not allowing U.N. personnel into certain facilities. In February 1998, Iraq signed an agreement with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that was supposed to ease the process and allow inspectors into presidential sites, which were suspected repositories of secret papers. Then in July, a huge stash of documents was found at the Iraqi Air Force headquarters that covered chemical weapons used during the Iran-Iraq War. The Iraqis ended up seizing the files. The next month, Baghdad refused to cooperate with the inspectors, and they shut down their operations by October as a result. Saddam had come to believe that no matter what his government did, the inspections and U.N. sanctions would not end. By 1998 there was no real work on WMD anymore, and only missile development was still going on. The search by that point was mostly about finding documentation on the extent of Iraq’s programs. Saddam had tired of the entire process, and therefore found no reason to work with the inspectors anymore. The result, was that on December 15, they withdrew, opening the way for Operation Desert Fox in retaliation by the U.S. and England.

Many within the U.S. were critical of the attack. Republicans were in the forefront of criticizing the operation. For most of 1998, President Clinton had been entangled in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Some Republicans claimed that Desert Fox was a means to district the public from the scandal. Many also felt that the short duration of the attack accomplished little. Daniella Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute for instance, said Desert Fox did nothing. Richard Perle who had served in the Reagan administration said that Clinton was afraid to take firmer action against Saddam. Kenneth Pollack who was a former analyst from the CIA, and a member of the National Security Council at the time, later stated that Saddam came out on top, because the attack was severely limited, and inspectors had withdrawn. Charles Duelfer who was the head inspector later wrote that Desert Fox was “feckless,” and Iraq was free to continue with its WMD programs with no U.N. presence. Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote that the attack had no impact upon Saddam’s behavior, and made him look down upon the West’s military capabilities since he survived what the U.S. and England touted as the largest attack since the Gulf War. These statements were a mix of partisanship and analysis. By 1998, Republicans were attacking Clinton about everything, so it was no surprise they did the same about Desert Fox. Pollack, Duelfer, and Cordesman on the other hand, believed that four days of bombing could do little, and more importantly Saddam was given a free hand with no more weapons inspectors in his country. He could therefore hide his programs, and start new work if he wanted to with no outside interference. That was the popular opinion until after the 2003 invasion.

Gen. Zinni commander of Desert Fox believed that it almost led to a revolt against Saddam (Wikipedia)

General Zinni was much more positive about the campaign he had just commanded. The General knew that any military strike could only have limited impact upon the WMD program. Since some precursors, agents, and weapons could be made in small rooms, there was no way to eliminate those elements. What Zinni would later point out, was that the strike caused fear of a coup. In January 1999, the general said that Saddam was executing officers, and rounding up dissenters out of fear of an uprising. His ability to dominate society had been weakened by striking communication, intelligence, and internal security offices. To Zinni, the operation therefore almost brought down the regime.

Investigations after the 2003 invasion of Iraq found that Operation Desert Fox had mixed impacts upon Saddam’s weapons programs. In terms of missiles, Iraq was able to work on them more after the inspectors left. The Iraq Survey Group that was tasked with finding Iraq’s WMD, discovered that Baghdad sped up its missile program after Desert Fox, and attempted to use loopholes in sanctions to acquire more technology and parts. In terms of WMD however, the opposite was found. The Iraqi Survey Group discovered that Desert Fox ended the last vestiges of the country’s operations. Afterward, the various networks were allowed to atrophy and die. Iraq realized that it would never be able to restart its programs like before on a large scale with sanctions still in place, and fazed them out. David Kay, who was the first director of the Survey Group was surprised by the interviews he did with Iraqis when they talked about the impact of Desert Fox, because he had long been critical of the operation. Kay passed on his findings to Congress in October 2003. Overall, Desert Fox proved to be far more effective then initially thought. One of the stated goals of the operation was to degrade Iraq’s weapons programs. It turned out that the strike was the last straw, and WMD work largely ceased afterward, even though missile development continued.

Operation Desert Fox was widely derided for years, but turned out to have a far larger impact upon Iraq than most critics believed. Only lasting four days, many analysts doubted that it could have much affect upon Saddam Hussein. After all, he was still in power, and many thought that with inspectors no longer in the country, Iraq would restart its weapons programs. As it turned out, Iraq had destroyed most of its WMD stockpiles, and was largely trying to hide the extent of its programs from the outside world by 1998. Desert Fox convinced the regime that the U.S. was intent on maintaining sanctions to contain the government, and there was no way for it to rebuild its WMD effort as a result. Those operations ended, with only some small-scale work on toxins for assassinations left. This was not known until after 2003 however when Saddam was overthrown, and outside experts were able to go through all of Iraq’s documents, and interview its personnel. Even though Desert Fox was very limited in scope, it came at just the right time in the history of the Saddam regime to put an end to its weapons of mass destruction.

SOURCES

Arkin, William, “The Difference Was in the Details,” Washington Post, 1/17/99

Cirincione, Joseph, “The Kay Contradiction,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 10/3/03

Cirincione, Joseph, Mathews, Jessica, Perkovich, George with Orton, Alexis, “WMD in Iraq Evidence and Implications,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004

CNN, “Pentagon unveils details of Operation Desert Fox,” 12/16/98

Conversino, Dr. Mark, “Operation DESERT FOX: Effectiveness With Unintended Effects,” Air & Space Power Journal, 7/13/05

Duelfer, Charles, “Canaries in the Cooling Tower,” The National Interest, July/August 2009

Haulman, Daniel, “What Happened to the Iraqi Air Force?” Air Force Historical Research Agency, 11/5/09

Iraq Survey Group, “Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCIA on Iraq’s WMD,” 9/30/04

Leopold, Jason, “Seven Months Before 9/11 Said Iraq Posed No Threat,” Scoop, 6/27/03

PBS Frontline, “Chronology: The Evolution of the Bush Doctrine,” War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03

- “In Their Own Words: Who Said What When,” Truth, War and Consequences, 10/9/03

- “Interview: Kenneth Pollack,” The War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03

- “The War Behind Closed Doors – Transcript,” War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03

Rangwala, Glen, “Claims and evaluations of Iraq’s proscribed weapons,” University of Cambridge, 2004

Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco, New York: Penguin Press, 2006

Risen, James, “Ex-arms hunter wants answers on Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1/26/04

Ritter, Scott, “The Case for Iraq’s Qualitative Disarmament,” Arms Control Today, June 2000

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report On the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,” U.S. Senate, 7/7/04

Whitelaw, Kevin and Mazzetti, Mark, “Why War?” U.S. News & World Report, 10/14/02

Charles Duelfer’s Account Of The End Of The 1990s U.N. Inspections

In the July/August 2009 issue of The National Interest, former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer painted a picture of the first round of Iraq inspections in the 1990s. On the one hand, his piece is informative because it explains how international support for inspections in Iraq deteriorated. This was pushed along by Saddam’s astute use of bribes and lucrative petroleum deals through the United Nations’ Oil for Food program to sow dissent amongst the Security Council. On the other hand nowhere does he mention the work that the inspectors did in Iraq, which was largely successful in destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and nuclear programs. Rather Duelfer solely concentrates upon the political squabbles that occurred behind the scenes in Iraq, and within the United Nations that led to the end of the inspections in 1998.

As part of the 1991 cease-fire that ended the Gulf War, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq until it divulged and destroyed all of its WMD and nuclear programs. To achieve this goal the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) was created as the first inspectors in Iraq. This was the toughest and most intrusive inspection regime created since Germany after World War I. Duelfer skips all of UNSCOM’s early work, and goes to its last two years in 1997 and 1998 to highlight the political problems it ran into.

1997 was the beginning of the end of UNSCOM. In that year Iraq refused to admit American inspectors into the country claiming that Washington was trying to undermine the government. That was true as Pres. Clinton tried to launch a coup the previous year using the inspections. At the same time, Saddam was making another concerted effort to undermine and end the process, and the sanctions. UNSCOM didn’t comply with Baghdad’s request, and withdrew. They returned in three weeks, but under a deal brokered by France and Russia where foreign diplomats acted as chaperons for the inspectors. A few months later Baghdad refused to let the inspectors into presidential palaces. A deal was eventually worked out with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, but many saw it as appeasement of Saddam. The delay also allowed Iraq to empty the palaces of any incriminating material.

By 1997 support for the inspections and sanctions were weakening anyway within the Security Council. Iraq was offering Russia, France, and other countries preferential oil contracts under the Oil for Food program to weaken and undermine UNSCOM. Iraq was also correctly arguing that the inspections were being used by the U.S. for political ends, beyond what the U.N. resolution called for. Duelfer argues that these divisions made the inspections useless. The inspectors themselves became divided, some collecting intelligence for their own countries, some giving it to Iraq, and the lack of a united Security Council meant that Baghdad could chip away at the inspections little by little with no repercussions.

In 1998 Iraq refused to cooperate with the inspectors anymore. They withdrew as the U.S. and England launched Operation Desert Fox, a bombing campaign for non-cooperation with UNSCOM. Duelfer calls the attack a “feckless bombing,” and said that afterwards U.S. containment of Iraq ended with the suspension of inspections. This is far from true. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was the commander of the U.S. Central Command at the time, received intelligence that Saddam was teetering and was seriously afraid that he might be overthrown as a result Desert Fox. More importantly, as a result of the bombing, Iraq decided to give up on its weapons programs. The Iraq Study Group later found out that labs were shutdown and work was ended as Baghdad believed that it could never continue under U.N. sanctions and U.S. attacks. The U.S.-U.K. no fly zones continued, as well as U.N. sanctions, and Iraq never restarted its weapons programs. The problem of course was that the West completely missed these changes in Iraq. Saddam’s constant refusal to cooperate with inspections, convinced the United States that Iraq would never give up its desire to have WMD. These unresolved issues were left to fester, and became a driving issue for many American politicians and foreign policy officials, who later gained office in the Bush administration.

Where Duelfer’s article really falls short however is that he never really discusses what UNSCOM accomplished. He writes that the inspections did find out a lot about Iraq’s WMD programs in seven years, but never mentions that by 1996 Iraq’s known WMD munitions and equipment, and nuclear programs had been dismantled and destroyed. There was still an unaccounted for stockpile of weapons and WMD agents left over from the Iran-Iraq War, much of which was probably useless as it had expired, but as far as new production or active programs was concerned, there were none by the time UNSCOM left the country in December 1998.

Instead what you walk away from the Duelfer piece thinking is that the inspections were eventually undermined by political divisions within the U.N. and maneuvers by Saddam, and that overall they were failure. It seems that Duelfer came away from his work with UNSCOM mad and bitter because he was forced to leave before he felt his job was done. His comments after 1998 show that he was open to any and all allegations of Iraq breaking the U.N. resolutions on its WMD and nuclear programs. Even now in 2009 he apparently still holds a grudge from his experience, which makes him ignore the successes that he achieved while an inspector.

SOURCES

Blix, Hans, “An Update On Inspection,” UNMOVIC, 1/27/03

CNN, “Scott Ritter: Facts needed before Iraq attack,” 7/12/02

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, “S/1997/779,” International Atomic Energy Agency, 10/8/97

Duelfer, Charles, “Canaries in the Cooling Tower,” The National Interest, July/August 2009

Gordon, Michael and Miller, Judith, “Threats And Responses: The Iraqis; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest For A-Bomb Parts,” New York Times, 9/8/02

Guardian, “The coup that wasn’t,” 9/26/05

Miller, Judith, “An Iraqi Defector Tells of Work on at Least 20 Hidden Weapons Sites,” New York Times, 12/20/01

PBS Frontline, “Interview: Kenneth Pollack,” 2/20/03

Rangwala, Glen, Hurd, Nathaniel, and Millar, Alistair, “A Case For Concern, Not A Case For War,” Middle East Report Online, 1/28/03

Ricks, Tom, Fiasco, 2006

Ritter, Scott, “The Case for Iraq’s Qualitative Disarmament,” Arms Control Today, June 2000

Rose, David, “Iraq’s Arsenal of Terror,” Vanity Fair, May 2002

Warrick, Joby, “In Assessing Iraq’s Arsenal, The ‘Reality Is Uncertainty,’” Washington Post, 7/31/02