It is time to change a basic British attitude. For a century of more we have been taught that, sometimes, our going to war is good and can bring about a better world. Blair believed that, together with most of the New Labour and Conservative parties who voted in 2003 for War in Iraq. Chilcot has confirmed War was not necessary. It was especially not necessary if we had not armed Saddam in the first place. In 2003 he was already defeated, no threat, had no WMD, and the UN route (supported earlier by the UK and US) was holding him to account. War (or more accurately three wars) destroyed Iraq. War has destroyed Syria. War has destroyed Libya. War destroyed Europe and especially the USSR for a decade and a half during and after both WW1 and WW2. War has destroyed Korea, Vietnam, Sudan, Japan, China, South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique, the Balkans and Armenia, Paraguay, the Jewish nation, Spain, Algeria, the American Indians, Cuba, Egypt, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Pakistan and most of the nations on earth at one time or another.
War destroys. It kills, injures and traumatizes. It eliminates infrastructure, hospitals, schools, history, housing, the basics of life and intimacy. It encourages rape, torture and robbery. It puts in places an overwhelming need for revenge that few of us could resist. War begets war. It destroys democracy, the rule of law, mutual respect. It validates “You shall murder”. It is the destroyer of persons, civilisation, family from which good does not come.
And here comes the myth. Of course war is evil, but we British are peace-loving, except when we really have to go to War to do good. Remember Hitler. Yes, let’s remember Hitler and the way World War One begat Hitler and the destruction of German, Russian and other nations out of which World War Two grew. We, British, forget that earlier we won an empire by war with the machine gun and the warship. We forget the Boer Wars made us hated for cruelty. We forget our part in generating wars, our belligerence, our turning down of disarmament, our infatuation with being strong, our ability to hate other states, our arms industry and our militarism. But we are now face to face with our War in Iraq. Chilcot has shown, if we did not already know, that the War was unnecessary, illegal, undermined the UN and came from our arrogance and desire to attack. We are the problem. We, “who put things right”, have made things wrong, vast nations destroyed, hundreds of thousands dead, millions of refugees, and we are the problem. We can sublocate blame to Blair, the dossier, the lack of spine of the Attorney General or military failure, but we have been the warmongers. We do not really love peace. Otherwise we would do it. The myth is a lie. We have been taught to shrug, to believe with Blair that our Wars have a purpose. But, we are wrong; they do not. They can be prevented. Three years or two months before they come, they need not be.
War is not an “it”. It is our endeavour. We cause wars, although there is a deafening silence over the process through which we do so. The West, largely, has armed the world. We have listened to those who say, “You need weapons to be safe” or “Arms exports are good for the economy”, and we make arms. We – the US, Russia, Germany, France, China , Spain and the UK – supply 86% of the world’s arms. We pretend that it is good for the world and its defence, but it produces wars, scares, military dictators, terrorism, cold wars, counter arming and arms races. We run the engine that drives world militarism, and that militarism produced the Iraq War and took in half-decent men (always men) like Blair and Cameron.. The engine is hidden, but it produces the power. Arms companies need War to stay in business, and they get it. Arms bring military dictators, threats, distrust, hate and catapult the nasties to the top of politics, but we sublimate what we are doing.
But we can do so no longer. We see the chaos and world destruction that arms cause. It can stop. Countries do not need to fight. Yorkshire and Lancashire worked it out five hundred years ago. Europe learned it in 1945. Mutual disarmament is easier than mutual armament. Swords into ploughshares is more practical than arms races which bankrupt nations and produce catastrophes. It only needs a million people worldwide who understand militarism and disarmament and will act resolutely for the world to change. Those who back arms are weak, because they are wrong; they can only destroy. Making peace works. Nation can speak peace unto nation and we can learn war no more. A fundamental change of attitude is required from the British wanting “to punch above their weight”. War does not work. Industrial militarism is destroying the planet. We can move from the woe of war to worldwide disarmament and the manufacture of peace. That is our Christian calling.
Category Archives: The Iraq War
The British Military Formation of Iraq.
The End of the Cold War and the possibility of Peace.
On the 2nd August, 1990 Iraqi troops under the orders of Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and started the Gulf War. It was a momentous event in world history partly because it occurred exactly when the end of the Cold War could have led to an era of peace. Shortly before it happened, the world had watched as the Soviet Union came to an end after over seventy years as a world-changing state. On the 8th June,1990 the Russian Federation had declared itself a sovereign state, superceding the existence of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the USSR, after two years of obvious disintegration in the Superpower. In December, 1988 President Gorbachev had announced a plan to very substantially reduce USSR nuclear and conventional weapons; they were unilaterally withdrawing from the Arms Race. Amid great friendliness Presidents Bush and Gorbachev declared the end of the Cold War on the 2nd December, 1989, and, as 1990 developed, the USSR dismembered into several much more independent states. By 1st July, 1990 Eastern Germany had joined with West Germany and the Communist Party had given up control. Discussions were underway on the independence of the Warsaw Pact countries. The USSR, the second Superpower, was gone and the sky was clear for peace.
During 1990 the USSR and Warsaw Pact arms companies collapsed, because their main clients had become bankrupt. Other Cold War related sales also fell dramatically. World arms sales went into fall from $46.5bn in 1987 to $39.5bn in 1988, $38.3bn in 1989, $31.3bn in 1990 and to $25.8bn in 1991, a 45% fall in five years. No other industry would face a collapse like this in their market. It was a point of panic and the major issue for the companies was whether a new enemy could be found for the United States, for if it decided there was no external threat and cut back on its voluminous demand for weapons the great American companies faced implosion, to use a suitable metaphor. At this point the world could have become post-military. For nearly fifty years the Cold War had made arms the central feature of world politics, and now it was gone. Major international tensions could cease and disarmament become normal as Gorbachev had already suggested. (The final spasm in this collapse was the attempted USSR military coup of August 1991 trying to preserve the old military system. It fizzled out because even the military could see that it could not work; militarism had bankrupted the USSR.) The end of the Cold War was a blue sky point in history when peace in international relationships seemed possible. Militarized Communism had gone; everybody could be friends – if Communism was the problem. We lament the failure to disarm, but largely it did not happen because the logic of the arms companies requires War or the Fear of War. Radical disarmament could happen, but it required a deeper understanding. The world waited, and, while we waited, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Western Self-Righteousness.
Iraq has dominated much of the news for the last three decades as a problem that the West has to address, or finds it difficult to address. The teaching of Jesus always puts the finger on the cancer, but most western elites do not listen to Jesus. So, here he is. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matt.7:3-5) The West judges Saddam Hussein for militarism and going to war, but, as it turns out, not only did the United States and the United Kingdom go to war against Iraq without cause in 2003, but it formed the situation in which Saddam invaded Kuwait to an extraordinary degree. Even further back it had largely formed the necessity of a military dictatorship out of which many of Iraq’s problems have grown. We need to see the extent to which we, the West, are the problem and examine the plank which is in our own eye. The plank is so long that it will require several chapters. Western self-righteousness has the form: Oh look, Iraq is in a mess and we must sort things out, but ignores the fact that it is our interfering mess that we are addressing. This is especially important, because this western hypocrisy is the truth which gives middle eastern terrorism its strength. If we fail to address it, terrorism will continue. If we address it, and repent, this terrorism will die.
Iraq’s military history in relation to Britain.
The year 1990 and the Gulf War has a long history in relation to the West. During the eighteenth and early 19th century Iraq was ruled by the Mamluks, a kind of Islamic military caste, and in 1831 the Ottoman Empire gained control and ruled until the First World War. Britain had her eye on the territory, partly because of its significance as a route to India and partly because oil was beginning to be a military fuel. Germany had eyes on an overland route to the East through the area to add a touch of rivalry. In the First World War there was a major confrontation with the Ottoman Empire over Iraq; the siege of Kut turned out to be one of the most humiliating British defeats ever, with 13,000 surrendering. Overall the British lost 92,000 soldiers in the area and eventually won only when the War ended and both King Feisal and Lord Allenby entered Damascus to bring an end to Ottoman rule. During the War the French and British formed the Sykes-Picot agreement which carved up the Middle East between them. This conflicted with the United States emphasis on countries moving quickly towards independence and with the promises made to the Arabs, and especially those given through Lawrence of Arabia and in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence that the groups fighting with the British against the Ottoman Empire would be given independence after the War. At the end of the War both Allenby and King Faisal entered Damascus to bring an the promises made to the Arabs were more or less ditched and a revolt began in Damascus and on 30th September, 1918, which led to Faisal being proclaimed as King of the Arabs. The San Remo Conference from the 19th-26th April, 1920 tried to square the circle and the outcome was that the French were given a mandate to govern Syria and Faisal was proclaimed King of Iraq which was a British protectorate. Really, both France and Britain wanted colonial control in the area and not to follow the proper understanding of mandated territories, which saw then en route to independence.
This became evident not long after the San Remo Conference. The Iraqi people did not much like having a King foisted on them from a Conference in Italy and rebellions broke out, adding to the troubles which Churchill was facing as Minister of War given the task of clearing up after the end of the War. The Iraqis were looking forward to independence and did not much like being occupied, an understandable reaction. They thought they could govern themselves, but were not given the chance, and in May, 1920 they began a revolt among the Shi’ites in the South, army officers and others. It spread. At the same time in the North the Kurds made a bid for independence. Soon Shia and Sunni groups were co-operating. It became an armed revolt in June. When he heard about this rebellion, Churchill has anxious that it would not spread and become established, and he decided to use aerial bombardment to cut out the revolution. He sent in two squadrons of bombers to bomb the insurgents and thought of using gas attacks as well. He engaged Hugh Trenchard to organize the first ever bombing campaign outside Europe to subdue the Kurds and others in August 1920. Bomber Harris learned his trade here. As Catherwood points out, Churchill’s impetus was largely to save money on the military; this was efficient warfare. The Kurds were duly killed or subdued and ceased their revolt. In retrospect, perhaps independence to the Kurds then would have saved us all a lot of trouble. The British dropped about 100 tons of bombs in thousands of hours of sorties. Churchill was happy to drop bombs on the natives to show them who was in charge. This was British colonial military control stamped on the Iraqi political system.
The Client Kingdom, Oil and Militarism.
Colonial powers form the political structure and its culture. King Faisal was installed as a client ruler, which meant that although he was king, Britain was really in charge and not looking towards independence. Much of this control was geared towards oil, which was gradually becoming the fuel of the future as cars, aviation and oil fired ships became dominant transport forms. Initially, the oil had been located in the north near Mosul, and in 1918 British forces had raced to take Mosul so that it, and not France would be in control of these fields. The French were furious. Both France and the United States wanted to be in on the act, and the Iraq Petroleum Company was formed with Shell, BP, French and American companies having roughly a quarter each. There was enough oil for world demand in this period, and so the oilfields were only slowly developed, partly so that British fields in Persia and elsewhere would be more profitable. In October, 1927 a British exploration team hit a gusher near Kirkuk and from that time big oil was an important part of the picture. This was exploitative colonialism, and it meant control through technology, supply routes and above all the military. The Iraqis had to be subdued into accepting this British domination of their major economic asset.
At this time the British also established the policy of governing through the Sunni minority population, which introduced a colonial content to the Sunni-Shia relations in the country which became embedded; the Sunnis ruled and the Shi’ites were excluded from power. The influence of the Iraqi political establishment gradually increased, because they were in effect running the country, and Iraq was technically made independent in 1932, though it remained in effect under indirect British control, with British military bases and strong protection of the oil installations and routes. The Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930 cemented this pattern. It guaranteed British interests in the area and it also set up a process whereby the British would sell and supply arms to the Iraqis. But still there was resentment. There were attempts at military coups against the client King Ghazi during the thirties, but it remained. And
The Second World War was a threat to this position as Britain seemed to have other things on its mind. In April, 1941, when Britain was more preoccupied fighting the Nazis at home, there was an uprising. It looked as though the colonial power might be ousted. But British troops moved quickly on the 2nd May, 1941 and attacked from their Basra and Habbaniya bases, capturing substantial amounts of arms. Soon German arms arrived from Syria, but in other confrontations Fallujah was captured and defended, and further north, Glubb Pasha, who became a British legend, led legionnaires to control the area and they then moved forward to Baghdad to control the country again until a British sympathizing Government was re-installed. Churchill, the arch colonialist, was not going to let go of Iraq. British forces remained in Iraq until October, 1947 to protect oil interests, but by now direct British military power in the region was weakening. In 1948 there was an Anglo-Iraqi Treaty and in 1955 a Baghdad Pact each giving Britain privileges in Iraq, especially in relation to oil. By now the population was beginning to dislike these links with the British, as the British would have if Iraq had owned its coal mines throughout the Industrial Revolution. Britain was the cuckoo in the oil nest and eating a lot. So the British colonial system stayed in place from 1918 to 1958, forty years. It made military control paramount, put Sunni and Shia in a power relationship, controlled oil externally, retarded democratic development and milked the state of its main source of wealth. We, Britain, were substantially responsible for the kind of state Iraq was to be even from early in the 20th century.
Independent?
Britain retained its military bases until 1953 and King Faisal II was broadly sympathetic to Britain; he had attended Harrow School in NW London, so that was not surprising. On the 14th July, 1958 there was finally a successful revolution against the monarchy and the British. A military dictator, British-trained Brigadier-General Abd al-Karim Qasim, came to power. He in turn was overthrown by Colonel Abdul Salam Arif in February, 1963, who in turn was overthrown by the Ba’ath Party in 1968. The Ba’ath (rebirth) Party had its origins in Syria and was a Pan-Arab Socialist party. Its most prominent move was between 1958 and 1961 when Egypt and Syria united as the United Arab Republic, but a split occurred in 1961 and a further split emerged between the Syrian and Iraqi Ba’ath Parties. The focus was Arab nationalist rather than Islamic. The 1963 coup, which was anti-Communist, was the first run of this policy. The new regime received strong support from the United Kingdom’s Macmillan Government and the United States, so that the two countries could retain their oil interests. Ba’athist organisation was anti-democratic and strongly militaristic. General Saddam Hussein gradually controlled the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council and became military dictator in July 1979 in a Sunni dominated government. We have to conclude that the long military presence of the British in Iraq made it more or less inevitable that military dictatorships would follow, as they did.
For a while the Iraqi regime, fed up with the way it had been treated by the West, linked up with the USSR for the supply of arms. Saddam began purchasing large quantities, and when the price of oil went up around 1980, he suddenly had a lot of money to spend either on his own people or on arms. Sadly he chose the latter and became the biggest purchaser of arms in the Middle East. The West saw its opportunity and moved in, and we look at the result in the next chapter as the war between Iran and Iraq gathered momentum.
A Summary of Possible Conclusions on the Iraq Inquiry (before Chilcot published)
The Iraq Inquiry Report comes out on Wednesday, 6th July. There will be a few days debate in Parliament and then the Summer Recess will arrive and people will be off on their holidays, and we will all forget it. For years it has been in the long grass and now it will be a holiday moan.But what we did in the Iraq War needs discussing before Chilcot comes out. Let us recall what we did.
1. We ignored the clear tested evidence from Hussein Kamel al-Majid, given in 1995, who was murdered by his father in law Saddam Hussein for giving it, that all the weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed in 1991-3. “I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons—biological, chemical, missile, nuclear—were destroyed.”
2. The Prime Minister failed to make an independent decision about undertaking an illegal war, but merely followed the United States to war out of loyalty.
3. The War was illegal. Jack Straw was told this, but ignored the advice to his two chief advisors. The Attorney General said it was illegal, but was sent to America at the last moment to make him change his mind.He did, rather than resign and denied his office requirement to uphold the rule of law. We engaged in an illegal invasion of a largely unarmed nation.
4. We, and the United States, bullied the United Nations, ignored their weapons inspectors, and failed to observe the United Nations’ principle of not attacking other nations and deeply damaging it ans an institution.
5. The United States and British Governments controlled much of the international media machine into claiming that Saddam was dangerous, when he patently was not. Most of the media went along with it, including the BBC who was bullied into compliance. The Murdoch Media were especially bad.
6. The Intelligence Services in both the United States and the UK were largely persuaded to support a tale which was untrue, led by John Scarlett, who was knighted for his support of the Blair line. A world-wide portrayal of untruths about the Iraqi regime was mounted as a basis for invasion.
7. Both the central Civil Service and Tony Blair destroyed the proper practice of Cabinet Government to push through the decision that Blair had made.
8. The United Kingdom Parliament voted for a resolution containing several untruths by 412 to 149 MPs (73%) to authorize the war, again through establishment pressure. Both New Labour and Conservative Parties strongly endorsed the war.
9. The Hutton Report (completed in five months) was wrongly used to pillory the BBC and push out its Director General.
10. The underlying causes of the War, that arms companies linked to the neo-cons in the American administration and especially to Cheney and Rumsfeldt, wanted a war against an unarmed foe and that Bush mindlessly needed to beat someone after 9/11, were not and have not been recognized.
11. The United States and the United Kingdom owe reparations to Iraq even of some $3-10 trillion for the damage that has been done by this illegal war.
12. Our War with Iraq created the failed state in which ISIS and terrorism could flourish and led to the present crisis in Syria. It is the most calamitous foreign policy of the past sixty years, and we are culpable for much of the present disorder in the Middle East.
13. We fail to examine and understand the damage caused by war and the belligerence caused by our military-industrial complex, or address the process whereby western arms companies armed Saddam Hussein and made him a problem in the Middle East.
14. We do not consider that our “special relationship” with the United States, given its vast military-industrial complex and proclivity to war, is dangerous and should be reviewed.
The Iraq War Report
The Iraq Inquiry Report comes out on Wednesday, 6th July. There will be a few days debate in Parliament and then the Summer Recess will arrive and people will be off on their holidays, and we will all forget it. For years it has been in the long grass and now it will be a holiday moan. But what we did in the Iraq War needs discussing before Chilcot comes out. Let us recall what we did.
1. We ignored the clear tested evidence from Hussein Kamel al-Majid, given in 1995, who was murdered by his father in law Saddam Hussein for giving it, that all the weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed in 1991-3. “I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons—biological, chemical, missile, nuclear—were destroyed.”
2. The Prime Minister failed to make an independent decision about undertaking an illegal war, but merely followed the United States to war out of loyalty.
3. The War was illegal. Jack Straw was told this, but ignored the advice to his two chief advisors. The Attorney General said it was illegal, but was sent to America at the last moment to make him change his mind.He did, rather than resign and denied his office requirement to uphold the rule of law. We engaged in an illegal invasion of a largely unarmed nation.
4. We, and the United States, bullied the United Nations, ignored their weapons inspectors, and failed to observe the United Nations’ principle of not attacking other nations and deeply damaging it ans an institution.
5. The United States and British Governments controlled much of the international media machine into claiming that Saddam was dangerous, when he patently was not. Most of the media went along with it, including the BBC who was bullied into compliance. The Murdoch Media were especially bad.
6. The Intelligence Services in both the United States and the UK were largely persuaded to support a tale which was untrue, led by John Scarlett, who was knighted for his support of the Blair line. A world-wide portrayal of untruths about the Iraqi regime was mounted as a basis for invasion.
7. Both the central Civil Service and Tony Blair destroyed the proper practice of Cabinet Government to push through the decision that Blair had made.
8. The United Kingdom Parliament voted for a resolution containing several untruths by 412 to 149 MPs (73%) to authorize the war, again through establishment pressure. Both New Labour and Conservative Parties strongly endorsed the war.
9. The Hutton Report (completed in five months) was wrongly used to pillory the BBC and push out its Director General.
10. The underlying causes of the War, that arms companies linked to the neo-cons in the American administration and especially to Cheney and Rumsfeldt, wanted a war against an unarmed foe and that Bush mindlessly needed to beat someone after 9/11, were not and have not been recognized.
11. The United States and the United Kingdom owe reparations to Iraq even of some $3-10 trillion for the damage that has been done by this illegal war.
12. Our War with Iraq created the failed state in which ISIS and terrorism could flourish and led to the present crisis in Syria. It is the most calamitous foreign policy of the past sixty years, and we are culpable for much of the present disorder in the Middle East.
13. We fail to examine and understand the damage caused by war and the belligerence caused by our military-industrial complex, or address the process whereby western arms companies armed Saddam Hussein and made him a problem in the Middle East.
14. We do not consider that our “special relationship” with the United States, given its vast military-industrial complex and proclivity to war, is dangerous and should be reviewed.
Was the Iraq War Unlawful?
Tony Blair, as Prime Minister, was primarily responsible for the United Kingdom observing the rule of international law, including that embodied in the United Nations. As with all Prime Ministers, he looked to the Attorney General for definitive advice on what was, or was not, legal. The rule of law justifies war and invasion only in acute circumstances and the United Nations is careful only to issue resolutions which validate military action in a clear and final resolution. Obviously, no ambiguity can be countenanced in such a situation. The United Nations since 1945 has prohibited the use of force — except in self-defence or, perhaps, to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe — unless formally authorized by the UN Security Council. That is easy to understand.
Lord Goldsmith’s Understanding of the Illegalities of Attacking Iraq.
Lord Goldsmith did understand it and here we follow through his view of the UK’s legal position in relation to Iraq during the period between the summer of 2002 and the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003. He gave quite a clear judgment that to undertake a war against Iraq was illegal. He stated it in a letter to the Prime Minister on 30th July, 2002, copied to the Foreign and Defence Secretaries, “In the absence of a fresh resolution by the Security Council which would at least involve a new determination of a material and flagrant breach [by Iraq] military action would be unlawful. Even if there were such a resolution, but one which did not explicitly authorise the use of force, it would remain highly debatable whether it legitimised military action – but without it the position is, in my view, clear.” This statement is revealing. First, it says that evidence of a breach of the resolution requiring all WMD to be destroyed was necessary. That evidence needed to come from Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors. Second, that a resolution validating the use of force was required, and third, that the position was “clear”. Goldsmith added that this outlawed any military support of the United States. He had already written to Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, squashing the idea we could go to war against Iraq in “self-defence”, because he had examined the evidence and there was no imminent threat of attack to the UK. There was no reason why force could be used legally against Iraq.
The United Nations Secretary General aimed to stiffen this position in November, 2002. His report on the “Prevention of armed conflict” recommended as follows, “It is reassuring that a general consensus is gradually emerging among Member States that comprehensive and coherent conflict prevention strategies offer the greatest potential for promoting lasting peace and creating an enabling environment for sustainable development. The General Assembly is urged to adopt a strong and substantive resolution in support of conflict prevention, as the Security Council did on 30 August 2001.” Conflict prevention was to be the normal approach to difficult international situations, because the aftermath of conflict was chaos and destruction. So Goldsmith’s position as Attorney General, responsible for testing whether Government actions upheld the rule of law, including international law, was clearly in accord with everyone else’s in July, 2002. Without another resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force, the invasion of Iraq was illegal.
Lord Goldsmith held this view until well into 2003. He repeated it in a letter to the Prime Minister on the 30th January, 2003. On 12th February in his draft advice to the Prime Minister on the American perception of the issue which had now began to appear in UK diplomatic circles, Goldsmith is critical of the American view. He points out that the American position of needing only another Council discussion, but not a resolution, before going to war against Iraq reduces the role of Council discussion to a “procedural formality” so that “even if the overwhelming majority of the Council were opposed to the use of force, the US could go ahead regardless.” He further noted that “Many delegations welcomed the fact that there was no ‘automaticity’ in the Resolution with regard to the use of force.” This point we examine fully in the next paragraph. He added that if the UK had tried to obtain a definitive second resolution validating the use of force, but then say that a second resolution was not required, would generate the response that the government was acting unlawfully. He further stressed that military action should always be proportional, and aimed to correct the failure in Iraq’s response on disarmament. It “should be limited to what is necessary to achieve that objective”. About a week before on the 3rd February he had warned Jack Straw about pressure on legal advisors in the Foreign Office, meaning especially Michael Wood and Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who had also concluded that an invasion without a second resolution was illegal. So this was a settled and well developed view held during the year or so in the build-up to the War.
Lord Goldsmith changes his mind in early 2003.
But then Lord Goldsmith changed his mind. During this time the United States was planning War, seeing Britain as its main ally, and seeking to act unilaterally. It had been authorized by Congress on 11th October., 2002. Bush had paused for a while as Tony Blair sought a second resolution, but when it was clear that would not be forthcoming, he was anxious to attack. Six months of planning and moving of weapons, supplies and logistical support had already been completed and the troops were a few weeks away from being ready to attack. The American administration was putting pressure on Blair and Jack Straw, who in turn asked Goldsmith to go to the United States to meet a range of US legal and state department people. This he did and suddenly changed his position. We will call his position before he changed his mind Goldsmith Mark One and after he changed his mind Goldsmith Mark Two.
The reason, as it appears from his evidence at the Iraq Inquiry, for this change is a bit obscure, but we must pursue it. It centres on UN Resolution 1441 and Lord Goldsmith was to accept an argument from the United States. The argument was that Resolution 1441 allowed direct action if there was any material breach of its conditions without another United Nations resolution. It had been passed to put more pressure on Saddam Hussein to conform fully to the UN requirements on WMD disarmament, terrorism, human rights and documentation on 8th November, 2002 as part of a push by President Bush to put pressure on Saddam Hussein. It immediately led to Saddam offering to let the weapons’ inspectors back in and giving them co-operation and on 7 December 2002, Iraq filed a 12,000-page weapons declaration with the UN in order to meet requirements for this resolution. It seemed to be co-operating. Lord Goldsmith averred now that military means to bring Iraq to compliance could be used directly on the basis of Resolution 1441if Iraq was in breach of it. He claimed to have been convinced by the Americans that France in private discussions had said this was possible and it was therefore a valid conclusion to draw.
The possibility of automatic military action following from Resolution 1441 needs full clarification, for the issue was discussed when agreement to it was being sought. For example, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, said:
This resolution contains no “hidden triggers” and no “automaticity” with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the Council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA or a Member State, the matter will return to the Council for discussions as required in paragraph 12. The resolution makes clear that any Iraqi failure to comply is unacceptable and that Iraq must be disarmed. And, one way or another, Iraq will be disarmed. If the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of further Iraqi violations, this resolution does not constrain any Member State from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce relevant United Nations resolutions and protect world peace and security.
The Ambassador for the United Kingdom, the co-sponsor of the resolution, said:
We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about “automaticity” and “hidden triggers” – the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response… There is no “automaticity” in this resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12. We would expect the Security Council then to meet its responsibilities. ”
The message was further confirmed by the ambassador for Syria. He and others understood it in the following terms:
Syria voted in favour of the resolution, having received reassurances from its sponsors, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, and from France and Russia through high-level contacts, that it would not be used as a pretext for striking against Iraq and does not constitute a basis for any automatic strikes against Iraq. The resolution should not be interpreted, through certain paragraphs, as authorizing any State to use force. It reaffirms the central role of the Security Council in addressing all phases of the Iraqi issue.
In other words, the headline understanding was clearly of no automaticity, and the position that the Americans and Lord Goldsmith were discussing was hidden in coded messages at the end of the US ambassadorial statement. Even then, it was the statement of one country in relation to a UN Resolution, and even then it was focussed on the disarmament of Iraq (which had already occurred). Resolution 1441 was unambiguously understood by most countries not to be the trigger for later United Nations action.
But now, a couple of months later Lord Goldsmith, after visiting the States moved to Goldsmith Mark Two, the view that no second resolution was needed. This position has been rather withering critiqued by a number of lawyers. Lord Bingham had been Chief Justice and was Senior Law Lord at the time, competent to judge the case. He later assessed Goldsmith’s statement. “This statement was, I think flawed in two fundamental respects,” he said. “First, it was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had: Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction, were making progress and expected to complete their task in a matter of months. “Secondly, it passes belief that a determination whether Iraq had failed to avail itself of its final opportunity was intended to be taken otherwise than collectively by the Security Council.” Elizabeth Wilmshurst, legal advisor at the Foreign Office orally described her understanding of Goldsmith’s new position at the Iraq Inquiry like this:
“ the issue really is: how do you interpret a resolution or a treaty in international law and is it sufficient to go to individual negotiators [the US], but not all negotiators, and ask them for their perceptions of private conversations, or does an international resolution or treaty have to be accessible to everyone so that you can take an objective view from the wording itself and from published records of the preparatory work? I mean, it must be the second. The means of interpretation has to be accessible to all. But the Attorney had relied on private conversations of what the UK negotiators or the US had said that the French had said. Of course, he hadn’t asked the French of their perception of those conversations. That was one point that I thought actually was unfortunate in the way that he had reached his decision, and the other point that struck me was that he did say that the safest route was to ask for a second resolution. We were talking about the massive invasion of another country, changing the government and the occupation of that country, and, in those circumstances, it did seem to me that we ought to follow the safest route. But it was clear that the Attorney General was not going to stand in the way of the government going into conflict.
These and other weaknesses were perceived internationally in the position of the United States and now, through Goldsmith’s ruling. The change came shortly before the actual invasion which began on the 20th March.
Conclusion.
It is easy for lawyers, especially ones changing their views under pressure from their paymasters, to make matters complex. So it is worth reminding ourselves of the issue for the United Nations, the UK Government and for us: What is a just treatment of Iraq in relation to the UN requirements to disarm? The following conclusions seem to follow.
1. It is always the job of the United Nations and not individual countries like the US and the UK to decide when UN resolutions have been materially breached.
2. The United Nations must always decide whether acts of aggression can occur against offending countries on the basis of a further clear resolution that addresses and authorizes the aggression.
3. Whether Iraq had committed an offence in relation to its disarmament from WMD was a matter for the UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix, not a matter of individual states to assert.
4. Whatever response was made to Iraq had to be proportionate to the offence deemed to have been committed.
5. The policy of regime change was not a valid policy for the United Nations or third party states.
6. Since UN Resolution 1441 the Iraqi regime has shown considerable evidence of compliance, and there was also considerable evidence that almost all the WMD weapons had been destroyed, and so it was difficult to find what Iraq’s offence might be, and military action therefore had no foundation.
The verdict seems to be that the United States and the United Kingdom had no legal right to invade Iraq, contrary to the changed advice of Lord Goldsmith, Goldsmith Mark Two. Rather Goldsmith Mark One was the correct ruling and should have been given to the full Cabinet, all MPs and the nation, if necessarily, with the resignation of the Attorney General. This conclusion is the same as was arrived at by the two chief legal advisors in the Foreign Office. The War was illegal. Sir Michael Wood, Chief Legal Adviser at the Foreign Office said that invading Iraq would “amount to the crime of aggression.” Elizabeth Wilmshurst resigned on the 18th March, 2003. One sentence from her Iraq Inquiry evidence says it all. “I regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal, and I therefore did not feel able to continue in my post.” If Goldsmith had followed her example, it is possible that UK participation in the Iraq War, and even the War itself, could have been averted.
The conclusions which follow from these considerations and events reflect somberly on the law abiding calling of the UK Government.
1. The Attorney General failed to warn against participating in a War and Invasion which was illegal under international law and flouted the principles of the United Nations.
2. Both the United Kingdom and United States Governments were able to lean on the Attorney General to change his mind and declare an illegal war legal.
3. During this period the United Kingdom’s relationship with the United States in international affairs was servile and unprincipled.
4. A concern that United Kingdom international action should be law-abiding and law-upholding, and respect peace, seems to have been peripheral in Tony Blair’s Government in 2002-3.
5. The United Kingdom participation in the Iraq War was illegal and culpable. It requires an apology and reparations for some of the damage caused.