Rolf Ekéus, who was executive chairman for the UN Special Commission on Iraq between 1991 and 1997, writes with Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, a nuclear expert at Standford University, on the parallels between the run-up to the Iraq War and the present state of negotiations between Tehran and the international community.
Rolf and Braut-Heggehammer place the onus [...]]]>
Rolf Ekéus, who was executive chairman for the UN Special Commission on Iraq between 1991 and 1997, writes with Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, a nuclear expert at Standford University, on the parallels between the run-up to the Iraq War and the present state of negotiations between Tehran and the international community.
Rolf and Braut-Heggehammer place the onus for the collapse of UN inspection efforts in Iraq on the Clinton Administration’s decision to explicitly denote US policy in Iraq as regime change, effectively abandoning the post-Desert Storm “dual containment” strategy and laying the groundwork for the Bush Administration’s 2003 decision to go to war:
Between 1991 and 1997, Iraq moved steadily forward with disarmament. Even as it did so, of course, Iraqi leaders tested the resolve of the international community by frequently obstructing the inspectors. But the regime was determined to get the United Nations to lift the sanctions and realized that the international community remained committed to enforcing the cease-fire terms. So between 1995 and 1997, Iraq cooperated more thoroughly. By the first few months of 1997, Iraq had completed the disarmament phase of the cease-fire agreement and the United Nations had developed a monitoring system designed to detect Iraqi violations of the nonproliferation requirement.
At this point, several members of the Security Council argued that it was time to conduct a full review of Iraq’s progress in preparation for lifting the sanctions. But the United States took a different view. In the spring of 1997, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave a speech at Georgetown University in which she stated that even if the weapons provisions under the cease-fire resolution were completed, the United States would not agree to lifting sanctions unless Saddam had been removed from power.
With regime change now a stated U.S. objective and the easing of economic sanctions off the table, Saddam lost his appetite for cooperation. He foiled the inspectors at every turn and finally ousted them after a 1998 U.S.-British bombing campaign targeting Saddam’s headquarters, air defenses and security organizations that was allegedly intended to weaken Iraq’s ability to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The UN Security Council could not rally together in support of the inspection regime or reform the sanctions, and misinformation about Iraqi weapons capabilities spread. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration used faulty assessments of the country’s WMD program to make the case for war. Due to the information vacuum that followed the four-year absence of inspections, those allegations could not be easily countered. If monitoring had remained in place, the international community would have been confident in the fact that Iraq’s ability to make WMD had not been reconstituted. A costly war could have been avoided.
The authors recommend the US reevaluate past third-party deals suggested by non-US actors between Iran and the West:
]]>Iran has developed the capability to enrich uranium to 20 percent and has explored aspects of weaponization. The most recent IAEA report shows that Iran’s enrichment capability is increasingly diversified and robust. Faced with these new facts on the ground, the United States will have to rethink making an agreement with Iran. The alternatives are worse. Military strikes will effectively remove the domestic constraints on the effort to develop nuclear weapons. Iran’s weapons program will go from dormant to overdrive.
Two years ago, Iran agreed to a Brazilian-Turkish fuel-swap proposal under which Iran could develop nuclear power without accumulating raw material for nuclear weapons. Last year, Russia put forth a plan imposing a number of restrictions on Iranian enrichment and facilitating more intrusive IAEA inspections. Neither proposal was supported by the United States, as the Obama administration’s top priority was to intensify international pressure on Tehran. Now, given Iran’s progress toward building the bomb, any new proposal should include an intrusive monitoring system with an early-warning mechanism inside Iran’s nuclear establishment. Such a requirement would help prevent a breakout program, as Iran would recognize that evidence of such activities would lead to military strikes and additional severe economic sanctions. The agreement would also have to be accompanied with a list of clearly defined steps that Iran could take to achieve the lifting of sanctions.
After being asked to give his take on a recent report about the human costs of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, a prominent commentator on US-Iran relations said it was an “inexact science” and declined further comment even though he called the project a worthy endeavor. While the idea that inflicting [...]]]>
After being asked to give his take on a recent report about the human costs of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, a prominent commentator on US-Iran relations said it was an “inexact science” and declined further comment even though he called the project a worthy endeavor. While the idea that inflicting physical damage on a nuclear site would cause serious harm to surrounding biological entities seems indisputable, at least the after-effects of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq tragically continues to serve as a case study for the impact a prolonged war with Iran — required if the goal is to set back Iran’s nuclear program by more than a few years — would have on the human population. According to a new study first reported on by the Independent, there has been a significant rise in Iraqi birth defects in cities that were hard-hit by US-led forces during the war:
The latest study found that in Fallujah, more than half of all babies surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010. Before the siege, this figure was more like one in 10. Prior to the turn of the millennium, fewer than 2 per cent of babies were born with a defect. More than 45 per cent of all pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in the two years after 2004, up from only 10 per cent before the bombing. Between 2007 and 2010, one in six of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage.
The new research, which looked at the health histories of 56 families in Fallujah, also examined births in Basra, in southern Iraq, attacked by British forces in 2003. Researchers found more than 20 babies out of 1,000 were born with defects in Al Basrah Maternity Hospital in 2003, a number that is 17 times higher than recorded a decade previously. In the past seven years, the number of malformed babies born increased by more than 60 per cent; 37 out of every 1,000 are now born with defects.
The US response:
A US Defense Department spokesperson said: “We are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Al Basrah or Fallujah that may be related to exposure to the metals contained in munitions used by the US or coalition partners. We always take very seriously public health concerns about any population now living in a combat theatre. Unexploded ordnance, including improvised explosive devises, are a recognised hazard.”
But a series of studies have suggested links between the bombardments and a rise in Iraqi birth defects:
]]>Their preliminary findings, in 2010, prompted a World Health Organisation inquiry into the prevalence of birth defects in the area. The WHO’s report, out next month, is widely expected to show an increase in birth defects after the conflict. It has looked at nine “high-risk” areas in Iraq, including Fallujah and Basra. Where high prevalence is found, the WHO is expected to call for additional studies to pinpoint precise causes.
Haaretz reporter Barak Ravid references Jim Lobe’s widely read article about Bibi Netanyahu’s testimony to Congress on Iraq one year prior to the US-led war in 2003. In sum, the Israeli Prime Minister seems to be reading from the same old script:
A video clip [...]]]>
Haaretz reporter Barak Ravid references Jim Lobe’s widely read article about Bibi Netanyahu’s testimony to Congress on Iraq one year prior to the US-led war in 2003. In sum, the Israeli Prime Minister seems to be reading from the same old script:
]]>A video clip from the 2002 hearing has been making the rounds of the Internet over the past few days, after it was posted by American blogger Jim Lobe at almost the same time as Netanyahu was addressing the United Nations General Assembly last week.
During last week’s speech, Netanyahu stressed that if Iran is not stopped, it will be on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon by next spring, or by summer at the latest. Therefore, Netanyahu argued, a red line must be drawn to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
Netanyahu’s remarks during the 2002 congressional hearing sounded very similar to his UN speech. The arguments are the same, the intonation is the same, even the advisers are the same – Netanyahu’s current diplomatic adviser, Ron Dermer, who wrote the prime minister’s UN address, can be seen in the 10-year-old video sitting behind Netanyahu in the congressional hall.
Roger Z. George, a former national intelligence officer who teaches at the National War College in Washington, explains how to avoid making the same mistakes the US made before invading Iraq in 2003, with Iran:
- set extremely high standards for evidence- don’t over-rely on information gathered and supplied by [...]]]>
Roger Z. George, a former national intelligence officer who teaches at the National War College in Washington, explains how to avoid making the same mistakes the US made before invading Iraq in 2003, with Iran:
- - set extremely high standards for evidence
- don’t over-rely on information gathered and supplied by foreign governments
- keep U.S.personnel at arm’s length from policy discussions
- never call on the intelligence community to make the case for intervention, as was the situation in 2003
- have the intelligence community prepare candid assessments of the effect military strikes against Iran’s - nuclear facilities could have on both Iranian politics and regional stability
He concludes:
]]>Needless to say, the decision to attack another Islamic state would carry consequences far beyond reducing Iran’s military potential, and the intelligence community needs to analyze those consequences concurrently with its analysis of intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear intentions.
These steps will not guarantee that intelligence used to reach the important decisions regarding Iran will be perfect. Clearly, it will not be. However, the intelligence community should not repeat mistakes it made in 2002 and 2003, nor allow itself to become the scapegoat for decisions that properly reside with the nation’s political and military leadership.
Now, from my perspective as a former mid-level official in the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of State, I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq. Some of the fault lies with the performance of the intelligence community, but most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided.
Thielmann was set to retire in 4 months but resigned early from the Bush administration in protest over the politicization of intelligence. In 2009, he told CBS News that responsibility for the U.S.’s unjust war on Iraq was shared by all but that
The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence. They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show.
Thielmann is currently a fellow at the ACA, an anti-nuclear proliferation non-profit organization where he focuses, among other things, on Iran. (Read my interview with ACA executive director Daryl Kimball here.)
Now, while the Obama administration is making a visible effort to handle its Iran intelligence more carefully, the same cannot be said about the handling of widely available official information about Iran’s nuclear program by many U.S. broadcast media outlets. In the clip above, CNN’s Jonathan Mann fails to mention Thielmann’s important background or Israel’s widely suspected though undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal, but does offer ample alarmism about Iran’s nuclear activities even though the Israeli official statements he bases it on actually counter it. After Thielmann says that recent acknowledgement by Israeli military officials that Iran has not decided to make a nuclear weapon and is a rational actor coincide with U.S. military intelligence assessments, Mann voices his own confused interpretation:
I wonder if we could parse, though, exactly what [Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz] is saying. What he said is that the Iranians are moving step-by-step to get to a place where they could build a nuclear weapon, which is to say, I would assume, that they’re going to continue to violate their understandings with the International Atomic Energy Agency, they’re going to continue to enrich uranium beyond the point that they need for any civilian purpose. They’re going to get so close, that people in Israel would inevitably be nervous about them taking that one last step. It sounds like he’s saying they’re doing everything but tightening the last screw and he thinks they’re going to make a decision in the future, in his mind, that they won’t do it, but they’ll make that decision in some time to come.
Thielmann politely responds that Mann is going “a little beyond what [Gantz is] saying” and while Iran is certainly acquiring more of the “ingredients” for a nuclear weapon
…it’s not fair to say that they’re anywhere near a turn of a screw away from a weapon and in fact that is exactly what the objective of the current round of negotiations is, to take a step which would halt the accumulation of this enriched uranium and reverse it.
After more than 162,000 dead Iraqi men, women and children, thousands of dead U.S. soldiers and what could be an eternity of blowback from a pretentious U.S. war, isn’t it also fair to say that we and especially news media should try to avoid “faith-based intelligence” interpretations?
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