The war for control of Iraq's oil: adressing the Bush/Blair case

Three documents addressing the pro-war case. Such as it is.

First, a letter to Mr Blair, explaining why I feel compelled to go on strike for 15 minutes every Monday at 9AM in protest at his plans to attack Iraq.

Excerpt: ...in the Fortunate Scenario the Iraqi army might crumble at the first shots, and the Ba'ath party and the Takritis melt away like the Taleban. There could be a coup. The US and UK troops might be welcomed as liberators, and a lasting and just peace in the Middle East might flow from it.

Or they might not. Even with a 2nd UN Resolution, the war will carry the gravest risks. This is the Unfortunate Scenario: Saddam Hussein feels cornered, so he brings out the WMD that you believe he is concealing, and uses them against Israel. At the highest level of probability Israel will respond with her nuclear weapons. Can you calculate what happens next?

9 Feb 2003

Dear Mr Blair.

Our Pre-emptive strike against your pre-emptive strike

Since watching your Newsnight broadcast on the 6th February, I feel threatened. Up to now I have been reassuring my 11-year old son that your war might not happen, and if it did, would not affect us personally, only hundreds of thousands of poor unfortunates in Iraq and the Middle East. Now I am not so sure.

You have argued that you have to deal with Iraq now, because if we delay, we would face even greater risks later, as Saddam would develop his capabilities further.

That argument will not run, because while the inspectors are at their work, Saddam Hussein cannot develop his WMD further. So you could keep the inspections going until Saddam Hussein dies of old age. It would cost a fraction of the human, political and financial costs of a war. Ex-President Jimmy Carter is of this opinion.

"With overwhelming military strength now deployed against him and with intense monitoring from space surveillance and the U.N. inspection team on the ground, any belligerent move by Saddam against a neighbor would be suicidal. An effort to produce or deploy chemical or biological weapons or to make the slightest move toward a nuclear explosive would be inconceivable. If Iraq does possess such concealed weapons, as is quite likely, Saddam would use them only in the most extreme circumstances, in the face of an invasion of Iraq, when all hope of avoiding the destruction of his regime is lost.

. . Since it is obvious that Saddam Hussein has the capability and desire to build an arsenal of prohibited weapons and probably has some of them hidden within his country, what can be done to prevent the development of a real Iraqi threat? The most obvious answer is a sustained and enlarged inspection team, deployed as a permanent entity until the United States and other members of the U.N. Security Council determine that its presence is no longer needed. For almost eight years following the Gulf War until it was withdrawn four years ago, UNSCOM proved to be very effective in locating and destroying Iraq's formidable arsenal, including more than 900 missiles and biological and chemical weapons left over from their previous war with Iran.

Even if Iraq should come into full compliance now, such follow-up monitoring will be necessary. The cost of an on-site inspection team would be minuscule compared to war, Saddam would have no choice except to comply, the results would be certain, military and civilian casualties would be avoided, there would be almost unanimous worldwide support, and the United States could regain its leadership in combating the real threat of international terrorism.": (An Alternative To War By Ex President Jimmy Carter 31 Jan 2003 )

Despite this, you are minded to go to war, not least because of the huge arms build up, and the need to dispel doubt so that the markets have a chance of recovering. These are huge factors that drive the impulse to war.

Of course, it might go well. In the Fortunate Scenario the Iraqi army might crumble at the first shots, and the Ba'ath party and the Takritis melt away like the Taleban. There could be a coup. The US and UK troops might be welcomed as liberators, and a lasting and just peace in the Middle East might flow from it.

Or they might not. Even with a 2nd UN Resolution, the war will carry the gravest risks. This is the Unfortunate Scenario: Saddam Hussein feels cornered, so he brings out the WMD that you believe he is concealing, and uses them against Israel. At the highest level of probability Israel will respond with her nuclear weapons. Can you calculate what happens next?

You cannot. All you can do is to hope that it goes according to the Fortunate Scenario.

For the vast majority of people in the world, loosing the dogs of war and hoping for the best is not an acceptable instrument of international policy, when there is a viable peaceful alternative. We dissent, and the enormity of your gamble means that we must dissent actively. Our faith in the rightness of peace means that we must dissent non-violently. We know that our voices and arguments are inaudible to you. Only our actions stand a chance of attracting your attention.

For this reason some of us, hopefully a growing number, will stop working for fifteen minutes every Monday until to spend the time either in silent contemplation of the tragedy of war in general and your planned war in particular, or in discussion (with our workmates and fellow citizens) of the rights and wrongs of the war that George Bush and yourself are intent on carrying out.

I do not take this action likely. I am not, and have never been, a Marxist or even a Socialist (as opposed to one who recognises social aspect of human life). The only union I have ever belonged to is the BMA, with a one year spell in the MPU. I am a General Practitioner, and so I will have to explain my actions to my patients. You have the prerogative of complaining about me to the GMC. I fear this, but not as much as I fear the effect on my spirit of being an accessory to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people as a result of a profoundly ill-conceived policy.

At this late hour, it is possible to avert this war. You have a huge part to play in restraining American policy. Please use your leverage to get them to take up Jimmy Carter's plan.

for peace

Dr Richard Lawson MB BS, MRCPsych

Downing Street's Inadequate Case for War.

Mr Blair went on Newsnight on 6th February to make a persuasive case for war on the Iraqi people. He failed.

The core of his case, which he made with passion and sincerity, was that if irresponsible dictators get their hands on nuclear weapons, and then pass them on to terrorists, the terrorists will use them on Britain without a second thought. Therefore we are at risk, therefore we are justified in going to war.

The counter to this is that in the past we supported this particular dictator, and sold him weapons knowing them to be potentially useful in his nuclear weapons programme. There is only the weakest evidence of a link between Hussein and Bin Laden.

Blair's second line of argument runs that Saddam Hussein has repeatedly failed to co-operate with the UN weapons inspectors, and is still doing so. On the other hand, the presence of the inspectors certainly prevents Hussein from developing his WMD, and it would be cheaper and safer to go on inspecting until Saddam dies of old age than to plunge into war behind George W Bush.

Blair gave other arguments: Saddam has used gas against Iranians and Kurds. (At the time, the Western response was muffled; the US statement tried to deflect the blame onto Iran). Saddam invaded Kuwait (although the US diplomat April Glaspie signalled that the US would regard it as an internal affair).

And so on. He dismissed concerns about Bush's oil motif as "the oil conspiracy", responding that we could "cut a deal" with Iraq on oil if we that was what we wanted. However, he did not mention that Russia, China and France have already cut such a deal. Blasting Saddam out of the area will at the same time blast their deal to shreds, and put the US in a position to dictate which deals will be cut. The oil motive accusation still stands.

Overall, the case the Government is making remains paper thin. The risks he is taking with our soldiers lives, the lives of Iraqi civilians, the peace in the area, and the risk of nuclear war in the area is hugely disproportionate to the case that Blair advances. Without the support of Parliament or the people of Britain, he has no right to take us into such a dangerous war.

We can say what we like about the planned war on Iraq, but Blair is not listening. To make Government listen it is necessary to gain their attention by actions not words. The one thing that might attract their attention would be the threat of a national strike.

We are not yet at a stage where we could call an effective 100% national strike on this issue - but we could plant the seeds of a national strike, by calling for a 15-minute stoppage to discuss the war with our work colleagues once a week. 9-9.15 on Monday morning sounds like a good, easily remembered time. It should start before the attack - it is too late after. I am currently canvassing support for this strike among the Green and peace movements.

Dr Richard Lawson

(Somerset GP, and Green Party member, who has never been on strike in his life before)
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A Brief Analysis Of The Case For War Against Iraq

Readers of the Observer newspaper, a UK broadsheet with a "liberal" reputation were startled to find it coming out in favour of a UN-led attack on Iraq on January 19th 2003. They put up a case for war, backed by a majority UN Security Council resolution (the Observer is prepared to overrule a veto from China). Coming as it does from a source which we would expect to be sceptical of war, we must examine their argument.

Their case for war against Iraq is that Saddam Hussein is:
1. brutal and oppressive
2. trying to get weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
3. has used WMD in the past
4. is serially non co-operative with UN
5. sitting on a lot of oil (actually, the Observer bypasses this question, but has made no case to support that point).

Individually, each of these attributes can be counterbalanced by other cases.

1. There are plenty of brutal and oppressive regimes in the world with whom the West is only too ready to do business - in the past Saddam himself was in that category. As to regime change, the Observer quotes Pol Pot, Kosovo and Taliban as examples of successful intervention to remove dictators. The latter two are too recent to be quoted as examples of political success, which ironically, leaves Vietnam, a country which in its time sat in the chair that the Iraqis now occupy, as the example to follow.
2. The accusation that Saddam is trying to get WMD is rich, coming from the USA and Britain who have full armouries of these disgusting tools - and which, incidentally, remain closed to independent inspectors. America has a disgraceful history of chemical and biological weapons development.(see: http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/USbioweapons.htm)
3. Saddam did indeed use gas on Iranians and at Halabja - and at the time, our government took a tolerant approach to this crime.
4. Israel fits into the frame of non co-operation with the UN - and America itself is not exactly a team player.
5. The Observer dismisses the oil motive without justification. This simply will not do from a "quality" newspaper. Bush is an oil man, and is funded by oil interests. It is naïve and disingenuous for the Observer to try to evade this issue.

Taken together, these factors constitute a casus belli for someone of George W Bush's calibre - a deadly combination of low intelligence, character flaws, born-again bible-believing fundamentalism and dependence on oil wealth. On this point, the Observer pleads the high IQ of his advisers. However, high IQ is not a pointer to infallibility. Every intellectual construct requires some kind of axiomatic basis. If the US Administration's axioms include the doctrine that America has a God given right to use oil regardless of the consequences, and that control of world oil supplies is in America's national interests, the same conclusions will follow whether the IQ is in the Mensa range, or in the George W range.

Costs of going to war
Clearly the costs can only be estimated, so we should take the agreed case, then a best case and worst case.

Expected scenario
A reasonable expectation of any war, which even the Observer accepts, must be that the lives of British soldiers will be lost, many due to "friendly fire" caused by drug-crazed American pilots. Many Iraqi civilians - numbered in tens or hundreds of thousands - will die horribly. There will be an exodus of refugees, further winding up David Blunkett's "coiled spring". And finally we can expect a terrorist backlash in Britain, expressed as a campaign of bombing and poisoning.

Best outcome scenario
A force under the UN bombs Saddam's Command and Control centres, and then at a leisurely pace - say one a day - targets his palaces. As these are a monument to his narcissism, in order to prevent the obliteration of his legacy, Saddam abdicates. The Marines move in, closely followed by oil men and missionaries, the Iraqi people accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Personal Saviour, Islamic terrorists around the world see the error of their ways, and take up pacifism. Civilisation is saved, and history comes to an end.

Worst outcome scenario
The bombing is directed again at the civilian infrastructure, and thousands of Iraqi civilians are killed as collateral. Saddam uses his WMD on Israel, which responds by "turning Baghdad into sheet of glass" with their nuclear weapons as one Israeli military spokesman put so graphically it back in 1991. This leads to a massive Arab/Muslim uprising against Western and Israeli interests, culminating in generalised nuclear war, as Bush nukes Muslim city after Muslim city in a sincere but ultimately misguided effort to calm things down.

Policy Backfire

The attack policy backfires: it drives Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden into each others' camps, on the basis that "My enemy's enemy is my friend". And it makes the use of the WMD very likely.

Alleged Benefits of war
Against the impressive range of these costs, the Observer offers the following benefits:

1. Liberation and democratisation of post Saddam Iraq. The Observer itself admits that this expectation is undermined by the established opinion of the British Foreign Office and US State Department that "democracy is not for the Middle East".
2. No future threat to the Middle East or to ourselves (if that ever was a threat) from Saddam's WMD. However, there is no guarantee that any successor regime will not continue to try to develop these means of defence. As we have found out with Blair, Government has a way of continuing its policies regardless of who is the figurehead. Ultimately, it is racist for Blair and Bush to argue that nuclear and other WMD are safe in our hands, but unsafe in non-white, non-"Christian" hands. The only way to get rid of this menace is lies in a global ban on them, which is achievable if, and only if, we ourselves give up our own stockpiles as part of this process.

Alternatives to war
Saddam is a mortal man, and will eventually die. He may even be replaced in a coup or a revolution. We have to contain the situation until that time comes, by continuing the UN inspection programme, and denying him imports of weapons-related and dual-use technologies. While the UN inspectors are working, if he indeed does have WMD, he has to keep them on the move, and cannot develop or prepare them for war.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi opposition should be given the task of distributing foods and medicines to needy people within Iraq. This will train them in the arts of administration and working together, and will boost their support among the people. They may have to be protected against attack from the Iraqi army, but in any case the south and north of the country are already Iraqi no-fly zones, which could be extended, under the UN, to demilitarised zones.

Finally, the more general problems of the Middle East Peace process must be brought forward, and the general problems of debt, poverty and oppression must be addressed in a serious way.

The attention and energies of our governments and security services are focussed on the more immediate threat, that of Al-Qaeda. The central motivation of Osama bin Laden and Saudi Islamists is their fundamental objection to the US bases on their holy soil. Are those bases really worth the trouble they cause? Second, efforts to freeze Al-Qaeda's money by investigations into the international banking system should be intensified. The lack of media reports on this side of the "war against terror" suggests that little is being done, probably because of non co-operation from bankers.
Conclusion
Bush, Blair and now the Observer has not made a case for a military adventure against the Iraqi people that may end in nuclear war.

Dr Richard Lawson