A rchive Date
[ 27-02-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
No regrets on Iraq
Missing weapons aside, Saddam still had to go
By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun
February 27, 2004
There is no intelligence as formidable as intelligence procured in hindsight.
Now, after David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, testified in the U.S. Congress that his team could not find any stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), those opposed to the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime are screaming mad (in their usual disingenuous manner) that President George Bush lied to the world.
They cry the war in Iraq was illegal, unnecessary and once again an illustration of the evil of American imperialism.
I have not heard, however, many Iraqis complain about American deceit, nor demand Saddam's return to power on the grounds that the war to remove him, according to the anti-war coalition, was conducted on a wrong premise.
The opponents of the war against Iraq in the Arab-Muslim world, the lib-left coalition in North America and Europe, and the usual crowd of anti-American protesters from Calcutta to Rio de Janeiro have one thing in common - being united behind any dictator anywhere who opposes the U.S. The adoration of Cuba's Fidel Castro is a daily confirmation of this common bond of global anti-American fraternity.
We have to set aside the heckling of this crowd and recognize the simple fact that David Kay could not have returned from Iraq with his finding without the prior removal of Saddam Hussein from power. So long as Saddam remained in power, he mocked the United Nations.
Non-compliance
It is tiresome to endlessly reiterate that the Security Council members were agreed on the intelligence - provided by agencies of member states and the UN mission responsible for disarming Iraq - that Saddam was in non-compliance with terms for ending the Gulf War of 1991, requiring full accounting of WMD and their dismantling.
But until 9/11 Saddam flouted the will of the UN. That day was the casus belli - an attack on America by its enemies even more devastating than the "infamy" of Pearl Harbor six decades earlier - that brought the Bush administration to declare war against terrorism.
It was under these circumstances that the Security Council resolution 1441 of November 8, 2002, was unanimously passed, giving Saddam one last chance to comply with the UN demands. Failure to comply, the resolution stated, would bring grave consequences.
It was Saddam's responsibility to fully and unconditionally comply with terms of the resolution. He would then have averted what followed - grave consequences of which he was forewarned. The Iraq war took place on the intelligence available - irrespective of partisan criticisms now being levelled at the Bush administration - before the first shot was fired.
I suggested here in my column of June 19, 2003, after Baghdad's fall, the most likely explanation for Americans not finding any WMD was Saddam having destroyed them.
His refusal to acknowledge this fact to the UN could only be explained within the context of tribal politics of Iraq and the region. I wrote: "The despot could not publicly admit to his own tribe he had destroyed the WMD in his arsenal, the one terrifying instrument of control, intimidation and blackmail he possessed."
We shall wait to hear what explanation, if any, Saddam may offer from the prisoner's box for not complying with the UN resolution.
But it would have been terribly irresponsible for any American president in the aftermath of 9/11 to let his nation's security be held hostage to the whims of a despot when the record indicated that despot not only possessed WMD but had used them indiscriminately on his people and his neighbours.
In removing Saddam from power, Bush stiffened the spine of the UN, brought freedom to Iraqis and put other despots on notice that they shall be reckoned with.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@tor.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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