War drums along the Potomac

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August 2002

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War drums along the Potomac

War drums along the Potomac
Even as the Bush administration geared up a publicity campaign apparently aimed at "prepping" the nation for an as yet vaguely defined confrontation with Iraq, other forces were at work to put some breaks on the nation's slide into "Gulf War II."

Dave Robinson, National Coordinator for Pax Christi USA, said the national Catholic pacifist group is ready to launch a "pledge of resistance" effort this summer in response to the war drums beating along the Potomac. Folks who accept the pledge commit themselves to acts of civil disobedience in protest in the event of war with Iraq. Robinson says the pledge sends a "clear signal that there is no clear consensus on this policy.

"We’ll have thousands and thousands of people committed to civil disobediance."

Alarmed by the increasingly bellicose posture of President Bush and officials from his administration (many of whom are now openly calling for military intervention to topple the Saddam Hussein regime) and worried about an outbreak of a new Gulf War before debate on its ramifications—both in terms of lives lost and the likely impact on an already shaky global and domestic economy—Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) introduced a resolution on July 30 opposing the use of force against Iraq without congressional authorization or a formal declaration of war.

Although Congress alone possesses the constitutional authority to declare a state of war, none of the U.S. military interventions since World War II have been so mandated. Several conflicts, such as the last Gulf War, have been authorized by Congress without a formal declaration of war.

The Senate Foreign Relations met on July 30 and 31 to review Iraqi policy and war preparations. Lynn Erskine, a spokesperson for the Friends Committee on National Legislation called the hearings "something of a victory" for Americans seeking a peaceful resolution to the nation's long confrontation with Iraq.

Erskine said a next victory might be achieved if peace advocates and the general public could pressure Congress to "get the UN involved" in the Iraqi crisis. "There's no doubt that Hussein is a dictator" who has committed violations of human rights, she said. "But this can't be resolved unilaterally by US action."

During the July 31 hearings, a former Iraqi nuclear engineer told senators that Saddam Hussein will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005. There were also calls for caution as the media reported that the Bush administration might be considering a lightning assault on Baghdad and other command centers in a strategy aimed at reducing the number of potential U.S. casualties.

Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and the author of a new assessment of Iraqi military strength, criticized hawks in the Bush administration who portrayed the 400,000-strong Iraqi army as an easy opponent.

"Iraq might be a far easier opponent than its force strengths indicate," he said, "but it is also potentially a very serious military opponent indeed, and to be perfectly blunt, I think only fools would bet the lives of other men's sons and daughters on their own arrogance and call this force a 'cakewalk' or a 'speed-bump'."

He said that though regular Iraqi army units were greatly diminished, Iraq still had 2,200 battle tanks, 3,700 other armored vehicles, and 2,400 major artillery weapons. Congress has recessed for the rest of the summer, but the House of Representatives plans to restart discussions about Iraq in the fall. Until then, the Bush administration has said it will take no military action against Iraq.

Even as Congress meets to debate future U.S. military engagement in Iraq, a low-level campaign of bombing and probing of air defense capabilities continues. In recent years, U.S. and British pilots have engaged almost weekly in bombing incidents against Iraqi ground targets within or along the nation's northern and southern "no fly" zones that have claimed some civilian casualties even as they've kept Iraqi air defense capabilities in check.

Those encounters are likely to continue. What worries advocates for a nonviolent resolution to the U.S. standoff with Iraq are the covert operations that may be planned or even being conducted right now and the possibility that such action could lead to a "Gulf of Tonkin" style incident that could be used to legitimize a broader military response. "There's been a green light for covert operations and that's been ongoing since January," said Peter Lems of the American Friends Service Committee's Iraq Peacebuilding Program.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush remained committed to "regime change" in Iraq, either through political, financial, diplomatic or military means. Bush has previously stated that the U.S. should maintain a "first strike" policy with Iraq, arguing the U.S. should be ready for preemptive attacks in order to prevent the use of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons or allowing them to fall into the wrong hands.

While Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that no final decision had been taken about how to respond to Iraq, he argued that other initiatives, such as renewed UN weapons inspections, would not work because Iraq would not agree to a "thoroughly intrusive inspection regime." At talks in Vienna last month, the Iraqi government and the UN failed to agree on terms for the return of inspectors.

Rumsfeld also said air power alone was unlikely to be enough to destroy Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs as many sites were hidden and mobile biological warfare laboratories were being used.

How much of a threat Iraq actually poses remains a matter of debate according to Lems. He argued that the capability of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons has not been clearly established, and pointed out that Iraq received a "passing grade" after a January 30, 2002 International Atomic Energy Association inspection of one of its nuclear sites (although the association has been unable to fulfill its mandate to fully inspect Iraqi nuclear sites since the suspension of UN inspections in 1998), indicating the Iraqi nuclear weapons capability may be exaggerated.

Like most advocates for a peaceful end to America's confrontation with Iraq and a termination of its controversial sanctions program, Lem is no fan of the Saddam Hussein regime. "He's certainly has a history of attacking his neighbors and coming to power through violent means. As far as the 'weapons of mass destruction,' that's the most difficult aspect to put into perspective [without adequate site inspections].

"I think our government and the press has been irresponsible in [their manner of] reporting the threat that these weapons pose. . . They've done a great job of vilifying Hussein and now the general public is prepared to believe any of these things."

Lems said he does not wish to diminish the danger that these weapons could pose nor does he categorically deny that the Hussein regime may have been involved in the September 11 attacks on the United States. But if the U.S. government has "concrete links" of Hussein's connection to Al Qaeda, it needs to demonstrate them.

"But I don't think a violent response is an appropriate answer to what happened to this country on September 11," Lems said, arguing that there were still "international mechanisms" that could be exploited to bring terrorists to justice and reduce whatever threat Iraq's military capability poses.

Noting the ineffectiveness of 12 years of sanctions on a regime that despite massive human deprivation among its people still remains oil rich, Lems said, "We need to imagine a different kind of incentive for getting rid of these weapons [in Iraq]."

Lems used the seemingly endless cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis as an example of the kind of pointless escalation of violence he hopes to avoid. "Simply responding with violence has not made this a safer world."

Pax Christi USA's Dave Robinson was harshly critical of the level of debate he has so far witnessed in regard to America’s policy with Iraq. Noting that the debate so far apparently covers the gamut of opinion between "small war" or "large war," he said, "The whole context of the discourse is bizarre.

"We’ve come to the point where there’s just no clear thinking in Washington. . . . I have no doubt that the U.S. military could remove [Hussein] from power but then what?" Robinson worried that the Bush administration is not considering all the possible outcomes that a renewed conflict with Iraq could produce. He suggested that a much broader revolt in the Islamic world could result after an attack on Iraq that in one worst-case scenario could lead to the overthrow of Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf followed by an Indian pre-emptive nuclear strike on their suddenly radicalized neighbor.

Robinson is deeply troubled by Washington's eagerness for war, the lack of meaningful public debate on the issue, and insinuations that such a debate is unpatriotic during a time when many Americans appear willing to accept unprecedented intrusions on civil liberties in the name of security. "Are we just going to throw away all of our [democratic] values in the pursuit of preserving those values?" he asked.—Kevin Clarke

For more information:
Documents on the Middle East from the US Catholic Conference of Bishops
Voices in the Wilderness
Peace Pledge to stop the war with Iraq
AFSC resources on Iraq

From U.S. Catholic:
Is the face of Islam changing?
War by another name

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