Iraqi invasion a bad move

It is clear that the Bush administration is intent on launching an invasion of Iraq sometime this year. Although President Bush avoided mentioning Iraq directly in his speech to Congress earlier this week, all signs point to action against Saddam Hussein. As reported by the Washington Post, at Boeing's factories, "Three shifts are working 24 hours a day turning out smart bombs to replenish Air Force and Navy inventories."

That the Bush administration, despite its protestations to the contrary, appears to have committed itself to war with Iraq is disturbing for several reasons. The foremost concern is the effect a war will have on the Iraqi people. UNICEF reports that between 1991 and 1998, over 500,000 Iraqi children died from want of clean water, food and basic medical supplies. Much of the blame can be traced to the U.S., which bombed sewage treatment plants during the Gulf War and then pushed for sanctions that barred equipment to repair the facilities and adequate medical supplies for the general population.

An invasion would not bring this horror for the Iraqi people to an end; rather, it would spell more of the same. To begin with, there is the question of what government will succeed Saddam's dictatorship. The answer is probably a dictatorship that is more congenial to U.S. interests. The French News Agency reported in February that America's choice for a successor to Hussein is former Iraqi general Nizar Khazraji, who, during 1987 and 1988, conducted a successful campaign at the behest of Saddam in Northern Iraq that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Kurds. Khazraji does, however, have the redeeming quality that he will do what Washington says.

The brutality of Saddam's potential successor is not the only concern. Any military effort to effect "regime change" in Iraq will necessarily involve fighting through urban centers, incurring heavy civilian casualties. To make things more difficult, Iraq's own opposition movement does not support U.S. intervention. The aforementioned Kurds in Northern Iraq are themselves wary about the prospect of supporting an attack on Hussein that could fail and lead to greater suppression of the Kurdish population.

Skepticism about a U.S. attack is not limited to the confines of Iraq's borders, in spite of Bush's claims that the international consensus backs a U.S. overthrow of Saddam. Chinese President Jiang Zemin has already rebuked Bush for what China perceives as American bullying of Iraq. The Italian government is also on record as opposing any American attack against Iraq. Kuwait, itself the target of an Iraqi invasion in the past, has stressed that it will not support any military operations against Iraq.

It is in the context of America's isolation on the Iraq issue, then, that the American press' treatment of the issue is particularly disheartening. This previous Sunday, a New York Times editorial counseled the Bush administration on the responsibilities of American military power. Seemingly discounting the stance of the rest of the world's leadership as trivial, the Times advised with self-assured paternalism that as far as America's general foreign policy is concerned, "The biggest challenge for the United States is not how to win the next military encounter, but how to conduct itself so that other nations willingly accept its leadership."

The American press appears all too willing to parrot what the Bush administration says about the danger posed by Hussein. Writing last Monday in an op-ed, William Safire argued that, "Nuclear-bound Iraq has had three years unobserved. Time is on Saddam's side." Since Sept. 11, U.S. concerns about terrorism are well justified. But does Iraq pose such a threat?

U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said that Iraq "is effectively disarmed" (The Guardian), and "represents a threat to no one" (The Los Angeles Times). Ritter has claimed that his weapons inspection team found 95 percent of Saddam's arsenal (he arrives at this figure based on the registration numbers from all the arms that were found). Many efforts have been made by the U.S. government to link Al-Qaeda to Iraq; much of the Bush administration's rhetoric (see Dick Cheney's recent comments in the U.K.) revolves around fear of a marriage between groups like Al-Qaeda and nations that possess weapons of mass destruction. But according to Ritter, the notion that Hussein is in any way aligned with Al-Qaeda terrorists is "the most absurd thought in the world," (Star Tribune Paper of Twin Cities Memphis-St. Paul) in view of Hussein's long history of suppression of Islamic groups.

What of concerns of an Iraqi buildup in the three years since inspections ended? The revenue from the small amount of its oil Iraq is permitted to sell each year is all controlled by the U.N. Even allowing for corruption, it is inconceivable that Iraq could have built up an arsenal that represents a serious threat to the region.

Perhaps the real concern motivating a U.S. attack on Iraq is as simple as this: Iraq controls approximately one fifth of the world's oil reserves. Having a friendly dictator in Iraq would be advantageous to the U.S. in the way that having a friendly authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia is beneficial to the U.S. ? it would give us greater control of the world's energy reserves. And a successful military action would again demonstrate to the rest of the world just who is in charge (as per the suggestion of the New York Times, mentioned earlier).

While potentially advantageous to the U.S., the prospect of greater oil reserves does not justify the slaughter of still more Iraqis. The only good news is that there are still several months remaining before any invasion can be launched. It is conceivable that a combination of international isolation and domestic opinion against a war could make the Bush administration reconsider its current path and devote its energies instead to the escalating crisis in Israel ? but only if enough Americans voice their own opposition.