Commentaries
Michael O'Hanlon
“The claims of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq might join with terrorists to strike the United States at any time are far-fetched. Very little about the historical record or current intelligence lends credence to that view.” Therefore his pursuit of such weapons are aimed merely at deterring US interventionism in the Middle East. The op-ed concluded, “Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld would be more credible and more effective in making their case for threatening force against Mr. Hussein if they cut back on the overdramatizations and stuck to the facts.” — November 4, 2002 [Baltimore Sun, 9/26/2002; Los Angeles Times, 11/4/2002]

Youssef M. Ibrahim
“Thus far, all the arguments presented for sending American boys and girls into one of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods are half-truths, spurious assumptions and utter nonsense. Washington simply cannot prove the case that Iraq is tied to al-Qaeda.” — November 1, 2002 [International Herald Tribune, 11/1/2002]

Rohan Gunaratna
“Al-Qaeda hates the Iraqi government for the way it treated the Kurds in northern Iraq after the Gulf War. There is no reason why it should be any different now. .. Iraq has been involved with Palestinian groups such as Hamas, but not with al-Qaeda.” — January 2003 [Scotsman, 1/30/2003]

Brent Scowcroft
“[T]here is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them. He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address.” — August 15, 2002 [Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2002; Los Angeles Times, 11/4/2002]

Baltasar Garzon
“I have seen no link to al-Qaeda. No one has demonstrated it to me. And therefore we have to be very careful not to confuse the citizens. One thing is that you don’t like the Iraqi regime, that Saddam Hussein is a dictator. But there are many terrible dictators. That’s not a reason to start a war with all the consequences it could have for millions of innocents.” — November 2002 [Los Angeles Times, 11/4/2002]

Turki bin Faisal
Osama bin Laden considered Saddam Hussein “an apostate, an infidel, or someone who is not worthy of being a fellow Muslim.” Additionally, in 1990, bin Laden wanted to raise an army of mujaheddin fighters to expel Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. — Unknown [Foreign Policy in Focus, 8/20/2002]

Vincent Cannistraro
“I think that they’re [administration officials] not getting the intelligence outcome that they want from the CIA, that is, that the CIA is skeptical of ties between Al-Qaeda and Iraq—justifiably so. The CIA [has] run around trying to corroborate this stuff, and it hasn’t had too much luck. And the ties that they have claimed seem very thin and on closer inspection don’t seem to go anywhere.” — October 2002 [Radio Free Europe, 10/29/2002]

July 16, 2002: Blair Claims Attack on Afghanistan Only Possible After 9/11
British Prime Minister Tony Blair states, “We knew about al-Qaeda for a long time. They were committing terrorist acts, they were planning, they were organizing. Everybody knew, we all knew, that Afghanistan was a failed state living on drugs and terror. We did not act.… To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11.” [London Times, 7/17/2002] In a book released one month later, Clinton’s former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger will similarly state, “You show me one reporter, one commentator, one member of Congress who thought we should invade Afghanistan before September 11 and I’ll buy you dinner in the best restaurant in New York City.” [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 219]

July 21, 2002: British Document: UK to Back Military Action against Iraq; Legal Pretext Needed for Invasion; US Post-War Plan Insufficient
The British Cabinet Office issues an eight-page briefing note to prepare officials for an upcoming meeting (see July 23, 2002) on Britain’s role in the United States’ confrontation with Iraq. The paper, titled “Conditions for Military Action,” addresses a number of issues including US invasion and post-war planning, legal justification for the use of military force, and what the US and British hope to achieve through “regime change.” [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002; London Times, 5/2/2005; Newsweek, 6/15/2005]

British support for use of military force against Iraq - The briefing summarizes the main points of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s April meeting (see April 6-7, 2002) with President Bush, recalling that Blair pledged British support for “military action to bring about regime change” as long as “certain conditions” were met. Blair told Bush that the US and Britain would have to first develop a strategy to build a coalition and “shape public opinion.” Additionally, Britain would prefer that all “options for action to eliminate Iraq’s WMD through the UN weapons inspectors [are] exhausted” and that the Israel-Palestine crisis be quiescent before going to war against Iraq. [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002]

US objectives in Iraq - The briefing paper reports that US military planners see the removal of Saddam Hussein as the primary objective, to be “followed by [the] elimination of Iraqi WMD [weapons of mass destruction].” The briefing notes that within the British government there are doubts that “regime change,” by itself, would be sufficient to gain control over any WMD present in Iraq. [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002]

Creating conditions necessary for legal justification - Noting that “US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community,” the briefing paper makes it clear that the British government believes “[r]egime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law.” Because Blair told Bush in April that the British would support military action against Iraq, it will be necessary develop a realistic political strategy that would involve, among other things, working with the US to create “the conditions necessary to justify government military action.” It is suggested in the briefing note that an Iraqi refusal to cooperate with weapons inspections could help create such conditions. Saddam Hussein would “likely” agree to admit inspectors and allow them to operate freely during the first six months of inspections when UNMOVIC is in the process of establishing a monitoring and verification system. After this point, the briefing notes, Hussein would probably begin limiting cooperating with inspectors. This would likely not occur until January 2003. Another alternative—one that would provide a legal basis for “regime change” much sooner—is that “an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject… and which would not be regarded as unreasonable by the international community.” [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002; London Times, 5/2/2005; Guardian, 5/2/2005; Daily Telegraph, 5/4/2005; Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2005]

US invasion plan - According to the briefing paper, US military planners seem to favor an invasion plan that would provide a “running start” to the ground invasion. It would consist of “[a]ir strikes and support for opposition groups in Iraq [that] would lead initially to small-scale land operations.” It would likely begin around November 2002 “with no overt military build-up,” followed by the ground invasion that could commence as early as January 2003. The other option under consideration is the “generated start” plan, which would involve a longer build-up. [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002; London Times, 5/2/2005]

US post-war plan - The briefing paper notes that US “military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace” —but with “little thought” to issues such as “the aftermath and how to shape it.” It predicts that a “post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise.” The Pentagon’s plans “are virtually silent on this point,” the document notes, warning of the possibility that “Washington could look to [the British] to share a disproportionate share of the burden.” [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002; Washington Post, 6/12/2005]

End Part III