What Matters: February 2003
Alternatives to War in Iraq
Randall Caroline Forsberg PhD '97
Assessing Iraq's compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a strong case that Iraq has sought to conceal evidence that it possesses chemical or biological weapons. Long before the current inspections, it was widely believed that Iraq had stocks of these weapons because there is a disparity of about 10 percent between Iraq's 1999 declaration and other written documents detailing its original stocks (or precursor materials), acquired before the first Gulf War, and the amounts for which there is good evidence of destruction.
Powell also argued that there are links between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, and that Iraq might give chemical or biological agents to Al Qaeda terrorists. In addition, he pointed out that Saddam Hussein actually used chemical weapons against his own population. This claim is supported by many independent observers, including Human Rights Watch, which reports that around 100,000 Iraqi Kurds were slaughtered, including many thousands by gas, in genocidal attacks on whole villages conducted by the Iraqi government (not by Iran and not just in conjunction with the Iraq-Iran War, as some have claimed) in the late 1980s.
In sum, Powell's case for a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein had four key elements:
- Iraq has apparently retained chemical and biological agents, in defiance of Security Council resolutions since the first Gulf War, requiring Iraq to eliminate all such weapons.
- Iraq has also defied the Security Council by refusing to cooperate fully with U.N. inspectors.
- Because Iraq's chemical or biological weapons could be given to terrorists, they pose a potential security threat to the United States.
- Saddam Hussein's genocidal use of chemical agents against part of his own population shows that he is capable of facilitating the actual use of chemical or biological warfare agents.
Even if these points are true, the proposed response—a large-scale U.S.-initiated ground war aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein's government—is a costly, dangerous over-reaction that is likely to do more harm than good to U.S. and world security.
While Iraq probably does have some chemical and biological weapons, it is far from alone in this respect. Of 193 nations, only 115 have signed both the treaty that bans chemical weapons and the treaty that bans biological weapons. Twenty-five countries, including Israel, Egypt, and Syria, have not signed either ban and could legally be stockpiling both types of weapons. More than 50 other countries have signed one of the two treaties, but not both. Obviously, the United States cannot threaten to forcibly change the government of every country that has chemical or biological weapons, and may have links to terrorists—or unofficial channels by which those weapons could get into the hands of terrorists.
It is also true that since 1990, Iraq has repeatedly violated resolutions adopted by the U.N. Security Council. But, again, Iraq is far from alone in this respect. The Security Council has, for example, adopted many resolutions over the years requiring Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and stop imposing a harsh, oppressive military rule on the Palestinians. Israel has flagrantly violated these solutions, and in doing so done great damage to the security and human rights of Palestinians. But no one has argued that because Israel has thumbed its nose at the U.N. and violated binding international law, an international coalition under U.N. auspices should invade Israel, overthrow its government, and install a government that will do what the U.N. wants.
Even the United States has violated binding treaty commitments in ways that threaten the security of other countries. To take just one example, in 2002 for the first time ever the United States government publicly announced that it was considering the use of nuclear weapons against countries which do not possess nuclear weapons and are not allied with countries that do. The threaten to use nuclear weapons against Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea violates a legal commitment the United States made in the Nonproliferation Treaty never to threaten non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons. Yet no one believes that this blatant violation of international law warrants the forcible overthrow of the U.S. government.
What about the argument that because Saddam Hussein has not just acquired these awful weapons, but actually used them against an ethnic minority and because he has twice invaded neighboring countries, he represents a greater threat to the security of other nations than do other leaders who may possess weapons of mass destruction?
This is really the nub of the argument: The fact that Saddam Hussein is not just a repressive and brutal dictator, but one who has committed genocide at home, reportedly used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers, and launched major wars of international aggression against neighboring Iran and Kuwait. These actions are as terrible as any taken by any national leader worldwide since World War II. The appropriate response to them would be for the international community to arrest Saddam Hussein and other senior Iraqi officials and bring them before an international tribunal, like those set up for Bosnia and Rwanda, to be tried for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But these are not new actions by Saddam Hussein; the most recent occurred in 1990. They involve the creation of regional hegemony and do not imply any threat to the United States. And now, over a decade after the fact, they certainly do not warrant an essentially unilateral, pre-emptive war that would sacrifice thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands, of innocent lives among the invading armed forces and the long-suffering Iraqi population.
Is there a possibility that Saddam Hussein will give chemical or biological warfare agents or training to terrorists who might attack the United States or other countries? Yes. Is this risk significant? No. Is a major war to remove Saddam from power likely to be effective in reducing the likelihood of such an attack? Maybe—but maybe not since a Western war to overthrow Iraq's government could fuel the fury of Islamic fundamentalists even if they have no ties to Iraq; and it could seal their determination to obtain chemical, biological, or radiological weapons to use in acts of revenge on behalf of the Islamic world.
Most important, is there another way, a better way than a massive ground invasion and attack on Iraq, to reduce the risk that terrorists will obtain weapons of mass destruction and try to use them in the United States or elsewhere?
Yes. There are many things the United States could do and should do but is not currently doing to reduce the risk that chemical and biological weapons from Iraq get to terrorists—and to stop the worldwide proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which could fall into the hands of terrorists.
Let me describe useful steps that pertain to Iraq in some detail, and then mention briefly other measures that would help reduce the global risks relating to weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Ideally the U.N. should hold Saddam Hussein accountable not only for violating U.N. resolutions and for conducting international wars of aggression but also for genocide, torture, murder, and other gross violations of human rights within Iraq. Today, however, the United Nations does not have an agreed standard for how the international community should deal with government leaders who violate the human rights of their own (or occupied) populations. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been growing pressure on the U.N. to respond to violence within nations, at least to the extent of preventing, ending, and punishing acts of genocide. The United States has obstructed this effort by opposing the creation of the new International Criminal Court (ICC), which is meant to hold individuals like Saddam Hussein or the Al Qaeda terrorists accountable for their crimes. Eventually, the ICC should be supplemented by an international agreement on conditions within countries that are so bad they merit international intervention in one form or another—up to and including military intervention—with the object of replacing an offending government. Lacking such an agreed standard, people around the world will suspect what they now fear in regard to Iraq: that talk about genocide and weapons of mass destruction is just a cover for a selective military action conducted for partisan self-interested reasons, in this case to secure access to oil from the second largest oil-producing nation as the world stocks begin to dwindle and to have a strong military presence next door to the largest producer, Saudi Arabia.
Until there is an agreed U.N. standard on the conditions that warrant the forcible overthrow of a government, international action must be based on the U.N. mandate in the area of international security: Because Saddam Hussein attacked Iran and Kuwait, the U.N. required Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction and severely its missiles and conventional armed forces. The current inspections have helped resume trying to force Iraq to comply with that 1991 requirement; they do not go far enough.
What we need now is "muscular" inspections, aimed at moving Iraq ever closer to the goal of complete WMD disarmament and limited conventional military capability. This invigorated process should begin with a new U.N. resolution that lists specific requirements—and specific consequences—if the requirements are not met. For example, in order to insure that Iraq does not try to move and hide chemical or biological weapon stocks or production facilities, continuous surveillance flights are needed. U-2 or other surveillance aircraft can provide detailed digital imagery of the entire area of Iraq, which can then be analyzed by computer programs focusing on suspect locations, structures, and movements. Iraq should be informed by the U.N. Security Council that if its air defense system shoots at or interferes with the operation of surveillance aircraft in any way, the entire air defense system and relevant parts of its air force will be destroyed by military means. Similarly, Iraq should be informed that if any sites are not opened to inspectors without delay, they will be subject to being destroyed by missile or aircraft attack, after a brief warning time so that people can evacuate. The number of inspectors should be increased several fold and the inspectors should be fluent in written and spoken Arabic. They should be expected to circulate routinely throughout the country, in factories, in military units, in academic, research, and government laboratories, and in other facilities. In addition, the international arms embargo that currently exists should be made more narrowly focused (so as not to limit imports essential for civilian economic development) but also more stringently enforced by all countries bordering Iraq, as well as all arms producing countries.
The objectives of this beefed-up inspection-plus-arms-embargo regime would be twofold: to keep looking for written documents and other evidence relating to Iraq's past WMD programs and any remaining chemical or biological stocks, so that those stocks can be found and destroyed; and to prevent Iraq from resuming development or production of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or building up a conventional military capability capable of committing cross-border aggression or attack by missile or military aircraft. These objectives should be spelled out very clearly, and accompanied by a message that the beefed-up inspections may continue indefinitely and that any obstruction of them will meet with a military response, if necessary, under U.N. auspices. This will be acknowledged frankly as a limitation on Iraq's sovereignty. At the same time, however, U.N. should end the economic sanctions that have caused massive malnutrition and death from preventable or curable disease among the Iraqi civilian population, and the international community should encourage foreign investment and foster economic growth in Iraq, restoring the country to the advanced stage of economic development it had in the early 1980s.
In order to carry out this plan for military containment and WMD disarmament, the U.N. would have to maintain ground and air forces in the region indefinitely, involving perhaps 50,000 combat and support troops. These forces should be drawn from many countries—not just the United States. Various contingents could be deployed on a rotating basis for six-month tours of duty. In order to reduce the risk to these forces and the risk that WMD will be given to terrorists, the U.N. resolution should explicitly authorize the bombing within the first week (with notice for human evacuation) of any locations not immediately opened to inspectors, where U.S. and other intelligence agencies have reason to believe that underground bunkers or other storage facilities have been used to hide WMD materials or stockpiles.
Globally, the United States could greatly strengthen efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction—and, in doing so, strengthen international commitment to a tight enforcement regime in Iraq—by taking a pro-active approach to international arms control and disarmament efforts. Since the mid-1990s, when Jesse Helms (R-NC) headed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and particularly since Bush Jr took office, the United States has actually moved in the opposite direction, reversing and undoing decades of progress toward limiting and eventually eliminating nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In the last two years, the United States has not only withdrawn from the ABM Treaty and refused to join the International Criminal Court, but also single-handedly blocked: (1) entry into force of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would permanently end all nuclear test explosions worldwide; (2) international agreement on a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Ban, which would strengthen this treaty by adding means of inspection and verification for the first time; (3) international negotiation of a new treaty to ban weapons in space, and (4) a permanent ban on North Korean testing, production, and export of longer-range missiles and missile technology. There are other areas in which the United States has obstructed progress toward new agreements or undermined existing treaties; space limits preclude mentioning all of them.
This stunning U.S. rejection of the entire array of arms control, disarmament, and verification measures built up with enormous effort by the international community over decades has actually increased the likelihood that more countries will acquire nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, and that one way or another, terrorists will be able to obtain chemical or biological weapons, fissile material, or even nuclear weapons.
Since the late 1990s, all of the other current nuclear-weapon states—the UK, France, Russia, China, and to some extent at least, Israel, Pakistan, and India—have, for the first time, supported far-reaching measures of nuclear disarmament, including a nuclear test ban, a halt in the production of fissile material; cuts in U.S. and Russian stockpiles from 10,000 to 1,000 or fewer; and a full global accounting and safeguarding of nuclear weapons and fissile material. Instead of leading this effort and creating a unified international approach to preventing any further proliferation, the United States has said to the rest of the world: Do as I say, not as I do.
Recently I helped to launch a new Web-based national coalition, "An Urgent Call to End the Nuclear Danger" UrgentCall.org, to educate mainstream America about the devastating impact of current U.S. arms control policy. A pro-active U.S. approach to moving, step by step, toward the worldwide elimination of weapons of mass destruction would lay the groundwork for a global consensus for vigorous steps to disarm Iraq, short of all-out war. It would also facilitate negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear-weapon program once and for all.
For more information
The case for war as the right way to deal with the security threats posed by Saddam Hussein has been made repeatedly by Bush administration spokespersons over the past 6-8 months, most recently by Secretary of State Powell in his February 8 presentation at the U.N.
On the other side, a number of thoughtful, well-informed pieces have been published which argue that war would actually be harmful to U.S. security, and that better options exist. For example, in December 2002, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences published a thorough-going analysis of problems likely to follow on a war, entitled "War in Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives" (PDF), co-authored by five highly regarded security analysts, Steven Miller (Harvard), John Steinbruner PhD '68 (University of Maryland), Carl Kaysen (MIT), William Nordhaus PhD '67 (Yale), and Martin Malin (American Academy).
In "An Unnecessary War," published in the January-February 2003 issue of Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard), also leading scholars of U.S. security policy, assert that "containing" Saddam Hussein is a safer, wiser approach than war. Their argument is recapped in brief form in an op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times on February 2, "Keeping Saddam in a Box."
In a Washington Post op-ed published on February 9, shortly after Powell's U.N. presentation, "Is there a better way to go?," another highly respected analyst, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, supports a proposal generally along the lines of that offered here. She says that the best way to deal with Saddam Hussein "involves a plan for truly coercive inspections. One cannot know for certain that such an alternative would succeed any more than one can predict the course of a war. But ... Powell's speech has opened new political space for a transition to an inspection regime stiffened beyond the system now in place. The idea isn't to avoid war at all costs. The idea is to disarm Iraq, and that can be done by truly muscular inspections backed by a multinational military force."
About the Author
Randall Caroline Forsberg received her PhD in political science from MIT in 1997. She is executive director of the Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, a think-tank for research and education on ways to reduce the risk of war, minimize the burden of military spending, and promote democratic institutions. She worked at SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, starting in 1968 and was a regular contributor to the SIPRI Yearbook of World Armaments and Disarmament, writing on US and Soviet nuclear weapons, until 1979.
In 1989 Forsberg briefed President Bush and his Cabinet officials on U.S.-Soviet arms control issues. In 1995 she was appointed by President Clinton to the Advisory Committee of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She has also served on panels for the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the U.S. General Accounting Office, and the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment; testified for the U.S. Congress and the Swedish Parliament; given talks at West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the National Defense University, and the German War College; and met with senior government officials of Russia, China, Germany, Norway, and other countries. She is on the board or advisory board of the MIT-based Boston Review, Arms Control Association, Journal of Peace Research, University of California Institute for Global Cooperation and Conflict, and Women's Action for New Directions.
In 1980 Forsberg wrote the "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race," the four-page manifesto that launched the national Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. After founding the Freeze Clearinghouse, she cochaired of the Freeze Campaign's National Advisory Board from 1980 through 1984. In 1983 Forsberg received a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (dubbed the genius award). Among other awards, she has received honorary doctorates from Notre Dame and Governors State University.
She founded the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS), a Cambridge-based nonprofit center in 1980. At IDDS, Forsberg publishes the Arms Control Reporter, a monthly reference work, and she is the series editor of the annually updated IDDS Database: World Arms Holdings, Production, and Trade. She is also the editor of the forthcoming IDDS annual survey, War and Armaments, Peace and Disarmament—Global Trends, Prospects, and Policy Options.
What Matters is a guest opinion column written by a different MIT alumnus or alumna. The views expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Alumni Association or MIT. Interested in writing a column? Email whatmatters@mit.edu.
