Tom Germain

For what motive did the United States invade Iraq in 2003? The question is seldom asked anymore, and the answer is just as elusive as it was seven years ago. Let me first say that I’m a firm believer that democracy would have been extinguished 65 years ago were it not for the might and strong egalitarian principles of the United States. True democracy grants us the right to question the actions of the very same people who guarantee and protect such freedoms…and question we must!

Photo by Nick Winchester

The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan had the UN’s seal of approval and included the direct participation of many countries, including several Muslim nations. The crude Islamic Taliban regime harbored and aided the Osama Bin Laden and his band of Al Qaeda terrorists who had masterminded the September 11 attacks and taunted the Americans. Nobody doubted that they had brought the war on themselves and that the United States was righteously defending itself from further terrorist attempts. For once, the world was fully behind the United States, but two years later, president George W Bush overestimated how far that support could stretch and began hinting at a new front, this time in Iraq, or should I say, once again in Iraq.

A true coalition force with United Nations backing  led by the US had repelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, the oil rich emirate that Saddam Hussein had savagely snatched in 1990. Hussein had grossly miscalculated the West’s will to defend the tiny territory, and the entire world watched via CNN as his army was completely demolished, the victim of operation Desert Storm. Allied armored columns arrived at the gates of Baghdad and the brutal Hussein dictatorship appeared to be on the verge of ending. However, the troops never entered the capital. Why? To understand Iraq War 2003, you have to grasp the tenets of the  end game of Iraq War 1991. As recognized by president George Bush Sr himself, removing the Iraqi government from office was beyond the UN’s mandate and would have resulted in the need for a prolonged occupation, as it was widely believed that a bloodbath among the many Iraqi factions would have erupted shortly after the Hussein regime was toppled. Further tying their hands was the fact that their Middle Eastern allies strongly objected to any scenario involving US/allied occupation of Iraq.  In other words, everybody knew that it would have been a political and military quagmire to depose Hussein at the time. The calculation proved to be correct and the badly wounded Iraqis were no longer a threat for the next decade.

What made Washington change its mind in 2003, knowing full well that an occupation would bear the same consequences as it would have in 1991? All the arguments used to justify the war, including the presence of weapons of mass destruction on Iraqi soil, collaboration between Hussein and Al Qaeda, as well as insinuations of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks, were all widely discredited even before the first shot was fired.  Yet forge ahead they did, embarking on a costly crusade without the United Nations on board, with strong condemnation from several European allies, and with only a symbolic participation by foreign troops save for the UK, its staunchest supporter.  It’s worth noting that while the international community did not approve of the war, the American public was overwhelmingly supportive. One has to remember that never before had Americans felt so vulnerable on their own soil.  The invisible enemy was everywhere, and thus when their government told them they knew where to find them, they opted to believe.  A 2007 Newsweek opinion poll showed that 40% of Americans still believed that Iraqis participated in 9-11 despite all evidence to the contrary, including a 2006 interview with Bush where he admitted Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks. The profound change in the American psyche since 2001 is fully understandable and should never be derided.

All this, however, doesn’t answer the real question: why did the US  push this agenda, knowing the fallout could be severe? I refuse to believe that the United States, which has  the largest and most sophisticated intelligence gathering network and more thinkers and advisors than any other country on earth, can make rash decisions based on weak intel.  Yes, mistakes can be made, but it doesn’t seem rational that an average of  two billion dollars a week* would  be spent on a mistake for seven years with no end in sight. No, the bumbling fools theory is too far fetched. There had to be concrete reasons and goals for this endeavor, which can’t be revealed.

It’s now known that George W Bush had an Iraqi invasion on his mind the minute he took office in 2001. Was the aftermath of 9-11 just an opportune moment to execute his plan, disguising it with the mantle of the War on Terror? Again, this is part of the explanation of how Iraq 2003 saw the light of day, but it doesn’t answer the big Why! How do you convince the military and political establishment to go along with a whimsical war? Doesn’t seem plausible. The most popular theory holds that the US needed to secure a vast source of petroleum and interfere with OPEC. Iraq has the world’s fourth  largest proven oil reserves**. Hussein was already a pariah in the Muslim world, his armed forces in shambles, thus a cheap target politically.  I’m immediately suspicious of any conspiracy theory that involves both big US oil companies and the US government, even if it was espoused by Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US central bank, and Ralph Nader’s Green Party.  The US has only invaded other countries for political, never economic , motives. Why would that have suddenly changed?

The Green party issued a press release, February 24, 2003,  one month before the offensive in Iraq began, that offered evidence that this war was all about oil. It cited, among other things, the fact that Senator Richard Lugar, then on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had warned France and Russia that they wouldn’t have a share in Iraq’s oil resources if they didn’t sign-on as members of the coalition (they didn’t). It also denounced that Richard Perle, chair of the Defense Policy Board wrote a paper in 2002 recommending the invasion of Iraq as a first step in gaining control over middle eastern oil.  Presidential candidate John McCain seemed to admit the war was about oil during one of his town hall meetings in 2008, but then again he said a lot of things off the cuff, even claiming he knew how to find Osama Bin Laden.  Many pundits in early 2003 also made the case that Iraq has some of the largest unexploited known oil and gas reserves in the world, making it an attractive acquisition. Sobering facts, no doubt, but the oddest piece of news was that in January 2003, while the Pentagon was perfecting its invasion plans, the US faced a 1.5 million barrel a day shortfall. Who did they turn to, to avoid a crisis? That’s right: Iraq!  The US thereby demonstrated that it already held considerable influence over Iraqi oil via American and allied petroleum conglomerates.

Post-2003 Iraqi crude oil production has been in the two million to 2.4 million barrels a day range, comparable to the  pre-2003 output**. One has to remember that the country still suffers from widespread infrastructure damage from the wars with Iran and the 2003 coalition,  as well as recurring terrorist attacks against oil facilities, particularly pipelines. Additionally, Iraq must still pay 5 percent of oil revenues as compensation to Kuwait (it was 25 percent prior to 2003), as per UN sanctions, a cost that must be passed on to production companies. However, projections for 2014 call for a daily production level of 4.5 million barrels. Overall, some estimates place Iraq’s potential at 12 million barrels per day, which, if realized, would place it first in the world. Iraq currently exports roughly 540 thousand barrels per day** to the USA, or roughly a fifth of its production, placing it sixth among US suppliers.  The bulk of Iraq’s oil exports go to China and India, countries which did not form part of the 2003 coalition. Furthermore, in recent oil field auctions held by the Iraqi oil ministry, it was Russian and Chinese firms that walked away with the juiciest deals. The biggest irony is that Iraq is still an active member of the hated OPEC cartel. Suddenly, the war for oil argument looks rather weak!

The other theory that circulated was that the US sought to stem the tide of radical Islamism by installing a democracy in a significant Middle Eastern country, namely Iraq. This theory was spurred by comments made by George W Bush before the war, arguing that removing Hussein and putting in place a democratic system would have a domino effect in the region. The domino theory has been around since the 1950′s and was used first in reference to the spread of communism. Bush’s team simply adapted the idea, turning it into democratic contagion. Again, Iraq offered the least politically costly target and shares borders with five non-democratic Middle Eastern countries. Due to the very nature of Islam, a western style democracy in a predominantly Muslim country seems far fetched. To wit, in nearly 5 years since the first democratic elections in Iraq, there has been no signs of such a phenomenon spreading in the area, although it’s quite possible should Baghdad bring years of stability to its own people, something that appears unlikely at this point. In summary, the domino theory does have merit, but it stresses credibility as the main ulterior motive for such an immense and risky undertaking as an armed invasion followed by years of occupation.

Another theory: they wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein.  A British classified document from 2002 was leaked to the press in 2005. Its wording made it clear that George W Bush had wanted to remove Hussein from power and needed to put a legal spin to a military action aimed at achieving this.  The spin was the weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist connection.  Why was it so urgent to remove Hussein, who as a threat was already neutralized since 1991? In this case, the only possible answer is that twelve years had passed since Desert Storm, the US had the wind in its favor and there would never come a better time to install a pro-Washington government. Hussein’s time had simply run out.  Why didn’t the US choose to foment a revolt from within, a far cheaper and discreet method for forcing a regime change? One can speculate that perhaps the dark horses available did not meet expectations, or that the formula had been tried and failed. Lest we forget, the US had forcibly removed heads of state before, in Panama and in Grenada, and to this day both countries prosper under democratic systems without the need for a prolonged occupation. Perhaps that experience influenced the decision to use brute force? For Iraq, I will suggest that using the military was not an option, but the real goal. That’s another theory that hasn’t been given any air time that I know of.

One only has to look at a map of the Middle East to realize the strategic importance of Iraq. Iran, America’s long time nemesis and  the founding nation of the Islamic revolution and the biggest advocate of international terrorism, shares a long western border with Iraq , not to mention an eastern border with Afghanistan, where coalition troops are also entrenched. To the west of Iraq lies Syria, another terrorist supporting pariah state. Having American  troops so close by presents a sobering scenario to both these states and any that could fall under the influence of the rising tide of  Islamic extremism. The invasion sent an unequivocal message to its enemies: that America wasn’t a giant with feet of clay, that it wasn’t afraid to wield its power preemptively and unilaterally.

Why did the US invade Iraq in 2003? Answer: for strategic reasons. The time was right politically, Iraq’s army wasn’t a serious obstacle and nobody in the Arab world cared about Hussein anymore, who had been humiliated for more than a decade. Seen from this angle, the war in Iraq can be perceived as a victory for the US, as it achieved its goals: installing a friendly regime in Baghdad, putting US forces in a controlling position in the Middle East, as well as sending a strong message to the enemy.  Not meaning to be cynical, but Sunnis and Shiites massacring one another was expected and may have been deemed acceptable collateral damage. For those who preferred the war for oil theory, the irony is that the West’s oil supplies are now more secure than they’ve ever been. Oil security may well  have been one of the goals of the invasion. The strategic scenario also answers the other lingering question: when will US troops leave Iraq, and why did Obama backpedal on his troop withdrawal plan? Because of the long term threat posed by radical Islamism,  US troops will likely remain in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan for a long time to come.

For obvious reasons, Washington couldn’t  tell the truth, and still can’t tell the truth. What’s amazing is that even the President of the United States lied to the American public, stumbled badly when the lies were uncovered, yet got away with never telling the truth! I don’t think there’s any precedent in American history, but again I must repeat that these are special times, and it’s almost certain that those who know the truth will cite national security as the reason for their secrecy.

This is just another theory and only time will tell if it’s correct, when some Pentagon or White House insider finally blows the whistle. What you must never forget is that it’s your right to know the truth, even if it’s a question of national security.

* According to the Congressional Research Service
* * Statistical source: EIA

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