29 January 2010
A failure of strategy in Iraq
26 January 2010
I have already reported in an earlier blog entry on the Chilcot inquiry about flaws that emerged in the strategy of using the threat of invasion to press Saddam Hussein to disarm, principally that the military forces deployed to back up this threat could not be kept on stand-by indefinitely. There was a timetable and deadline implicit in the strategy that was never made explicit and was never agreed by the UN Security Council. Saddam Hussein’s slow but nevertheless real submission to the process of inspection brought this strategic problem to the fore and broke apart the alliance against him.
The evidence session with Tony Blair today has revealed another fundamental error in British and American thinking. The assumption was that they would have to fight and defeat the Iraqi armed forces, and then install a successor regime that would be broadly welcomed in that country. They underestimated the scale of the resistance they would meet: how come secular Baathists and religious Islamists could make common cause against the invader? The answer is the seductive appeal of nationalism, a parallel form of ideology that cuts across other kinds of political concern. (Ironic that, in view of the Bush administration’s own attachment to and pronouncements on nationalism.)
Moreover, they underestimated the willingness of their sworn enemies to oppose them. As Tony Blair said, “It was the introduction of the external elements of AQ and Iran that really caused this mission very nearly to fail.” He went on, “The conventional wisdom, if you like, at the time, was that you might get elements of the revolutionary guard playing about, but basically the evidence was that Iran would more or less have a watching brief to see how it would play out but it had no interest in destabilising [Iraq].”
But have announced a war on terror, why the surprise that terror fights back? Having declared that Iran was, like Iraq, a member of the axis of evil, why the surprise when Iran plots revenge? Isn’t that exactly what a member of the axis of evil would do? It would be hardly evil if Iran had simply sat back and done nothing.
There appears to have been a monumental failure of empathy behind this strategic mistake. The assumption was that Britain and America were at the centre of everything, and that other countries mattered and acted in relation to that centre. The idea that other countries have their own views of the world and their own reasons for acting and do not look at things through Anglo-American eyes has been learned the hard way. If, that is, it has been learned at all.
The evidence session with Tony Blair today has revealed another fundamental error in British and American thinking. The assumption was that they would have to fight and defeat the Iraqi armed forces, and then install a successor regime that would be broadly welcomed in that country. They underestimated the scale of the resistance they would meet: how come secular Baathists and religious Islamists could make common cause against the invader? The answer is the seductive appeal of nationalism, a parallel form of ideology that cuts across other kinds of political concern. (Ironic that, in view of the Bush administration’s own attachment to and pronouncements on nationalism.)
Moreover, they underestimated the willingness of their sworn enemies to oppose them. As Tony Blair said, “It was the introduction of the external elements of AQ and Iran that really caused this mission very nearly to fail.” He went on, “The conventional wisdom, if you like, at the time, was that you might get elements of the revolutionary guard playing about, but basically the evidence was that Iran would more or less have a watching brief to see how it would play out but it had no interest in destabilising [Iraq].”
But have announced a war on terror, why the surprise that terror fights back? Having declared that Iran was, like Iraq, a member of the axis of evil, why the surprise when Iran plots revenge? Isn’t that exactly what a member of the axis of evil would do? It would be hardly evil if Iran had simply sat back and done nothing.
There appears to have been a monumental failure of empathy behind this strategic mistake. The assumption was that Britain and America were at the centre of everything, and that other countries mattered and acted in relation to that centre. The idea that other countries have their own views of the world and their own reasons for acting and do not look at things through Anglo-American eyes has been learned the hard way. If, that is, it has been learned at all.
¤ ¤ ¤
I repeat, and juxtapose, a couple of quotes that have appeared previously on this blog, to give an illustration of the point I make above.
“We must establish what sort of world we want to live in. We want to live in a multi-polar world, that is to say with several large groups with relations between them as harmonious as possible, a world in which Europe, in particular, has a role, a world where democracy expands, where the United Nations plays a role – in our view, the central role – of providing a context and impulse for this democracy and this harmony …”
Jacques Chirac, 10 March 2003
“Structural questions about the United Nations and the European Union are secondary to those around future relations with the United States. Partnership is infinitely preferable to the French desire for a rival pole of power, which could revive the dynamics of the Cold War.”
Tony Blair, 25 March 2003
“We must establish what sort of world we want to live in. We want to live in a multi-polar world, that is to say with several large groups with relations between them as harmonious as possible, a world in which Europe, in particular, has a role, a world where democracy expands, where the United Nations plays a role – in our view, the central role – of providing a context and impulse for this democracy and this harmony …”
Jacques Chirac, 10 March 2003
“Structural questions about the United Nations and the European Union are secondary to those around future relations with the United States. Partnership is infinitely preferable to the French desire for a rival pole of power, which could revive the dynamics of the Cold War.”
Tony Blair, 25 March 2003
Posted by Richard Laming at 17:12
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Why does the government employ lawyers?
The Chilcot inquiry’s encounter with Jack Straw is turning up yet more gems. Jack Straw was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq and the inquiry into British government decision-making has revealed this comment from him in response to legal advice that UN Security Council resolution 1441 was insufficient justification for war.
He starts: “I note your advice, but I do not accept it.” He goes on: “I am committed as anyone to international law and its obligations, but it is an uncertain field. There is no international court for resolving such questions in the manner of a domestic court. Moreover, in this case, the issue is an arguable one, capable of honestly and reasonably held differences of view. I hope (for political reasons) we can get a second Resolution. But there is a strong case to be made that UNSCR 687, and everything which has happened since (assuming that Iraq continues not to comply), provides a sufficient basis in international law to justify military action.”
He is responding to legal advice not only that a second resolution was necessary but that this requirement was clear and not, as he supposed, arguable. (Read it here.) What is the point of having lawyers if what they can say can be waved away so lightly if it turns out to be inconvenient?
Jack Straw explains his thinking in a further note to the Attorney General dated 6 February 2003:
“I have been very forcefully struck by a paradox in the culture of government lawyers, which is that the less certain the law is, the more certain in their views they become. … On the one hand, in well-rehearsed areas of domestic law the advice I am offered has usually been acute, but also admitted to a range of possibilities. On the other hand, in issues of international law, my experience is of advice which is more dogmatic, even though the range of reasonable interpretations is almost always greater than in respect of domestic law.”
What does a lawyer do? It is to advise a client of how behave in view of what the law says. Where the law is unclear, as it often is, it is to advise of risks and possibilities: “Do X, and you are 90 per cent certain to be all right, do Y and you will be 95 per cent certain, but you will need to do Z if you want to be completely sure.” The client may think that the extra cost of doing Z is not justified and is willing to do Y with the 5 per cent risk of being found in the wrong and bearing the costs that result. That is how litigation works.
But the issue of whether or not the war in Iraq was compatible with international law goes beyond litigation. An aggressive war conducted outside the authority of the United Nations risks being treated not as an administrative error but as a crime. The idea that government ministers could ask for a range of recommendations and then choose a potentially (in fact, on the advice of his lawyers, almost certainly) criminal one is quite hard to accept. But this is what Jack Straw appears to have done.
Sir Michael Wood, who drafted the legal advice with which Jack Straw disagreed, said to the enquiry: “Obviously there are some areas of international law that can be quite uncertain. This however turned exclusively on the interpretation of a specific text and it is one on which I think that international law was pretty clear.”
Furthermore, he reacts in an entirely different way to the absence of an international court. Jack Straw thought that it meant that one could be less precise, while Sir Michael thinks the opposite: “Because there is no court, the legal adviser and those taking decisions based on the legal advice have to be more scrupulous in adhering to the law.”
What is a federalist to make of this? As I have remarked before, federalism is founded on the idea that the rule of law should apply to states as well as within them, but also that the rule of law must be legitimate. International treaties, among the signatories of which are countries that are not democracies, do not have the same legitimacy as domestic law produced as the result of democratic politics, but that does not make them entirely illegitimate. This is partly what makes international law, in Jack Straw’s words, “an uncertain field”.
But federalism proposes not to exploit this uncertainty but to end it. The legitimacy of the rule of international law needs to be strengthened, not undermined. If someone like Jack Straw, who styles himself as being “committed as anyone to international law and its obligations”, feels free to duck away from its more awkward implications, what is to be expected of politicians who have reputations of caring even less for principle and more for expediency than Mr Straw?
There is a further interesting point that arose from the evidence published today regarding not international law but the British constitution. It follows on from the notion that there is no international court to reach decisions. Instead, the Attorney General has been treated as the final arbiter on this matter. Because he said that the war was legal, that means that it was. But who is the Attorney General? He may be a lawyer, but he is a political appointee of the government. The idea that the legality of a politically controversial matter can be settled beyond doubt by somebody who is in a partisan position makes no sense. It shows that, whatever the flaws in interpreting and applying law internationally, there are serious flaws in the British legal and political system too.
It should be established that the role of the Attorney General is to present advice to the government of the “90 per cent, 95 per cent, 100 per cent” variety but not to be the final judge. One conclusion from the Chilcot enquiry must surely be that this confusion of roles within the British political and legal system surely cannot go on. The final arbiter of the law cannot be a political figure.
He starts: “I note your advice, but I do not accept it.” He goes on: “I am committed as anyone to international law and its obligations, but it is an uncertain field. There is no international court for resolving such questions in the manner of a domestic court. Moreover, in this case, the issue is an arguable one, capable of honestly and reasonably held differences of view. I hope (for political reasons) we can get a second Resolution. But there is a strong case to be made that UNSCR 687, and everything which has happened since (assuming that Iraq continues not to comply), provides a sufficient basis in international law to justify military action.”
He is responding to legal advice not only that a second resolution was necessary but that this requirement was clear and not, as he supposed, arguable. (Read it here.) What is the point of having lawyers if what they can say can be waved away so lightly if it turns out to be inconvenient?
Jack Straw explains his thinking in a further note to the Attorney General dated 6 February 2003:
“I have been very forcefully struck by a paradox in the culture of government lawyers, which is that the less certain the law is, the more certain in their views they become. … On the one hand, in well-rehearsed areas of domestic law the advice I am offered has usually been acute, but also admitted to a range of possibilities. On the other hand, in issues of international law, my experience is of advice which is more dogmatic, even though the range of reasonable interpretations is almost always greater than in respect of domestic law.”
What does a lawyer do? It is to advise a client of how behave in view of what the law says. Where the law is unclear, as it often is, it is to advise of risks and possibilities: “Do X, and you are 90 per cent certain to be all right, do Y and you will be 95 per cent certain, but you will need to do Z if you want to be completely sure.” The client may think that the extra cost of doing Z is not justified and is willing to do Y with the 5 per cent risk of being found in the wrong and bearing the costs that result. That is how litigation works.
But the issue of whether or not the war in Iraq was compatible with international law goes beyond litigation. An aggressive war conducted outside the authority of the United Nations risks being treated not as an administrative error but as a crime. The idea that government ministers could ask for a range of recommendations and then choose a potentially (in fact, on the advice of his lawyers, almost certainly) criminal one is quite hard to accept. But this is what Jack Straw appears to have done.
Sir Michael Wood, who drafted the legal advice with which Jack Straw disagreed, said to the enquiry: “Obviously there are some areas of international law that can be quite uncertain. This however turned exclusively on the interpretation of a specific text and it is one on which I think that international law was pretty clear.”
Furthermore, he reacts in an entirely different way to the absence of an international court. Jack Straw thought that it meant that one could be less precise, while Sir Michael thinks the opposite: “Because there is no court, the legal adviser and those taking decisions based on the legal advice have to be more scrupulous in adhering to the law.”
What is a federalist to make of this? As I have remarked before, federalism is founded on the idea that the rule of law should apply to states as well as within them, but also that the rule of law must be legitimate. International treaties, among the signatories of which are countries that are not democracies, do not have the same legitimacy as domestic law produced as the result of democratic politics, but that does not make them entirely illegitimate. This is partly what makes international law, in Jack Straw’s words, “an uncertain field”.
But federalism proposes not to exploit this uncertainty but to end it. The legitimacy of the rule of international law needs to be strengthened, not undermined. If someone like Jack Straw, who styles himself as being “committed as anyone to international law and its obligations”, feels free to duck away from its more awkward implications, what is to be expected of politicians who have reputations of caring even less for principle and more for expediency than Mr Straw?
There is a further interesting point that arose from the evidence published today regarding not international law but the British constitution. It follows on from the notion that there is no international court to reach decisions. Instead, the Attorney General has been treated as the final arbiter on this matter. Because he said that the war was legal, that means that it was. But who is the Attorney General? He may be a lawyer, but he is a political appointee of the government. The idea that the legality of a politically controversial matter can be settled beyond doubt by somebody who is in a partisan position makes no sense. It shows that, whatever the flaws in interpreting and applying law internationally, there are serious flaws in the British legal and political system too.
It should be established that the role of the Attorney General is to present advice to the government of the “90 per cent, 95 per cent, 100 per cent” variety but not to be the final judge. One conclusion from the Chilcot enquiry must surely be that this confusion of roles within the British political and legal system surely cannot go on. The final arbiter of the law cannot be a political figure.
¤ ¤ ¤
It is revealed by another note published today that Jack Straw actually intervened to prevent the Attorney General from outlining the range of opinions and instead to offer a single settled view. Compare this to his insistence on 20 February 2003 that “As far as the implementation of Iraq UNSCs is concerned, this is an uncertain area of law. The US, Netherlands and Australian government legal advisers all, I understand, take the view that SCR 1441 provides legal sanction for military operations. The full range of views ought to be reflected in the advice offered by our Legal Advisers.” The Attorney General was told not to reflect the full range of views in his advice, thank you very much.
Posted by Richard Laming at 20:42
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Nonsense on asylum
22 January 2010
Two types of nonsense on display in the Daily Express today. The spark is a report that 124 illegal immigrants found on a beach in Corsica were set free by French judges rather than held in detention. It is thought likely by police and charity workers that most of the immigrants will try and head to Britain rather than stay in France.
The first type of nonsense came from UKIP MEP Gerard Batten, saying “Once again the French are exporting their illegal immigration problem to Britain.” Gerard Batten believes in national sovereignty: according to his view of Europe, the French are entirely entitled to export their problems to other countries, as they choose. That is what national sovereignty is for. Perhaps Gerard Batten is being quoted in an approving manner, but I don’t think so.
He goes on to say “Britain must regain control of its own borders so that illegal immigrants will be in no doubt they will be denied entry.” Britain’s ability to police its own borders in order to keep out illegal immigrants is unimpaired by membership of the EU. Citizens of EU member states have the right to come to Britain without visas, about which UKIP complains also sometimes, but they must still pass through border controls. Gerard Batten’s statement is wrong on the facts and inconsistent with his own political philosophy.
The second bout of nonsense comes from Matthew Elliott of the TayPayers’ Alliance. He is quoted as saying “It’s shocking that British taxpayers will now have to foot the bill for these asylum seekers. If they were picked up in France they should have been processed there, not merely shuttled along to the UK. The fact that so many asylum seekers are desperate to get to Britain over any other European nation shows we are a soft touch.”
Maybe the reason why so many people want to claim asylum in Britain is that Britain is a better place to live and work and, whisper it quietly, pay taxes. The nonsense comes from the idea that each country should pay for the people to whom it grants asylum. If a disproportionate number of people are going to end up in the UK, then it would be in the interests of the UK taxpayer for there to be some kind of burden-sharing among EU member states so that the financial cost does not fall equally disproportionately. Why does Matthew Elliott want to put British public expenditure up?
A fundamental point that the traditional model of asylum policy does not take into account is that asylum seekers themselves have preferences. They might very well prefer to live in one country rather than another, if they have friends or relatives there, or if they speak the language; the current difficulties with asylum policy stem in part from a bureaucratic inability to recognise this. Solving this problem and balancing out the interests of the different member states along with the interests of the asylum seekers themselves is going need more European cooperation, not less.
The first type of nonsense came from UKIP MEP Gerard Batten, saying “Once again the French are exporting their illegal immigration problem to Britain.” Gerard Batten believes in national sovereignty: according to his view of Europe, the French are entirely entitled to export their problems to other countries, as they choose. That is what national sovereignty is for. Perhaps Gerard Batten is being quoted in an approving manner, but I don’t think so.
He goes on to say “Britain must regain control of its own borders so that illegal immigrants will be in no doubt they will be denied entry.” Britain’s ability to police its own borders in order to keep out illegal immigrants is unimpaired by membership of the EU. Citizens of EU member states have the right to come to Britain without visas, about which UKIP complains also sometimes, but they must still pass through border controls. Gerard Batten’s statement is wrong on the facts and inconsistent with his own political philosophy.
The second bout of nonsense comes from Matthew Elliott of the TayPayers’ Alliance. He is quoted as saying “It’s shocking that British taxpayers will now have to foot the bill for these asylum seekers. If they were picked up in France they should have been processed there, not merely shuttled along to the UK. The fact that so many asylum seekers are desperate to get to Britain over any other European nation shows we are a soft touch.”
Maybe the reason why so many people want to claim asylum in Britain is that Britain is a better place to live and work and, whisper it quietly, pay taxes. The nonsense comes from the idea that each country should pay for the people to whom it grants asylum. If a disproportionate number of people are going to end up in the UK, then it would be in the interests of the UK taxpayer for there to be some kind of burden-sharing among EU member states so that the financial cost does not fall equally disproportionately. Why does Matthew Elliott want to put British public expenditure up?
A fundamental point that the traditional model of asylum policy does not take into account is that asylum seekers themselves have preferences. They might very well prefer to live in one country rather than another, if they have friends or relatives there, or if they speak the language; the current difficulties with asylum policy stem in part from a bureaucratic inability to recognise this. Solving this problem and balancing out the interests of the different member states along with the interests of the asylum seekers themselves is going need more European cooperation, not less.
Posted by Richard Laming at 12:13
0 comments
Jack Straw at the Chilcot enquiry: a blunt instrument
Jack Straw’s evidence at the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq war yesterday, and the discussion that it led to of deadlines and resolutions, tells an interesting and important story about the conduct of international relations and the problems that it causes. (You can read the transcript of Jack Straw’s session at the enquiry here.)
The enquiry summoned Jack Straw to give evidence because he was foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq war and was thus intimately involved in the diplomatic build-up to the invasion. The various interviewees who have given evidence have all carefully covered their own actions at the time, in some cases delicately suggesting that a different part of the machinery of government might have been responsible for whatever mistakes were made. A case in point is the famous, or infamous, 45 minute claim in the foreword to the September dossier: the then prime minister’s official spokesman Alastair Campbell claimed he thought that it had been approved by the intelligence experts, while Sir John Scarlett, who was at the time chairman of the Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), said that he had not looked at the foreword because it was obviously political material. In this exercise in covering oneself, Jack Straw is a past master.
Central to the case involving Jack Straw is the question of the second resolution. The fact that Britain went to war in Iraq without the explicit agreement of a UN Security Council resolution in the spring of 2003 is controversial: does the absence of that resolution actually go further and make the war illegal? The arguments over this are furious.
Jack Straw’s view is that the first resolution was sufficient. This resolution, 1441, was agreed unanimously by the Security Council on 8 November 2002, after extensive and detailed negotiations between the permanent members. It is interesting that the five permanent members were agreed on how to deal with Saddam Hussein at this point, because 3 or 4 months later, they were bitterly divided. What happened? What went wrong in the international community?
That first resolution (read the text here) was intended to force Iraq into disarming its WMDs, sending in an inspection team backed up with the threat of invasion if Iraq failed to cooperate. A large military force was accordingly assembled in order to make that threat of invasion credible. There was international consensus on this strategy. Where divisions emerged was on the process that should be followed in order to decide whether Iraq was cooperating or not.
On this vital matter, the resolution read as follows:
“12. Decides to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security;
13. Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;
14. Decides to remain seized of the matter”
Jack Straw explained to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs on 4 March 2003 that: “When the Security Council unanimously adopted Security Council Resolution 1441 last month it sent Iraq a simple message: co-operate immediately, unconditionally and actively with the United Nations' inspectors or face serious consequences. The language could not have been clearer.”
But do “serious consequences” include war? On the previous occasion that the UN Security Council had passed a resolution leading to war against Iraq, resolution 678 of 29 November 1990, it had used the following words:
“2. Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the above-mentioned resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area;”
The words “all necessary means” were the UN code for war. Those words were missing from resolution 1441.
Furthermore, in the statements made at the time of the adoption of resolution 1441, the British ambassador to the United Nations had declared that:
“We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about "automaticity" and "hidden triggers" -- the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response, as a co-sponsor with the United States of the text we have just adopted. There is no "automaticity" in this resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12. We would expect the Security Council then to meet its responsibilities.”
By what does “meet its responsibilities” mean? Along with “serious consequences”, the language could indeed have been clearer. Jack Straw, in his words on 4 March 2003, was wrong.
The truth is that the issue of whether a second resolution was a precondition of invading Iraq was fudged. There was no agreement among the member states – there was no agreement within some of the member states! – meaning that the careful wording of resolution 1441 was a record of disagreement, not a record of agreement.
Jack Straw argued in a debate on the matter in the House of Commons on 25 November 2002 that:
“Resolution 1441 does not stipulate that there has to be a second Security Council resolution to authorise military action in the event of a further material breach by Iraq. The idea that there should be a second Security Council resolution was an alternative discussed informally among members of the P5 of the Security Council and the elected 10 during the weeks of negotiation, but no draft to that effect was ever tabled by any member of Security Council, nor put to the vote. Instead, every member of the Security Council voted for and accepted this text.”
But the absence of such an additional draft resolution could easily have been due to the absence of the words “all necessary means” from resolution 1441. The requirement for a second resolution went without saying. The clever wording of 1441 may have solved one problem but instead created another, bigger one.
The public did not know at the time, but revelations since have told us, that the government’s understanding of the legal position during the period that resolution 1441 was being negotiated was that a second resolution would be necessary to authorise war, the wording of 1441 itself being insufficient. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, only provided his revised advice concluding that war was permissible without a second resolution and on the strength of 1441 alone on 17 March 2003.
Notwithstanding this legal advice, there was nevertheless an effort by Britain and America to get a second resolution adopted by the Security Council to give them UN approval for the war. The passage of such a resolution would have satisfied a great many critics of the Anglo-American policy, and was thus worth striving for. However, it would have required the positive votes of 9 out of the 15 members of the Security Council and avoided the veto of France, Russia or China. This level of support was not forthcoming.
The most prominent opponent of the second resolution, when it came, was the French president, Jacques Chirac. He was of the opinion that the efforts to disarm Iraq using the combination of inspections and the threat of war were working, and should be continued. What was the urgency in turning that threat of war into reality?
Here we find a second flaw in the UN strategy. Not only was there no agreement on how to take the crucial, subsequent decision to go to war, there turned out to be a time limit inherent in the military pressure that had nowhere been acknowledged by the decision-makers. It simply was not possible to keep an invasion force on stand-by for months on end, in readiness to invade when called upon. Jack Straw said to the Chilcot enquiry that “I talked to Secretary Powell about his judgment about how long you could keep such a large expeditionary force at a state of alert without it, as it were, degrading. You know much better than I, you can't continue them in that state of readiness for long, but the advice which I got, as well as from our own people, but it was crucial to get his take on what the United States felt, was late March/early April.”
This was not a deadline expressed in the programme of inspection and disarmament. Again, there is an unfavourable comparison with the previous war with Iraq: the Kuwait resolution 678 adopted on 29 November 1990 set down an explicit deadline of 15 January 1991 for compliance. (In the event, air attacks started on 17 January.)
The problem posed by this sudden emergence of a deadline was that it undermined the credibility of the inspections process. It was this that Jacques Chirac could not support.
We find here a third failure of British policy, a failure to understand the French.
Jacques Chirac gave an interview on French TV to explain his policy and the reasoning behind it. (You can read a transcript of that interview here.)
The central statement of that interview, which was broadcast on the BBC and elsewhere, was this: “Ma position, c’est que, quelles que soient les circonstances, la France votera non parce qu’elle considère ce soir qu’il n’y a pas lieu de faire une guerre pour atteindre l’objectif que nous nous sommes fixé, c’est-à-dire le désarmement de l’Iraq.”
This translates into English as "My position is that, regardless of the circumstances, France will vote "no" because she considers this evening that there are no grounds for waging war in order to achieve the goal we have set ourselves, i.e. to disarm Iraq.” But what does this mean?
In front of the Chilcot enquiry, Jack Straw said this:
“I know there has been some textual analysis of the use by President Chirac of the word "Le soir", but I watched him say this and I took this as no more than saying, "This evening", comma, and then he announces, "France will, whatever the circumstances", he says, right? If he was saying, "Look, just for tonight, we are going to veto, but not tomorrow", he would have said that, but this was a great Chiracian pronouncement. "Whatever the circumstances", he says, "La France will…”
But what were the circumstances Jacques Chirac was referring to? The previous part of the interview discussed two scenarios: one where France was in the majority on the Security Council in opposing the Anglo-American second resolution; the second was where France was in a minority or alone in its opposition. Would France really vote No in such circumstances, dropping the “diplomatic atomic bomb”? Yes, said President Chirac, it would, even in those circumstances.
He went on in that interview to say:
“Je le répète: la guerre est toujours la pire des solutions. Et la France, qui n’est pas un pays pacifiste, qui ne refuse pas la guerre par principe, qui le prouve d’ailleurs en étant le premier contributeur de forces de l’OTAN actuellement, notamment dans les Balkans, la France n’est pas un pays pacifiste. La France considère que la guerre, c’est la dernière étape d’un processus, que tous les moyens doivent être utilisés pour l’éviter en raison de ses conséquences dramatiques.”
In English: “I repeat, war is always the worst solution. And France, which is not a pacifist country, which does not reject war in principle, which proves it by being the leading contributor of forces to Nato at present, notably in the Balkans, France is not a pacifist country. France considers that war is the final step in the process, when all other means have been tried in order to avoid it because of its dramatic consequences.”
This is not the argument of someone fundamentally opposed to the strategy of disarming Saddam Hussein under threat of invasion. This is the argument of someone arguing over the timing, and the urgency. This is something that Jack Straw did not, or chose not to, understand.
To try to make a foreign policy without understanding the opinions and strategies of major players is a certain route to failure. That is where the British policy on Iraq ended up.
What conclusions can we draw from this sorry tale?
First, diplomatic drafting can be part of the problem, not part of the solution. In the case of 1441, it postponed the moment of decision, it did not embody it. The failure to think through the consequences of this postponement damaged the United Nations severely.
Secondly, war is not an easy option, a threat that can be turned on or off like a tap. The strategy of threaten and inspect had a built-in expiry date, which was never established or articulated clearly in the minds of its supporters. The experience of Blair’s previous wars, in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, had given the impression that military force could be applied like a scalpel, but it can’t. It is more of a blunt instrument.
Thirdly, there is the Anglo-French disagreement. The British tried to rally European support for the American policy, the French tried to rally support against it. In the event, neither succeeded, leaving Europe essentially absent from the most important decision in world politics of the decade.
Finally, one cannot avoid speculating further about what might have happened if Tony Blair’s promise in 2004 of a referendum on the constitutional treaty had been fulfilled. Can we really imagine that Jack Straw would have happily campaigned for a Yes vote in that referendum on the grounds that it would enable stronger foreign policy cooperation between Britain and France?
The enquiry summoned Jack Straw to give evidence because he was foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq war and was thus intimately involved in the diplomatic build-up to the invasion. The various interviewees who have given evidence have all carefully covered their own actions at the time, in some cases delicately suggesting that a different part of the machinery of government might have been responsible for whatever mistakes were made. A case in point is the famous, or infamous, 45 minute claim in the foreword to the September dossier: the then prime minister’s official spokesman Alastair Campbell claimed he thought that it had been approved by the intelligence experts, while Sir John Scarlett, who was at the time chairman of the Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), said that he had not looked at the foreword because it was obviously political material. In this exercise in covering oneself, Jack Straw is a past master.
Central to the case involving Jack Straw is the question of the second resolution. The fact that Britain went to war in Iraq without the explicit agreement of a UN Security Council resolution in the spring of 2003 is controversial: does the absence of that resolution actually go further and make the war illegal? The arguments over this are furious.
Jack Straw’s view is that the first resolution was sufficient. This resolution, 1441, was agreed unanimously by the Security Council on 8 November 2002, after extensive and detailed negotiations between the permanent members. It is interesting that the five permanent members were agreed on how to deal with Saddam Hussein at this point, because 3 or 4 months later, they were bitterly divided. What happened? What went wrong in the international community?
That first resolution (read the text here) was intended to force Iraq into disarming its WMDs, sending in an inspection team backed up with the threat of invasion if Iraq failed to cooperate. A large military force was accordingly assembled in order to make that threat of invasion credible. There was international consensus on this strategy. Where divisions emerged was on the process that should be followed in order to decide whether Iraq was cooperating or not.
On this vital matter, the resolution read as follows:
“12. Decides to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security;
13. Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;
14. Decides to remain seized of the matter”
Jack Straw explained to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs on 4 March 2003 that: “When the Security Council unanimously adopted Security Council Resolution 1441 last month it sent Iraq a simple message: co-operate immediately, unconditionally and actively with the United Nations' inspectors or face serious consequences. The language could not have been clearer.”
But do “serious consequences” include war? On the previous occasion that the UN Security Council had passed a resolution leading to war against Iraq, resolution 678 of 29 November 1990, it had used the following words:
“2. Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the above-mentioned resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area;”
The words “all necessary means” were the UN code for war. Those words were missing from resolution 1441.
Furthermore, in the statements made at the time of the adoption of resolution 1441, the British ambassador to the United Nations had declared that:
“We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about "automaticity" and "hidden triggers" -- the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response, as a co-sponsor with the United States of the text we have just adopted. There is no "automaticity" in this resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12. We would expect the Security Council then to meet its responsibilities.”
By what does “meet its responsibilities” mean? Along with “serious consequences”, the language could indeed have been clearer. Jack Straw, in his words on 4 March 2003, was wrong.
The truth is that the issue of whether a second resolution was a precondition of invading Iraq was fudged. There was no agreement among the member states – there was no agreement within some of the member states! – meaning that the careful wording of resolution 1441 was a record of disagreement, not a record of agreement.
Jack Straw argued in a debate on the matter in the House of Commons on 25 November 2002 that:
“Resolution 1441 does not stipulate that there has to be a second Security Council resolution to authorise military action in the event of a further material breach by Iraq. The idea that there should be a second Security Council resolution was an alternative discussed informally among members of the P5 of the Security Council and the elected 10 during the weeks of negotiation, but no draft to that effect was ever tabled by any member of Security Council, nor put to the vote. Instead, every member of the Security Council voted for and accepted this text.”
But the absence of such an additional draft resolution could easily have been due to the absence of the words “all necessary means” from resolution 1441. The requirement for a second resolution went without saying. The clever wording of 1441 may have solved one problem but instead created another, bigger one.
The public did not know at the time, but revelations since have told us, that the government’s understanding of the legal position during the period that resolution 1441 was being negotiated was that a second resolution would be necessary to authorise war, the wording of 1441 itself being insufficient. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, only provided his revised advice concluding that war was permissible without a second resolution and on the strength of 1441 alone on 17 March 2003.
Notwithstanding this legal advice, there was nevertheless an effort by Britain and America to get a second resolution adopted by the Security Council to give them UN approval for the war. The passage of such a resolution would have satisfied a great many critics of the Anglo-American policy, and was thus worth striving for. However, it would have required the positive votes of 9 out of the 15 members of the Security Council and avoided the veto of France, Russia or China. This level of support was not forthcoming.
The most prominent opponent of the second resolution, when it came, was the French president, Jacques Chirac. He was of the opinion that the efforts to disarm Iraq using the combination of inspections and the threat of war were working, and should be continued. What was the urgency in turning that threat of war into reality?
Here we find a second flaw in the UN strategy. Not only was there no agreement on how to take the crucial, subsequent decision to go to war, there turned out to be a time limit inherent in the military pressure that had nowhere been acknowledged by the decision-makers. It simply was not possible to keep an invasion force on stand-by for months on end, in readiness to invade when called upon. Jack Straw said to the Chilcot enquiry that “I talked to Secretary Powell about his judgment about how long you could keep such a large expeditionary force at a state of alert without it, as it were, degrading. You know much better than I, you can't continue them in that state of readiness for long, but the advice which I got, as well as from our own people, but it was crucial to get his take on what the United States felt, was late March/early April.”
This was not a deadline expressed in the programme of inspection and disarmament. Again, there is an unfavourable comparison with the previous war with Iraq: the Kuwait resolution 678 adopted on 29 November 1990 set down an explicit deadline of 15 January 1991 for compliance. (In the event, air attacks started on 17 January.)
The problem posed by this sudden emergence of a deadline was that it undermined the credibility of the inspections process. It was this that Jacques Chirac could not support.
We find here a third failure of British policy, a failure to understand the French.
Jacques Chirac gave an interview on French TV to explain his policy and the reasoning behind it. (You can read a transcript of that interview here.)
The central statement of that interview, which was broadcast on the BBC and elsewhere, was this: “Ma position, c’est que, quelles que soient les circonstances, la France votera non parce qu’elle considère ce soir qu’il n’y a pas lieu de faire une guerre pour atteindre l’objectif que nous nous sommes fixé, c’est-à-dire le désarmement de l’Iraq.”
This translates into English as "My position is that, regardless of the circumstances, France will vote "no" because she considers this evening that there are no grounds for waging war in order to achieve the goal we have set ourselves, i.e. to disarm Iraq.” But what does this mean?
In front of the Chilcot enquiry, Jack Straw said this:
“I know there has been some textual analysis of the use by President Chirac of the word "Le soir", but I watched him say this and I took this as no more than saying, "This evening", comma, and then he announces, "France will, whatever the circumstances", he says, right? If he was saying, "Look, just for tonight, we are going to veto, but not tomorrow", he would have said that, but this was a great Chiracian pronouncement. "Whatever the circumstances", he says, "La France will…”
But what were the circumstances Jacques Chirac was referring to? The previous part of the interview discussed two scenarios: one where France was in the majority on the Security Council in opposing the Anglo-American second resolution; the second was where France was in a minority or alone in its opposition. Would France really vote No in such circumstances, dropping the “diplomatic atomic bomb”? Yes, said President Chirac, it would, even in those circumstances.
He went on in that interview to say:
“Je le répète: la guerre est toujours la pire des solutions. Et la France, qui n’est pas un pays pacifiste, qui ne refuse pas la guerre par principe, qui le prouve d’ailleurs en étant le premier contributeur de forces de l’OTAN actuellement, notamment dans les Balkans, la France n’est pas un pays pacifiste. La France considère que la guerre, c’est la dernière étape d’un processus, que tous les moyens doivent être utilisés pour l’éviter en raison de ses conséquences dramatiques.”
In English: “I repeat, war is always the worst solution. And France, which is not a pacifist country, which does not reject war in principle, which proves it by being the leading contributor of forces to Nato at present, notably in the Balkans, France is not a pacifist country. France considers that war is the final step in the process, when all other means have been tried in order to avoid it because of its dramatic consequences.”
This is not the argument of someone fundamentally opposed to the strategy of disarming Saddam Hussein under threat of invasion. This is the argument of someone arguing over the timing, and the urgency. This is something that Jack Straw did not, or chose not to, understand.
To try to make a foreign policy without understanding the opinions and strategies of major players is a certain route to failure. That is where the British policy on Iraq ended up.
What conclusions can we draw from this sorry tale?
First, diplomatic drafting can be part of the problem, not part of the solution. In the case of 1441, it postponed the moment of decision, it did not embody it. The failure to think through the consequences of this postponement damaged the United Nations severely.
Secondly, war is not an easy option, a threat that can be turned on or off like a tap. The strategy of threaten and inspect had a built-in expiry date, which was never established or articulated clearly in the minds of its supporters. The experience of Blair’s previous wars, in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, had given the impression that military force could be applied like a scalpel, but it can’t. It is more of a blunt instrument.
Thirdly, there is the Anglo-French disagreement. The British tried to rally European support for the American policy, the French tried to rally support against it. In the event, neither succeeded, leaving Europe essentially absent from the most important decision in world politics of the decade.
Finally, one cannot avoid speculating further about what might have happened if Tony Blair’s promise in 2004 of a referendum on the constitutional treaty had been fulfilled. Can we really imagine that Jack Straw would have happily campaigned for a Yes vote in that referendum on the grounds that it would enable stronger foreign policy cooperation between Britain and France?
Posted by Richard Laming at 18:40
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