Below I have posted the super top secret leaked memo that is referenced in Londonbear’s excellent diary:
Let’s peruse it together.
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER’S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam’s regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
What I like most about this is that Blair is borrowing from Bush–even in his response.
His people responded that this is nothing new–a Bushite response to new revelations if there ever has been one.
Well, I was right about one thing. The war was decided on at an early stage and it was inevitable. The British evidently realized this in July.
How many quotes do we have of Bush and Rumsfeld saying that war was not inevitable?
That’s probably what Shrub and Rummie were worried about: that the war was not inevitable. So, they did everything they could (including pushing the Brits to the attitudes exhibited in that meeting) to make it inevitable.
july 2002
How many times have we heard that there wasn’t any plans for Iraq at this point in time?
I’m speechless….yet not very shocked. Many of us who opposed the Iraq war opposed it from the very beginning because we saw through the BS from the first whisperings of ‘Saddam’ and ‘Iraq’ after 9/11. It was clear that Bush only went to the UN to save face, if they were genuinely interested in diplomacy Colin Powell wouldn’t have been sent with faulty intelligence to lie and mislead the Security Countil. It will be interesting to see how the US media covers this memo. My prediction: it will cause a wedge between Bush and Blair. The US Administration, following Bush’s lead, refuses to admit mistakes.
.
Quit Tony Blair’s Government In Protest of the Iraq War & How British Intelligence Spied On UN Chief Kofi Annan
[Interview of Feb. 2005.]
Can you clarify the initials CDS and C? Appreciated.
Membership NSC.
The US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, visited the UK on June 5, 2002 for meetings with the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, and the Prime Minister. Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Hoon then held a joint press conference at the Ministry of Defence.
Hoon: As far as Iraq is concerned, we certainly had discussions about Iraq, we both have forces patrolling the No Fly Zones in Iraq, risking their lives to protect people on the ground there, and there is no doubt that the threat to those forces has been increasing in recent times and we have to ensure that we can take appropriate action to deal with that threat, and certainly we both believe that Iraq will be a much better place, not only for the region and for its own people, if Saddam Hussein was no longer in power in Baghdad.
Question: Secretary Rumsfeld, do you agree with that statement that the threat from Iraq is in fact increasingly recently? What evidence is there of an increased threat from Iraq?
Rumsfeld: We know that the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq has had a sizeable appetite for weapons of mass destruction, we know that the borders into that country are quite porous and we know that dual use capabilities have been flowing in as well as illicit materials that are helpful in their programmes for weapons of mass destruction. There is not a doubt in the world but that every month that goes by their programmes mature by a month and that is not something that is a happy prospect for that region. This is an individual who has used chemical weapons on his own people, so there is not any great debate as to what he and his regime would be willing to do with weapons of mass destruction.
Geoff Hoon and Admiral Sir MichaelBoyce welcome Donald Rumsfeld to the
Ministry of Defence, in the Old War
Office's Memorial Hall
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
CDS = Chief of the Defence Staff
C = The Chief of the Secret Intelligence Servie (often call MI6) Who hasn’t been listening to all those James Bond films? š They have a very fancy headquarters just upriver from Westminster, on the other side of the river next to Vauxhall Bridge.
Huh?? What’s wrong with the second one? Humanitarian intervention was always my basis.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
blow the bejesus out of a country and call it humanitarian. It doesn’t fly as a legal justification for the war.
Someday, hopefully, the people of Iraq will live in a country that is more pleasant, vibrant, and wealthy than they would have acheived had Saddam been left in power.
That day has not yet come.
I assume you are using Kosovo as your model. That war wasn’t legal either. But it did have NATO support, IIRC, and was more broadly accepted by the international community. It also worked better, if far from perfectly.
though I would have been happier with it had Sec’y Cohen let Gen. Clark run it the way he wanted to. It angers me when, as also in Afghanistan and the first Gulf War, the U.S. powers that be decide that voters won’t stand for casualties, and so shy away from using ground troops, in favour of dropping bombs from tens of thousands of feet up. This results in much more devastation of infrastructure, and loss of innocent lives.
Then, in the wake of our “victory” in Kosovo, since we had no troops on the ground, we couldn’t stop the former victims of ethnic cleansing turn the tables and become the perpetrators of same.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
blow the bejesus out of a country and call it humanitarian. It doesn’t fly as a legal justification for the war.
Were this not true, perhaps foreign intervention in the USA would have been justified, certainly during slavery, probably during Jim Crow, and perhaps now in any state with anti-gay laws on the books.
And we would have deserved it during slavery or Jim Crow for sure. I don’t see how your point makes an argument against humanitarian intervention though. The best times for Southern blacks were in the few years following the Civil War when “foreign” (Union) troops occupied the South. Then things went to hell for them when the troops were withdrawn. So had a more all around enlightened country invaded and reinstalled blacks’ rights, what would have been wrong with that?
but, better late than never.
I think the question is whether humanitarian regime change or fundamental social reengineering has a high enough chance of success to be worth forcing soldiers to risk their lives. Supposing you’re the philosopher king of some foreign power in the early-mid 19th century with a big bored army. Do you send it over to force those stupid Americans to stop enslaving people? Or remove Andrew Jackson (quite possibly a genocidal maniac given his treatment of Indians) and replace him with someone more enlightened? When does it become worthwhile to trade your soldiers’ lives for other people’s human rights? It’s a really thorny question, although some of the implications for the neocon standpoint are pretty ironic given America’s history and the ideological ancestors of the modern republican party, what with its southern strategy.
It was highly doubtful if the humanitarian argument could be used. The essence is that extreme and immediate Crimes Against Humanity like genocide are being carried out. Whilst it is contually argued that Saddam was conducting any such operations, certainly in 2002. If you take careful notice, all of the mass graves that have been discovered relate to murders committed up to the 80’s and early 90s.
There is no dispute that Saddam had committed such crimes in the past. The problem is that most and the most extreme, such as the use of gas bombs, happened at a time when Saddam was a client of the USA fighting the Iranians. Saddma had no operational air force with which to deliver such weapons even if you maintain that the UN Inspectors had not destroyed all usable stock during the 90s.
The comment by John Scarlett thar “Saddam’s regime was tough and based on extreme fear” actually reinforce a point made by me for over a year and currently by the Libdems. If the Inspectors had been allowed to finish their work, they would have discovered that he had no WMD with which to instill fear. Sure there was a state apparatus of oppression but once the empororer was shown to have no clothes. the Kurds almost certainly would have fought out from their virtually independent area and the Shia in the south could well have risen up again. Abolishing the abuses of the oil for food program would also have cut off the vital supplies of cash Saddam used to buy his position.
It was clear that the US et al were unwilling to sllow disclosure of the facts that would have been discovered by the inspectors. Once it was clear that all the “intelligence” that they had passed over very late was trash, they had to stop the inspectors. Not only would this have scuppered the excuse for regime change that Blair was engineering, it would also have allowed other countries in the region (Iran) to invade in the clear knowledge that Saddam was comparatively toothless.
If one were to support the humanitarian argument, there were far worse regimes which were indulging in crimes against humanity. Dafur is one that was just kicking off but the situation in Zimbabwe of pollitical oppression and destruction of crop growing infrastructure was comparable to Iraq. Mugabe was in addition indulging in polices to starve his political opponents. He is tryuing to force all the young people through “training camps” in which the girls are raped and all are brutalised into supporting the regime.The most compliant are given training and practice into beating those who dissent to death with iron bars.
A few quick responses:
–I don’t agree that Saddam’s regime would have collapsed had he been exposed as lacking WMD. He didn’t need WMD to crush the Shiite uprising (which Bush pere criminally failed to support materially after inciting it verbally), just attack helicopters.
–I don’t disagree with you that our government (particularly Reagan and Bush pere) helped create the monster called Saddam. Cap Weinberger provided Iraq with tactical satellite information to make their gassing of Iranian troops more lethal, did he not? I hated those Republican presidents for installing and/or supporting those totalitarians. That, in a nutshell, is why I can’t oppose another president–even a Republican whom I oppose on nearly every other issue–taking one of them out.
–I also don’t disagree that the arms inspectors were being used essentially as a ruse to create a pretext for war. As I noted a few days ago, I agree with what Bill Maher told Wolf Blitzer a few weeks ago:
This is an assertion he and, say, Dennis Kucinich would probably agree on. But Maher also said, in the same interview, “This is turning out okay in Iraq,” something Kucinich and most other antiwar Dems would certainly disagree with. Basically, Maher and I are cynical enough to accept that “powerful men” use lies and propaganda to manipulate the public–that’s just the way it is. We basically shrug at thus fact, rather than shriek in ineffective outrage, and ask whether the ends were worthwhile. If so, the means become relatively less important in our evaluation of the merits of the action in question (in this case, forcible regime change in Iraq).
–I also don’t disagree that there are other dictators whose actions rival or even surpass Saddam’s in cruelty and barbarity. But that doesn’t make me against war to liberate Iraq from Saddam. It provides ammunition to question Bush’s consistency and the sincerity of his dedication to forcibly opposing tyranny, and I’m all for that. (Remember, I hate Bush so much I have vowed never to voluntarily watch or listen to him speak again, and so far have succeeded for the seven months since the election, unless you count a few words that got through before I switched the station or clapped my hands over my ears and started humming.)
But I wouldn’t say “No! We’ve got to stop the police from going in to rescue these hostages, because there are twice as many hostages being held in another part of town!” I’d be all for raising awareness of the other hostages, but I wouldn’t deny these hostages their imminent rescue just because it might not have been fair to make them the #1 priority.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
Slacker-
“This is turning out okay in Iraq”.
I don’t know what possessed Bill Maher to make that comment. Please take a moment and look at Google or Yahoo News today.
We have spent way more money than we planned on spending. Our deficit is ballooning. We have disgraced ourselves by using torture, dogs, lethal force, violating both US and international law.
We have a raging insurgency. The country is tottering on the brink of civil war.
We have lost most of “coalition of the willing”.
We didn’t find any WMD, or any links to al-Qaeda.
We did not find any new mass graves that post-date the 1991 uprising.
We cannot supply basic security, electricity or water.
We cannot even get a significant amount of oil to market to help alleviate the current crunch.
The esteem of the country is in the toilet. And we had to kill tens of thousands of more people than Saddam would have managed to kill, in order to reach this disastrous point.
Now, there is some good news too. Here and there. But, if you had it to do all over again, would you still support this war on humanitarian grounds?
I accepted the war was inevitable, and was focused on figuring out a way to make it a net positive venture. I was wrong. I should have opposed Bush with all my might.
The Bushies mix of arrogance and hubris is so toxic that they cannot be entrusted to do anything humanitarian anywhere in the world.
Iraqis could have benefitted from regime change, theoretically. If the UN and Europe and the regional players had all been unified, we might have been able to force Saddam to resign. Failing that we would have had the credibility and resources to quickly rebuild Iraq as part of a truly international coalition.
Look how far short of that Bush fell?
What is there to support in their post-war plan?
And one of the major reasons he failed was his greed. He wouldn’t share any contracts, or honor existing contracts.
Another reason is that he insulted everyone’s intelligence by using fake intelligence.
I know our soldiers are working hard. But this war was a mistake. Bush’s own actions assured that it would be a mistake.
“The Bushies mix of arrogance and hubris is so toxic that they cannot be entrusted to do anything humanitarian anywhere in the world.
I completely agree. He surrounds himself with people who won’t challenge him (take the Social Security “town halls” as an example). That’s why he had a horrible showing at the debates against John Kerry, he wasn’t used to being confronted directly. His leadership style and “diplomacy” is akin to a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum. I will never understand how he got 51% of the vote, regardless of Kerry’s performance as a candidate.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, except that I believe I may have a handle on why Bush got his 51%. Check out my analysis here (I got lots of good mojo for it previously, btw, so at least six people here agreed with my take).
Alan
Maverick Leftist
Thanks for the link, you got more mojo from me. š I also happen to agree with canberra boy’s response. With respect to the debates, it seemed almost painful for the mainstream media to admit that Bush lost horribly. sigh oh well, I guess we still have to fight on.
Sure, but it was not only Bush who fell short there. The same could be said for France, Russia, and other states who allowed their corrupt ties to Saddam, or just pure selfishness or spite, to prevent them from joining in. Sure, Bush had thumbed his nose at the world in the way he dealt with them on a number of occasions, not least Kyoto and the ABM treaty. But other nations should have risen above this pettiness. (My all-around favourite nation, the Netherlands, did so.)
They screwed up a lot post-war, I agree. But more credibility and leverage belongs to those who weren’t naysayers from the beginning, those who said “yes, let’s do it–but let’s do it right”. If you said “don’t do it” and still say “we shouldn’t be doing it” why should anyone listen to your “here’s how we’re doing it wrong”?
No disagreement from me. Bushco is a major example of crony capitalism (in contrast to their supposed admiration for Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the free market, they prefer to use the taxing and regulatory powers of government not for the greater good, but for the selective benefit of their biggest donours and other friends and insiders). But so is Jacques Chirac. You don’t think he was looking out for his corporate buddies in France who were in bed with Saddam? (Putin’s case is similar, but I’m not sure it even qualifies as “crony capitalism” so much as straight up corruption.)
Alan
Maverick Leftist
I was annoyed with France at the time because I knew that we were going to war with or without the UN, and therefore, I was almost desperate that the UN would sign on and help.
I was operating on the assumption that this war could be a major catastrophe but there was no way to stop it.
I haven’t been proven wrong on that score either.
But if Chirac and Putin were holding out for corporate considerations, then we should have had them name their price. We should have honored those corporate considerations.
Instead we tried to force them to go along with deeply unpopular policies and steal all their money at the same time.
How can you blame them for saying ‘no thanks’?
Bottom line: if there was a real case for removing Saddam from power, we didn’t make it. And we didn’t come close to accomplishing the goal of what a good argument would be.
We didn’t give any respect or consideration to allies that had to explain the war to skeptical populations. We didn’t placate the fat-cats in those countries. And we verbally abused the politicians of those countries.
And then we totally fucked up the post-war planning on top of it all.
Then we tortured people and lost what little credibility we had left.
Sorry, I’m blaming the French and Russians for this clusterfuck. They might have helped if they had been given any real reason to. And it might have made all the difference.
Bush is to blame.
I’m NOT blaming the French and the Russians…
He is to blame. I knew it would remain ugly when the Bushies refused to allow countries who didn’t support the war to bid on reconstruction bids. That day I became just as angry as the day he issued the ultimatum to Saddam. It was an extension of his petulance.
Welshman arrested.
When I saw that headline….
Please, god or yahweh or goddess or allah or buddha or whatever deity or higher power may be hanging out there in the sky: Please make the U.S. press pick up on this part and talk it and shout it and sing it and tell it
until it comes home to bite dear leader on his pointy little head and nasty little ass. And until the deliberately obtuse and reality-challenged and terminally disconnected American voting public sees what has been done in its name.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Please dream on, sometimes dreams come true!