by Noam Chomsky
In January 1991, while the war drums were beating, the International Commission of Jurists observed to the UN Human Rights Commission that “after having perpetrated the most flagrant abuses on its own population without a word of reproach from the UN, Iraq must have concluded it could do whatever it pleased”; UN in this context means US and UK, primarily. That truth must be buried along with international law and other “utopian” distractions.22
An unkind commentator might remark that recent US/UK toleration for poison gas and chemical warfare is not too surprising. The British used chemical weapons in their 1919 intervention in North Russia against the Bolsheviks, with great success, according to the British command. As Secretary of State at the War Office in 1919, Winston Churchill was enthusiastic about the prospects of “using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes”—Kurds and Afghans—and authorized the RAF Middle East command to use chemical weapons “against recalcitrant Arabs as [an] experiment,” dismissing objections by the India office as “unreasonable” and deploring the “squeamishness about the use of gas”: “We cannot in any circumstances acquiesce in the non-utilization of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier,” he explained; chemical weapons are merely “the application of western science to modem warfare.”23
The Kennedy administration pioneered the massive use of chemical weapons against civilians as it launched its attack against South Vietnam in 1961- 62. There has been much rightful concern about the effects on US soldiers, but not the incomparably worse effects on civilians. Here, at least. In an Israeli mass-circulation daily, the respected journalist Amnon Kapeliouk reported on his 1988 visit to Vietnam, where he found that “thousands of Vietnamese still die from the effects of American chemical warfare,” citing estimates of one-quarter of a million victims in South Vietnam and describing the “terrifying” scenes in hospitals in the South, where children were dying of cancer and hideous birth deformities. It was South Vietnam that was targeted for chemical warfare, not the North, where these consequences are not found, he reports. There is also substantial evidence of US use of biological weapons against Cuba, reported as minor news in 1977, and at worst only a small component of continuing US terror.24
These precedents aside, the US and UK are now engaged in a deadly form of biological warfare in Iraq. The destruction of infrastructure and banning of imports to repair it has caused disease, malnutrition, and early death on a huge scale, including more than 500,000 children, according to UNICEF investigations—an average of 5,000 children dying each month. In a bitter condemnation of the sanctions on January 20, 1998, 54 Catholic bishops quoted the archbishop of the southern region of Iraq, who reports that “epidemics rage, taking away infants and the sick by the thousands,” while “those children who survive disease succumb to malnutrition.” The bishops’ statement, reported in full in Stanley Heller’s journal The Struggle, received scant mention in the press. The US and Britain have taken the lead in blocking aid programs—for example, delaying approval for ambulances on the grounds that they could be used to transport troops, and barring insecticides for preventing the spread of disease and spare parts for sanitation systems. Meanwhile, Western diplomats point out, “The US had directly benefited from [the humanitarian] operation as much, if not more, than the Russians and the French,” for example, by purchase of $600 million worth of Iraqi oil (second only to Russia) and sale by US companies of $200 million in humanitarian goods to Iraq. They also report that most of the oil bought by Russian companies ends up in the US.25
Washington’s support for Saddam reached such an extreme that it was even willing to overlook an Iraqi air force attack on the USS Stark, killing 37 crewmen, a privilege otherwise enjoyed only by Israel (in the case of the USS Liberty). It was Washington’s decisive support for Saddam, well after the crimes that now so shock the administration and Congress, that led to Iranian capitulation to “Baghdad and Washington,” Dilip Hiro concludes in his history of the Iran-Iraq war. The two allies had “co-ordinate(d) their military operations against Teheran.” The shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner by the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes was the culmination of Washington’s “diplomatic, military, and economic campaign” in support of Saddam, he writes. 26
Saddam was also called upon to perform the usual services of a client state: for example, to train several hundred Libyans sent to Iraq by the US so they could overthrow the Qaddafi government, former Reagan White House aide Howard Teicher revealed.27
It was not his massive crimes that elevated Saddam to the rank of “Beast of Baghdad.” Rather, it was his stepping out of line, much as in the case of the far more minor criminal Noriega, whose major crimes were also committed while he was a US client.
Exempt Rogue States
The qualifications of “rogue state” are illuminated further by Washington’s reaction to the uprisings in Iraq in March 1991, immediately after the cessation of hostilities. The State Department formally reiterated its refusal to have any dealings with the Iraqi democratic opposition, and just as before the Gulf War, they were virtually denied access to the major US media. “Political meetings with them would not be appropriate for our policy at this time,” State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher stated. “This time” happened to be March 14, 1991, while Saddam was decimating the southern opposition under the eyes of General Schwarzkopf, who refused even to permit rebelling military officers access to captured Iraqi arms. Had it not been for unexpected public reaction, Washington probably would not have extended even tepid support to rebelling Kurds, subjected to the same treatment shortly after.
Iraqi opposition leaders got the message. Leith Kubba, head of the London-based Iraqi Democratic Reform Movement, alleged that the US favors a military dictatorship, insisting that “changes in the regime must come from within, from people already in power.” London-based banker Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, said that “the United States, covered by the fig leaf of non-interference in Iraqi affairs, is waiting for Saddam to butcher the insurgents in the hope that he can be overthrown later by a suitable officer,” an attitude rooted in the US policy of “supporting dictatorships to maintain stability.”
Administration reasoning was outlined by New York Times chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman. While opposing a popular rebellion, Washington did hope that a military coup might remove Saddam, “and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein,” a return to the days when Saddam’s “iron fist . . . held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia,” not to speak of Washington. Two years later, in another useful recognition of reality, he observed that “it has always been American policy that the iron-fisted Mr. Hussein plays a useful role in holding Iraq together,” maintaining “stability.” There is little reason to believe that Washington has modified the preference for dictatorship over democracy deplored by the ignored Iraqi democratic opposition, though it doubtless would prefer a different “iron fist” at this point. If not, Saddam will have to do.28
The concept “rogue state” is highly nuanced. Thus, Cuba qualifies as a leading “rogue state” because of its alleged involvement in international terrorism, but the US does not fall into the category despite its terrorist attacks against Cuba for close to 40 years, apparently continuing through 1997, according to important investigative reporting of the Miami Herald , which failed to reach the national press (here; it did in Europe). Cuba was a “rogue state” when its military forces were in Angola, backing the government against South African attacks supported by the US. South Africa, in contrast, was not a rogue state then, nor during the Reagan years, when it caused more than $60 billion in damage and 1.5 million deaths in neighboring states, according to a UN commission, not to speak of some events at home—and with ample US/UK support. The same exemption applies to Indonesia and many others.
The criteria are
fairly clear: a “rogue state” is not simply a criminal state, but one that defies the orders of the powerful—who are, of course, exempt.
More on “The Debate”
That Saddam is a criminal is undoubtedly true, and one should be pleased, I suppose, that the US and UK, and the mainstream doctrinal institutions have at last joined those who “prematurely” condemned US/UK support for the mass murderer. It is also true that he poses a threat to anyone within his reach. On the comparison of the threat with others, there is little unanimity outside the US and UK, after their (ambiguous) transformation from August 1990. Their 1998 plan to use force was justified in terms of Saddam’s threat to the region, but there was no way to conceal the fact that the people of the region objected to their salvation, so strenuously that governments were compelled to join in opposition.
Bahrain refused to allow US/UK forces to use bases there. The president of the United Arab Emirates described US threats of military action as “bad and loathsome,” and declared that Iraq does not pose a threat to its neighbors. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan had already stated that “we’ll not agree, and we are against striking Iraq as a people and as a nation,” causing Washington to refrain from a request to use Saudi bases. After Annan’s mission, long-serving Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal reaffirmed that any use of Saudi air bases “has to be a UN, not a US, issue.”
An editorial in Egypt’s quasi-official journal Al-Ahram described Washington’s stand as “coercive, aggressive, unwise, and uncaring about the lives of Iraqis, who are unnecessarily subjected to sanctions and humiliation,” and denounced the planned US “aggression against Iraq.” Jordan’s Parliament condemned “any aggression against Iraq’s territory and any harm that might come to the Iraqi people”; the Jordanian army was forced to seal off the city of Maan after two days of pro-Iraq rioting. A political science professor at Kuwait University warned that “Saddam has come to represent the voice of the voiceless in the Arab world,” expressing popular frustration over the “New World Order” and Washington’s advocacy of lsraeli interests.
Even in Kuwait, support for the US stance was at best “tepid” and “cynical over US motives,” the press recognized. “Voices in the streets of the Arab world, from Cairo’s teeming slums to the Arabian Peninsula’s shiny capitals, have been rising in anger as the American drumbeat of war against Iraq grows louder,” Boston Globe correspondent Charles Sennott reported.29
The Iraqi democratic opposition was granted slight exposure in the mainstream, breaking the previous pattern. In a telephone interview with the New York Times, Ahmed Chalabi reiterated the position that had been reported in greater detail in London weeks earlier: “Without a political plan to remove Saddam’s regime, military strikes will be counterproductive,” he argued, killing thousands of Iraqis, perhaps even leaving Saddam strengthened along with his weapons of mass destruction, and with “an excuse to throw out UNSCOM [the UN weapons inspectors],” who have in fact destroyed vastly more weapons and production facilities than the 1991 bombing. US/UK plans would “be worse than nothing.” Interviews with opposition leaders from several groups found “near unanimity” in opposing military action that did not lay the basis for an uprising to overthrow Saddam. Speaking to a parliamentary committee, Chalabi held that it was “morally indefensible to strike Iraq without a strategy” for removing Saddam.
In London, the opposition also outlined an alternative program: (1) declare Saddam a war criminal; (2) recognize a provisional Iraqi government formed by the opposition; (3) unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraqi assets abroad; and (4) restrict Saddam’s forces by a “no-drive zone,” or extend the “no-flight zone” to cover the whole country. The US should “help the Iraqi people remove Saddam from power,” Chalabi told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Along with other opposition leaders, he “rejected assassination, covert US operations, or US ground troops,” Reuters reported, calling instead for “a popular insurgency.” Similar proposals have occasionally appeared in the US. Washington claims to have attempted support for opposition groups, but their own interpretation is different. Chalabi’s view, published in England, is much as it was years earlier: “Everyone says Saddam is boxed in, but it is the Americans and British who are boxed in by their refusal to support the idea of political change.”30
Regional opposition was regarded as a problem to be evaded, not a factor to be taken into account any more than international law. The same was true of warnings by senior UN and other international relief officials in Iraq that the planned bombing might have a “catastrophic” effect on people already suffering miserably, and might terminate the humanitarian operations that have brought at least some relief.31 What matters is to establish that “what we say goes,” as President Bush triumphantly proclaimed, announcing the New World Order as bombs and missiles were falling in 1991.
As Kofi Annan was preparing to go to Baghdad, former Iranian president Rafsanjani, “still a pivotal figure in Teheran, was given an audience by the ailing King Fahd in Saudi Arabia,” British Middle East correspondent David Gardner reported, “in contrast to the treatment experienced by Madeleine Albright . . . on her recent trips to Riyadh seeking support from America’s main Gulf ally.” As Rafsanjani’s 10-day visit ended on March 2, 1998, Foreign Minister Prince Saud described it as “one more step in the right direction towards improving relations,” reiterating that “the greatest destabilizing element in the Middle East and the cause of all other problems in the region” is Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians and US support for it, which might activate popular forces that Saudi Arabia greatly fears, as well as undermine its legitimacy as “guardian” of Islamic holy places, including the Dome of the Rock in East Jerusalem (now effectively annexed by US/Israeli programs as part of their intent to extend “greater Jerusalem” virtually to the Jordan Valley, to be retained by Israel). Shortly before, the Arab states had boycotted a US-sponsored economic summit in Qatar that was intended to advance the “New Middle East” project of Clinton and Peres. Instead, they attended an Islamic conference in Teheran in December, joined even by Iraq.32
These are tendencies of considerable import, relating to the background concerns that motivate US policy in the region: its insistence, since World War II, on controlling the world’s major energy reserves. As many have observed, in the Arab world there is growing fear and resentment of the long-standing Israel-Turkey alliance that was formalized in 1996, now greatly strengthened. For some years, it had been a component of the US strategy of controlling the region with “local cops on the beat,” as Nixon’s defense secretary put the matter. There is apparently a growing appreciation of the Iranian advocacy of regional security arrangements to replace US domination. A related matter is the intensifying conflict over pipelines to bring Central Asian oil to the rich countries, one natural outlet being via Iran. And US energy corporations will not be happy to see foreign rivals—now including China and Russia—gain privileged access to Iraqi oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia’s in scale, or to Iran’s natural gas, oil, and other resources.
For the present, Clinton planners may well be relieved to have escaped temporarily from the “box” they had constructed, which was leaving them no option but a bombing of Iraq that could have been harmful even to the interests they represent. The respite is temporary. It offers opportunities to citizens of the warrior states to bring about changes of consciousness and commitment that could make a great difference in the not-too-distant future.
3
Crisis in the Balkans
On March 24, 1999, US-led NATO forces launched cruise missiles and bombs at targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, “plunging America into a military conflict that President Clinton said was necessary to stop ethnic cleansing and bring stability to Eastern Europe,” lead stories in the press reported. In a televised address, Clinton explained that by bombing Yugoslavia, “we are upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause of peace
.”1
In the preceding year, according to Western sources, about 2,000 people had been killed in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, and there were several hundred thousand internal refugees. The humanitarian catastrophe was overwhelmingly attributable to Yugoslav military and police forces, the main victims being ethnic Albanian Kosovars, commonly said to constitute about 90 percent of the population (estimates vary). After three days of bombing, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, several thousand refugees had been expelled to Albania and Macedonia, two of the neighboring countries. Refugees reported that the terror had reached the capital city of Pristina, largely spared before, and provided credible accounts of large-scale destruction of villages, assassinations, and a radical increase in the generation of refugees—perhaps an effort to expel a good part of the Albanian population. Within two weeks the flood of refugees had reached some 350,000, mostly from the southern sections of Kosovo adjoining Macedonia and Albania, while unknown numbers of Serbs fled north to Serbia to escape the increased violence from the air and on the ground.