| Edward Jayne Letter to Karl Rove's Assistant
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February 25, 2003 Susan B. Ralston
Dear Susan Ralston: Thank you for your response to the piece I sent to Karl Rove and the transcript of Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5 U.N. Security Council address. Of course my piece opposed to an Iraq invasion was completed on January 20, two weeks earlier, so I wasn't able to take into account the new information Powell offered when I first wrote you. As a matter of fact, I both listened to Powell's address and read its NYT transcript the next day with ample use of a yellow marking pen. I must confess the speech had a powerful impact on me. I seriously considered reversing my position against the invasion of Iraq, as much as anything because Powell seemed to demonstrate a clear connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. This would have been equivalent to al Qaeda's earlier connection with the Taliban that had in my opinion totally justified our invasion of Afghanistan to eradicate al Qaeda. If a clear-cut parallel could have been established, it would have been appropriate to support a comparable invasion of Iraq. However, it turned out that Powell's otherwise powerful speech was flawed in its use of evidence exactly where it mattered the most--his effort to demonstrate Hussein's connection with al Qaeda, as indicated by the enclosed NYT articles of Feb. 8, 9, and 10. Most important, the so-called Victory Brigade compound which Powell described as a factory to manufacture poisons for distribution in Europe turns out to have been an impoverished village with neither running water nor electricity except from a gasoline generator, both of which--water and electricity--are crucial resources in any major chemical production facility. Al-Zarqawi, the leader of this brigade whose role was emphasized by Powell, turns out to be living elsewhere, very probably in Iran. Both French and German intelligence sources have also indicated that they had been unsuccessful in their effort to demonstrate any connection. Even bin Laden's recent tape recommending a pan-Arab terrorist campaign supportive of Iraq indicated an expedient and essentially asymmetrical alliance: "The fighting should be in the name of God only, not in the name of national ideologies, nor to seek victory for the ignorant governments that rule all Arab states, including Iraq" (NYT, Feb. 12, p. A16). I think it was George Tenet of the CIA who argued last summer that al Qaeda and Hussein would only cooperate if forced into a hostile alliance by the pressure of an invasion, as now seems to be the case. In Powell's off-the-cuff U.N. Security Council address of Feb. 14, when he had sufficient time to amplify his evidence of an al-Qaeda connection, he merely said he hoped to be able to report such evidence at a later time. So nothing yet has established Saddam Hussein's connection with Al Qaeda. In a court of law this case would be thrown out. I realize the terrorist threat we are now up against necessitates more effective defensive measures than would be provided by the legal machinery of a democratic society. However, the prospect of war also necessitates absolute confidence that it is the last resort--that nothing short of war is possible. Even George Bush Sr.'s presumably surgical 1991 attack on Iraq bore a grotesque outcome that should not be repeated: the 6,000 Iraqi troops (conscripts all) who were buried alive by U.S. tanks with ploughs mounted on the front, the 400 mothers and their children who were mistakenly killed in Baghdad's Amiriya bomb shelter, and the countless U.S. troops who now suffer from the Gulf Syndrome. Nasty surprises inevitably typify warfare, and these should be avoided at all cost--best of all by avoiding war. So we're left with the excuse that an invasion is necessary primarily because of Iraq's WMD production, but here, too, there are factors to be taken into account that would justify the avoidance of war by prolonging inspections as proposed by today's French memorandum published in the NYT. Condoleezza Rice describes this memorandum as "the worst of both worlds," but I must disagree. As well as I can determine from examining its text, again with great care, the inspection regime proposed by France seems as if it would be quite effective, permitting a containment strategy better than those already used by President Eisenhower against Egypt, President Kennedy against Cuba, and President Reagan against Libya, as explained by columnist Nicholas Kristoff, also in today's NYT. For all U.N. inspections conducted since early December indicate that Iraq does not have a thriving weapons industry at this point. This is why today's French memorandum can state with categorical certainty, "While suspicions remain, no evidence has been given that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction or capabilities in this field." Granted, Iraq might have a small and moribund WMD program, for example in cellars and the backs of trucks, but nothing seems to exist large enough to be detected by satellites or reported with any accuracy by defectors supposedly linked with WMD production. Surely these defectors could have disclosed the existence of permanent facilities somewhere in Iraq to confirm their allegations. But nothing has been found. If Iraq did have production capabilities similar to those of, say, the U.S. or Israel, inspectors with the intrusive freedom they now exercise in Iraq would have no difficulty in exposing their operations. But this has not been the case, not even after the CIA and FBI released supposedly top-secret information to U.N. inspectors to augment their list of suspected sites once Iraq had turned in its report on December 8. At least some of this information was finally provided to U.N. inspectors, but, as far as I can tell, it has led to absolutely nothing and has been dismissed by knowledgeable sources linked with UN inspectors as "garbage." The specific evidence publicized by American spokesmen to justify an invasion also turns out to be relatively inconsequential. For example the 3,000 pages of Atomic energy secrets found in an Iraqi scientist's home was dated, as far as I can recall, not later than 1992, over a decade ago. Likewise, Iraq's al Samoud 2 missiles (hardly WMD) have, at most, a range not more than fifteen to twenty miles farther than the permitted range of 92 miles, and their immediate destruction seems an excessive demand right now, since Iraq is on the brink of being invaded. Likewise, the Iraqi excuse that they didn't keep records of their destruction of chemical and biochemical weapons does not seem entirely absurd. This sort of thing happens all the time in non-western societies, and the current effort of Iraqi officials to encourage the chemical analysisof sites where they claim to have poured these deadly substances, for example the Al Aziziya range 60 miles southwest of Baghdad, seems worthy of acknowledgement by U.S. spokesmen. The total lack of evidence cannot be used to indict Saddam Hussein for having hidden this evidence. This kind of reasoning is unacceptable in a court of law, since it could be used against innocent suspects as well as the guilty. Imagine the double-bind involved: "We accuse you of having murdered your husband, and your lack of evidence to prove your innocence (no weapon, no motive, no dead body) all the more demonstrates your guilt and lack of cooperation as well as the necessity of imposing capital punishment." This sounds absurd, but it's pretty much the line of argument now being fed the American public by government spokesmen. So one is left with the task of trying to fathom the REAL reasons for invading Iraq, and, as indicated in my Jan. 20 letter, there are several possibilities: (1) oil, of course, as Paul Krugman indicated in his column last Friday (U.S. officials talking off the record of oil as the spoils of war); (2) helping Israel against the possibility of attack by hostile border states in the near or distant future; (3) a shift in the U.S. economy to greater neo-Keynsian emphasis upon military defense in order to restore industrial productivity to earlier levels (from less than 75 percent today to something over 80 percent); and (4) the use of warfare as a jingoist issue timed to regain the U.S. Senate last November. It's the second of these reasons that bothers me the most, for I suspect neo-conservative Zionists might once again be deluding a Republican president regarding Iraq. Back in 1990, when Saddam Hussein misinterpreted April Glaspie's words of encouragement as tacit permission to capture the entire nation of Kuwait, President Bush Sr. took a week's vacation trout fishing to sort out options all by himself in response to the crisis. As far as I can remember, he decided to attack Iraq at least partly to eliminate the Zionist excuse that negotiations with Palestinians were impossible as long as border states such as Syria, Iran, and, most of all, Iraq, were still able to threaten the borders of Israel. A quid pro quo was thus intended pretty much with the logic, "We'll take out Iraq, and in response you can begin serious negotiations with the Palestinians." President Bush Sr. then carried out his part of the tacit arrangement, if without actually invading Iraq, but in response Israel dithered with one excuse or another against negotiations, and the American Jewish community conveniently shifted its allegiance back again to the Democratic party, helping to elect President Clinton, who seemed more friendly to the Zionist cause at that point. Clinton then proceeded to acquaint himself with the issues involved, and by the end of his second term he likewise sought to impose some kind of a settlement--an effort that ended in failure when Sharon was elected in Israel, thus bringing to a close the Taba negotiations as a useful extension of Camp David agreements that might have provided a major breakthrough. Now, it seems, Paul Wolfowitz and his neo-conservative friends in your administration (Perle, Feith, Libby, Bolton, Abrams, Grossman, etc.) are assiduously promoting a second campaign against Iraq, one that produces "regime change" and at last eliminates Saddam Hussein on the assumption that once this is done, and only then, the "road map" for a full settlement can be imposed by Sharon in Israel, one that might even satisfy the Palestinians. Two birds would thus be killed with one stone--(a) the Panglossian creation of democracy in Iraq (Wolfowitz's mantra), and (b) the no less Panglossian achievement of peace in Israel. But you gotta watch out. Just as President Bush Sr. was disappointed by the outcome for the tradeoff he sought, so, too, could it happen to President Bush Jr. Once Iraq is neutralized as a potential foreign enemy, thereby diminishing the threat of Syria, Iran, and other Near Eastern Arab states, Sharon can then take entirely unacceptable steps with little, if any, opposition. This might well entail ethnic cleansing, the transfer of large segments of the Palestinian population--perhaps all of it--to Jordan, Lebanon, or other border states. In effect, the peace terms imposed by Sharon can be much less generous than anticipated, and nobody would be able to do much of anything about it. Granted, the capture of Iraq might make a fair settlement possible in Israel, but it would also make a harsh and ultimately disastrous settlement just as possible. In any case, one suspects Sharon's final choice could be a good deal less generous than anticipated. Ever since the sixties it seems fresh new U.S. Presidents were beguiled by Zionists into supportive policies, only to discover while in office that they were being manipulated in a dangerous fashion, necessitating a more realistic diplomatic stance that in turn led pro-Israeli U.S. voters to seek out new candidates who would once again provide useful benefits to Israel early in their presidency. With President Bush's father the specific turning point was the 1991 Iraq invasion, and now it seems to be deja vu all over again at the beginning of the twenty-first century, if with a new and more dangerous twist. Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid about this recurring scenario, but you can check for yourself by consulting the elder President Bush--also, if you want, Presidents Clinton, Carter, and Ford. If the primary impetus for the Iraq invasion is neoconservative led by Zionists, be wary of an outcome that might be harmful to all involved, Israel as much as anybody else. What I suggest you might do in your situation is to explore a variety of fallback strategies in case of nasty surprises of one sort or another both on the battlefield and in national and international politics. If, for example, France, Germany, Russia, and China prevail in the U.N. Security Council, as I hope they do, you might consider going along with them for the time being, meanwhile keeping the Kuwait and Qatar bases open for other possibilities. If, by awful choice, you launch an invasion against Iraq, be fully prepared for negative consequences in Israel additional to the United States and the rest of the world. For you don't know what is going to happen. I've read that Wolfowitz once actually argued that Iraq should be high on the agenda for invasion because it was an easy target--there wouldn't be much chance of anything wrong happening. Today, however, it's exactly the opposite case. Al Qaeda, the Hammas, and other such terrorist groups will probably launch counter-attacks across the Arab world as well as in Europe and the United States. North Korea will rattle its weapons system, OPEC oil producers will take full advantage of the crisis in Iraq compounded by the crisis in Venezuela, and public opinion throughout the world will spin out of control, especially if the U.S. mounts its invasion after this option has been rejected by a wide margin in the Security Council. The February 15 demonstrations will be dwarfed by those to come, and at least a couple of friendly governments will very likely topple both in Europe and the Near East. Moreover, new surprises can be expected, just as the creation of al Qaeda was spawned by the first invasion of Iraq. For in fact it WAS 1991 that produced Al Qaeda. What rough beast will march toward Bethlehem the next time? Thanks again for your letter, and feel free to answer. I would be delighted to continue the correspondence.
Yours truly, Edward Jayne xc: Karl Rove
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