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Edward Jayne
October 25, 2002

Appalled by the 9-11 attack, by its deliberate murder of 3,000 civilians, I fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan, the use of Guantanamo Bay for interrogations, and most of the extraordinary Homeland Security measures to eradicate al-Qaida cells inside the U.S. However, I now oppose an invasion of Iraq on both moral and geopolitical grounds--also because it can only diminish the effectiveness of our anti-terrorism campaign.

Saddam Hussein might pose a long-term threat to the U.S. as well as many nations in the Near East, but I am not convinced by President Bush's rush to judgment in his two recent speeches. All governments in the region publicly oppose an invasion without full U.N. support, and, as Bush himself admits, we have tolerated Iraq's military buildup for fully eleven years now without trying to stop it. Suddenly, not more than eight weeks ago, Bush demanded immediate action without first seeking any kind of a diplomatic solution. More recently he has paid lip service to preliminary inspections in order to appease French, Russian, and Chinese delegations in the Security Council, all of which might exercise their power to veto his plan. However, he added new demands that make it impossible for Saddam Hussein to accept short of total surrender. Bush insists, for example, that the persecution of civilians be terminated in Iraq, knowing full well that this sweeping injunction could apply to almost any nation today--including the United States for its unspecified detention of anybody even remotely suspected of terrorism. Obviously, such a broad and empty demand is intended to prevent a diplomatic settlement, letting Bush go forward with an invasion. Bush also insists that potential witnesses of illegal activities be removed from Iraq with their entire families in order to be interrogated by international inspectors on supposedly neutral grounds, again knowing full well that no nation in the world would permit this, thus forcing the rejection of his demand and letting him go forward with an invasion.

Some of Bush's warnings in his two speeches are obviously exaggerated, for example when he speaks of Iraqi drones flying over America. How could such aircraft traverse both the length of the Mediterranean Sea and the width of the Atlantic Ocean? What total absurdity!

Bush also claims that Iraq could possess nuclear weapons by as early as 2003, yet all professional estimates have projected that it would take from 6 to 10 years. Moreover, we know today that North Korea, another member of Bush's designated "axis of evil" (which incidentally have little connection with each other), is in the final stages of developing weapons much further advanced than anything Iraq has in the pipeline. Yet the Bush administration chooses not to invade North Korea despite ample evidence of Pakistan's help, including the travel schedules of its nuclear physicists. Why this double standard? Also, why do we lack comparable specificity in the evidence our government cites against Iraq? Moreover, why did the Bush administration suppress reports of North Korea's nuclear program for twelve days while Congress debated whether to support his plan to invade Iraq? Were they afraid that comparisons might encourage increased resistance to an Iraq invasion by skeptics in Congress?

Also, Bush claims that Iraq harbors many al-Qaida refugees from Afghanistan, yet nearby Muslim nations harbor many more, and, according to some reports, most al-Qaida refugees in Iraq apparently live in or near the Kurdish region protected by U.S. planes from Iraqi sovereignty. Bush likewise claims that Iraq can use ballistic missiles with a range of several hundred miles, yet most of its missiles are limited to 100 miles. True, they can be retrofitted to fly farther, but there is no evidence this has been done. I suspect one reason Bush wants to invade Iraq instead of North Korea is because it is relatively defenseless. It lacks an effective missile capacity, so we can attack now to pick up a cheap victory while it is still possible.

It is important to remember that Bush does not suggest that Iraq had any part in the 9-11 attack. Nor does anybody else in his administration make this claim. However, he repeatedly asks us to share his sense of outrage that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against both Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels during his war against Iran, but without mentioning that Saddam Hussein was our ally at the time, and that we provided him with the technology to do this--also, that we had from sixty to eighty military advisors in Iraq who probably rendered advice in the matter, at least against Iranian troops (see NYT, Aug. 18).

Why, then, is there any compelling need to invade Iraq? I can only think of four reasons, two of which can be resolved by other means without resorting to an immediate invasion:

(1) It has become plain in recent years that Iraq possesses enormous oil reserves, second only to those of Saudi Arabia. How convenient that presumably the most dangerous partner in the so-called axis of evil happens to sit on these reserves and can be justifiably attacked and occupied because of its weapons program. To capture and put these untapped oil reserves under the authority of U.S. oil companies would destroy the economic grip of OPEC and guarantee bigger oil profits to the U.S. oil industry. How convenient for our nation's ex-Harken Chief Executive and all his good friends from the oil state of Texas!

(2) Israel would clearly benefit from the elimination of Iraq as a military threat, as so fervently argued by JINSA, CSP, and other Zionist think-tanks active in Washington politics today. However, there are too many other nations that pose almost as much of a threat: Iran, Syria, Libya, and even Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan if and when their governments are overthrown by fundamentalist extremists spurred to insurrection by the Iraq invasion. There would be little gain for Israel if our victory in one nation leads to the overthrow of any of these others by hostile extremists. Hints of things to come in response to Bush's current strategy can already be seen in Bali and Kuwait as well as the attack on a French freighter and the pivotal election of radical Muslim elements in Pakistan's two western provinces last week. In the long run, the best and only way for Israel to defend itself from potential enemies would be to resume the peace negotiations of Taba, Egypt, that Sharon automatically terminated when he became president of Israel in February, 2001.

But why an immediate invasion--one that takes place as soon as possible? This brings us to the third and fourth reasons, both of which have more to do with domestic priorities than the external threat of Iraq or anybody else:

(3) The Bush presidency was quickly losing popularity in late summer because of economic recession and the issue of corporate greed. To win in November, Bush needed to shift public opinion to a new and different headline story, and Iraq was at the top of the list. The transition occurred in less than two weeks, and Bush's popularity rating, which had dropped to 60 percent, the lowest since 9-11, was restored to from 65 to 70 percent by incessantly beating war drums to invade Iraq. Republican candidates for office have also been able to improve their chances in November by "focussing on war," as recommended by Bush's chief White House advisor, Karl Rove, thus enhancing the possibility that Bush might once again control both Houses of Congress, letting him once again implement his extreme right-wing political objectives without significant opposition in Washington.

and, (4) the current recession, of the so-called "W" variety, shows no signs of full recovery within the next year or two, since it eased up early this year, only to sink again to new lows. Because of excessive inventories, industrial productivity has sunk from over 80 percent to less than 75 percent, and overall economic improvement cannot be expected until productivity can be restored to former levels. Just as the Afghanistan invasion combined with a low-income tax reduction helped to renew productivity on a temporary basis eight months ago, a new invasion--this time of Iraq--might do the same at the beginning of next year, its $50-to-200 billion expenditure finally providing the neo-Keynsian starter motor to get our economy on its feet once again.

However, none of these ends justifies the invasion of Iraq. In fact, Bush's invasion plans may be rejected for pragmatic as well as moral reasons. Most of the fighting would take place in or near Iraq's cities, especially Baghdad, with a population between four and six million. And when fighting erupts on city streets, our superior fire power cannot outdistance Iraq's to such an extent that we don't suffer significant casualties as well. Many would die, Americans as well as Iraqi, and everybody in the world would be able to watch. Daily TV coverage by sympathetic reporters and photographers in "unliberated" cities and neighborhoods would show a global audience innocent citizens killed by air attacks, then bloody combat from house to house, even from floor to floor. Both Muslim and non-Muslim public opinion would be outraged by President Bush, not Saddam Hussein.

And once we defeat Iraq, whatever the cost, its subsequent occupation would be difficult, probably necessitating repressive measures comparable to those of Saddam Hussein because of the traditional rivalry among Iraq's rival ethnic groups, including Shi'ites, Sunni Muslims, Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkomans, as well as hostile factions within these groups. As a matter of history, nobody yet has been able to govern Iraq's mixup population except on a totalitarian basis since it was first patched together as a kingdom by Great Britain after World War I. The chronic threat of civil war would necessitate an occupation army something on the order of 100,000 troops, costing from $5 to $10 billion per year into the indefinite future.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz's plan to convert Iraq into a state-of-the-art Arab democracy once we defeat Saddam Hussein is utterly misguided. Nothing like this happened in Haiti, Panama, Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, or Afghanistan after we supposedly "liberated" them from the forces of evil. Why Iraq? And why would nearby nations feel anything but threatened by our military occupation of Iraq? A brand-new domino effect would suddenly loom as a possibility, with U.S. imperialism supplanting communism as the expansionary geopolitical menace. Everybody in the region would be fearful of new invasions the U.S. might decide to mount next in one direction or another. As for al-Qaida, it would be recruiting terrorists as never before, and striking at will throughout the rest of the world, reducing our nation's legitimate anti-terrorism campaign to shambles.

Does our current President (lest we forget, appointed by the Supreme Court) really think he's protecting the American people? Or anybody else? Does he think quick successive victories in Afghanistan and Iraq can do anything but antagonize the entire Muslim world from Casablanca to Bali? Does he think his unilateral preemptive strike against Iraq totally escapes comparison with Hitler's unilateral preemptive invasion of Poland, or Tojo's unilateral preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor? Is he that stupid? Was his flat "C" average in college during the sixties so effectively predictive of his presidential capabilities? As a slightly older product of the sixties (an English instructor at the time with more than my share of patriotic flat-C students), I have always considered the Vietnam War to have been a very terrible mistake; I am convinced that President Bush's strategy for invading and occupying Iraq will sooner or later bear far worse consequences for our nation, for the world as a whole.