Articles with the Tag War on Iraq

Dutch government did want to help invade Iraq

Dutch politics, War on Iraq
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After last weeks revelations about the covered up legal advice not to participate in the occupation of Iraq, comes new evidence that the then government also wanted to participate in the actual war. Dutch broadcaster RTL, has gotten hold of several primary documents which made clear that the ministry of defence had already started preparations for Dutch participation while the government was busy laying the groundwork for a vote in parliament. This while Balkenende, then leading his first government, has always insisted military support for the invasion had never been considered.

All of which only strengthens the cause for a parliamentary inquiry, as so much still remains unclear about what the government knew and did not know about the War on Iraq. This, the question whether or not the Dutch participation in the occupation was legal, whether or not the government realised the weapons of mass destruction didn’t exist…

In a roundabout way it also shows that the protests against the war were not completely futile. The documents also revealed that while the government was considering military participation, the protest and widespread opposition amongst the Dutch against the war ultimately dissuaded them from it. Granted, it wasn’t a complete succes for the anti-war movement, as we still helped with the occupation, but it does show that protest can work.

Dutch doubts about War on Iraq covered up

Dutch politics, War on Iraq
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Back in 2003 the then Dutch government -as now led by Balkenende and his Christian-Democrats- was quite keen to support the War on Iraq, while the majority of the Dutch voters and a large part of parliament were not. So, in a typical Dutch compromise it was decided to only support the war politically, not to offer military support but to be prepared to take part in the subsequent occupation of Iraq, as we indeed did. As we now know the British Foreign service had grave doubts about the legality and legitimacy of the war, but was overridden by the political leadership. As we learned only today, it seems it was exactly the other way around in the Netherlands.

Today the NRC Handelsblad newspaper got its hands on a secret foreign affairs memo casting doubt on the legality of the Dutch government’s position, but held back from the minister responsible by the ministry’s most senior civil servants! The document, written just after the invasion started, expressed serious concerns about the legal arguments underpinning the Dutch position, claiming it “failed both materially and procedurally”. However, a hand written note on the memo’s first page says “Many thanks. Carefully store this in the archives for posterity. This discussion is now closed”. With this note, written by the then secretary-general of the ministry, Frank Majoor, the memorandum was indeed safely locked away, until NRC Handelsblad got hold of it recently and published it online (PDF). An ironic note written by the lawyers responsible for the memo adds, “apparantly “audite et alteram (sic) does not apply in this case”.

The 64,000 dollar question now is if this was the secretary general’s own decision or whether the minister, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer –who would become the NATO secretary-general in december of 2003– knew about the memo already and made the decision not to be formally brieved on it. This is after all the sort of information a minister should pass on to parliament, especially when it still has to approve sending occupation troops to Iraq. If parliament knew the government’s own lawyers are doubtful about the legality of the war, this could very well have meant it would have voted against this decision. And we couldn’t have that, could we?

All of which explains a lot about why Balkenende vigerously opposes any inquiry into the War on Iraq and the Dutch contribution to it. He knows his own role and that of his then-government is dodgy and he has no wish to be “hung” for old crimes. In fact, the current government coalition had already stipulated in its coalition agreements that it would not support any inquest. With this new revelation however, there might just be enough support in parliament for such an inquest anyway…

Preparation for future wars

Antiwar, War on Iran, War on Iraq
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I’ve talked about the failure of the antiwar movement before, in that it failed to stop the War on Iraq from happening, despite the protests held by tens of millions of people all over the world in the months before the start of the war. One common complaint heard at the time was that the protests came too late, that the troops were already in place, the preperations made and that therefore war was inevitable. I’m not sure this was entirely true; the protests did keep the Netherlands out of the war proper, though sadly not out of the occupation and I can see that if the Stop the War campaign had made different tactical and strategical choices in 2003 it might’ve kept the JUK out as well. There is however a kernel of truth in the idea that anti-war protests usually come too late, when the war is already started or preparations are so advanced stopping is impossible. It doesn’t help that for the most part anti-war movements are created largely adhoc, in response to a threatening war, that they die down in times of “peace”.

When you stop to think about it, it’s absurd that we live in a time when it’s assumed normal that even a country like the Netherlands, with no real enemies nearby is spending millions if not billions of euros each year on defence. Moreover we’re spending it not to defend our own country, but to enable our army to invade and occupy other countries. During the nineties, while our attention was elsewhere, the Dutch army transformed itself from a tank heavy Cold War style “defend the Fulda Gap” army into a lean, mean humanitarian intervention fighting machine, laying the foundations for getting involved first in Yugoslavia, then Kosovo and finally Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s the status quo, in which criticism of defence spending is seldom on a fundamental level, but mainly on issues of cost or choice of spending.

What brought this to mind is the news that the UK ministry of Defence is going ahead with a thirteen billion pound tanker investment, in which it gets over a dozen new tanker/transport planes. These planes are not needed for the defense of the United Kingdom, certainly not in that number. Instead they’ll be invaluable for the next Iraq or Afghanistan… That’s why we need an anti-war movement that doesn’t just mobilise when war is imminent, but that opposes defence spending from the start. If we have an army that’s capable of “humanitarian interventions”, interventions is what we get. We need to take away these tools that enable our armies to start wars. We need to stop the preperations for future wars, not just the current war.

Five years on and nothing’s changed

Antiwar, War on Iraq
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Despite the sheer inevitability of the coming war, I felt quite optimistic five years ago, in that short period between February 15th, the day the war protests went global and over 15 million people marched against a war on Iraq and March 19th, the day we learned all those protests had achieved nothing. At the time we were all working hard in the day to day organising of protests, as documented here and this left us without too much time to feel pessimistic in. The mood on the ground, even in such a traditional queen, county and navy town like Plymouth was overwhelmingly antiwar and it seemed absurd that it would happen, until it did happen.

Now, five years and a million dead or more later, it’s hard not to feel disillusioned. None of the criminals responsible for the war have had to pay for their crimes. Bush and Blair both got re-elected, a few of the more obvious culprits got to retire early, but nobody above the level of a Lynne England has had to go to prison for warcrimes yet. We’ve failed and I can’t see the situation improving quickly. Like Lebanon in the eighties, Iraq has become a regular staple of our television news, but not something that seems to have much to do with ourselves anymore…

June 2002!

War on Iraq
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More evidence, if any was needed, that the War on Iraq was planned long before the “WMD crisis” erupted:

Col. John Agoglia, who served as a war planner for Gen. Tommy Franks at the United States Central Command, said the idea of using the Iraqi Army had long been an element of the invasion strategy.

“Starting in June 2002 we conducted targeted psychological operations using pamphlet drops, broadcasts and all sort of means to get the message to the regular army troops that they should surrender or desert and that if they did we would bring them back as part of a new Iraq without Saddam,” said Colonel Agoglia, who serves as the director of the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute of the Army.

Once the war got under way and many members of the Iraqi Army began to desert their posts, a different vision on how to proceed began to emerge at the Defense Department.

We knew that everything was in readiness for war in mid-2002, but “you don’t launch a new product in August”. This account seems to confirm that. (via Atrios).