The Transatlantic Gap over Iraq

Abstract

This paper makes three major arguments: 1) US policy inconsistencies during the Iraq containment era alienated key European allies; 2) the allies really wanted the same outcome as the US in Iraq; and 3) the allies supported the US role as leader of the international system, but they envisioned a cooperative leader, not the unilateral actions of the Clinton and Bush (Jr) administrations. Thus, US policy inconsistencies are partially responsible for the lack of allied support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Three time periods are examined: the Gulf War (1990–91), the Clinton-led coalition that continued against Iraq under UN sanctions—prior to the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein (1991–2002), and events during the Bush administration which led to the 2003 takeover of Iraq. The paper concludes with lessons learned and implications for future of US–European relations.

Notes

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, the Department of Defense or that of the US Government or any other of its agencies. Comments are encouraged and should be addressed to [email protected]

1. Quoted in Michael Hirsh, ‘Bush and the World’, Foreign Affairs 81 (September/October 2002), p. 41.

2. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, Foreign Affairs 81 (July/August 2002), p. 25.

3. The US spent more on defense in 2003 than the next 15–20 states combined. It has overwhelming nuclear superiority, the dominant air force and navy, and the only capability to project power around the globe. It does all this by spending a mere 3.5 per cent of GDP on defense, which is why Paul Kennedy called it ‘the world's single superpower on the cheap’. See Brooks and Wohlforth, ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, pp. 21–2.

4. The term ‘hyperpower’ was used by the French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, who argued that America's simultaneous economic, military, technological and cultural dominance rendered it too powerful for the rest of world's good. He also warned that the US trend toward unilateralism requires institutional or state-centered counterbalancing restraints. See John Vinocur, ‘France Has a Hard Sell to Reign in U.S. Power’, International Herald Tribune, 6 February 1999, available at http://www.iht.com/IHT/JV/99/jv020699.html accessed on 2 August 2004.

5. These terms were coined by Japanese Ambassador Hisashi Owada according to Huntington, who paraphrases ‘that after World War II, the U.S. pursued a policy of “unilateral globalism”, providing public goods in the form of security, opposition to communism, an open global economy, aid for economic development, and stronger international institutions. Now it is pursuing a policy of “global unilateralism”, promoting its own particular interests with little reference to those of others’. The ‘rogue superpower’ term is Huntington's own. Samuel Huntington, ‘The Lonely Superpower’, Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999), p. 42.

6. Dimitri K. Simes, ‘America's Imperial Dilemma’, Foreign Affairs 82 (November/December 2003), pp. 91–100.

7. Robert Kagan, ‘America's Crisis of Legitimacy’, Foreign Affairs 83 (March/April 2004), pp. 66–7.

8. Direct quote from the Clinton administration QDR; see William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington DC: Government Printing Office 1997), Section 3, 1, available at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr/index.html accessed on 12 March 2004.

9. Bush, ‘The President's News Conference on the Persian Gulf Crisis’, 8 November 1990, in George W. Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Vol. 2, Washington DC, 1990, p. 1581.

10. William C. Wohlforth, ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’, International Security 24 (Summer 1999), pp. 8, 23–4.

11. Balance-of-threat theory is discussed in detail in Michael Mastanduno, ‘Preserving the Unipolar Moment’, International Security 21 (Spring 1997), pp. 59–63.

12. Brooks and Wohlforth, ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, p. 24.

13. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1984), p. 107.

14. Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon and Shuster 1991), p. 226.

15. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney discussed this rationale in a NSC meeting during August 1990. Quoted in Andrew Bennett, Joseph Lepgold and Danny Unger (eds.), Friends in Need: Burden Sharing in the Persian Gulf War (New York: St Martin's Press 1997), p. 47.

16. Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 223–4.

17. In addition to the P-5, members of the Security Council (1990) included: Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Ethiopia, Finland, Ivory Coast, Malaysia, Romania, Yemen (which abstained from the vote on 660), and Zaire. For the S/Res 660 text, see United Nations, ‘The United Nations and the Iraq–Kuwait Conflict: 1990–1996’, UN Blue Book Series, Volume IX (New York: UN Department of Public Information 1996), p. 167. Chapter VII of the UN Charter empowers the Security Council to ‘determine the existence of any threat to the peace … and shall make recommendations … to maintain or restore international peace’ (article 39). Moreover, it ‘call[s] upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary’ (article 40). See UN Charter online at www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html accessed on 30 December 2000.

18. Number of states executing sanctions against Iraq as of 6 September 1990, see ‘Mandatory Sanctions Imposed’, UN Chronicle (December 1990), pp. 12–13.

19. UN Blue Book Series Volume IX, pp. 170–71, 174–5.

20. UN Blue Book Series Volume IX, pp. 22–3, 178.

21. ‘The UN Acts’, UN Chronicle (December 1990), p. 11.

22. US Congress, House, Review of Persian Gulf Burden Sharing, Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Washington DC: Government Printing Office 1992), p. 40. The number of non-US troops—245,000—does not include the 100,000 Turkish forces defensively deployed on the Turkish-Iraqi border. The total number of countries contributing all types of personnel was 36, and the total number including financial contributors was 41, in addition to the United States. For a detailed breakdown on each state's contribution, see US Congress, House, Review of Persian Gulf Burden Sharing, pp. 44–92. See also Andrew Fenton Cooper, Richard A. Higgot and Kim Richard Nossal, ‘Bound to Follow? Leadership and Followership in the Gulf Conflict’, in Demetrios Caraley and Cerentha Harris (eds.), New World Politics: Power Ethnicity and Democracy (New York: The Academy of Political Science, 1993), p. 130.

23. James Gow (ed.), Iraq, the Gulf Conflict and the World Community, London, Brassey, 1993, p. 39.

24. Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 321, 333.

25. ‘The President's News Conference on the Persian Gulf Crisis’, 8 November 1990, in George Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, vol. 2 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office 1990), p. 1581 [italics added].

26. ‘The Road to War’, Newsweek, 28 January 1991, p. 58.

27. Joseph Lepgold, ‘Britain in Desert Storm’, in Bennett et al. (eds.), Friends in Need, pp. 70–71.

28. It was reported that the House of Commons voted 534 to 57 favoring the use of force against Iraq, and that British public opinion surveys showed 75 per cent favoring the use of force (90 per cent after the war started). Cooper, Higgott and Nossal, ‘Bound to follow?’ (note 22) p. 144.

29. James Walsh, ‘A Partnership to Remember’, Time, 11 March 1991, p. 50.

30. Gow, ‘Iraq: The Gulf Conflict’ p. 99.

31. Isabelle Grunberg, ‘Still a Reluctant Ally? France's Participation in the Gulf War Coalition’, in Bennett et al. (eds.), Friends in Need, pp. 114–15.

32. Grunberg, ‘Still a Reluctant Ally?’, pp. 124–7.

33. Cooper, Higgott, and Nossal, Nossal, ‘Bound to follow?’ (note 22) p. 143.

34. US Congress, House, Review of Persian Gulf Burden Sharing, pp. 15, 60.

35. The movement of VII Corps required an astounding 465 trains, 312 canal barges, and hundreds of road convoys to get to ports, then an additional 578 aircraft and 140 ships to get from European ports to the Gulf. See Jeffrey D. McCausland, ‘Coalition in the Desert’, in Fariborz L. Mokutari (ed.), Peace Making, Peacekeeping, and Coalition Warfare: The Future Role of the United Nations (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press 1994), p. 226.

36. The movement of VII Corps required an astounding 465 trains, 312 canal barges, and hundreds of road convoys to get to ports, then an additional 578 aircraft and 140 ships to get from European ports to the Gulf. See Jeffrey D. McCausland, ‘Coalition in the Desert’, in Fariborz L. Mokutari (ed.), Peace Making, Peacekeeping, and Coalition Warfare: The Future Role of the United Nations (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press 1994), p. 226.

37. Horst Teltschik, the German Foreign Minister, documents Bush's support of German unification in his memoirs, entitled ‘329 Days: An Insider's View of [German] Unification’. See Horst Teltschik, 329 Tage: Innenansichten der Einigung (Berlin: Siedler Verlag 1991), pp. 365–6.

38. Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 21; for Italian contributions, see US Congress, House, Review of Persian Gulf Burden Sharing, p. 65.

39. Department of Defense, ‘Conduct’, p. 22.

40. See Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 284–5.

41. Operation Provide Comfort included contingents from the UK, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany and Belgium. US forces also participated until September 2001 in this UN peacekeeping effort which provided Kurdish safe havens inside northern Iraq. See Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: I.B. Tauris 1999), pp. 25–37.

42. UN Blue Book Series, Volume IX, pp. 40–41. The demands amounted to a four step process, according to the UNSCOM Chairman. First, full and complete disclosure of its weapons systems by Iraq; second, UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors would verify the accuracy of the disclosure via inspections; third, prohibited weapons would be destroyed; and, finally, a monitoring process would be put into place. See Richard Butler, The Greatest Threat (New York: Perseus 2000), pp. 41–41.

43. UN Blue Book Series, pp. 29–33.

44. UN Blue Book Series, pp. 516–17.

45. UN Blue Book Series, pp. 90–91.

46. UN Blue Book Series, pp. 92–5. Kamel was killed by relatives upon his return to Baghdad. Later reports estimate Saddam would have had an operational nuclear device by 1993 had the Gulf War not interfered with production.

47. UN Blue Book Series, pp. 92–5. Kamel was killed by relatives upon his return to Baghdad. Later reports estimate Saddam would have had an operational nuclear device by 1993 had the Gulf War not interfered with production, pp. 103, 754–6.

48. During all previous UNSC votes, decisions had been unanimous and declared Iraq ‘in breech of its obligations’. Thus, it was disappointing that UN resolve had waned. See Butler, The Greatest Threat, pp. 86–92. P-5 refers to the permanent five members of the UN Security Council.

49. Butler asserts his intelligence information confirmed personal payoffs from Baghdad to Primakov. Butler, The Greatest Threat, pp. 102–10, 220–21.

50. Butler, The Greatest Threat, p. 49.

51. Robert O. Freedman, ‘American Policy toward the Middle East in Clinton's Second Term’, Stephen J. Blank (ed.), Mediterranean Security into the Coming Millennium (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute 1999), pp. 387–8.

52. This references Albright's assertion that sanctions would not be lifted under Saddam's rule, giving the Iraqi regime an excuse for noncompliance. See Kenneth Katzman, Iraq: International Support for U.S. Policy (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 19 February 1998), pp. 2–6.

53. Serge Schmemann and Douglas Jehl, ‘Analysis: Iraq Crisis Hurt U.S. in Mideast, but for How Long?’ New York Times, 27 February 1998, available at http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/022798iraq-us-assess/.

54. Barbara Crossette, ‘UN Rebuggs US on Threat to Iraq if it Breaks Pact’, New York Times, 3 March 1998, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res_9C0CE0DD1531F930A35750C0A96E958260&sec_&spon_&pagewanted_1, accessed 20 November 2008.

55. Freedman, ‘American Policy toward the Middle East’, p. 390.

56. General Fahad Al-Amir, Deputy Chief of Staff, Kuwaiti Armed Forces. Speech to Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 10 November 1998. See Fahad Al-Amir, ‘Kuwait, Iraq, and Challenges in the Gulf’, Policywatch, 12 November 1998.

57. Howard Schneider, ‘Baghdad Stiffens as U.S. Air Armada Assembles Nearby’, The Washington Post, 13 November 1998. Note: the Gulf Cooperation Council member states are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar.

58. Interestingly, B-52s from Diego Garcia were en route to bomb Iraq on 14 November when President Clinton cancelled the strike after learning of the new Iraqi offer. Skeptics publicly criticized this decision as reported in the Washington Post and Newsweek. See Paul K. White, Crises After the Storm: An Appraisal of U.S. Air Operations in Iraq since the Persian Gulf War (Washington DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy 1999), pp. 57–8.

59. White, Crises After the Storm.

60. Freedman, ‘American Policy toward the Middle East’, p. 390.

61. ‘Critics from Paris to Kuwait, But a Friend in London’, New York Times, 18 December 1998, p. A21. Desert Fox was carried out by US and UK forces during 16–19 December and included 300 strike sorties and 400 cruise missile attacks. See White, Crises After the Storm, pp. 56–60.

62. James Bennet, ‘Policy Power and Politics, With a Whiff of Unreality’, New York Times, 18 December 1998, p. A23; and Barbara Crossette, ‘At the UN, Alliances of the Cold War are Renewed’, New York Times, 18 December 1998, p. A19.

63. As reported in Slate Magazine, an online journal, 18 January 1999, available at www.slate.com.

64. Mustafa Barky, editor of Al Osbu, as reported by Schmemann and Jehl, New York Times, 28 February 1998.

65. Butler, The Greatest Threat, p. 213.

66. White, Crises After the Storm, pp. 63–4.

67. It is believed Iraq amassed $2.3 billion in oil contract kickbacks during 1997–2002. See Mark Hosenball, ‘Iraq's Black Gold’, Newsweek, 11 November 2002.

68. William Safire, ‘The Ultimate Enemy’, New York Times, 24 September 2001.

69. Dan Thomasson, ‘What Next in the War on Terrorism?’, Washington Times, 26 November 2001, p. 16.

70. For examples of this logic, see Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘Next Target in Terror War: Bush Says it Could be Iraq’, New York Times, 27 November 2001; David Hackworth, ‘Timely Next Target?’, Washington Times, 6 December 2001, p. 17; and Steven Mufson, ‘10 Leading Lawmakers Urge Targeting of Iraq’, Washington Post, 6 December 2001, p. 28.

71. Ann Scott Tyson, ‘U.S. Weighs Options Beyond Afghanistan’, Christian Science Monitor, 7 December 2001.

72. Gerald Seib, ‘Getting Saddam: A Simple Notion, Ensnared in Some Difficult Questions, Wall Street Journal, 28 November 2001.

73. See Philip Webster, ‘Blair May Back Strike on Iraq’, London Times, 4 December 2001.

74. Voting was unanimous in the Security Council, 15–0. See William Orme, ‘UN Approves Overhaul of Iraqi Trade Sanctions’, Los Angeles Times, 30 November 2001.

75. A Russian trader admitted to paying oil sales kickbacks to Saddam, in violation of economic sanctions. These amount to cash for weapons rather that ‘oil for food’, and there were fears among US policy makers and others that Saddam was using these funds to rebuild his WMD stockpiles since UNSCOM was no longer in-country to monitor the Iraqi weapons programs. See Bark Hosenball, ‘Iraq's Black Gold’, Newsweek, 11 November 2002.

76. The Congressional resolution and Bush's signing speech are online available at http://www.whitehouse.gov accessed on 7 November 2002.

77. ‘President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly’, 12 September 2002, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov accessed on 7 November 2002.

78. Julia Preston, ‘Security Council Votes, 15-0 for Tough Iraq Resolution’, New York Times, 9 November 2002, p. A1.

79. See Colum Lynch, ‘U.S., France, Near Deal’, Washington Post, 6 November 2002, p. 3; and Karen DeYoung and Colum Lynch, ‘6 Words Separate U.S., France on Iraq Language’, Washington Post, 31 October 2002, p. 19.

80. Preston, ‘Security Council Votes’, p. A1.

81. Preston, ‘Security Council Votes’, p. A1. Most analysts expected a Syrian abstention, indicating that Chirac's influence was significant.

82. ‘Transcript of Bush's Remarks on the Security Council's Iraq Resolution’, New York Times, 9 November 2002.

83. Julia Preston, ‘France Warns U.S. It Will Not Back Early War on Iraq’, New York Times, 21 January 2003, p. 1.

84. Interestingly, Chirac's arguments mirrored those of the French Foreign Minister during the Gulf War, which at the time were out of step with the international community.

85. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Shuster 2004), pp. 357–8.

86. The 32 coalition members included: Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Rep, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine. Available at http://www.mnf-iraq.com/the-coalition/coalition-forces.htm.

87. Fair to poor ratings were also pretty bad among the Germans (74%) and the British (77%). See Worldview 2002, Survey of six European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Italy and the Netherlands) by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 4 September 2002, pp. 2–3.

88. Worldview 2002, Survey, p. 3.

89. Elizabeth Mueller Gross, ‘How Others See Us: Perceptions of America in an Uncertain World’, Remarks on the Pew Global Attitudes Project, University of Maryland, 17 November 2003, available at http://www.intprog.umd.edu/ElizabethMuellerGross.doc.

90. Non-attributed interview with UN military advisor, May 2004.

91. Non-attributed interview with French official, May 2004.

92. Non-attributed interview with French official, May 2004.

93. Non-attributed interview with German official, May 2004.

94. Non-attributed interview with Dutch official, May 2004.

95. Non-attributed interview with French official, May 2004.

96. Quoted in Tim Reid and Clem Cecil, ‘General Tells Bush: Don't go it Alone’, London Times, 19 August 2002.

97. William Quandt, ‘New U.S. Policies for the Middle East?’ in David W. Lesch (ed.), The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Assessment (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1999), p. 426.

98. Interview with Pentagon Joint Staff official, J-5/Mideast Division, 4 May 1999.

99. Hirsh, ‘Bush and the World’, p. 40.

100. Hirsh, ‘Bush and the World’, p. 40.

101. James Madison, The Federalist Papers, Number 63.