Tag Archives: Saddam Hussein

Britain, Defence, Europe, Foreign Affairs, Government, Military, National Security, NATO, Politics, Society, United States

Being prepared for war is essential, but war is not cheap…

ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE STUDY

A study released by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) shows that Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost the UK Treasury more than £29 billion. In the report, the think tank argues that the wars were “strategic blunders, spreading terrorism, drumming up resistance and increasing the opium trade”.

The conclusions, though, are controversial. For instance, the authors of the study assert that various terrorist groups would not be infiltrating Syria or threatening Britain had Saddam Hussein stayed in power. Yet, Hussein was a bloodthirsty tyrant and despot, who clearly acted as a state sponsor of terror. Tens of thousands of lives were lost, thousands more were gassed in ethnic style cleansing in northern Iraq, and Saddam Hussein would certainly have had vast stockpiles of nerve and chemical agents at his disposal left over from his 8-years war with Iran. Many of these stockpiles still remain unaccounted for. Had Hussein not been toppled he doubtless would have continued to persecute his own population. The tyrant’s bloody wars against the Kurds in the north and Arab populations of the south should never be forgotten.

Putting aside the arguments about Britain’s role in the ‘War on Terror’, one uncontroversial fact emerges from the report which is indisputable: war is not cheap. The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has witnessed massive cuts to our Armed Forces budget. Army numbers have been drastically cut back, aircraft have been withdrawn, tank battalions diminished, and even our last aircraft carrier decommissioned. Further cuts are imminent. Many of these cuts are being justified by the theory that we would never have to engage in the variety of long-term overseas military adventures that typified our activities and engagements during the Cold War era.

Since 2001, however, we have actually been involved in two such operations at a significant cost. And within the last few days, President Barack Obama announced that he would like America to act more as part of an international coalition rather than taking unilateral action. This implies, at least, a continued British role in Western security.

The UK has to be prepared for all eventualities, and adequate contingencies should be in place. As relations with Russia continue to worsen, for example, it might prove necessary for the UK to play a part in the wider campaign of checking Vladimir Putin’s belligerence. Only last month, Britain sent four Typhoon fighter jets to the Baltics as part of a NATO deployment, a sign that the West is unwilling to allow Europe to disintegrate at the hands of the Russian president. Nobody wants a conflict, but the potential for a tough offence remains the best defence.

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Foreign Affairs, Government, Middle East, Politics, Syria, United Nations, United States

Comparing Syria today with Iraq in 2003…

ANALYSIS

Many commentators use Iraq as a benchmark when judging American foreign policy in the Middle East. Whilst no one will want ‘another Iraq’, and placing rhetoric aside, how does Syria today actually compare to Iraq in 2003?

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s President, and Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi despot, were both Ba’athist dictators presiding over countries that are an unstable balance of varying sectarian, political and ethnic groups. Long before any suggestion of U.S. military involvement, both regimes committed grave atrocities against their civilian populations. In 1988 Saddam Hussein dropped chemical bombs on citizens in the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing around 5,000 and injuring thousands more. Prior to that, and in 1982, Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s former leader, crushed an uprising in the Syrian city of Hama, killing more than 20,000 people.

Iraq was plagued with sectarian violence (which continues today) following the political vacuum created by the US-led invasion. The bloody civil war in Syria is already dividing along sectarian lines at a time when these divides are deepening across the entire Middle East region.

Making the case for war is the second comparative. The US-led invasion of Iraq primarily centred on Hussein’s failure to co-operate with U.N. weapons inspections and the since-discredited evidence and intelligence on the country’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. When it comes to Syria, President Obama has signalled that Assad’s use of chemical weapons on unarmed civilians is a ‘red line’ and that the U.S. will want to disrupt and degrade the regime’s military capabilities against civilians.

The United Nations have said that around 100,000 have been killed in Syria so far. If the U.S. doesn’t intervene, we know that many more will perish before a political solution is found. We won’t know, however, how many will be killed if the U.S. carries out military strikes, irrespective of how accurate the missiles are deemed to be. As many as 125,380 civilians were killed following the U.S. invasion of Iraq; it’s difficult to argue that this many would have died if Iraq had not been invaded in 2003.

The cost of intervention must also be considered. An estimate of the overall cost of the Iraq war is said to run as high as $2 trillion. Whilst Washington has said that military action in Syria will be far more limited, and there will be ‘no boots on the ground’, the Cato institute suggests that the cost of a Syrian intervention would need to include $500 million for training rebels, a further $500 million for establishing an initial Syrian no-fly zone, and then as much as a billion dollars a month in military operational costs. Expect costs to inflate beyond official figures, as they invariably do.

The issue of outside involvement is also important to note. Unlike Iraq pre-2003, there is already a high level of external involvement on the ground in Syria. The Gulf States, along with Turkey, as well as the U.S. and Europe, are offering varying degrees of financial and military support to a broad range of anti-Assad factions. Assad himself can still count on backing from Iran and Russia. The Arab Spring has meant that politics across the region is now far more volatile and unpredictable than it was ten years ago; there can be no doubt that Syria’s interventions will have far-reaching ramifications across the Middle East and post-Arab Spring.

Appetite for war is the final consideration. America’s experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have dampened public appetite for war. A ‘war weary’ nation will have reduced expectations that any U.S. military involvement in another Middle Eastern country will be neat or quick. If Mr Obama does win support in Congress, the U.S. will have a clear mandate to go to war in Syria with France as its chief European partner. The U.S. can also expect support from the Arab League, too. In an unusual intervention it has urged the international community to ‘take the deterrent and necessary measures against the culprits of this crime that the Syrian regime bears responsibility for’. Just as in Iraq, the U.S. cannot hope for UN backing for its actions because of veto wielding Russia and China. Arguably, though, this was seen as more important in 2003 because today we have lower expectations of the UN’s divided and indifferent Security Council.

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First World War, History, Second World War, United States, Warfare

History is littered with examples of chemical and biological attacks…

…Damascus suffered an appalling gas attack in which hundreds died, but other incidents in history have been much worse.

IT was a singularly evil chemical weapons attack, but tragically the hundreds killed in Damascus just two weeks ago were the latest victims in a long history of the use of poison gas to kill soldiers and civilians. This entry is an examination of past atrocities where many exacted an even greater toll:

IRAQ AGAINST THE KURDS… Saddam Hussein’s regime used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from around 40 villages in northern Iraq. On March 16, 1988, he carried out the most deadly attack, dropping poisons including mustard gas, sarin and VX on the town of Halabja. Men, women and children choked to death in the indiscriminate attack.

The atrocity prompted the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, an international pact banning production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons. Only seven nations (including Syria) are not signatories. The death toll in Halabja was reported as being up to 5,000.

IRAN-IRAQ WAR, 1980-88… Hussein used sarin and mustard gas against Iran to tip the war in Iraq’s favour and forced Tehran to negotiate. But newly declassified CIA documents revealed recently the US knew about the use of chemical weapons but refused to act because Washington feared an Iranian victory. Up to 20,000 people were killed in the 8-year war.

VIETNAM… Between 1965 and 1975, in the bitter war against North Vietnam, the US dropped millions of tons of incendiary napalm to defoliate dense forests in which enemy fighters were hiding. The jelly-like substance ignited and stuck to skin, burning through muscle and bone, causing hideous injury and often death. America also dropped 50 million tons of Agent Orange, a super-strength chemical herbicide, to destroy all plants. But poisonous dioxins seeped into the soil and water supply, entering into the food chain and leading to severe health problems and disabilities for generations. More than a million people perished, as well as 400,000 Vietnamese children born with birth defects were recorded due to exposure to Agent Orange.

HITLER… Hitler refrained from using chemical weapons in battle but millions of Jews were transported to extermination camps, notably Auschwitz in Poland, and were suffocated in gas chambers using cyanide-based Zyklon B. Some six million Jews died in the Holocaust, plus gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, and Soviet prisoners.

WORLD WAR TWO… Between 1937 and 1945, Japan launched both chemical and biological attacks while invading China. Emperor Hirohito authorised use of toxic gas on more than 2,000 occasions. In 1941, members of a secretive Japanese research and development facility (Unit 731) airdropped fleas contaminated with the bubonic plague on the Chinese city of Changde. Tens of thousands were reported killed.

ITALO-ABNYSSINIAN WAR… Ignoring the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical or biological agents in war, Mussolini’s Italy unleashed mustard gas during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Retaliating for the killing of one of its pilots, the air force dropped up to 500 tonnes of poison. An estimated 15,000 perished.

FIRST WORLD WAR… Known as the ‘chemists’ war’ for introducing deadly poison to combat. In 1915, at Ypres, Belgium, Germany opened thousands of canisters of chlorine upwind of Allied troops, condemning many to an agonising death. By 1918 chemical weapons had proliferated on both sides – including phosgene, cyanide and mustard gas. Horrified by the effects, 15 countries signed the Geneva Protocol. Around 90,000 were killed and more than one million people were injured.

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