The Iraq malaise

by Editor · December 31, 2003

Even after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Holy See continues to point out that the invasion of Iraq earlier this year was illegal and immoral.

While the arrest of Saddam, a particularly brutal despot, is gratifying, the Vatican’s muted reaction points to a crucial truth which seems to have been glossed over, especially in the media: the detention of Saddam Hussein was not the purpose of going to war.

Of course, the removal of Saddam’s regime has been a beneficial consequence of the invasion, and President George W Bush repeatedly declared “regime change” in Iraq as a prime objective.

However, a desire for “regime change” is not a licit reason for starting a war. Mr Bush and his allies knew this. This is why they lobbied the international community, through the United Nations, to invade Iraq on the basis of a notion that Saddam might have harboured “weapons of mass destruction”. When the United Nations could not be convinced, Mr Bush’s coalition unilaterally declared war on a sovereign nation that posed no clear or immediate threat to peace.

It must be of concern to the Holy See that the coalition includes traditionally Catholic states, among them Italy, Spain, and (surely to the Holy Father’s pain) Poland.

No weapons of mass destruction have surfaced, in all likelihood because there were none. It does not matter – the war has been waged, Iraq is now occupied, and US voters seem to care little about the apparently illusory rationale for the war.

If the war was neither about toppling a cruel dictator (and it must be noted that US foreign policy rarely has been inspired by the pursuit of lofty ideals) nor about Saddam’s arsenal, what were the reasons?

These are emerging slowly.

The wholesale privatisation of Iraqi state assets particularly those in the oil industry is already underway. The beneficiaries in that process are not Iraqis, but Western interests.

Contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq to be funded by oil sales, according to US policy reportedly were awarded already before the war. The beneficiaries mostly were corporations with links to Bush aides.

Mr Bush’s deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, last month announced that further contracts would not be awarded to companies based in countries that did not form part of the coalition.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration’s military budget has taken on obscene dimensions. Much of it likely will be spend on weaponry made by arms manufacturers who financed Mr Bush’s election campaign in 2000.

In Iraq, the installation of a pliable government dominated by representatives friendly to US interests seems inevitable. The US favours Ahmad Chalabi, a former exile and opponent of Saddam, to head such a government. Dr Chalabi, however, evidently enjoys little credibility among Iraqis. Will the US allow elections to take place if there is a possibility of a radical anti-American party winning? Conversely, will the installation of an unpopular regime set the scene for insurrection and even revolution?

The US has already miscalculated on several questions in its occupation of Iraq. Its greatest blunder, however, may become evident when the coalition troops eventually leave. It is probable that it will leave behind a politically destabilised country within an already volatile region. Instead of having combated terrorism, the US may well have fed it.

The world is a more dangerous place because of a war that was not licit, not moral, and not necessary. The capture of Saddam does not change this.

If the Vatican is trenchant in its criticism, these are the reasons why.