Further evidence of Iraq predetermination

Just as Blair has finished razzle-dazzling the Australian Parliament with another eloquent recital of the go the course mantra, a memorandum has come to light, via the New York Times, that adds further support to the existing Downing Street Memo thesis, that there was a predetermined policy to attack Iraq.

In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."

The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.

Although the United States and Britain aggressively sought a second United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to obtain — the president said repeatedly that he did not believe he needed it for an invasion.

This memo just documents what most of us already know. That is, there was no real evidentiary threshold in setting the course for war in Iraq, and all the puff about enforcing disarmament resolutions and genuine ultimatums was purely political cover for a predetermined policy.

What strike me most clearly about this, however, is how utterly disingenuous it makes the News Ltd-led media account of the French veto prior to the war. More specifically, it's a complete invalidation of that dichotomy, dominant at the time, which (mis)characterised the French position as an absolutist obstruction against any military action, in to the future, regardless of evidence or need.

Back then, we were erroneously meant to believe, that the French position was that they would veto any motion to take action against Iraq regardless. This gave Bush the always potent 'smelly frogs' angle, as well as providing a useful shield against the US's unilateral withdrawal from the doomed second UN resolution. This was important because it helped conceal that nobody actually supported an automatic trigger for war in the Council - which was the real crux of the issue, and the actual target of the veto threat.

In reality, the French veto threat, despite whatever valid arguments you can make about their Oil For Food involvement and financial motives, was entirely appropriate and non-absolutist. They merely defended what a majority in the Council thought - that an automatic trigger for war, prematurely ending the UNMOVIC inspection process, and locking the Security Council out of the evaluation and authorisation process, was illegitimate and should be blocked.

Indeed, given that the prior resolution framework required that the Council maintain apprised of the matter, that the Charter has a substantive commitment to war as a last resort, and that the Council cannot delegate Chapter VII authority, (as opposed to standard military operational authority), carte blanche, let alone from resolutions pertaining to Kuwait over a decade ago, I would argue it was the only legally permissible position. Before being leaned on, I'd imagine that's also what Lord Goldsmith felt as well, at least privately.

In light of this memo, we see how ridiculous this press narrative really was back then. It wasn't the frogs who had the absolutist and automatic position, unresponsive to the facts on the ground, it was Bush, who certainly wasn't bound to any kind of evidentiary burden that might make an argument from accountability make sense.