| The original justification for war on Iraq was to remove weapons of mass destruction but increasingly, as this motive was discredited (eg see the transcript of an interview with Hans Blix and the 'Counter Dossier' by Labour Against the War) the ‘just cause’ became the liberation of the Iraqi people. Yet, humanitarian organisations like Amnesty International were not calling for war. One proposal that should have been tried before war was the establishment of an ad hoc international court to try key war criminals in the Dictator’s regime. Saddam Hussein and his immediate entourage would have been indicted but it would have been made clear that there would be an amnesty for others – perhaps through a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission. This might have helped create a crack in the edifice which could have helped build up some leverage for the Iraqi opposition. The efforts of Ann Clwyd MP’s organisation INDICT which campaigned for this kind of approach and Amnesty International’s calls to bring to justice to perpetrators of crimes using international law (by requesting extradition of suspects or investigating them when they enter territories under international jurisdiction), never received the full-hearted support of the Governments who had the power to bring this about.
In addition to indictment, the operation of the sanctions regime should have been redesigned to loosen the grip that Saddam Hussein had on civil society. The UN, not Saddam Hussein should have been in charge of administering the Oil for Food Programme, and the programme’s expansion could have been conditional on reductions in military spending and increases in health and education spending. As it was Saddam Hussein used ration cards as a potent weapon to get the Iraqi people to do the bidding of his Ba’ath Party. Other changes in the sanctions regime could have targeted Saddam Hussein and his entourage by freezing their foreign bank accounts.
Following the passing of 1441 with unanimous support and the threat of ‘serious consequences’ (which were supposed to be decided on by the UN, see article I have written on the illegality of the war) there was renewed cooperation from Saddam Hussein with the UNMOVIC weapons inspectors. The return of the weapons inspectors was, in itself, a new opening and the question has to be asked, couldn’t their inspections have been extended to measures designed to open up the regime? At this point, the option of indicting Saddam Hussein was not viable if we wanted his cooperation, but in view of the clear progress that Hans Blix said he was making, the opportunity should have been seized upon to make further demands upon the Iraqi dictator. For example, for the right of opposition parties to operate inside Iraq with UN human rights monitoring in place for their safety and for internationally supervised democratic elections. Amnesty were calling for the deployment of human rights monitors throughout Iraq without delay, in line with UN resolution 57/232 made in December 2002. In a letter to the Guardian on 28 February, the Director of UK Amnesty, Kate Allen, pointed out that, had a serious attempt been made to implement this resolution, such monitors could have provided authoritative information and analysis on the human rights situation within the country and recommendations for remedial action including long term institutional reform. Reports of human rights monitors could have influenced the reform of an independent judicial system and facilitated independent investigations and trials which are essential if the Iraqi people are ever to see justice.
After 1441, military pressure under the auspices of the UN would have been needed to make these alternatives effective but this would have been a genuinely humanitarian effort and would have been quite different from a military build-up resulting from a thirst for war by the neo-conservative Republican rightwing.
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