Chilcot-en Gains? Have Lessons Been Learned Over Iraq?

In early 2003, as the march to war in Iraq began to accelerate, I can remember reading an excellent report in The Guardian’s G2 supplement by someone formerly in the military’s top brass, whose name now escapes me. The reason the article has stayed with me seven years on is that, at a time when the commentary in the media churned out claim and counter-claim about Iraq’s presumed stockpile of WMDs, this lone voice was urging the west to consider something that was all but ignored at the time: Iraq’s domestic politics.

Iraq was disarmed after the first Gulf War in 1991 and, the argument ran, if we are to go to war over the country’s weapons of mass destruction, the burden of proving their existence falls upon the invading powers. Granted, Iraq had failed to comply with UN weapons inspections, but one should consider the unenviable position Saddam Hussein found himself in through the late 1990s and early 2000s. His outward shows of defiance not only masked his weakening hold of power in Iraq, but were actually the only thing keeping the dictator from losing popular support, itself the only thing propping up his regime. UN incursions into Iraq not only undermined Saddam’s authority, but also placed pressure on him to sate the anti-western sentiment held by many Iraqis.

Fast-forward to 2010, and what has struck me most about the latest bout of hand-wringing at the Chilcot inquiry is the extent to which the terms of the debate are still grounded in these pre-war assumptions. Gordon Brown asserted in his evidence that Saddam ‘did not disclose, far less dismantle any of his weapons’, a claim that was not questioned by a single member of the Chilcot panel. Even where mistakes have been admitted, politicians have begged exoneration on the basis that their decisions were made in good faith. Take Tony Blair, for example, claiming that ‘What I actually said in the foreword [to the September 2002 Iraq dossier] was that I believed it beyond doubt [that Iraq possessed WMDs] and I did believe it’

Politicians, of course, are not exactly known for their heart-felt apologies. However what worries me most about the ongoing Chilcot inquiry is that I’ve seen very little evidence that lessons have been learned from the whole debacle. David Miliband, for example, claimed in his evidence yesterday that ‘It was no good the UN passing strong resolutions if it was then feeble in its follow-up.’ But how could Iraq have complied with the demands of the resolution referred to by Mili senior – Security Resolution 1441, the final request made by the UN for Iraq to disarm – if the intelligence that suggested that Iraq was ‘armed’ in the first place was at fault? If this inquiry has revealed anything, it is that the burden of proof should have fallen on the US and the UK to substantiate the claims they made in the build up to war. Judging from what I have seen, I can’t see that the present Government would react any differently if it were presented by a similar scenario in the future.