wmd | ukwatch.net

Just when you thought it was safe

Ellie Keen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Iran, the world’s apparent resident evil, according to the axis theme brigade at least, is at it again: ‘Iran test-fires long-range missile capable of hitting Israel’ was the headlines in the British Daily Telegraph (Wednesday, July 9 th 2008) but no mention of Israel’s estimated 150-200 nuclear warheads in the text; no mention of Israel being the nuclear power in the middle-eastern region; no mention either of superior British or US nuclear capability. Images of nine medium and long-range missiles without nuclear capability were screened globally courtesy of Iranian television … oh dear the secret is out! The headline capture for most media was a deliberately placed quote from Hossein Salami the Air Force Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard: ‘Our hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for launch’ ... chill winds are apparently blowing across the middle-eastern sands, as if they weren’t already.

Whatever we may think about the US and European approach to Iran, particularly the British and French wing of Europe at least, it’s always worth bearing in mind that the incumbent Iranian leadership use Israel and the US as justification for its continuation in power not so different, tactically at least, from the way Mugabe uses the British as justification for his repugnant reign to continue also. It’s often the case that many on the Left jump to the wrong conclusions once Israel and the US are mentioned in the same sentence, often forgetting that the Iranian leadership, and Hizbollah whom they support, aren’t what we would call enthusiastic advocates of democracy even in a socialist sense. However, despite the fact that Iran has a pretty deplorable human rights record and is continuing to harass women activists fighting to defend the rights of women detailed by Amnesty International (see link below), nevertheless it’s not entirely unreasonable for Iran to indicate to the world, as it is so obviously and publicly doing currently, that it has a right to defend itself from both Israel and the US, who both have far superior weaponry power.

An Associate Press (AP) report (Thursday, July 10 th , 2008) created their own version of events quoting ‘official analysts’ who claimed that the show of strength wasn’t just about ‘retaliation’, as the Iranian’s have constantly claimed, but also about going on the ‘offensive’, which the Iranian’s have claimed would be nothing short of a farce, not to mention suicidal. AP wheeled out Suzanne Maloney from the so-called ‘independent’ Brookings Institution based in Washington D.C., who spoke of the danger posed to Israel by Iran. But it’s always worth remembering that one Haim Saban donates generously to the Brookings Institution, funding the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Saban and Director of the Center Martyn Indyk, described by ABC News ‘On the Issues’ as a ‘Brookings Expert’ are fervent pro-Israeli supporters, with Saban also a major financial backer of the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign, who spent many hours of the campaign lecturing on pro-Israeli issues. Maloney is also a Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy… it’s making a lot more sense now! And the right wing in the US are also at it again; yes it is time to think about how fear can be generated amongst the public once again. Here’s a clip from an interview with Ivo Daalder conducted by Diane Rehm that demonstrates this point clearly (Thursday July 10 th 2008):

Rehm: Ivo, if I could start with you, talk about these missile tests. What’s going on, are there new capabilities about which you believe the U.S. needs to be concerned?

Daalder: Well anytime someone shoots a missile off we have to be concerned. These are systems that, if deployed with weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical or biological), could do a lot of damage — and they could do a lot of damage over significant ranges.

Ah yes, it’s the old ‘weapons of mass destruction’ routine happening all over again. If at once you don’t succeed, try and try again!

But perhaps the real player who may just have most to lose is Russia, because for all the blustering of Iran many in the US are using the Iranian ‘threat’ as justification for the missile defence system they wish to strategically place in Europe. According to Seymour Hersh on BBC’s Newsnight (Wednesday, July 9 th 2008, 10.30pm) whilst power shifts between Cheney and Rice on a casual basis, he believes that Cheney has the upper hand recently. Russia will therefore only be too aware that Iran, whom they support, may have handed Cheney and Co., the ideal excuse they were so desperately looking for. And perhaps we now know why Russia refused to back the US and Britain on new sanctions against the Mugabe led regime in Zimbabwe.

But perhaps the ‘show of strength’ has been exaggerated as Mark Fitzpatrick of the Institute of Strategic Studies has claimed in an interview with the BBC: ‘It very much does appear that Iran doctored the photo to cover up what apparently was a misfiring of one of the missiles’ claims Fitzpatrick … but will anybody be listening?

Links

The Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2273986/Iran-tests-fires-long-...

Amnesty International Report Women act against repression and intimidation in Iran
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/women-act-against-repr…

ABC News ‘On The Issues’ Martha Raddatz interview with Martin Indyk
http://www.brookings.edu/multimedia/video/2008/0506_issues_indyk.aspx

SourceWatch on Haim Saban
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Haim_Saban

Rehm-Daalder Interview under ‘Iran and U.S. Missile Defense’
http://www.brookings.edu/interviews/2008/0710_iran_daalder.aspx

Mark Fitzpatrick interview on the BBC under ‘Iran faked missile test image’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7500917.stm

Misguided weapon

Ellie Keen — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:47:53 +0000

Thank you Dr Nick Ritchie and Bradford department of peace studies. This new report on Trident is a model of analysis and dissection. Every justification ever produced for spending astronomical sums on yet another generation of British nuclear weapons goes under the magnifying glass and gets dealt with briskly and effectively. The report should find its way onto the desk of every person who is in any way responsible for this policy and also onto the desks of those so far silent about it.

It’s high time that the major development agencies too had something to say about this vast expenditure. Making poverty history means making Trident history too. The millennium goals would be a doddle if Trident money were redirected. Not just poverty abroad but here as well. For instance, dozens of post offices are to close because, we are told, we cannot afford the subsidies. Trident money could keep the entire post office network going for 125 years.

The “we need Trident because the future is uncertain” argument gets fair but robust treatment. By definition, the future, for good or ill, is always uncertain. Tidal waves, asteroids and mad dictators are all possible, but Trident is no answer to any of them. In terms of nuclear threats “our” Trident will increase not reduce dangers. The longer nuclear weapons are around the more likely accident, miscalculation and proliferation into the wrong hands: in fact, there are no “right” hands.

At one or two points I came up with a grunt of disagreement. “In sum nuclear weapons contribute little to British security.” Do they add anything to British security? It seems to me that Sweden, New Zealand, and South Africa (which gave its own up without fanfare) are all safer in terms of international threats than we are here.

There was also the assumption that Britain would go on trying to be the world’s junior policeman. “It is highly likely that the UK will continue to intervene in regional crises over the coming years with conventional military forces.” If we are to do so it must only be with the authority of the UN security council which is itself bound by the terms of the charter.

There is now another study for Ritchie to undertake on an equally important issue. Someone has got to examine the cultural prejudices which lie behind all this. For over 50 years the great British public have been told by all shades of politician that nuclear weapons were the road to security. They were the only way of bringing the second world war to an end. They kept the peace for 40 years. Unless they get into the hands of mad or suicidal people they are quite safe. These are the cultural myths that are just as important as the technical issues.

The UNESCO Courier got it right in 1993. “The problem is that belief systems have been built up to support the idea that they [nuclear weapons] are usable and indeed almost indispensable to international security.” Yet there is now a detailed draft treaty, lodged with but not discussed at the UN, aimed at the elimination of all nuclear weapons everywhere. It covers all the key issues of inspection, verification, criminality and whistleblowing. Maybe there is more interest in it today. Gordon Brown and Des Browne have both recently said that a world free of all nuclear weapons is their ultimate destination. They won’t get there while a massive roadblock labelled Trident sits stubbornly in the way.

A Vain Search for Principle

Ellie Keen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:32:12 +0000

FLEXIBLE FRIENDS – THE OBSERVER, THE INDEPENDENT, AND THE MYTH OF A MEDIA SPECTRUM

In a BBC interview in 1996, Andrew Marr, then of the Independent, described the ’spectrum’ of media available to the British public:

“We have a press which has, it seems to me, a relatively wide range of views – there is a pretty small ’c’ conservative majority, but there are left-wing papers, and there is a pretty large offering of views running from the far right to the far left, for those who want them.” (http://www.zmag.org/ Chomsky/interviews/9602-big-idea.html)

The “left-wing papers” Marr had in mind were the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent and the Independent on Sunday.

It is interesting to consider Marr‘s comments in light of the April 10 announcement that Roger Alton, formerly editor of the Observer, will become editor of the Independent in June. Alton resigned from the Observer last year after rumours of a ’civil war’ with the Guardian. There were also allegations that, in 2002, the Observer had suppressed important testimony on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (see below) even as it was publishing false stories from intelligence sources. It was claimed that Alton’s political editor, Kamal Ahmed, had helped Blair’s aides with one of their infamous “dodgy dossiers” on Iraq’s WMD – Ahmed also resigned. Alton and Ahmed have both denied the claim. Geoffrey Levy wrote in the Daily Mail:

“Alton’s real mistake, it seems, was in supporting the Iraq war. This attitude never went down very well at Guardian House, and led to a more localised conflict, which has turned the two newspapers into what one senior journalist described as ‘hotbeds of fear and loathing’.” (Levy, ‘Fear and loathing in Farringdon Road,’ Daily Mail, October 25, 2007)

It is a bitter irony that Alton will soon be editing the Independent, which opposed the Iraq war.

In January 2006, Stephen Glover, the Independent’s media commentator, wrote of the Observer: “one looks in vain to its heart for that old voice of principle and conviction, as well as intellectual distinction. I am not sure that Mr Alton, charming and gifted man though he unquestionably is, believes in very much”. (Glover, ‘Colourful – and that’s not just the Observer editor’s language,’ The Independent, January 16, 2006)

So was the Observer under Alton really to the left of the media spectrum? In responding to the question of whether he would take the Independent further left, Alton commented recently:

“I wouldn’t have regarded myself as the most leftwing person… Left and right are effectively meaningless terms now. I wouldn’t define myself by those terms and I don’t think a newspaper should either.” (Stephen Brook, ‘Alton aims to make Indy “indispensable,”’ The Guardian, April 10, 2008)

He added:

"I would like to include a bit more luxury and have a sense of specialness.”

Certainly the words “left” and “right” are “effectively meaningless” in today’s media. But then it is the media’s self-assigned task to render just about every issue meaningless. As ever, Noam Chomsky is on hand to restore some common sense to the debate:

“If the left means anything, it means it’s concerned for the needs, welfare, and rights of the general population.” (http://www.zmag.org/ ZMag/july00barsamian.htm)

News Coverage And The Social Elite

The fact is that the general population is not well represented within elite journalism. In 2006, research conducted by the Sutton Trust found that 54% of Britain’s leading news journalists were educated in private schools, which account for 7% of the school population as a whole. In addition, 45% of the country’s leading journalists had attended Oxbridge. Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, asked:

“[Is] it healthy that those who are most influential in determining and interpreting the news agenda have educational backgrounds that are so different to the vast majority of the population?“

He also asked:

“Is news coverage preoccupied with the issues and interests of the social elite that journalists represent?” (The Educational Backgrounds of Leading Journalists, Sutton Trust, June 2006; http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/ Journalists-backgrounds-final-report.pdf)

Alton’s dismissal of ’left’ and ’right’ as meaningful terms is surely an example of exactly that. Lampl will not have been surprised to learn that Alton’s father was a distinguished Oxford don and that Alton was privately educated at Clifton College before attending Exeter College, Oxford.

For purposes of ‘niche marketing’, senior journalists are of course very keen to distance themselves from the idea that they represent elite interests. Instead, the focus is very much on high ethical ideals. Simon Kelner, Alton’s predecessor as Independent editor, explained in 2005 what the name ‘Independent’ meant to him:

"...there will be no retreat from the qualities that have underpinned The Independent since its launch. As we approach the general election, the role for an independent paper, one that is not driven by proprietorial agenda and that has no party allegiance, is as great as ever." (Kelner, ‘The Independent: a new look for the original quality compact newspaper,’ The Independent, April 12, 2005)

This is the same myth propounded by Robert Fisk, who commented in 2003:

"I work for a British newspaper called The Independent; if you read it, you’ll find that we are." (http://www.robert- fisk.com/demnow_RF_interview25mar2003.htm)

The reality is rather less glorious. Former New Statesman editor Peter Wilby wrote recently of Alton and Kelner’s close friendship:

“Both have political views that may be described as flexible or undogmatic, depending on how you look at it.

“True, one committed his paper to supporting the Iraq invasion, the other to opposing it. But given different circumstances, it is easy to imagine either of them deciding on the opposite course. Many friendships were ruptured by Iraq. That between Alton and Kelner survived – another example of how similar they are.” (Wilby, ‘It is. Is he?’ The Guardian, April 14, 2008; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr /14/theindependent.pressandpublishing)

The problem is that many people believe the Independent is a principled voice of left-leaning liberalism. Wilby quietly demolished this illusion:

“[T]he Independent’s founders never intended it to be a left-wing paper. Their preference, in the late 80s, was for Thatcherism with a human face. They expected to gain most readers from the Telegraph and Times. As it turned out, they found leftwing journalists more willing to join their venture and acquired more readers from the Guardian than from other papers. The editorial line remained pro-market and generally pro-foreign intervention, but compassionate towards the poor (in a vague sort of way) and leftish on social issues such as race, crime and smacking. Its position, in many respects, anticipated Blairism. Alton, who in 2006 described hostility to Blair as ‘quite baffling‘, could claim to echo the founders’ views more closely than Kelner has done.”

Writing in the Guardian, Stephen Brook noted that Kelner, now the Independent’s managing director and editor-in-chief, “has basically outsourced the Independent’s marketing department to Freud Communications, run by the well-connected Matthew Freud”:

“Freud will help to fashion the message that it connects directly with brand-conscious, upscale, young, high-earning readers.” (Brook, ‘Upward and onward for the Independent’s revolutionary,’ The Guardian, April 13, 2008)

The reality, then, is of a corporate cynicism that places advertising revenues attracted by “brand-conscious, upscale, young, high-earning readers” above the grave problems that afflict and threaten the “needs, welfare, and rights of the general population”. This is the actual and metaphorical bottom line.

Faithfully Reporting Claim And Counter-Claim – Observer-Style

As we discussed on March 5 (www.medialens.org/alerts/08 /080305_flat_earth_news.php), in the autumn of 2002, former CIA analyst Mel Goodman told Observer correspondent Ed Vulliamy that the CIA believed Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Goodman was speaking out at a time when such revelations might have derailed Blair’s plans to go to war the following spring, with unknown consequences for Bush’s war plan. Over the next four months, Vulliamy submitted seven versions of the story for publication – The Observer, led by Alton, rejected all of them. We wrote to Vulliamy on February 27:

Dear Ed

Hope you’re well. I’ve been reading Nick Davies’s account of how your reports on Mel Goodman’s revelations were rejected seven times by the Observer. Did you try to publish the pieces elsewhere? Why did you not resign in protest at these obvious acts of censorship on such a crucial matter?

Best wishes

David Edwards

Vulliamy replied with what can only be described as an angst-ridden email, but insisted the contents were not for publication. We wrote again on February 28:

“Can I ask, also off the record (just out of human interest), what reasons did they give you for not publishing? You’re a major journalist on the paper, this was cast-iron testimony from a credible, named source – what on earth did they say?”

Vulliamy said he would answer our questions later (again, off the record). We received no further reply. We wrote again, and he again said he would reply. We wrote again on April 21 and he told us he was busy and again promised more later.

We also wrote to Roger Alton on April 21:

Hi Roger

We hope you’re well. Congratulations on becoming editor of the Independent.

In his book Flat Earth News, Nick Davies describes how the Observer’s Ed Vulliamy told him about his autumn 2002 conversations with former CIA analyst Mel Goodman. It seems Goodman was willing to go on the record in telling Vulliamy that the CIA believed Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Vulliamy says he submitted seven versions of this story to the Observer over a period of four months and it was rejected every time. Is this true? If so, why did the Observer reject the story? Was this not a crucial story offered at a crucial time by a highly credible journalist citing credible sources?

Best wishes
David Edwards and David Cromwell

Alton replied on April 25:

Hi there … Thank you for your good wishes … I do not start there for some months though and am not the editor of the Independent now

As for your other point, so it was my old pal Ed who grassed me up eh?? Lordluvaduck, what a surprise … like Falstaff and Prince Hal eh??

Now, I don’t know anything about this tale … while I think an editor should read, or try to read, all the 250,000 – odd words that go into an edition of the Observer, I would not expect them to read all the several million words that are submitted eaxh week … as I understand it, this story was not used by the desk, on journalistic grounds, and indeed this was a decision taken by a very anti-war executive ..

There was an article setting all this out in a recent edition of Press Gazette, which I am sure you can easily find…

Yours sincerely

Roger Alton

How remarkable that Alton is unaware of the Mel Goodman “tale”. We can find nothing in Press Gazette that explains why seven versions of Vulliamy’s article were rejected over four months. We approached several of the journalists involved for comment on this bizarre response, none was forthcoming.

In 2004, we asked Alton about the Observer’s performance on Iraq in 2004. He responded:

"I think our reporting on Iraq was exceptionally fair. Journalism is by definition a first draft of history. It is rough and ready, people doing their best under trying circumstances often. We faithfully reported claim and counter claim in the build up to Iraq. With exceptional journalists like Peter Beaumont, Jason Burke, and Ed Vulliamy our news, feature and commentary coverage was fair, thorough and unbiased." (Email to Media Lens, August 17, 2004)

Ironic words in light of what we know now. A year earlier, a journalist at the Observer, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote to us:

"Your media alerts and website have afforded me great solace and insight over the last eighteen months – making me feel less alone and more angry as the wretched failure of the ‘fourth estate’ to hold our ‘leaders’ to account becomes increasingly apparent." (Email to Media Lens, March 2003)

On reflection, it seems incredibly naïve to imagine that free speech will flourish under corporate capitalism. It is true that we do not face the kind of physical threats offered by a totalitarian system – but so what? For most people, the threat of serious damage to a lucrative, high status career is enough to ensure their silence.

In the last decade of corresponding with journalists we have found that they often do behave as though they were living in a police state, or at least in a state policed by corporate power. Many are privately supportive and helpful. Indeed, many journalists who might be expected to be fierce opponents of our work, are in fact enraged by the mendacity and destructiveness of the media employing them. But they tell us their comments must be off the record; that they are not willing to comment over the internet (which is surely monitored); that they will help us only on condition that their names be concealed. Could it be more obvious that journalists do not feel free to write the truth about Alton and Kelner, and much else, because of the likely professional consequences?

Above, we cited the biting criticisms of Alton made by the Independent’s Stephen Glover in 2006. Hugo Rifkind of the Times recalled these comments this month and noted that Glover had also written that the Observer under Alton was "bursting with stuff I do not want to read".

“And, his new Editor may surmise, would not wish to write”, Rifkind commented wryly, hinting that Glover may pay a price for his earlier candour. (Rifkind, ‘Write and wrong,’ The Times, April 11, 2008)

We spend our time well when we recall that Alton and Kelner have edited two of the Great White Hopes of the British liberal press – newspapers which many people believe are deeply concerned about the needs, welfare, and rights of the general population.

SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to Roger Alton
Email: rogermalton@googlemail.com

Write to Simon Kelner
Email: s.kelner@independent.co.uk

Write to Ed Vulliamy
Email: ed.vulliamy@observer.co.uk

Please send a copy of your emails to us
Email: editor@medialens.org

The Blair Legacy

Ellie Keen — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:48:30 +0000

Hundreds of thousands dead, Britain less safe

Is there a causal link between British military intervention in the Muslim world and terrorism by Muslims in Britain? That is a vital question. After all, the Government is never done telling us that it is the first duty of government to keep us safe.

Yet, the Prime Minister cannot bring himself to admit the existence of such a link, even though the British intelligence services say:

“We judge that the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term. It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not.”

Blair cannot bring himself to admit that there is a causal link. For him to do so is to admit that his military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, which he justified to counter alleged threats to Britain’s security, have in reality made Britain less safe.

As for the threats to Britain’s security, there were none, neither from al-Qaida in October 2001, nor from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March 2003.

That is Blair’s legacy. He has made Britain less safe by his military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and, in the process, he has caused the deaths of nearly 200 British soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis.

That should be engraved on his tombstone.

This pamphlet traces Blair’s deceit about the threats facing Britain in order to take us to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It also shows that Bush and Blair misrepresent the objective of al-Qaida, which is not about overthrowing “democracy and freedom” in the West, but about ending Western, especially British and American, interference in the Muslim world. It can be guaranteed that al-Qaida will not attack Sweden.

As Michael Scheuer, who was the first head of the CIA’s al-Qaida desk, wrote in his bookImperial Hubris: Why the West is losing the War on Terror:

“...the greatest danger for Americans confronting the radical Islamist threat is to believe – at the urging of US leaders – that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do.

“Rhetorical political blustering ‘informs’ the public that Islamists are offended by the Western world’s democratic freedoms, civil liberties, intermingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has, for example, fomented jihad in order to destroy participatory democracy, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities… “

Al-Qaida’s public statements condemn America’s protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Laden’s supporters thus identify their problem and believe its solution lies in war.”

If the West stops interfering in the Muslim world, then the al-Qaida threat to the West will disappear. It’s as simple as that.

This is a summary of David Morrison’s pamphlet “THE BLAIR LEGACY”. Read the full pamplet (pdf).

A War of Utter Folly

Ellie Keen — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:34:08 +0000

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy – for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity. I can only see one gain: the end of Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant. Had the war not finished him he would, in all likelihood, have become another Gadafy or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world. Iraq was on its knees after a decade of sanctions.

The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. That they believed in the weapons’ existence in the autumn of 2002 is understandable. Why had the Iraqis stopped UN inspectors during the 90s if they had nothing to hide? Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003.

By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery. The allied powers were on thin ice, but they preferred to replace question marks with exclamation marks.

They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants. A third declared aim was to bring democracy to Iraq, hopefully becoming an example for the region. Let us hope for the future; but five years of occupation has clearly brought more anarchy than democracy.

Increased safety for Israel might have been an undeclared US aim. If so, it is hard to see that anything was gained by a war which has strengthened Iran.

There are other troubling legacies of the Iraq war. It is a setback in the world’s efforts to develop legal restraints on the use of armed force between states. In 1945 the US helped to write into the UN charter a prohibition of the use of armed force against states. Exceptions were made only for self-defence against armed attacks and for armed force authorised by the security council. In 2003, Iraq was not a real or imminent threat to anybody. Instead, the invasion reflects a claim made in the 2002 US national security strategy that the charter was too restrictive, and that the US was ready to use armed force to meet threats that were uncertain as to time and place – a doctrine of preventive war.

In the 2004 presidential election campaign, Bush ridiculed any idea that the US would need to ask for a “permission slip” before taking military action against a “growing threat”. True, the 2003 Iraq invasion is not the only case in which armed force has been used in disregard of the charter. However, from the most powerful member of the UN it is a dangerous signal. If preventive war is accepted for one, it is accepted for all.

One fear is that the UN rules ignored in the attack on Iraq will prove similarly insignificant in the case of Iran. But it may be that the spectacular failure of ensuring disarmament by force, and of introducing democracy by occupation, will work in favour of a greater use of diplomacy and “soft power”. Justified concerns about North Korea and Iran have led the US, as well as China, Russia and European states, to examine what economic and other non-military inducements they may use to ensure that these two states do not procure nuclear weapons. Washington and Moscow must begin nuclear disarmament. So long as these nuclear states maintain that these weapons are indispensable to their security, it is not surprising that others may think they are useful. What, really, is the alternative: invasion and occupation, as in Iraq?

Hans Blix was head of UN inspections in Iraq in 2003
secretariat@wmdcommission.org