from: [Eric LC]
to: [Samuel Helfont]
cc: [William Inboden], [Texas National Security Review]
date: Mar 18, 2021, 4:44 PM
subject: Comment on "The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone" (Texas National Security Review)
Professor Helfont,
I am writing you to comment on your 02FEB21 Texas National Security Review article, The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone, with a mainly legal-factual focus.
I clarify the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ by organizing the primary source authorities, i.e., the set of controlling law, policy, and precedent and determinative facts that define OIF's justification, to lay a proper foundation and correct for the prevalent conjecture, distorted context, and misinformation that have obfuscated the Iraq issue. The HW Bush-to-Clinton-to-Bush continuity in the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement is a core theme of the OIF FAQ, so it's exciting to see work that's congruent.
Your article is superior to typical monographs about OIF's justification. For example, the revisionist International Institute for Strategic Studies article Realism, Liberalism and the Iraq War by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry. I discovered Professors Deudney and Ikenberry's article about the same time as your article. The juxtaposition highlighted the contrast. Their article fundamentally misrepresents the Iraq issue, a repeat offense for IISS-affiliated experts. Whereas your article, while not flawless, impressed me as a good-faith effort.
Your objective of "offering a corrective to historical narratives of the Iraq wars" is urgently needed. I hope you find the OIF FAQ and these comments useful for that purpose.
Helfont:
Moreover, although the United States did not know it at the time, Iraq did give up its weapons of mass destruction and closed the programs that produced them.[139]
This is a prevalent misconception. I'm correcting it first because it's the keystone premise of the narrative that the competition, particularly those featured in your article, employ to degrade American leadership of the free world.
In fact, the United States and the international community do not "know" at the current time that the Saddam regime "did give up its weapons of mass destruction and closed the programs that produced them". Neither the Saddam regime with the UNSCR 687 Special Commissions nor the Iraq Survey Group subsequently in Saddam's stead converted the supposition of Iraqi disarmament to knowledge with the proof required by the Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) that was mandated by UNSCR 687 and related resolutions to resolve Iraq's Gulf War-established manifold threat.
Moreover, the evidence shows the opposite: UNMOVIC report Unresolved Disarmament Issues Iraq’s Proscribed Weapons Programmes, the determinative WMD fact-finding for President Bush's determination on Iraq, and the Iraq Survey Group's ex post findings are rife with UNSCR 687 violations.
Excerpt from the OIF FAQ answer to "Did Bush lie his way to war with Iraq":
On March 7, 2003, UNMOVIC presented the 173-page Clusters document to the UN Security Council with its finding of "about 100 unresolved disarmament issues" pursuant to UNSCRs 687 and 1441:Your statement cites the 05JAN06 CIA "retrospective", Misreading Intentions: Iraq’s Reaction to Inspections Created Picture of Deception, which is usual for the prevalent misconception. However, the CIA report is problematic for the Iraq issue because its analysis is fundamentally inapposite and factually suspect.
UNMOVIC evaluated and assessed this material as it has became [sic] available and ... produced an internal working document covering about 100 unresolved disarmament issues ... grouped into 29 “clusters” and presented by discipline: missiles, munitions, chemical and biological.... David Kay informed the Senate Armed Services Committee that "at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity about what happened ... [due to] the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well, a lot of which was what we simply called Ali Baba looting."
... [for example] UNSCOM considered that the evidence was insufficient to support Iraq’s statements on the quantity of anthrax destroyed and where or when it was destroyed[,] ... UNMOVIC has credible information that the total quantity of BW agent in bombs, warheads and in bulk at the time of the Gulf War was 7,000 litres more than declared by Iraq[, and] ... With respect to stockpiles of bulk agent stated to have been destroyed, there is evidence to suggest that these was [sic] not destroyed as declared by Iraq.
... Nonetheless, the Iraq Survey Group uncovered an active WMD program according to the operative definition or "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) for an Iraq WMD program set by paragraphs 8 to 13 of UNSCR 687. Among Iraq's disarmament violations, ISG found "preserved capability" with "clear evidence of his [Saddam's] intent to resume WMD", "undeclared covert laboratories", "a large covert procurement program" and "military reconstitution efforts [that] ... covered conventional arms, dual-use goods acquisition, and some WMD-related programs", the "IAEC [Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission] Modernization Program", "ongoing missile programs ... with ranges in excess of 150 km that, if developed, would have been clear violations of UNSCR 687", "Saddam clearly intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems and that the systems potentially were for WMD", the "former [Saddam] Regime also saw chemical weapons as a tool to control domestic unrest", and "denial and deception operations" (ISG).
Fundamentally, the CIA report is inapposite of OIF's actual justification. The CIA report assesses the pre-war intelligence estimates according to an arbitrary standard. It does not assess Iraq's compliance according to the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) by which Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations'' (UNSCR 1441) were defined, diagnosed, and resolved.
In the apposite context of the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement, the United States read Saddam's intentions correctly. As Secretary of State Albright explained, "Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council resolutions to which it is subject. ... And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's intentions will never be peaceful."
So assessing Saddam's intentions did not depend on intelligence analysis. They were measured by Iraq's quantifiable compliance with the plain "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) that had been in force for over a decade. At the decision point of Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), Saddam's intentions were known by Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441), which are confirmed to have been categorical: "In addition to preserved capability, we have clear evidence of his [Saddam's] intent to resume WMD" (Iraq Survey Group), "the Saddam regime regarded inspiring, sponsoring, directing, and executing acts of terrorism as an element of state power" (Iraqi Perspectives Project), and "[t]he new evidence, particularly that of eyewitnesses, added another dimension to the systematic crimes of the former regime, revealing unparalleled cruelty" (UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq).
Factually, the CIA report is suspect because it undervalues the UNSCR 687 violations that [UNMOVIC and] ISG found by eliding them or valuating them with an arbitrary standard in lieu of the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441). The CIA report does not credit the "fragmentary and circumstantial" (ISG) evidence of greater WMD-related activity, including biological weapons production, that ISG could not definitely verify. At the same time, the CIA report overvalues ISG's non-findings as evidence of absence by overlooking that the ISG non-findings, and therefore the conclusions derived from them, are heavily qualified due to the systematic Iraqi "concealment and deception activities'' (ISG).
Excerpt from the OIF FAQ answer to "Did Bush lie his way to war with Iraq":
The Iraq Survey Group can offer a guess, but with its practical limitations, ISG can't be sure about the fate of all Saddam's secret stores and the extent Iraq's WMD program was retained and reconstituted. In many instances where ISG cited a lack of evidence, it meant the evidence required for a definite determination was missing or lost, not that absence of evidence was evidence of absence. With the burden on Iraq to prove the mandated disarmament and no mandate for the ceasefire enforcers to demonstrate Iraq's proscribed armament, the Iraq Survey Group's post hoc investigation was handicapped by that the UN inspections, OIF invasion, and post-war occupation simply were not designed to scour for, guard, and preserve evidence like a crime-scene forensic investigation. Concurrently, the systematic Iraqi "concealment and deception activities" (ISG), much unfettered, rid evidence of proscribed armament, e.g., "many of these [WMD-related] sites were either sanitized by the [Saddam] Regime or looted prior to OIF", "M23 [Directorate of Military Industries] officers also were involved in NMD [National Monitoring Directorate] document concealment and destruction efforts", and "extensive looting and destruction at military facilities during OIF" (ISG). The resulting evidentiary gaps prevented a complete account of Saddam's WMD by ISG.David Kay clarified that "at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity ... [due to] the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program".
In practice, that means what ISG found — and ISG found many UNSCR 687 violations — constituted a floor only, not a complete account of Saddam's WMD. Although the CIA report seems to presume whatever ISG did not find never existed, the reasonable assumption is what ISG found was what was left over after presumably higher value UNSCR 687-proscribed items and activities were "sanitized" (ISG) by the "unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program" (Kay).
Insofar as "Iraq did give up its weapons of mass destruction and closed the programs that produced them", recall that any unverified unsupervised unilateral elimination of proscribed items by Iraq in and of itself breached the Gulf War ceasefire for casus belli.
Helfont:
The unresolved dilemmas that the Gulf War created were mismanaged for a decade, eventually leading to a 2003 conflict that was waged on shaky legal grounds and with limited outside support.
"The unresolved dilemmas that the Gulf War created were mismanaged for a decade" — I agree.
"[L]imited outside support" — That's evident. ["The [Saddam] Regime's strategy was successful to the point where sitting members of the Security Council were actively violating the resolutions passed by the Security Council" (ISG).] The split between the Gulf War ceasefire enforcers and Saddam's accomplices over Operation Desert Fox in 1998 carried forward to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
"[A] 2003 conflict that was waged on shaky legal grounds" — Incorrect, largely thanks to President Clinton. As much as Clinton practically "mismanaged ... [t]he dilemmas that the Gulf War created", as Saddam exhausted the lesser ceasefire enforcement measures, the Yale JD president worked with foresight and care to refine the case against Saddam and reinforce the controlling set of law, policy, and precedent for the ceasefire enforcement procedure, which his Harvard MBA successor carried forward to capacitate Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441).
See the OIF FAQ answer to "Was Operation Iraqi Freedom legal".
Helfont:
As the conflict continued through the 1990s, the United States began to signal that its ultimate goal was indeed to remove Saddam rather than force his compliance with U.N. resolutions.
...
Publicly, the Clinton administration introduced a policy of dual containment aimed at both Iraq and Iran, but by 1994, the CIA began running an operation codenamed “DB Achilles,” which attempted to overthrow Saddam in a coup.80
... In 1998, Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which had passed unanimously in the Senate and that made regime change the official policy of the U.S. government.
...
Publicly, the Clinton administration introduced a policy of dual containment aimed at both Iraq and Iran, but by 1994, the CIA began running an operation codenamed “DB Achilles,” which attempted to overthrow Saddam in a coup.80
... In 1998, Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which had passed unanimously in the Senate and that made regime change the official policy of the U.S. government.
To clarify, the regime change policy codified by the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement since 1991 were not exclusive. The "ultimate goal" was to achieve Iraq's mandated compliance. The goal was to "force his [Saddam's] compliance with U.N. resolutions" only as far as Saddam was synonymous with the "Government of Iraq". If the Iraqi regime was changed, the "ultimate goal" remained the same for the successor regime.
In fact, the Clinton administration's dual-containment, compliance enforcement, and regime change policies for Iraq were aspects of the same policy: The Iraq half of the dual-containment framework and the regime change policy per Public Law 105-338 enforced the Gulf War ceasefire mandates.
Excerpt from President Clinton's signing statement on P.L. 105-338:
My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.Excerpt from The Clinton Administration's Approach to the Middle East by Martin Indyk, 1993, explaining the dual containment:
I hope that by now the Clinton administration policy towards Iraq is clearly understood. Simply stated, we seek Iraq's full compliance with all UN resolutions. The regime of Saddam Hussein must never again pose a threat to Iraq's neighborhood. And we are also committed to ensuring Iraq's compliance with UN Resolution 688, which calls upon the regime to end its repression of the Iraqi people.
Helfont:
However, the unresolved humanitarian crisis in Iraq — amplified by Iraqi influence operations — provided Chirac with political options he otherwise would have lacked. Because the French government was much more sympathetic to Iraqi suffering under the U.N. sanctions, it was more open to decoupling sanctions from weapons inspections.
...
Although France continued to support arms control in Iraq and remained officially supportive of the United States at the United Nations, French foreign ministry officials told visiting Iraqis in closed-door meetings that, regardless of what happens at the Security Council, they were “working hard to lift the sanctions.”
...
Although France continued to support arms control in Iraq and remained officially supportive of the United States at the United Nations, French foreign ministry officials told visiting Iraqis in closed-door meetings that, regardless of what happens at the Security Council, they were “working hard to lift the sanctions.”
I sympathize with your thesis that "humanitarian issues in Iraq poisoned American foreign relations and became a weapon for Iraq and other states to undermine American leadership of the international system".
Excerpt from OIF FAQ post Iraqi Sanctions: Were They Worth It?:
One reason I support Operation Iraqi Freedom is my opposition to the toxic alternative in the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement, namely the pre-OIF status quo with Saddam of the dangerous, costly, vilified, and eroding ad hoc 'containment'.That being said, while France politically leveraged Iraq's humanitarian crisis, I doubt France was actually "more open to decoupling sanctions from weapons inspections" because it was "much more sympathetic to Iraqi suffering". France's withdrawal from the UNSCR 688 humanitarian no-fly zones and complicity in the Oil For Food scandal and concomitant violation of the UNSCR 687 arms embargo, which exacerbated and prolonged Saddam's noncompliance — not to mention France's inhumane withholding from the OIF peace operations — indicate amoral motives.
...
See An Appeal to Indict the Iraqi Regime for Crimes of Genocide (1997), the 1997-2003 Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq, the UN Security Council (S/1999/100) panel assessment of the humanitarian situation in Iraq (1999), and the Independent Inquiry Committee report on the manipulation of the Oil-for-Food programme (2005).
OIF was a controversial, difficult decision by President Bush. But the alternatives to the regime change — letting Saddam escape from Iraq's ceasefire obligations and the toxic, broken 'containment' — aren't better. At least we're trying our best to help the Iraqi people now with nation-building peace operations instead of the pre-OIF status quo of our effective complicity with intransigently noncompliant, unreconstructed Saddam in purposely, indefinitely, and uselessly causing Iraqi suffering.
Recall that UNSCR 687 mandated sundry conventional disarmament as well as WMD disarmament. The Iraq Survey Group found that even as the UNSCR 1441 inspections were ramping up in late 2002, France was in the midst of selling UNSCR 687-proscribed anti-aircraft technology to the Saddam regime. Had President Bush and Prime Minister Blair blenched when Saddam called the bluff on UNSCR 1441 with France's encouragement, and the illicit French sale had completed, it's conceivable American and British aircraft would have continued to enforce the UNSCR 688 humanitarian no-fly zones versus UNSCR 687-proscribed anti-aircraft technology sold to Saddam by NATO fellow France.
Excerpt from Iraq WMD watchdog Iraq Watch, 13APR03:
The data reveals that firms in Germany and France outstripped all others in selling the most important thing — specialized chemical-industry equipment that is particularly useful for producing poison gas. Without this equipment, none of the other imports would have been of much use.
Helfont:
The economic incentives that Iraq offered Russia and Russian officials almost certainly influenced Moscow’s policy.112
In addition to the IIC report you cited, Russia has a starring role in the Regime Finance and Procurement section of the ISG report.
Helfont:
In fact, most debates about Iraq that occurred in 2003 — including debates about regime change — had their origins in the dilemma that the Gulf War created for U.S. policy.
Yes. Excerpt from the #hwbush section of "10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts":
I consider neither Clinton nor Bush as the US president most responsible for OIF. The US president I hold most responsible for OIF is President HW Bush.
... With hindsight, the decisions to suspend the Gulf War and attempt an alternative way to achieve Iraqi regime change show the road to OIF was locked in from the beginning of the Gulf War ceasefire.
... Desert Storm achieved its proximate objective of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait but not the policy objective of Iraq's compliance with the UNSCR 660-series resolutions. The traditional way to begin curing the cancer of Saddam's regime would have been for the military to capture the flag in Baghdad and, from there, bring Iraq into its mandated compliance.
... President HW Bush's alternative to Iraqi regime change with Desert Storm was the ceasefire mandated by UNSCRs 687 and 688, which depended on a complex set of assumptions about, one, post-Cold War UN-based international enforcement that were at best optimistic theories and, two, Saddam's submission induced by Desert Storm that were immediately suspect and soon refuted by Saddam's noncompliance.
...
The concept of the Gulf War ceasefire was Saddam's obligation to reconstruct his regime as the necessary condition to forestall regime change. President HW Bush had learned the hard way that the "spiral" model of defusing conflict only encouraged Saddam's malfeasance and credible threat according to the "deterrence" model was necessary to compel Saddam's cooperation. There is no evidence that HW Bush was ultimately bluffing about enforcing Iraq's mandated compliance and willing to allow a noncompliant Saddam to escape his ceasefire obligations.
Yet HW Bush had committed the fundamental error of curtailing the military option, which collapsed the leverage required for effective deterrence with Iraq. Thus, the chief enforcer of Iraq's mandated compliance with the Gulf War ceasefire was hampered from the outset by a restricted set of means that were facially insufficient and evidently failing to compel Saddam to fulfill his ceasefire obligations. The discredited threat to his regime afforded Saddam the leeway to defy the "more intrusive legal strictures" (ISG), bear and then break the sanctions, concomitantly reconstitute UNSCR 687-proscribed armament, and expand overall violations of the ceasefire terms.
Helfont:
Most critical analyses of the Gulf War fail to consider the aftermath of the war.9 When they do, they often debate whether the United States won the Gulf War but lost the peace.10
...
This war quickly descended into a quagmire that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. As of this writing in 2021, American forces are still fighting insurgents who emerged in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam’s regime in 2003.
...
This war quickly descended into a quagmire that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. As of this writing in 2021, American forces are still fighting insurgents who emerged in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam’s regime in 2003.
Desert Storm was suspended winning neither the Gulf War nor the peace. I agree that the cost and difficulty of resolving the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement were inflated because "unresolved dilemmas that the Gulf War created were mismanaged for a decade". Resolving the Saddam problem was not getting any cheaper or easier the longer that the US and its fellow ceasefire enforcers kicked the can as the problem worsened.
Operation Iraqi Freedom won the Gulf War and the peace: See the OIF FAQ epilogue answer to "Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a strategic blunder or a strategic victory", which features the 15DEC10 United Nations victory statement, Security Council Takes Action to End Iraq Sanctions, Terminate Oil-For-Food Programme as Members Recognize 'Major Changes' Since 1990.
Unfortunately, President Obama chose to degrade the hard-won peace with the blunder of prematurely ending the OIF peace operations with An irresponsible exit from Iraq.
Helfont:
[In 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated, “We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted.”81
...] Clinton’s approach killed any chance for reform in Baghdad or for finding a new arrangement that could address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Iraq. As Saddam told his advisers on multiple occasions, “We can have sanctions with inspectors or sanctions without inspectors; which do you want?”83
...] Clinton’s approach killed any chance for reform in Baghdad or for finding a new arrangement that could address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Iraq. As Saddam told his advisers on multiple occasions, “We can have sanctions with inspectors or sanctions without inspectors; which do you want?”83
Iraq faced sanctions with or without inspectors in Iraq because the Saddam regime never complied with the UN inspections as mandated — "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC's resolutions" (ISG).
[To clarify, the Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) mandated more than paragraphs 8 to 13 of UNSCR 687, and the sanctions enforced Iraq's compliance with all its ceasefire obligations. Therefore, Iraq proving compliant on WMD should not have lifted the sanctions if Iraq remained noncompliant on its other ceasefire obligations, e.g., paragraph 32 of UNSCR 687, "it [Iraq] will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism". Note the Iraqi Perspectives Project found "evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime".]
Therein sits the uncrossable divide that precluded Clinton "finding a new arrangement" with Saddam.
A "new arrangement" with Iraq necessitated compromising the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) or its enforcement, which amounted to the same.
President Clinton held onto the sanctions because he would not compromise the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441). The US learned early on that highly coercive leverage was necessary to compel any Iraqi cooperation, let alone the mandated compliance. As Governor Bill Richardson, the UN ambassador during the 1998 confrontation, warned, "I'm very concerned ... My experience with the Iraqis is if you give them an inch, they take a mile."
Sanctions were the diplomatic coercive alternative. If the diplomatic coercive leverage was compromised, that left only military coercive leverage. For Clinton to drop the sanctions at France or Iraq's request amounted to hastening the resumption of the Gulf War.
As it turned out, merely compromising on Oil For Food crippled the sanctions in short order. Saddam de facto neutralized the sanctions by 2000-2001. Saddam's victory over the sanctions boosted his ceasefire violations and intransigence, rewarded his international accomplices, and compelled the ceasefire enforcers to fall back to military coercion with Operations Desert Fox and Iraqi Freedom as the diplomatic coercive alternative was lost.
See the OIF FAQ answer to "Why did Bush leave the ‘containment’ (status quo)" and OIF FAQ answer to "Did Iraq failing its compliance test justify the regime change".
Helfont:
Most of all, to create a cooperative international system, America needed to be more willing to compromise with its allies. In doing so, it could have been better equipped diplomatically to build and solidify the new world order whose creation George H. W. Bush claimed was one of the Gulf War’s primary objectives.
The context and composition of the Gulf War ceasefire compliance enforcement meant it was the essential proving ground for the US-led post-Cold War liberal international order. The Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) was invested with all the essential international norms, including strict aggression, disarmament, human rights, and terrorism-related mandates, and vital enforcement principles that were required to reify the aspirational "rules" of the post-Cold War world order. The success or failure to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (P.L. 105-235) would reveal the real-world viability of the post-Cold War "Pax Americana" rule set and American leadership of the free world.
So, fundamentally, the US could not compromise on the paradigmatic "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) and its enforcement and still expect to "build and solidify the new world order whose creation George H. W. Bush claimed was one of the Gulf War’s primary objectives".
See the #americanprimacy section of "10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts".
I appreciate that your article offers a lot of good meat on a shared interest. I feel full yet there's more on the plate. I may write you a second comment.
Again, I hope you find the OIF FAQ and these comments useful. I welcome your feedback. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
PREFACE: Professor Helfont didn't respond to this e-mail and the offer to critique his 28MAR23 War on the Rocks article.
from: [Eric LC]
to: [Samuel Helfont]
date: Apr 29, 2023, 9:13 PM
subject: Your thesis in "The Iraq War’s Intelligence Failures Are Still Misunderstood" is fundamentally flawed
Professor Helfont,
I clarify the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ where I critically commented previously on your 02FEB21 Texas National Security Review article, "The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone". My March 2021 comment featured a correction of the misrepresentation of the Iraq WMD issue in your TNSR article. Therefore, I was dismayed to see the same misrepresentation of the Iraq WMD issue reiterated in your 28MAR23 War on the Rocks article, "The Iraq War’s Intelligence Failures Are Still Misunderstood", as the keystone premise of your thesis. In the first instance, I could grant the benefit of the doubt with the excuse you were just ignorant. Honest ignorance is unintentional and correctable, and I corrected it. However, your reiteration of the same misrepresentation of the Iraq WMD issue after my correction implies a deliberate distortion.
I illustrated your misrepresentation of the Iraq WMD issue in this tweet with a side-by-side comparison of excerpts from your WotR article and the #duelferreport section of my 10th anniversary retrospective post. If you want, I can write a long-form critique of your 28MAR23 WotR article like I did for your 02FEB21 TNSR article.
As you said, it's vital for "American analysts and policymakers" to "learn the right lessons" from OIF. They can't do that if their conception of OIF's justification is distorted by your fundamentally flawed thesis.
