from: [Eric LC]
to: [Joe Lieberman]
date: Mar 18, 2023, 3:55 PM
subject: Re: 15MAR23 AP article on OIF is a useful reference for prevailing false narrative
Senator Lieberman,
As I mentioned in my March 16, 2023 11:15 PM e-mail, here's my write-up on the AP article: Critique of Tara Copp and Lolita Baldor's "Why US troops remain in Iraq 20 years after ‘shock and awe’".
I'm glad I inspired https://nypost.com/2023/03/16/20-years-on-its-clear-our-collective-memory-of-the-iraq-war-is-simply-wrong/. My comments:
Lieberman:
The legislation was enacted because bipartisan majorities in Congress and the White House concluded Saddam threatened our security and violated our values.
He brutally repressed his citizens (particularly Shia Muslims), broke most of the promises he made to end the Gulf War, gave sanctuary and support to Islamist terrorists and had continuing aggressive designs on neighboring nations.
He brutally repressed his citizens (particularly Shia Muslims), broke most of the promises he made to end the Gulf War, gave sanctuary and support to Islamist terrorists and had continuing aggressive designs on neighboring nations.
It needs to be clarified that "Congress and the White House concluded Saddam threatened our security and violated our values" because "He...broke most of the promises he made to end the Gulf War".
A fundamental flaw in the discourse on Iraq is the omission of the significance of the mandate to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235) and "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" (P.L. 107-243).
Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441), if they're referenced at all, are usually mentioned as a separate, vague reason in the bundle of reasons for OIF, as you did.
In fact, "He...broke most of the promises he made to end the Gulf War" and the issues of Saddam's repression (UNSCR 688), terrorism (UNSCR 687), aggression (UNSCR 949), and WMD (UNSCR 687) were operatively the same issue because Saddam's threat in those areas was not assessed according to a general standard, open to any definition. Saddam's threat in those areas was defined, diagnosed, and finally resolved according to the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) that was purpose-designed to resolve Saddam's Gulf War-established manifold threat.
In practice, that meant Iraq's noncompliance was Saddam's threat, and the Saddam regime is confirmed to have been noncompliant across the board in its "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) — "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (ISG). The Iraqi noncompliance that comprised Saddam's threat also "violated our values" because the Gulf War ceasefire mandates were designed with paradigmatic essential liberal international norms.
Therefore, the key to clarifying the Iraq issue for the public is strictly interpreting the facts in the discourse according to the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) and its operative enforcement procedure per Public Laws 102-190, 105-235, 107-243, etc.. Realign the Iraq issue with its primary sources, in other words.
There's a reason the OIF FAQ utilizes the legal method. You're a JD, too.
Lieberman:
The preponderance of evidence also leads to the conclusion he did not have an active WMD program when we commenced the invasion in 2003.
Actually, the preponderance of evidence shows Saddam did have an active WMD program. It depends on how you define an "active WMD program". Excerpt from the OIF FAQ answer to "Did Bush lie his way to war with 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).Note, unlike the ISG findings that indicate an active WMD program per UNSCR 687, the ISG non-findings that suggest "he [Saddam] did not have an active WMD program" are unreliable. Excerpt from the #duelferreport section of OIF FAQ's 10th anniversary retrospective:
The Iraq Survey Group heavily qualified its findings in the report's Transmittal Message, Scope Note, and various sections by cautioning that the Saddam regime was expert at hiding proscribed items and activities, much evidence was lost prior to, during, and after the war, key Saddam regime officials were not forthcoming, statements conflicted, there were clear signs that suspect areas were "sanitized", and other practical factors, such as the terrorist insurgency, limited its investigation. For example, on January 28, 2004, David Kay informed the Senate Armed Services Committee:I regret to say that I think at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity about what happened.In other words, what ISG found constituted a floor only, not a complete account of Saddam's WMD. In many instances, ISG concluded it could not determine Iraq had disarmed as mandated. Significant questions remained undisposed. Therefore, what ISG found corroborating Iraq's material breach of UNSCR 687 in the post-war investigation is more material than what ISG did not find matching the pre-war intelligence estimates.
A lot of that traces to the failure on April 9 to establish immediately physical security in Iraq -- 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. "It had been the regime's. The regime is gone. I'm going to go take the gold toilet fixtures and everything else imaginable."
I've seen looting around the world and thought I knew the best looters in the world. The Iraqis excel at that.
The result is -- document destruction -- we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
Lieberman:
The Bush administration told us Saddam had WMD based on faulty intelligence that came in part from Saddam himself, who deceived most everyone into thinking Iraq had WMD because he thought that would protect him from invasion.
As the Senate investigation highlighted, the foundational "faulty intelligence" was the UNSCOM/UNMOVIC fact record, e.g., "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", "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" (UNMOVIC).
In fact, due to Iraq's "denial and deception operations" (ISG), we don't know how much the "faulty intelligence" was faulty, e.g., "ISG cannot determine the fate of Iraq’s stocks of bulk BW agents ... There is a very limited chance that continuing investigation may provide evidence to resolve this issue" (ISG).
The burden of proof was on Iraq and there was no burden of proof on the UNSCR 678 enforcers. In practice, that meant the UN inspections, OIF invasion, and OIF peace operations were not like a crime-scene forensic investigation that searched for evidence while guarding carefully against the contamination or loss of physical evidence in a controlled area. Iraqi counter-intelligence exploited the situation by systematically ridding evidence practically unfettered. See the 28JAN04 David Kay quote above. Notice Dr. Kay's inference that Saddam's forces rid much, perhaps even most, of the evidence after the regime change.
As you point out, Saddam was bluffing. But Saddam wasn't only bluffing, and we can't know how much he was bluffing. ISG found a lot of WMD evidence. Beyond that, we're compelled to speculate about the "unparalleled" (Kay) mass of WMD evidence that was "sanitized" (ISG) by Iraqi counter-intelligence. We can reasonably assume it included higher value items than the scraps Saddam's agents left behind.
Lieberman:
The evidence also argues that Saddam intended to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as soon as he could get out from under the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War.
The evidence shows Saddam got out from under the sanctions years before Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441). The evidence also shows he didn't wait: Iraq was reconstituting its NBC capabilities as Saddam was breaking the sanctions. Excerpt from the OIF FAQ answer to "Why did Bush leave the ‘containment’ (status quo)":
In January 2002, according to a detained senior MIC [military-industrial complex] official, Saddam directed the MIC to assist the IAEC [Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission] with foreign procurement. ... At this time, Saddam Husayn also directed the IAEC to begin a multi-year procurement project called the IAEC Modernization Program. This program, which was still functioning up to the Coalition invasion in 2003,strove to revitalize the IAEC capabilities. [ISG]A prevalent assumption in the politics is the ISG finding, "In addition to preserved capability, we have clear evidence of his intent to resume WMD as soon as sanctions were lifted," means Saddam had not undertaken to resume WMD because the UNSC had not yet officially lifted the UNSCR 660-series sanctions. However, ISG reported Saddam's position on the sanctions was "We have said with certainty that the embargo will not be lifted by a Security Council resolution, but will corrode by itself." ISG findings confirm Saddam’s "end-run strategy" was to lift the sanctions by undermining them for "the de facto elimination of sanctions" rather than to lift the sanctions by UNSC decree through compliance with "the formal and open Security Council process". From Saddam's perspective, he was lifting the sanctions long before the 2002-2003 "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441):
...
From 1999 until he was deposed in April 2003, Saddam’s conventional weapons and WMD-related procurement programs steadily grew in scale, variety, and efficiency. [ISG]By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999.In fact, by the time of President Bush's September 2002 speech to the UN General Assembly, Iraq had undertaken conventional and WMD-related armament activity in violation of UNSCR 687 for years. Reconstitution of Saddam's WMD program was underway. The Regime Finance and Procurement section of the Iraq Survey Group Duelfer report details the Saddam regime's nearly completed defeat of the sanctions and 'containment' that was averted with OIF.
... As UN sanctions eroded there was a concomitant expansion of activities that could support full WMD reactivation. [ISG]
Lieberman:
The most relevant questions to ask today are what lessons the United States should draw from what happened in Iraq after Saddam was removed.
Democrats and Republicans now both disavow the war they authorized together two decades ago in an unusual bipartisan consensus that is contributing to a broader conclusion that America’s involvement in the world in general and the Middle East in particular is futile and wasteful.
It also probably helped bring about our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and can lead to more such foreign-policy mistakes.
The painful truth is we made terrible errors in Iraq after Saddam was overthrown that took an awful human toll on Americans and Iraqis.
Democrats and Republicans now both disavow the war they authorized together two decades ago in an unusual bipartisan consensus that is contributing to a broader conclusion that America’s involvement in the world in general and the Middle East in particular is futile and wasteful.
It also probably helped bring about our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and can lead to more such foreign-policy mistakes.
The painful truth is we made terrible errors in Iraq after Saddam was overthrown that took an awful human toll on Americans and Iraqis.
The pivotal error was made before Saddam was overthrown, i.e., the pre-war analysis severely underestimated Saddam's radical sectarian turn, extreme corruption of Iraqi society, and deep domestic, regional, and global terrorism. As a result, the initial "humanitarian reconstruction" plan, otherwise credible, was miscalibrated to a concept of Iraqi society that was obsolete in 2002-2003.
Note, it wasn't just US officials who were caught off guard by the unimagined depravity of the Saddam regime and its agents-turned-insurgents. UN humanitarian officials and the Iraqi expats who advised the pre-war US planning found Iraqi society to be in a far worse state than they had conceived before OIF. Meanwhile, the Saddamist insurgents exploited the inimical conditions they had created in the first place.
[21MAR23 addendum: I neglected to cite-link sources for this part of my comments on your 16MAR23 New York Post article:
Amatzia Baram: From Militant Secularism to Islamism: The Iraqi Ba’th Regime 1968-2003, October 2011.
Kyle Orton: The Islamic State Was Coming Without the Invasion of Iraq, 12DEC15.
Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, November 2007.
UN Commission on Human Rights: Situation report on Iraq, 19APR02.
UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq (Andreas Mavrommatis): Situation of human rights in Iraq, 18MAR04.]
Regarding "we made terrible errors in Iraq after Saddam was overthrown", excerpt:
...the terrorist insurgency we battled in post-war Iraq was not the first time the Army was caught flat-footed. That sort of demanding learning curve is normal in our military history where victory over capable adversaries has typically followed a harsh road of grim perseverance and in-competition adaptation, not preemptive perfection.The "terrible errors" are part and parcel with the essential lessons of Iraq we must embrace if we would restore the resolute, principled, competitively sufficient American leadership of the free world that crystallized in the crucible of Iraq.
The standard of perfect preemptive anticipation, preparation, cost accounting, and execution that critics apply to OIF is ahistorical in military history. I agree we should do what we can beforehand to prepare. However, that the learning curve for victory in post-war Iraq was driven by necessity on the ground is consistent with military history. Our military has always undergone steep learning curves in war that have often included devastating setbacks, such as the battles of New York, First Manassas, Kasserine Pass, and Chosin Reservoir. The enemy teaches if we will learn, and President Bush's resolute leadership provided the necessary will to succeed with Iraq. OIF just demanded a steeper learning curve for the peace operations than the major combat operations that deposed Saddam's regime due to the kind of enemies that adapted to the inviting weakness ingrained in the military by the Powell Doctrine.
Lieberman:
In the end, those fine qualities did not just save Iraq and the world from Saddam but defeated two waves of post-Saddam Islamist extremism in Iraq under President Barack Obama’s leadership and stabilized the country.
To your question, my semi-anonymity with the OIF FAQ affords me a latitude for frankness that might be impolitic for you.
For example, I'm substantially more critical of President Obama's "leadership" on Iraq than you are. See the OIF FAQ epilogue answer to "Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a strategic blunder or a strategic victory" and OIF FAQ post An irresponsible exit from Iraq.
As always, critical feedback and questions are welcome.
from: [Eric LC]
to: [Joe Lieberman]
date: Apr 8, 2023, 1:44 PM
subject: Re: Reaction to W. James Antle III piece in "What is the most important lesson of the Iraq War?"
Senator Lieberman,
I appreciate your encouragement and assurance, but I can't believe you.
If the OIF FAQ had a clarifying effect on you, then you would not have reiterated the popular misconception, "The preponderance of evidence also leads to the conclusion he did not have an active WMD program when we commenced the invasion in 2003" (Lieberman, 16MAR23), that has fundamentally corrupted the politics and policy of our country and the West at large.
If the OIF FAQ really had a clarifying effect on you, then your New York Post article would have exploited the singular opportunity of the 20th anniversary of OIF to dispel and correct that pivotal article of misinformation. You endorsed it, instead.
Clarification of the Iraq WMD issue is a point of emphasis in the OIF FAQ's expository posts and critical responses to experts: The determinative UNMOVIC Clusters document and ex post Iraq Survey Group findings are rife with UNSCR 687 violations that clearly show that at Iraq's "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council" (UNSCR 1441) the Saddam regime did not disarm as mandated for casus belli, e.g., "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" (UNMOVIC), and possessed an active WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687, e.g., "From 1999 until he was deposed in April 2003, Saddam’s conventional weapons and WMD-related procurement programs steadily grew in scale, variety, and efficiency" (ISG).
That you obviously missed the OIF FAQ's clarification of the Iraq WMD issue shows you haven't actually engaged my work.
The singular window of opportunity of the 20th anniversary of OIF is drawing shut, but It's not too late for you to engage the OIF FAQ's corrective content for real this time and use it to clarify the Iraq issue to the public.
Again, you were demonstrably right on Iraq in the first place, and your critics have been brazenly specious all along. I don't understand why you empower your detractors and self-abnegate by endorsing the demonstrably false yet prevailing false narrative of OIF when you can readily correct it with public domain, straightforward, thorough, plainly stated, immutable, incontrovertible law and fact.
---------------
from: [Eric LC]
to: [Joe Lieberman]
date: Apr 19, 2023, 12:13 AM
subject: Re: Reaction to W. James Antle III piece in "What is the most important lesson of the Iraq War?"
Senator Lieberman,
You should have "corresponded" with me to review your 16MAR23 New York Post article before you published it. For reference, my critical comments on your article are posted at https://operationiraqifreedomfaq.blogspot.com/2023/03/comments-on-joe-lieberman-20-years-on-its-clear-our-collective-memory-of-the-iraq-war-is-simply-wrong.html.
I want to excuse you. But I appealed to you to clarify the Iraq issue with the singular opportunity of the landmark 20th anniversary of OIF, and instead you endorsed the pivotal misinformation on the Iraq WMD issue that's the keystone premise of the false narrative that has corrupted the US, UK, and West at large, enabled and empowered illiberal actors, and invidiously degraded you and like-minded leaders who were right on Iraq. Your article has other flaws, but that mistake did the most to hurt you, undermine what you stand for, and show you did not engage the OIF FAQ.
You misled the public with a critical law and fact error, not an "area of disagreement": "The preponderance of evidence also leads to the conclusion he [Saddam] did not have an active WMD program" (Lieberman, 16MAR23) is irreconcilable with "We [Iraq Survey Group] have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material" (David Kay, 28JAN04), "Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999...As UN sanctions eroded there was a concomitant expansion of activities that could support full WMD reactivation" (ISG), "The IIS ran a large covert procurement program, undeclared chemical [and biological] laboratories, and supported denial and deception operations" (ISG), and other Iraq Survey Group findings that clearly show an active WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687.
Meanwhile, the "preponderance of evidence...he did not have an active WMD program" (Lieberman) is "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), which is itself evidence of an active WMD program since it infers there was a great deal more WMD evidence than ISG was able to get its hands on, and ISG found a lot as is.
Whether you correspond with me is up to you. The OIF FAQ clarification of the Iraq issue and compilation of OIF's source material are available to you (and everyone else on-line) either way.
You made a mistake. You can fix it. You should fix it for your own sake, your country, fellow leaders who were also right, and the world for the generations ahead.
