Approval Page

ROWLANDS, MINA SIMON PG/M.Sc/10/57312

UNITED NATIONS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS IN IRAQ, 1990-2003

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCES, FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

Political Science

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

2011

Digitally Signed by Webmaster‟s Name DN : CN = Webmaster‟s name O= University of Nigeria, Nsukka Webmaster OU = Innovation Centre

UNITED NATIONS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS

IN IRAQ, 1990-2003

ROWLANDS, MINA SIMON

PG/M.Sc/10/57312

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

FACULTY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

NOVEMBER, 2011 3

TITLE PAGE

UNITED NATIONS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS IN IRAQ, 1990-2003

ROWLANDS, MINA SIMON

PG/M.Sc/10/57312

A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, FACULTY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF SCIENCE (M.Sc) IN POLITICAL SCIENCE (INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS).

NOVEMBER, 2011

APPROVAL PAGE

THIS PROJECT REPORT HAS BEEN APPROVED ON BEHALF OF THE

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA.

………………………………….. ………………………………….

DR. A.M.N. OKOLIE PROF. OBASI IGWE

(PROJECT SUPERVISOR) (HEAD OF DEPARTMENT)

……………………………….. .………………………………

PROF. E.O. EZEANI EXTERNAL EXAMINER

(DEAN OF FACULTY)

DEDICATION

This Work Is Dedicated to the Memory of My Late-Mother, Mrs. Abowari

Innocent Rowlands, who laid the foundation for my academic pursuits; but unfortunately could not live to see me get to this level.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In carrying out this research, a lot of individuals contributed immensely, and as such they deserve to be acknowledged.

Profound gratitude is expressed to my very amiable and competent supervisor, Dr

A.M.N. Okolie; who painstakingly perused the manuscripts, pointed out errors, made incisive and invaluable inputs, as well as challenged me to work harder. He is indeed an erudite scholar and I am very proud to have worked under his tutelage.

Of equal prominence for their inspirational support are my family members. To my Father, Mr. Innocent Rowlands, who bore the financial burden of the entire enterprise; I will say that “He is indeed the best Father on the Planet.” To my Uncle and his Wife, Engr. & Mrs. Joshua Alalibo; Mr. Benneth Rowlands; Mr. Sunday Rowlands;

Mrs. Belema Edekobi and Mrs. Happiness Zudonu; for their unparalleled support and encouragement.

My sincere gratitude extends to Mrs. Victoria O. Pase, who played a Motherly

Figure in my life and whose words of encouragement spurred me on. Sometimes I felt like giving-up, but her motivational words kept me going. May God bless her!

I also acknowledge in a very special way the support received from my friends:

Goodhead Uranta, Joseph Tom, Jini Ralph, Sam Onyia Chikeluba, Lydia Augustine

(a.k.a. Ebinorival), Donny Chukwunyere, Malik Ihuoma and Daniel Ken Benson.

Finally and most importantly, my utmost gratitude goes to God Almighty, who gave me life and made this entire enterprise A DREAM COME TRUE.

ABSTRACT

Acts of aggression, global terrorism, abuse of human rights and recently the lack of democracy; are behaviours that pose threats to international peace and security. In 1945, the United Nations Organisation (U.N.O.) was created to handle these acts and is also mandated to invoke the tool of economic sanctions against an erring member - state so as to restore sanity and preserve world peace. Between 1990 – 2003, economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq (for its invasion of Kuwait as well as claims of its possession of nuclear weapons) by the United Nations Security Council (U.N.S.C.). Using the Marxian

Political Economy Theory, the study tried to find out: (1) whether the use of comprehensive economic sanctions as international punitive measure has reduced the incidence of global terrorism; (2) if the UN collective security mechanism in Iraq enhances international security; and (3) if there is any link between the U.S. perception of its national security and UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq. Through the use of observation method of data collection (i.e. using secondary sources of data), the study found out that international sanctions management is bedevilled by power – politics; and so the extent to which global super -powers have their economic interests at stake in particular acts of illegality, determine whether or not sanctions will result; and if they do, the extent to which they are effective in achieving the United Nations‟ set objectives. To ameliorate the situation, the study recommends among others that: (1) the use of

“targeted” or “smart” sanctions in place of comprehensive sanctions by the UN; (2) increasing the number of relief organizations and relief workers that the UN allows to enter a country in times of such sanctions. This is due to the fact that these relief workers and organizations could do a lot to spread aid to more people in such situations, thus, reducing the level of humanitarian disaster.,etc. 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page i

Approval Page ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgement iv

Abstract v

Table of Contents vi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of Problem 4

1.2 Objectives of the Study 7

1.3 Significance of the Study 8

1.4 Literature Review 9

1.5 Theoretical Framework 24

1.6 Hypotheses 30

1.7 Method of Data Collection 30

1.8 Method of Data Analysis 31

CHAPTER TWO: ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND THE INCIDENCE OF GLOBAL TERRORISM

2.1 Origin and causes of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis 32

2.2 United Nations comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq 41

2.3 Impacts of UN comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq 54

2.4 The effectiveness of comprehensive sanctions on Dictatorships 61

2.5 Comprehensive economic sanctions and the incidence of global terrorism 64

CHAPTER THREE: UNITED NATIONS COLLECTIVE SECURITY MECHANISM AND GLOBAL INSECURITY

3.1 Iraqi threat to global security 71

3.2 United Nations Collective Security Mechanism in the Iraq-Kuwait crisis 75

3.3 UN enforcement of Collective Security and the role of Hegemonic powers in Iraq 82

3.4 United Nations Security Council‟s disunity over the sanctions in Iraq 88

CHAPTER FOUR: AMERICA‟S NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE UNITED NATIONS‟ SANCTIONS IN IRAQ

4.1 Meaning and conceptualization of National Security 104

4.2 National Security and the rationale behind Iraq‟s invasion and violation of Kuwait‟s

Sovereignty 107

4.3 United States National Interests in the Middle-East 110

4.4 Establishment of U.S. military base in the Gulf 124

4.5 UN intervention and enforcement of sanctions in Iraq 128

4.6 The defense of United States‟ National Security in Iraq 133

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 151

Bibliography 155

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

The United Nations Organisation (U.N.O.) officially came into existence on 24

October,1945 as a result of the inability of the League of Nations to curb the outbreak of a Second World War. The primary aim of the Organisation is to arrest all forms of acrimonious and aggressive acts that could jeopardize global peace and security, as well as facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace (Oche,

2004).

Iraq, which became a member of the United Nations on December 21, 1945; invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 citing the following reasons:

 That Kuwait had extracted oil from a pool beneath the Iraq – Kuwait border that

belonged to Iraq;

 That Kuwait purposely saturated the petrol market with large supplies of oil,

thereby keeping oil‟s spot market price low (low oil prices rendered Iraq unable to

pay the massive debt it had accrued during the Iran – Iraq war); and

 That the borders drawn for it (Iraq) by Britain, after the fall of the Ottoman

empire, unjustly deprived her of territorial seas (Mac Ogonor, 2000: 24).

On August 6, 1990, (four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait), the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq to pressure her to leave. This is in line with the

United Nations Charter (chapter VII) which states that the Security Council can take enforcement measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such 11 measures range from economic and /or other sanctions not involving the use of armed force to international military action (Obiozor, 1995). However, in March,1991 after Iraq had been forced out of Kuwait by a U.S - led coalition force in „Operation Desert Storm‟, the sanctions took on a new purpose. The sanction which is embodied in the U.N.

Resolution 687 called for :

 The elimination of Iraq‟s Weapons of Mass Destruction;

 Iraq‟s recognition of the Sovereignty of Kuwait; and

 Iraq to comply with the cease – fire terms and payment of reparation to Kuwait (Gilbert, 2004:18).

On May 22, 2003, the United Nations Security Council (U.N.S.C) voted to lift the sanctions after Saddam Hussein‟s regime had been toppled. The vote was 14 to 1 (with

Syria abstaining) (Alnasrawi, 2004:29). But the passing of this resolution was also controversial in the sense that:

1. In the past, the United States and Britain, primarily had been most vocal in maintaining

sanctions in Iraq, but now, they were the main drivers to lift them; showing the

political power both nations wield in the international arena;

2. While the political issues in this resolution were hardly presented in the Bristish media;

some 150 peace organisations and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) from

around the world protested the resolution for virtually legitimizing the U.S. – led

invasion of Iraq and endorsing the foreign occupation of a U.N. member – state; and

3. It did not specify the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in

declaring Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction; it did not end the U.N. arms 12

embargo against the country and it did not also clarify the U.N.‟s role in a future Iraq

(Alnasrawi, 2004:31).

While the sanctions appears to be lifted, the future of Iraq is still under alot of questions. The history of the sanctions regime and its toll on the Iraqi people have been very devastating to the extent that life in Iraq after nine years of sanctions has been described as:

slowly, inexorably, a generation is being crushed in Iraq. Thousands are dying; thousands more are leading stunted lives, and storing up bitter hatred for the future (The Economist, 2000:12).

According to UNICEF(2001:8), the sanctions claim the life of one child every 12 minutes, 250 people everyday, and 90,000 people a year. Indeed, the impact of the sanctions is so large, that the former U.N. Under - Secretary – General, Dennis Halliday, resigned from the U.N. in protest over a system he considered “Systematic Genocide”

(Halliday, 1999).

In this study, we argue that contrary to the orthodoxy in economic sanctions management literature, comprehensive economic sanctions in themselves have not been able to reduce the incidence of global terrorism. The study further demonstrates that owing to the strategic political and economic interests of the United States in the Middle-

East, the UN was manipulated and exploited as an instrument to support a genocidal programme that is in fact thoroughly opposed to the principles enshrined within this same international body.

This Study focuses on the United Nations and management of economic sanctions in Iraq, 1990-2003, and it has been carefully partitioned into five chapters to vividly present the facts that form the body of this work. 13

1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The outbreak of the Second World War, despite the League of Nations, necessitated the birth of a United Nations Organisation charged with the responsibility to prevent future wars and pursue international peace and security through a plethora of approaches, including the use of comprehensive economic sanctions (Gilbert, 2004). The practise of economic sanctions is hardly new in international relations, but the twentieth century is especially rich in sanction episodes. The use of economic sanctions increased from two cases in the 1920s to more than twenty in the 1980s (Mueller,1994:30).

Nevertheless, the number of disputes in which they were employed during the first half of the 1990s, gives credence to the conclusion about the ever-growing popularity of economic sanctions (Cortright & Lopez, 2000). It also demonstrates clear differences from previous decades. But while the majority of the sanctions employed previously were unilateral and originated from the United States, today they are predominantly multilateral and comprehensive in nature and imposed by the United Nations. This reflects that a new inexpensive and potentially potent weapon against small and medium- size trouble-makers have been found (Mueller, 1994:31).

Since the formal inception of the phenomenon of comprehensive economic sanctions, a near unanimity has emerged in the international arena that comprehensive economic sanctions constitute a valid antidote for check-mating acts of aggression and threats to global peace and security. The Clinton administration cited several objectives for imposing comprehensive economic sanctions which included: protecting human 14 rights, counteracting terrorism, reducing nuclear proliferation, ensuring workers‟ rights, protecting the environment, and aiding political stability (National Association of

Manufacturers, 1997:12). United Nations‟ Proponents of economic sanctions see them as necessary foreign policy to stop aggressing countries from threatening international peace and security. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, declared on October 5, 1937 that:

It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a „quarantine‟ of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of disease (quoted in Daoudi and Dajani, 1983:18).

Similarly, Woodrow Wilson, the thirty- fourth American President, once spoke to the League of Nations describing economic sanctions as follows:

A nation boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need for force. It is a terrible remedy. It does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted, but it brings pressure upon the nation that, in my judgment, no modern nation can resist (quoted in Barry, 1988:23).

With specific reference to Iraq, it has been argued that comprehensive economic sanctions have reduced acts of aggression and threats to global peace. Shereen (2004) posits that, the sanctions imposed upon the Iraqi dictator forced him to accept international inspections and monitoring of his weapons capabilities, thereby creating greater security within the region. In doing so, the aggressively expansionist Iraqi government was contained within its own borders and the UN and its partners were able to monitor the regime‟s compliance with international demands. Blix (2004) avers that at the time of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq was in the midst of a major arms-buying spree to replace its extensive losses during the Iran-Iraq War and to rebuild its military 15 capabilities. Following the 1991 Gulf War, Hussein was unable to replenish his weapons stocks; both small arms as well as larger ammunitions, greatly weakening what had been one of the region‟s most formidable armies. It is thought that it is because of the effectiveness of the comprehensive economic sanctions that the 2003 invasion encountered such little resistance from the poorly equipped Iraqi troops. Furthermore,

Lopez (2004) submits that sanctions also provided political leverage to win concessions from Saddam. According to him, in a bid to avoid the political vacuum and possible civil war that would have resulted from overthrowing Hussein, the international community was able to use sanctions to win important concessions from the dictator such as weapons inspections and monitoring. From 1991 to 1998, the UN as well as the International

Atomic Energy Agency conducted hundreds of inspection missions at weapons sites and document centers, systematically uncovering and eliminating Iraq‟s nuclear weapons program and most of its chemical, biological and ballistic missile systems (Blix, 2004). In the view of Cortright (2002), these inspections all but destroyed Saddam‟s ability to acquire or produce WMD‟s by destroying weapons making facilities, monitoring areas of potential production and reducing the possibility of him importing weapons from foreign countries. In addition, as part of their inspection and monitoring role, inspectors had developed and installed an extensive array of electronic monitoring and surveillance equipment that would make clandestine re-arming far more difficult for Hussein

(Shereen, 2004).

Arising from our review of literature on economic sanctions, a lacuna appears quite obvious in existing knowledge on the subject matter. It would appear that the use of comprehensive economic sanctions by the UN is inconsistent with overall empirical 16 evidence, which suggests quite strongly that comprehensive economic sanctions have failed in curbing the incidence of global terrorism. Rather, it has created severe humanitarian disasters which contravene international humanitarian law. The various theoretical explanations so far put forward also seem inadequate for understanding the role of the US in the United Nation‟s use of comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq.

Flowing from this is that the prescriptions in extant literature do not appear to contain a panacea for containing acts of aggression and global terrorism.

Deriving from the above therefore, the following research questions suggest themselves for investigation:

1. Has the use of comprehensive economic sanctions as international punitive

measure reduced the incidence of global terrorism?

2. Did the UN Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq enhance international

security?

3. Is there any link between the United States‟ perception of its national security and

UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq?

1.2 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The general objective of this study is to critically examine how the United

Nations managed economic sanctions in Iraq between 1990-2003. While specifically, the research work seeks to:

1. Ascertain whether the use of comprehensive economic sanctions as international

punitive measure has reduced the incidence of global terrorism. 17

2. Examine if the UN Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq has enhanced

international security.

3. Assess whether there is any link between the United States‟ perception of its

national security and the UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq.

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this research on the United Nations‟ search for international peace and security, through its use of comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq, can be immense. It shows that the quest for global peace and security as well as the survival of mankind and civilisation is intense.

On a two-prong approach, we state the theoretical and practical significance.

Theoretically, the study illustrates that the perversity of security in our time demands common partnership beyond classical, rhetorical, political and ideological processes.

From the objectives set out, this study will enrich our knowledge of identifying, reviewing and explaining the dynamic forces at play in the UN management of economic sanctions in Iraq, and their impacts on the UN strategy to ensure global peace through comprehensive economic sanctions. Thus far, international stake-holders will be better able to appreciate clearly the targets, methods, successes and failures of the UN comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq and their direct implications for the maintenance of global peace and security.

Practically, it is envisaged that this work will help develop a new strategic thinking for political actors, practitioners, policy-makers and analysts to have a deeper appreciation of the warp and woof of world politics. It will also help critics, pundits and academics in analysing data useful for future studies. It is also hoped that this study will 18 serve as a useful material and incentive for further process of confidence-building measures on global security initiatiatives.

1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW:

This study investigates the global security dilemma with specific attention to the

United Nations‟ role in the economic sanctions of Iraq between 1990-2003. In this light, this literature review tries to articulate how writers have tried to conceptualize the following research questions:

1. Has the use of comprehensive economic sanctions as international punitive

measure reduced the incidence of global terrorism?

2. Did the UN Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq enhance international security?

3 Is there any link between the United States perception of its national security and

UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq?

Has the use of comprehensive economic sanctions as international punitive measure reduced the incidence of global terrorism?

Since the formal inception of the phenomenon of comprehensive economic sanctions, a near unanimity exists in the international arena that comprehensive economic sanctions constitute a valid antidote for checkmating acts of aggression and global terrorism. The Clinton administration cited several objectives for imposing comprehensive economic sanctions which included: protecting human rights, counteracting terrorism, reducing nuclear proliferation, ensuring workers‟ rights, protecting the environment, and aiding political stability (National Association of

Manufacturers, 1997:12). United Nation Proponents of comprehensive economic sanctions see them as necessary foreign policy to stop aggressing countries from 19 disturbing international peace and security. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, declared on October 5, 1937 that:

Daoudi and Dajani (1983:26) summarized what comprehensive economic sanctions can do: (1) comprehensive economic sanctions would prevent war by threatening to punish aggressors, (2) comprehensive economic sanctions have a punitive effect, (3) comprehensive economic sanctions would settle international disputes peacefully, (4) comprehensive economic sanctions give substance and meaning to international law, (5) comprehensive economic sanctions give signals to the population of the target country of their government undesirable policy, (6) middle class population of the target country will be affected by the shortage of the imported luxury goods, thereby isolating their government, (7) comprehensive economic sanctions make it hard for the target country to import goods essentials to conduct war, and, (8) comprehensive economic sanctions are an effective means of mobilizing international public opinion against an aggressor.

Woodrow Wilson, the thirty- fourth American president, once spoke to the

League of Nations describing comprehensive economic sanctions as follows:

According to President Wilson, a comprehensive economic sanction may surpass the damage of “total war,” in size of human and economic costs. In wartime, only the soldiers are subject to enemy attacks; civilians are supposedly not. Even the siege and blockades of civilians are considered as immoral because the civilians are innocent.

There are several international laws that demand protection of civilians from the indiscriminate effects of siege.

Shereen (2004) posits that, the comprehensive economic sanctions imposed upon the Iraqi dictator forced him to accept international inspections and monitoring of his weapons capabilities, thereby creating greater security within the region. In doing so, the aggressively expansionist Iraqi government was contained within its own borders and the

UN and its partners were able to monitor the regime‟s compliance with international demands. Blix (2004) avers that “At the time of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq was in the midst of a major arms-buying spree to replace its extensive losses during the Iran-Iraq

War and to rebuild its military capabilities”. Following the 1991 Gulf War, Hussein was unable to replenish his weapons stocks; both small arms as well as larger ammunitions, greatly weakening what had been one of the region‟s most formidable armies. It is thought that it is because of the effectiveness of the comprehensive economic sanctions that the 2003 invasion encountered such little resistance from the poorly equipped Iraqi troops. Furthermore, Lopez (2004) submits that comprehensive economic sanctions also provided political leverage to win concessions from Saddam. According to him, in a bid to avoid the political vacuum and possible civil war that would have resulted from overthrowing Hussein, the international community was able to use sanctions to win important concessions from the dictator such as weapons inspections and monitoring. 21

From 1991 to 1998, the UN as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency conducted hundreds of inspection missions at weapons sites and document centers, systematically uncovering and eliminating Iraq‟s nuclear weapons program and most of its chemical, biological and ballistic missile systems (Blix, 2004). In the view of

Cortright (2002), these inspections all but destroyed Saddam‟s ability to acquire or produce WMD‟s by destroying weapons making facilities, monitoring areas of potential production and reducing the possibility of him importing weapons from foreign countries.

In addition, as part of their inspection and monitoring role, inspectors had developed and installed an extensive array of electronic monitoring and surveillance equipment that would make clandestine re-arming far more difficult for Hussein (Shereen, 2004).

The scholars cited in the preceding review are correct in saying that the comprehensive economic sanctions imposed upon the Iraqi dictator forced him to accept international inspections and monitoring of his weapons capabilities. However, their contention that comprehensive economic sanctions reduced the incidence of global terrorism appears inconsistent with available empirical evidence, which suggests that the use of comprehensive economic sanctions have failed in a large number of cases to achieve its desired target of deterring acts of aggression and global terrorism. Rather, it has succeeded only in creating a bigger and more complex problem for the UN, which is humanitarian catastrophe as evident in the Iraqi case.

On the basis of this, the notion that comprehensive economic sanctions are an antidote to global terrorism appears flawed. This flaw forms the first gap the study will attempt to fill.

Did the UN Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq enhance international security?

Spiegal and Wehling (1999) espouse that collective security is a system of unified response against aggression and, therefore, observe inter alia, that as a measure for the

UN to “act quickly and decisively” under crisis, its prospects in the new era to maintain international security is not totally bleak as the gulf war was amply demonstrated in

1991.

Rostow (1968) bemoans the exercise of veto power and observes that resting the responsibility of world security on the shoulders of great powers with preponderant military and political power is dangerous to global security because these great powers may become arrogant to ignore local wars, revolutions, or conquests on the ground that they do not disturb the general equilibrium of power, or endanger the sense of security of the system as a whole.

Sigal and Waldman (1994) unveils that peacekeeping is an effective variant of collective security. They argue that it was consensual support between the US and Russia during Iraq‟s invasion of Kuwait that could improve peacekeeping for collective security through greater legitimacy and widening multilateral peacekeeping under the UN auspices that is not constrained by super-power rivalry.

Bassey (1999) assesses the doctrine of collective security in its novel form to maintain that global security in the post-cold war American-dominated international system is precarious and reveals that it creates anxiety that the U.N. would be turned into a hegemonic institution to enforce core powers “vision of systemic security fore-ordained under imperial tutelage.” The writer complains that the Iraqi case helped reinforce collective security as a system built on the paradox of war to ensure peace using the U.N. 23 as “agency of collective legitimization” for the emerging hegemony in the new world of the coalition of dominant western powers.

Rourke (1997) writes to explain that collective security is based on four tenets: counties forswear the use of force except in self-defense; all agree that peace is indivisible, i.e., an attack on one is an attack on all; all pledge to unite to halt aggression and restore the peace; and all agree to supply whatever material or personnel resources are necessary to form a collective security force associated with the U.N. to defeat aggressors and restore the peace. The author observes that collective security has not been a general success on the international scene because of the difficulty of defining the aggressor from the victim, unwillingness of countries to subordinate their sovereign interests to collective action by the U.N. Although collective security is perceived merely as a goal but not a general practice, the author argues that only the U.N. intervention in

Korea (1950-1953) and in the Persian Gulf (1990-1991) came close to fulfilling the idea of U.N. authorized collective security.

Jones (1985) posits that the doctrine of collective security lays down that a war against one member is a war against all, which determination and appropriate action is a preserve of the fifteen-member Security Council with the concurring vote of the

Permanent Five –P5.

Echezona (1998) writes that much of the discussions on global security, especially under the United Nations are related to the concept of collective security. The author explains that collective security regime was introduced as a post-World War II international order to replace earlier “crude machinations” of the balance of power system and the use of it, short of world government, to legitimize international authority 24 which would provide a consortium of power for the definition and resistance to aggression.

Agwu (2004) explains that collective security ensures common equality of States, full commitments and collaboration, cooperation and abandonment of arbitrary use of force in order to take “collective measures” in solving international problems especially the maintenance of peace and security.

Okereke (2005) also locates the United Nations Security Council as the hub of

U.N. collective security regime for the Organization‟s prompt and effective actions in identifying threats to peace, breaches of peace, acts of aggression and appropriate steps that can be employed to restore order. He also condemns the unrepresentative structure and processes of the Security Council in the collective security measures against threat to global peace and security as a mere “political ruse.”

Butler (1999) assesses collective security regime to also observe that it was reinforced by cold war politics through frequent meetings, more meetings with less votes, and, therefore, avers that such optimism faded with the experiences in Yugoslavia and

Iraq, where the Security Council was bypassed, defied and abused thus indicating “a general loss of will within the Council” and its “sympathetic Secretary General‟. He, therefore, recommends three key steps to remedy the situation.

Charron (2005) agrees that collective security is a system that works by resort to coercive measures including military institution, but it was first conceived with “overconfidence” as a panacea for action by international community and today held ironically with “under-confidence” largely as a result of it ineffective in solving new challenges. He 25 calls for the strengthening of the legal framework of collective security system to enable it grapple with new challenges in global security.

Parmer and Perkins (2002) argue that the U.N. is the most important agency for collective security system that has ever been created to promote international security but it lacks unanimity of opinion among its members on the appropriate means to be emphasized. The authors blame the U.S. for promoting national and regional defenses against collective security arrangement. Accordingly, they observe that the U.N. has become generally subscribed to in principle but universally ignored in practice.

Ejiofor (1981) examines the United Nations and explains that the Security

Council is the disciplinary centre, which is built on the principle of unanimity of the permanent members, using the affirmative vote of nine to take decision in behalf of others. The author calls for the inclusion of Africa into veto-wielding States as a modification of the Council and to protect small powers to avoid possible disintegration or paralysis of the Security Council as the hub of collective security.

Claude (1961) avers that the founding fathers of the U.N. collective security first conceived it like a “vintage wine” because the potential of collective security at the time was never as great as it was in post-World War I because of interests and wrangling which have combined to wrought dilution of the potential of the collective security system. He, therefore, agrees that at the beginning, collective security regime was treated with overconfidence by its founders but the present realities in the redefinition of sources of global threat, measures and capabilities are in part engendering under-confidence in the system. He recommends seven mutual inclusive and symbiotic elements to ensure effective collective security system. 26

Lake (2001) gives a chaotic picturesque of the implication of the U.N. collective security system in the case of Iraq‟s invasion of Kuwait on August 1, 1990. He reveals that there were three different coalitions constructed by the U.S. in the guise of multilateral coalition: the “inner coalition”, the “fire alarm” and the “outer coalition” of

States in the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. preference for collective response in Irag was dictated by the seemingly huge logistic cost of the alternative of a wholly unilateral response and the danger of turning hitherto de jure State into de facto equal in an ad hoc hierarchical security alliance that would reduce American troops in Saudi Arabia. Lake concludes that the Iraq situation represents an anarchic institution of the U.S. within the

Security Council, which also mitigates security dilemma.

McNamara (1991) calls for a new system of collective security where Great- powers would renounce both the use of force and unilateral actions in conflict, to employ economic sanctions – and if necessary, military action, imposed by collective decision of all the partners that must share the financial costs, the political risks, and the dangers of causalities and bloodshed under the American leadership. He calls for a system of reward to States that abide the collective security arrangement to reduce military expenditure “to signal that priorities have been altered in favour of development in order to strengthen the system toward a more peaceful and a more prosperous world for all the peoples of our independent globe.

In conclusion, although collective security was constructed to ensure unified, prompt and decisive action against aggression, ironically as a system which relies on coercive force, it became abused and subject to Great-power hegemonic manipulation serviced otherwise through ad hoc coalition to maintain their imperial status quo than an 27 effective system to maintain global vision of security as the Iraqi case has amply illustrated.

Here the literature review on U.N. collective security has essentially provided the thought patterns of the writers about the meaning and use of collective security regime in the United Nations‟ effort at maintaining global security, but leaves a yawning gap in addressing whether the Collective Security Mechanism was applied in Iraq to enhance international security.

Is there any link between the United States perception of its national security and

UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq?

Schurman (11994) writes that the U.S. National security is linked to the Roosevelt vision of new world order where only big, benign, and professional government could assure order, security, and justice otherwise the world would be characterized by chaos and revolution. The U.N., he argues, provides America the opportunity to seek the expansion of its power, particular military (nuclear) power in order to guarantee its security from all threats. The author further posits that being located in the U.S., the U.N. thus assures the primacy of „American power because it believes in the ideology that if the world is to have security surely it must be based on American power projected through international system.

Close-Up Foundation (1994) asserts that America perceives itself as “global policeman” and wants to operate under President Reagan‟s policy of “peace through strength,” in order to defend its interests in the post-cold war world by helping to maintain stable and friendly governments around the world. The foundation reveals that

American trend portends that international security is subject to American security. 28

Holsti (1991) posits that the American perception of global security is that Great- powers should remain heavily armed in order to fulfill their elitist collective obligations and that his perception informs American adoption of realistic traditions to emphasize contributions from national contingents to the Security Council on a voluntary basis as in the case of the “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq to ensure capacity and capability of respective participants to the task of maintaining global security.

Feld (1994) contends that America perceives its national security as a product of its security policy as contained in the Defense department document requiring America to protect, defend, and if possible, enrich the U.S. he avers that under the perception, domestic matters are only seen as modifiers or amplifiers of this policy such that when the U.S. administration initiated the development of the Rapid deployment force, RDF, in the early 1980s, its main purpose was to ensure rapid military intervention in the Persian

Gulf region and other parts of the Middle east in the event of “Soviet Aggression” anywhere in the area. Feld (1994) link U.S. security to global security as mechanisms of the U.S. to achieve its economic interest in the world and the Persian Gulf region, in particular.

Schultz (1993) unveils that the perception of American security is strongly rooted in its Constitution as in the U.S. National Security Act of 1945 on presidential war powers. He asserts that in the post-war structure and power distribution of international system, the U.S. tries to safeguard its national security in the crisis-driven world by the application of the concept of “spectrum of conflict” in order to identify difference potential forms of conflict or war, especially the potential danger of Third World nuclear 29 proliferation after the Cold War U.S. Soviet menace and the need to use military force to secure the U.S. national security above global security.

Snow (1994) reinforces Feld‟s view that in the American perception, there exist close link between U.S. security and global security if only there is stability to ensure resource access. Thus far, the U.S. assumes that since its vital interests are found and threatened in the third World countries that these Third World countries constitute immediate threat to its interest because resource access and petroleum is the only Third

World commodity worth fighting over. Snow reveals that the 1991 Persian Gulf War offers “obvious testimony of the continuing relevance of access to Persian Gulf oil.”

Robertson (1991) also writes to rationalize that American perception of its national security lies in its vision of the post-cold war new world order amply defined by

U.S. president George Walker Bush (Snr.), as a world where brutality will go unrewarded and aggression will meet collective resistance. He writes to sate that the war in Iraq, in the American perception, was fait accompli in American-domination-oriented new world order.

Halloran (1986) reveals that the U.S. perceives its high military budget as a signal of its intention to friend and foe alike which has a profound effect on its political standing in international arena. Thus far, the U.S. indulges in act of black budget‟ to develop new technology out of public scrutiny and to avoid being delayed by red tape in its excessive spending on military technology to ensure its security of a free world that guarantees its national interests and those of American allies.

Tillema (1994) identifies military intervention in the internal conflicts of other countries as “America‟s best-known acts” in world affairs after its civil war, particularly 30 in the 1990. He reveals military intervention as a security endeavour that has colossal human and national waste and, therefore, condemns U.S. demonstration of impatience and frustration to follow large “arsenal of alternative actions” hiding under common defense of “threat to national security”.

Anderson (2003) blames American imposition of its will on the United Nations

Security council, UNSC, in order to extract the council‟s approval to use force against

Iraq‟s intransigence to comply with U.N.‟s disarmament exercise. He reveals that the

U.S. as a superpower, combined in Iraq, the double strategy of inducement and coercion of member-States into a “coalition of the willing.” He observes that the coalition from available statistics did not meet U.N.S.C. standards and, therefore, represents a „Coalition of the Sinning‟ than of the willing – a motley coalition of countries in which the U.S. and

Britain were making significant contributions to the military actions, while others were reassuring their overwhelming publics that being on the coalition list was basically meaningless.

Feldbaum and Bee (1988) write to amplify that the U.S. perceived Soviet internal convulsion upon disintegration as development which can have negative impacts on international security and arms control. They cited President Bush assertion in November

1988 that:

…a new breeze is blowing, and a world refereed by freedom seems reborn. For man‟s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from ancient, lifeless trees (Feldbaum and Bee, 1988:42).

It was in response to the new dawn that the U.S. and Soviet Union, at the start of the

1990s, were still seeking agreement to limit strategic nuclear weapons to ban chemical 31 weapons. The U.S. sought for democratic freedom, hoping that the momentum will also solve the world‟s nuclear dilemma. In the American sense of insecurity, the authors argue that “whatever the failure brings, and from whatever quarter the threat springs – whether from Israel. And Iraq, or from a rogue ruler or terrorist faction – we need to maintain a consistent commitment to controlling and perhaps eventually eliminating nuclear weapons.

Barder (1968) reveals the despair of American leaders over the spread of nuclear weapons to new nations referring to President Kennedy‟s description of the situation as

“the greatest possible danger and hazard” requiring sense of urgency to address the proliferation problem. Accordingly, the author writes that the U.S. perceives any “new centre of nuclear power” as an intrusion and potential threat to America, which it must respond to with a policy of unswerving hostility.

Berger (2004) also states that America perceives terrorism and spread of deadly weapons as twin threats to its national security which it must defeat to be secure, but however, urges the U.S. to avoid high-handedness and unilateralism in order to work with

“international institution with ready-to-move capability” in the United Nations.

Cousins (1997) agrees that the chief goal of the U.S. is to use the United Nations to achieve American security above international security because in an anarchic environment, it has become common practice for States to interpret for themselves the requirement of justice in pursuit of their own self-interest. Against this odd, the author blames the U.S. for frustrating the U.N. code of conduct on the basis of exercising absolute sovereignty instead of relative national sovereignty. Cousins maintain that U.S. sovereignty demonstrated through the use of force in a world of plot and counter-plot, 32 self-interest and balance of power is no longer tenable because military engagement promises “mutual suicide.” He criticizes improvisation of U.N. police force and calls for a permanent one that ill be adequate to deter aggression, adequate to carry out inspection as part of workable control over nuclear arms, and adequate to keep peace itself.

Nye jnr (2002) points out that American perceives its national security to link with global security based on two issues: first, that events outside the U.S. can also be harmful to America and second, the U.S. wants to use its superpower to influence distant governments on a variety of issues such as proliferation of WMD as in the case of Iraq, terrorism, drug, trade, resources and ecological damage.

Conry and Pena urge the U.S. in the exercise of its global leadership to formulate a viable national security posture to address the post-Soviet strategic environment where terrorism is the only one component of its threat in order to protect it vital national security needs and avoid the present incompetence, hypocrisy and “strategic overextension‟ under “global leadership” in which America makes promises it cannot keep. They aver that so far as America maintains sufficient military strength to act beyond the role of a power balancer in which there exists power Hegemons against its security, there would be no global security.

Steinberg (2003) attests that America perceives itself as a surviving superpower that must act to vindicate broader interests of the world. To buttress his point, the writer agues that American adoption of military perception as a last resort after lesser measures would not produce a positive response in Iraq is to deny dangerous regimes the ability to pursue WMD programmes even when America is reviled for its “deep hostility” to 33 treaties and international organizations and as a consequence, general complacency in the non-proliferation strategic efforts.

Potter et al (2004) identifies four types of dangers and risks posed by terrorism and means necessary for keeping WMD away form non-State and State actors and makes a case that terrorists constitute a far greater threat because they careless about the “safety and reliable standards” and might be willing to settle for a crude “improvised nuclear device.” Although they urge the U.S. to extract nascent nukes from the nuclear-haves and have-not in order to block non-compliance, they aver that the real answer to the present danger lies in a multifaceted response by national governments and international organization based on the knowledge of differences between these dangers and a prioritized response.

Mueller and Mueller (1999) contend that the American perception of terrorism as a serious threat to its security is scarcely plausible and, therefore, serves as an instructive direction in understanding U.S. policy toward Iraq and its link to global security in the new world order. The writers posit that the threat from Iraq as an “enfeeble, impoverished and friendless” State can be seen as minor and substantially misplaced because it is quite difficult and expensive for “rogue states” and terrorists to acquire sophisticated delivery aircraft necessary for WMD inventory. The duo blames the American high handedness and preference for its national security as gateway to bloat security and concludes that it is the cause of the present global insecurity.

From the foregoing analysis, it is apparent that American perception of its national security has been variously captured by different writers, but the link between 34 the United States perception of her national security and UN imposition of sanctions in

Iraq has not been underscored. This forms the third gap the study intends to fill.

1.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Although most academic researches on international institutions and organizations are analysed within the structural-functional scope; the framework is inadequate for understanding and explaining United Nations management of economic sanctions. This is because the framework is basically descriptive, conservative and devoid of scientific analysis (Okolie, 2004; 2005; Asogwa, 1999; and Ezeibe, 2009).

This research will be discussed under the perspective prism of Marxian Political

Economy as expounded in the work of Karl Marx “ A contribution to the critique of political economy” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (1968). Karl Marx succinctly reviewed the Hegelian philosophy of right which appeared in 1884 and discovered that material (economic) life conditions cum determines the social, political, and intellectual life process in general (Ezeibe, 2009). In the words of Marx, “ it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness”. Hence, dialectical materialism, as the defining method of marxian political economy, is characterized by: (1) Dynamic character of social reality; (2) Inter- relatedness of different levels of structure; and (3) Primacy of material condition (Ake,

1981).

As an analytical tool, Marxian political economy is based on the assumption that what occurs in the economy reflects and affects social power relations. Obasi (2007) posits that the Marxian political economy espouses the determining role of material forces in historical development. He went further to state that the framework examines 35 the interaction of economics and politics, especially the influence of the former on the latter and the consequences upon foreign policies. The Marxian political economy expresses an obvious reality, which is the economic basis of the political behaviour of

States and people. In otherwords, the framework posits that the economic interests of nations at the international scene determines their social and political behaviours; and that there is no way international politics can be divorced from interests of nations. This is adduced to the fact that it is on the sub-structure (economic) that the super-structure

(political,social, cultural,religious,etc) stands (Jaja, 2004).

In relating the Marxian political economy framework to this study, Jaja (2004) remarks that the entire episode of Iraq‟s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent imposition of prolong sanctions on Iraq by the U.S.-inspired United Nations, is a sheer demonstration of economic interests (i.e who controls the oil in the Middle-east region).

Prior to the Gulf war in 1991, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain „a prisoner of its energy dilemma‟ as long as Saddam Hussein was in power (Onuoha, 2009). The true position is that the U.S. relies on oil to supply about 40% of its energy requirements. Of this, 55% is imported, and this percentage is expected to rise to 65% in 2020

(http://www.krysstal.com/democracy-why USA invaded Iraq,html). According to

Michael T. Klare in Onuoha (2009), this dependency on foreign oil is a weakness for

American power. He went further to state that “unless Persian Gulf oil can be kept under

U.S. control, our ability to remain the dominant world power would be put into question.”

He finally concluded that “whoever controls the Gulf automatically maintains a stranglehold on the global economy. 36

Iraq, no doubt, is very fundamental in the U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle- east. Its proven oil reserves are 113 billion barrels; the second largest in the world after

Saudi-Arabia; and 11% of the world‟s total (Ndukwe, 2008). However, the U.S. is not just only interested in oil from Iraq; its main concern is to maintain political dominance over all the oil-producing countries of the Middle-east region. The former Secretary-of-

State, Collin Powell, gave a glimpse of U.S. intentions when He told the Senate foreign relations Committee on February 6, 2003 that success in the Iraq war “could fundamentally reshape that region in a powerful positive way that will enhance U.S. interests.

Essentially, Iraq under Saddam Hussein threatened U.S. economy in two fundamental ways, namely: (1) To reduce dollar hegemony; and (2) To attempt to dominate the political economy of the Gulf region (Onuoha, 2009:91). Thus, it is clear that Saddam Hussein pose a great threat to United States‟ economic interests. Even though the Bush administration consistently denied that oil was its main motive for the prolong U.N. economic sanctions and subsequent invasion of Iraq, Alan Greenspan (the consummate washington insider and long time head of the U.S. central bank) revealed the real reasons behind America‟s action thus:

Saddam Hussein had wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz and so control Middle-east oil shipment through the vital route out of the Gulf. Had Saddam been able to do that, it would have been devastating to the West as the former Iraq president could have shut off 5 million barrels a day and brought the industrial world to its knees. The prolong economic sanctions and subsequent invasion of Iraq was aimed at protecting Middle-east oil reserves. I thought the issues of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point ( Washington Guardian, 2007:5).

In otherwords, the primary goal of every state is to promote individual national interest defined by the acquisiton of power and not morality. All other national objectives should be subordinated to the promotion of nation interest, which in turn ensures self- preservation in an anarchic international system. Thus, national interest in this context is defined as “whatever enhances or preserves the state‟s security, its influence, and its military and economic power” (Rourke, 1999). Therefore, the United States via the instrument of the United Nations, and support of Britain, imposed severe economic sanctions on Iraq; citing Iraq‟s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 as an alibi. However, politics in post-Saddam Iraq has revealed that while the U.S. destroyed almost everything during the invasion, the oil ministry and oil wells were carefully protected by the American troops (Klein, 2003). According to Onuoha (2009), with the capture of Saddam Hussein,

America‟s reign in the Gulf region and entire Middle-east will be long. In the next foreseable future, America will influence the quantity of oil to be produced and if care is not taken, the price also.

The United Nations management of economic sanction in Iraq was no doubt characterized by America‟s power-politics in the U.N. as well as its quest to gain control of the Middle-east oil. It is therefore in understanding the post-cold- war security dilemma that one has to appreciate the trends of America global influence; its traditional strategic behaviour and its euphoric acceptance of the “end of cold war”. It may not be surprising that the post-cold era is one that pursues the universalisation of American domination-oriented principles through the application of imperious power to actualize her economic interests. Ex-president Richard Nixon (1994) better elucidated the entire episode thus: 38

When we do intervene militarily to protect our interest,We should follow president Bush‟s example in the persian Gulf War; using the U.N., not being used by it (The Washington Quarterly, 1994: 6).

One must therefore conclude that the Gulf crisis of December 1998 was merely an entirely contrived scenario, invented to legitimize a continued Western military presence in the Gulf region, buttressed by a brutal and illegal sanctions regime in accord with strategic, political and economic interests. Included in these interests is the aim to demonstrate to the Third World what happens when a country acts independently: Its entire population is ruthlessly punished, its infrastructure is devastated, and its government is eventually overthrown. The West is continuing with its campaign of punishing and prostrating Iraq until Saddam is somehow eliminated, and a pliant U.S. puppet regime comes to power. Most importantly, the possibility that Iraq may develop into an independent regional power has been decisively cut short. It is thus clear that the variety of threats that Iraq is alleged to pose are merely propaganda exercises designed to deflect public attention from the facts, distort and limit public discourse over Western policy, and manufacture justification for an unjustifiable anti-humanitarian programme of military-economic atrocities that is not designed for any benevolent purpose at all.

Throughout this escapade, the United Nations has been exploited as an instrument to support a genocidal programme that is in fact thoroughly opposed to the principles enshrined within this very same international body. The stark contradictions of world order under U.S. hegemony are apparent.

In this study therefore, the choice of Marxian political economy explains the U.S. manipulations of the United Nations to impose severe economic sanctions on Iraq, in order to cripple the Iraqi economy and force a regime change; which will consequently 39 culminate in the U.S. installing a puppet government in Baghdad that will not be a hindrance to her (U.S.) economic interests (oil) in the Middle-east as well as her national security.

1.6 HYPOTHESES

This study will be guided by the following hypotheses:

1. The United Nations use of comprehensive economic sanctions as punitive

measures has not reduced the incidence of global terrorism.

2. The UN Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq appears to worsen the incidence

of insecurity across the globe.

3. There is a positive link between the United States‟ perception of its national

security and UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq.

1.7 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION

To generate relevent data for this study, we relied on observation technique.

Observation technique is defined as a purposefully planned and systematcally executed act of watching or looking at the occurrence of events, activities and behaviour which constitute the subject of focus of the research (Obasi, 1999). The relevance of observation method to this study is obvious since it yields data that pertain directly to typical behavioural situations (Selltiz et al, 1977). Through observation of political phenomena, accurate descriptions and better explanations of such phenomena are achieved (Ikeagwu,

1998). The implication of this is that through observation, accurate explanations of the variables under study can be made. However, given the nature of this study, especially the type of data required to interrogate the hypothesis, we utilized secondary sources of data. Secondary source of data refers to a set of data gathered or authored by another 40 person; usually data from the available data, archives, either in the form of document or survey results and code books collected for a purpose other than the present one (White,

1983; Ikeagwu, 1998; Asika, 2006).

As articulated by selltiz et al (1997), the merits of secondary sources of data lie in the obvious fact that information of this sort is collected periodically. This makes the establishment of trends and consistent patterns overtime possible. Again, the gathering of information from such source does not require the co-operation or assistance of the individual about whom the information is being sought.

Consequently, the study depended on institutional and official documents such as reports of Human Rights watch-groups as well as other governmental and non- governemental Organisations. These official documents are complemented by data from other sources such as textbooks, journals, articles, seminar papers, conference papers, magazines, and other written works that espoused the United Nations and management of economic sanctions in Iraq.

1.8 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS

For the analysis of data, this study will rely on qualitative descriptive analysis.

Asika (2006) defines qualitative descriptive analysis as summarizing the information generated in the research verbally so as to futher discover relationship among variables.

The adoption of the foregoing analytical method becomes necessary since the study will rely principally on secondary source of data. This technique was developed as a result of the need for a reliable scientific method for assessing, analyzing and interpreting a large variety of materials. We therefore, relied on this analytical technique to evaluate the data generated. 41

CHAPTER TWO

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND THE INCIDENCE OF GLOBAL TERRORISM

The aim of this chapter is to examine our first proposition that “the United

Nations‟ use of comprehensive economic sanctions as punitive measures has not reduced the incidence of global terrorism”. The objective here is to study the effectiveness of comprehensive economic sanctions in curbing global terrorism. To carry out this objective, we will proceed by examining:

1. United Nations use of comprehensive economic sanctions and their impacts; and

2. The effectiveness of comprehensive sanctions on Dictatorships.

Against this background, we have some indicators to shape our thought patterns.

These include the Origin and causes of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, United Nations comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq and their impacts, the effectiveness of comprehensive economic sanctions on Dictatorships, and Comprehensive economic sanctions and the incidence of global terrorism.

2.1 Origin and causes of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis:

The Invasion of Kuwait, also known as the Iraq-Kuwait War, was a major conflict between the Republic of Iraq and the State of Kuwait, which resulted in the seven-month- long Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, which subsequently led to direct military intervention by United States-led forces in the Gulf War (Mac Ogonor, 2000).

In 1990, Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi petroleum through slant drilling, although some Iraqi sources indicated Saddam Hussein‟s decision to attack Kuwait was made only a few months before the actual invasion, suggesting that the regime was under 42 feelings of severe time pressure. Some feel there were several reasons for the Iraqi move, including Iraq's inability to pay more than $80 billion that had been borrowed to finance the Iran-Iraq war as well as Kuwaiti over-production of petroleum which kept revenues down for Iraq (Alnasrawi, 2001). The invasion started on August 2, 1990, and within two days of intense combat, most of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces were either over-run by the

Iraqi Republican Guard or escaped to neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The state of Kuwait was annexed, and Hussein announced in a few days that it was the 19th province of Iraq.

Causes of the conflict

Kuwait was a close ally of Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war, and functioned as the country‟s major port once Basra was shut down by the fighting. However, after the war ended, the friendly relations between the two neighbouring Arab countries turned sour due to several economic and diplomatic reasons that finally culminated in an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Some of the causes of the conflict according to Alnasrawi (2001: 12-

18) include:

 Dispute over the financial debt

Kuwait had heavily funded the eight-year-long Iraqi war against Iran. Kuwait's large-scale economic assistance to Iraq often triggered hostile Iranian actions against it.

Iran repeatedly targeted Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1984 and fired weapons at Kuwaiti security personnel stationed on Bubiyan Island in 1988.

By the time the Iran-Iraq war ended, Iraq was not in a financial position to repay the US$14 billion it borrowed from Kuwait to finance its war and requested Kuwait to forgive the debt. Iraq argued that the war had prevented the rise of Persian influence in 43 the Arab World. However, Kuwait's reluctance to pardon the debt created strains in the relationship between the two Arab countries. During late 1989, several official meetings were held between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi leaders but they were unable to break the deadlock between the two.

 Economic warfare and slant drilling

In 1988, Iraq's then Oil Minister, Issam al-Chalabi, stressed a further reduction in the crude oil production quota of OPEC members so as to end the 1980s oil glut. Chalabi argued that higher oil prices would help Iraq increase its revenues and pay back its

US$60 billion debt. However, given its large downstream petroleum industry, Kuwait was less concerned about the prices of crude oil and in 1989, Kuwait requested OPEC to increase the country's total oil production ceiling by 50% to 1.35 million bpd. Throughout much of the 1980s, Kuwait's oil production was considerably above its mandatory OPEC quota and this had prevented a further increase in crude oil prices. A lack of consensus among OPEC members undermined Iraq's efforts to end the oil glut and consequently prevented the recovery of its war-crippled economy. According to former Iraqi Foreign

Minister Tariq Aziz, "every US$1 drop in the price of a barrel of oil caused a US$1 billion drop in Iraq's annual revenues triggering an acute financial crisis in Baghdad." It was estimated that between 1985 and 1989, Iraq lost US$14 billion a year due to

Kuwait's oil price strategy. Kuwait's refusal to decrease its oil production was viewed by

Iraq as an act of aggression against it.

The increasingly tense relations between Iraq and Kuwait where further aggravated when Iraq alleged that Kuwait was slant-drilling across the international border into Iraq's Rumaila field. The dispute over Rumaila field started in 1960 when an 44

Arab League declaration marked the Iraq-Kuwait border 2 miles north of the southern- most tip of the Rumaila field. During the Iran–Iraq War, Iraqi oil drilling operations in

Rumaila declined while Kuwait's operations increased. In 1989, Iraq accused Kuwait of using "advanced drilling techniques" to exploit oil from its share of the Rumaila field.

Iraq estimated that US$2.4 billion worth of Iraqi oil was "stolen" by Kuwait and demanded compensation. Kuwait dismissed the accusations as a false Iraqi ploy to justify military action against it. Several foreign firms working in the Rumaila field also dismissed Iraq's slant-drilling claims as a "smokescreen to disguise Iraq's more ambitious intentions".

On July 25, 1990, only a few days before the Iraqi invasion, OPEC officials said that Kuwait and United Arab Emirates had agreed to a proposal to limit daily oil output to

1.5 million barrels, thus potentially settling differences over oil policy between Kuwait and Iraq. At the time of the settlement, more than 100,000 Iraqi troops were deployed along Iraq-Kuwait border and American officials expressed little indication of decline in tensions despite the OPEC settlement.

 Iraqi hegemonic claims

Western countries were largely of the opinion that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was largely motivated by its desire to take control over the latter's vast oil reserves. However, the Iraqi government justified its invasion by claiming that Kuwait was a natural part of

Iraq carved off due to British imperialism. After signing the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, the United Kingdom split Kuwait from the Ottoman territories into a separate sheikhdom. The Iraqi government also argued that the Kuwaiti Emir was a highly 45 unpopular figure among the Kuwaiti populace. By overthrowing the Emir, Iraq claimed that it granted Kuwaitis greater economic and political freedom.

Kuwait had been loosely under the authority of the Ottoman Vilâyet of Basra, and although its ruling dynasty, the al-Sabah family, had concluded a protectorate agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for its foreign affairs to Britain, it did not make any attempt to secede from the Ottoman Empire. For this reason, its borders with the rest of

Basra province were never clearly defined or mutually agreed. Furthermore, Iraq alleged that the British High Commissioner "drew lines that deliberately constricted Iraq's access to the ocean so that any future Iraqi government would be in no position to threaten

Britain's domination of the [Persian] Gulf".

 Iraqi-American relations

On July 25, 1990, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, asked the Iraqi high command to explain the military preparations in progress, including the massing of

Iraqi troops near the border. The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, “inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion” on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts." She also let Saddam Hussein know that the U.S. did not intend

"to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have caused Saddam to believe he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait.

The Invasion:

On August 2, 1990 at 2:00 am, local time, Iraq launched an invasion of Kuwait with four elite Iraqi Republican Guard divisions (1st Hammurabi Armoured Division,

2nd Al-Medinah al-Munawera Armoured Division, 3rd Tawalkalna ala-Allah 46

Mechanized Infantry Division and 6th Nebuchadnezzar Motorized Infantry Division) and

Iraqi Army Special Forces units‟ equivalent to a full division (Fishman, 1999:21-24). The main thrust was conducted by the commandos deployed by helicopters and boats to attack Kuwait City, while the other divisions seized the airports and two airbases. In support of these units, the Iraqi Army deployed a squadron of Mil Mi-25 helicopter gun- ships, several units of Mi-8 and Mi-1transport helicopters, as well as a squadron of Bell

412 helicopters. The foremost mission of the helicopter units was to transport and support

Iraqi commandos into Kuwait City, and subsequently to support the advance of ground troops. The Iraqi Air Force (IrAF) had at least two squadrons of Sukhoi Su-22, one of Su-

25, one of Mirage F1 and two of MiG-23 fighter-bombers. The main task of the IrAF was to establish air superiority through limited counter-air strikes against two main air bases of Kuwaiti Air Force, whose planes consisted mainly of Mirage F1's and Douglas (T) A-

4KU Sky-hawks. Meanwhile, certain targets in the capital of Kuwait City have been bombed by Iraqi aircraft (Fishman, 1999:23; Myirole, 1993:32; Neil, and Zurbrigg,

2003:45).

In spite of months of Iraqi saber-rattling, Kuwait did not have its forces on alert and was caught unaware. The first indication of the Iraqi ground advance was from a radar-equipped aerostat that detected an Iraqi armoury column moving south. Kuwaiti air, ground, and naval forces resisted, but were vastly outnumbered. In central Kuwait, the

35th Armoured Brigade deployed approximately a battalion of Chieftain Tanks, BMPs, and an Artillery piece against the Iraqis and fought delaying actions near Al Jahra (see

The Battle of the Bridges), west of Kuwait City. In the south, the 15th Armoured Brigade 47 moved immediately to evacuate its forces to Saudi Arabia. Of the small Kuwaiti Navy, two missile boats were able to evade capture or destruction (Alnasrawi, 2001:18).

Kuwait Air Force aircraft were scrambled, but approximately 20% were lost or captured. An air battle with the Iraqi helicopter airborne forces was fought over Kuwait

City, inflicting heavy losses on the Iraqi elite troops, and a few combat sorties were flown against Iraqi ground forces. The remaining 80% were then evacuated to Saudi Arabia and

Bahrain, some aircraft even taking off from the highways adjacent to the bases as the runways were overrun. While these aircraft were not used in support of the subsequent

Gulf War, the "Free Kuwait Air Force" assisted Saudi Arabia in patrolling the southern border with Yemen, which was considered a threat by the Saudis because of Yemen-Iraq ties (Alnasrawi, 2001:19).

Iraqi troops attacked Dasman Palace, the Royal Residence, resulting in the Battle of Dasman Palace. The Kuwaiti Emiri Guard, supported by local police and M-84 tanks managed to repel an Airborne assault by Iraqi Special Forces, but the Palace fell after a landing by Iraqi Marines (Dasman Palace is located on the coast). The Kuwaiti National

Guard, as well as additional Emiri Guards arrived, but the palace remained occupied, and

Republican Guard tanks rolled into Kuwait City after several hours of heavy fighting.

The Emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah had already fled into the Saudi desert. His younger half brother, Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, was shot and killed by invading Iraqi forces as he attempted to defend Dasman Palace after which his body was placed in front of a tank and run over, according to an Iraqi soldier who was present and deserted after the assault (Myirole, 1993:33). 48

By the end of the first day of the invasion, only pockets of resistance were left in the country. By August 3, the last military units were desperately fighting delaying actions at choke points and other defensible positions throughout the country until out of ammunition or overrun by Iraqi forces. Ali al-Salim air base of the Kuwaiti Air Force was the only base still unoccupied on August 3, and Kuwaiti Aircraft flew re-supply missions from Saudi Arabia throughout the day in an effort to mount a defense. However by nightfall, Ali al-Salim air base had been overrun by Iraqi forces. From then on it was only a matter of time until all units of the Kuwaiti Military were forced to retreat or be overrun.

The last few Kuwaiti Chieftain tanks of the 35th Mechanized Brigade fought until the afternoon of 4 August; left without ammunition and fuel, they were then forced to pull back into Saudi Arabia. This effectively ended military resistance to the Iraqi invasion.

Aftermath:

After the decisive Iraqi victory, Saddam Hussein installed Alaa Hussein Ali as the

Prime Minister of the "Provisional Government of Free Kuwait" and Ali Hassan al-Majid as the de facto governor of Kuwait. The exiled Kuwaiti royal family and other former government officials began an international campaign to persuade other countries to pressure Iraq to vacate Kuwait. The UN Security Council passed 12 resolutions demanding immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, but to no avail.

Following the events of the Iraq-Kuwait war, about half of the Kuwaiti population, including more than 400,000 Kuwaiti and several thousand foreign nationals, fled the country. More than 150,000 Indian nationals living in Kuwait were air-lifted by 49 the Indian government within a span of a week. Alaa Hussein Ali was placed as head of a puppet government in Kuwait, prior to its brief annexation into Iraq.

During the 7 month-long Iraqi occupation, the forces of Saddam Hussein looted

Kuwait's vast wealth and there were also reports of violations of human rights. According to some independent organizations, about 600 Kuwaiti nationals were taken to Iraq and have not yet been accounted for. A 2005 study revealed that the Iraqi occupation had a long-term adverse impact on the health of the Kuwaiti populace (Myirole, 1993:32-35).

After Iraqi forces invaded and annexed Kuwait and Saddam Hussein deposed the

Emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Sabah, he installed Ali Hassan al-Majid as the new governor of

Kuwait. The Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait was unanimously condemned by all major world powers. Even countries traditionally considered to be close Iraqi allies, such as France and India, called for immediate withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Several countries, such as the USSR and China, placed arms embargo on Iraq. NATO members were particularly critical of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and by late 1990, the

United States had issued an ultimatum to Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait by

January 15, 1991 or face war.

On August 3, 1990, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 660 condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and demanding that Iraq unconditionally withdraw all forces deployed in Kuwait. After a series of failed negotiations between major world powers and Iraq, the United States-led coalition launched a massive military assault on Iraqi forces stationed in Kuwait in mid January 1991. By January 16, the Allied planes were targeting several Iraqi military sites and the Iraqi Air Force was said to be "decimated"

Hostilities continued until late February and on February 25, Kuwait was officially 50 liberated from Iraq. On March 15, 1991, the Emir of Kuwait returned to the country after spending more than 8 months in exile. During the Iraqi occupation, about 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians were killed and more than 300,000 residents fled the country.

2.2 United Nations comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq:

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Subsequently, the United Nations

Security Council condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in United Nations Security

Council Resolution (hereafter U.N.S.C.R.) 600, and called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces, and the return of the Iraqi's legitimate government.

On August 6, 1990, U.N.S.C.R. 661, was levied and froze Iraqi assets, with exceptions allowed for "supplies intended strictly for medical purposes and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs." On August 25, 1990, U.N.S.C.R. 665 was passed; it called for the use of force, if necessary, to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

On November 29, 1990, U.N.S.C.R. 678 set a deadline of January 15th for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and called for the use of all necessary means to force the Iraqi withdrawal after the deadline expired. Subsequently, on January 17, 1991, allied forces began "Operation Desert Storm," with a massive air offensive to liberate

Kuwait. On February 26, 1991, Kuwait was liberated.

On March 2, 1991, U.N.S.C.R. 686 called on Iraq to immediately revoke all Iraqi claims of annexing Kuwait. On April 3, 1991, U.N.S.C.R. 687 dictated cease fire conditions. The Resolution specified three categories of demands: unilateral disarmament, compensation to Kuwait for damage inflicted during the occupation and war, and acceptance of the 1963 Iraq-Kuwait border. The Iraq dispute over the Iraqi- 51

Kuwait border, as mentioned previously, arises from their dissension with the border that the United Kingdom drew for it after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. A United Nations

Special Commission (U.N.S.C.O.M.) was charged with implementing and verifying destruction of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capability, destruction of medium and long-range ballistic missiles, and installing monitoring mechanisms to ensure that these capabilities were not rebuilt. Resolution 687 confirmed that the humanitarian circumstances were such that food imports should be allowed after notification to the

Sanctions Committee.

On August 15, 1991, U.N.S.C.R. 706 allowed Iraq to sell up to $1.6 billion of its oil. The proceeds were to be deposited into an UN administered account. The money in the account was to be used to buy humanitarian supplies for Iraq, to compensate Kuwait for war damages, and to reimburse U.N.S.C.O.M. for its costs. (Iraq did not agree to the terms of this Resolution and publicly has not sold oil.). For more than two years, Iraq would not cooperate with disarmament demands, particularly on verification and monitoring. In November 1993, however, it doggedly accepted the Security Council conditions, and U.N.S.C.O.M. began its task. In June 1994, U.N.S.C.O.M. reported that it had eliminated Iraq's known chemical weapons stockpile. Sanctions, as a result of Iraqi compliance were to be loosened. A few days before delivery of U.N.S.C.O.M.'s report in

October, Iraqi troop movements prompted a new Gulf crisis. As a result, lifting sanctions on Iraq has been permanently relegated to "the back burner."

UN Security Council resolutions relating to Comprehensive Economic Sanctions on Iraq.

2003

 1518 (24 November 2003)

o Establishes a committee (the 1518 committee) to identify resources which should be transferred to the Development Fund for Iraq. This replaced some of the post- sanctions work of the '661 committee', which officially ceased to exist on 22 November 2003

o Adopts guidelines on the interpretation of resolution 1483's requirements for transfer of resources to the Development Fund for Iraq. The guidelines have been published as SC/7791 IK/356 (12 June 2003) and SC/7831 IK/372 (29 July 2003).

 1511 (16 October 2003)

o This resolution:

. mandates the UN to 'strengthen its vital role in Iraq' (para 8)

. 'underscores...the temporary nature of the Coalition Provisional Authority' (para 1), welcomes the Governing Council and its ministers as "the principal bodies of the Iraqi interim administration" (para 4), and supports moves towards self-government under its auspices(para 3)

. invites the Governing Council to draw up, by 15 December, a timetable for drafting a constitution and holding elections, in cooperation with, and assisted by, the CPA and the UN representative (para 7 & 8). Requests the CPA to report to the Security Council on progress towards the transfer of power (para 6)

. authorizes a multinational security force, and urges states to contribute to it and to the reconstruction of Iraq (para 13 & 14). Requests states to contribute financially (para 20), including at a Donors Conference (para 21), by providing required resources (para 22) and by transferring assets of the former regime to the Development Fund for Iraq (para 24) 53

. Requests the Secretary General to report on UN operations in Iraq (para 12). Requests the US to report, at least every 6 months, on military matters (para 25). Decides that the Security Council should review the mission of the UN force within a year, and that its mandate will expire once power has been transferred to an Iraqi government (para 15)

. Reiterates the demand made in Resolution 1483 for an International Advisory and Monitoring Board to supervise administration of the Development Fund for Iraq (para 23)

o Three earlier US drafts for this resolution were made public, on 4 September, 1 October and 13 October 2003. Postings to the CASI discussion list summarize differences between the first and second drafts, and between the second and third drafts. Amendments to the first draft were publicly proposed by France and Germany, and by Syria. Several of the Franco-German proposals were incorporated into the resolution.

 1500 (14 August 2003)

o Establishes UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, as proposed by the Secretary General in a report on July 17

o Welcomes creation of Governing Council

 1490 (3 July 2003

o Disbands the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM), and removes the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait. Comes into force on 6 October 2003.

 1483 (22 May 2003)

o Lifts non-military sanctions (para 10)

o Recognises Britain and the United States as occupying powers ('The Authority'), and calls on them to attempt to improve security and stability, and provide opportunities for the Iraqis to determine their political future. Creates position of UN Special Representative to Iraq, to coordinate UN activity. Requires establishment of Development Fund for Iraq

 1472 (28 March 2003)

o Gives UN more authority to administer the "oil for food" programme for the next 45 days. Authorizes the Secretary-General to establish alternative locations for the delivery of humanitarian supplies and equipment, and proceed with approved contracts after a review to determine priorities. Other steps called for include: 54

transferring unencumbered funds between accounts created pursuant to the programme on an exceptional and reimbursable basis to ensure the delivery of essential humanitarian supplies; and using funds deposited in the accounts to compensate suppliers and shippers for agreed additional shipping, transportation and storage costs incurred as a result of diverting and delaying shipments

2002

 1454 (30 December 2002): Iraq-Kuwait

o implements revisions to the Goods Review List. See also the accompanying UN press release.

 1447 (4 December 2002): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends the oil-for-food programme by 6 months, obliges the council to review the goods review list within one month and asks the Secretary General to produce a report on the adequacy of Iraq's distribution mechanisms within the country and oil-for-food revenues within six months.

 1443 (25 November 2002): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends the oil-for-food programme by 9 days only, due to disagreements over US proposals to broaden the Goods Review List.

 1409 (14 May 2002): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends the oil-for-food programme by six months, and introduces a new import procedure. Only items on the annexed Goods Review List (GRL) are to be reviewed by the Sanctions Committee.

2001

 1382 (29 November 2001): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends the oil-for-food programme by 180 days, commencing Phase XI on 1 December 2001. It also adopts a new "goods review list" (GRL) and procedures for its application to come into force on 30 May 2002.

 1360 (3 July 2001): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends the oil-for-food programme by 150 days to begin Phase X, after no agreement was reached over the new UK proposals for a modified sanctions regime. The subsequent exchange of letters between the UN and Iraq, agreeing 55

to the continuation of the programme under the terms of this resolution, is dated 5 July 2001.

 1352 (1 June 2001): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends Phase IX of the oil-for-food programme by one month only, after there is general agreement that more time is necessary to review the UK's draft resolution (and annex) to change the scope and mode of operation of the sanctions.

2000

 1330 (4 December 2000): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Extends the oil-for-food programme by 180 days, to commence Phase IX. The resolution also allocates another $600m to oil-industry spares, requests exploration into a "cash component" (para. 15), reduces Compensation Fund deductions to 25% (para 12), requests electricity and housing "green lists" (para 10), expresses "readiness to consider" paying Iraq's UN membership dues out of oil-for-food revenue, seeks expanded versions of the existing "green lists" (para 11), and asks the Secretary-General to report on other oil export routes from Iraq.

 1302 (8 June 2000): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Begins Phase VIII of "oil for food". Paragraph 8 asks for water and sanitation "green lists". Paragraph 9 extends the oil spare parts permission of SCR 1293. Paragraph 18 calls for the establishment of a team of "independent experts to prepare by 26 November 2000 a comprehensive report and analysis of the humanitarian situation in Iraq, including the current humanitarian needs [...] and recommendations to meet those needs, within the framework of the existing resolutions". According to a UN source, the UK and U.S. insisted upon the final clause of paragraph 18, knowing that the Iraqi government's position would prevent it from cooperating with such an analysis. As a result, there has been no cooperation and no such report has been produced.

 1293 (31 March 2000): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Doubles permitted oil spare part imports for Phases VI and VII. Paragraphs 53 - 57 of the UN Secretary-General's 10 March 2000 report (S/2000/208) explains the background to this doubling. 56

1999

 1284 (17 December 1999): Iraq-Kuwait

o Replaces Unscom with Unmovic, demands Iraqi co-operation on prisoners of war, alters the "oil for food" programme, and discusses the possible suspension of sanctions in ambiguous terms.

 1281 (10 December 1999): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Begins Phase VII of "oil for food", to start on 12 December 1999. The report requested in paragraph 9 is S/2000/26.

 1280 (3 December 1999): Iraq-Kuwait

o Extends Phase VI to 11 December 1999 due to wrangling over SCR 1284.

 1275 (19 November 1999): Iraq-Kuwait

o Extends Phase VI to 4 December 1999 due to wrangling over SCR 1284.

 1266 (4 October 1999): Iraq-Kuwait

o Allows an additional $3.04 billion in oil sales to offset deficits during previous Phases and (possibly) to slow the rise in oil prices.

 1242 (21 May 1999): Iraq-Kuwait

o Begins Phase VI of "oil for food", to start on 25 May 1999.

1998

 1210 (24 November 1998): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Begins Phase V of "oil for food", to start on 26 November 1998.

 1205 (5 November 1998): Iraq-Kuwait

o Echoes SCR 1194, demands that the Iraqi government "provide immediate, complete and unconditional cooperation" with inspectors and alludes to the threat to "international peace and security" posed by the non-cooperation.

 1194 (9 September 1998): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Condemns the decision by Iraq ... to suspend cooperation with [Unscom] and the IAEA", demands that the decisions be reversed and cancels October 1998 scheduled sanctions review.

 1175 (19 June 1998): Iraq-Kuwait 57

o Gives Iraq permission to apply to import up to $300 million of oil industry spare parts this Phase to allow it to increase its oil production to the cap set in SCR 1153.

 1158 (25 March 1998): Iraq-Kuwait

o Continues Phase III but under the enhanced provisions of SCR 1153.

 1154 (2 March 1998): Iraq-Kuwait

o Commends the Secretary-General for securing commitments from the Iraqi government to fully comply with weapons inspections on his mission to Baghdad, and endorses the memorandum of understanding (S/1998/166) that was signed on 23 February. The mapping of the areas of the eight "presidential sites" by a UN Technical Mission is described in an annexed report to a letter from the Secretary-General of 27 February (S/1998/166/Add.1). The procedures for the inspection of "presidential sites" are laid out in an annex to the letter from the Secretary-General of 8 March 1998 (S/1998/208). This agreement put off US and British bombing threats.

 1153 (20 February 1998): Iraq-Kuwait

o Agrees to increase the cap on permitted Iraqi oil sales to $5.256 billion per Phase once the Secretary-General has approved an "enhanced distribution plan" for the new revenue. Recognizes the importance of infrastructure and project-based purchases. Phase IV eventually begins on 30 May 1998. Resolution passed during Unscom crisis.

1997

 1143 (4 December 1997): Iraq-Kuwait.

o Begins Phase III of "oil for food", to start on 5 December 1997 and welcomes the Secretary-General's intention to submit a supplementary report on possible improvements in the "oil for food" programme.

 1137 (12 November 1997): Iraq-Kuwait

o Rejects Iraqi government's announced intention to prohibit weapons inspections unless the composition of Unscom teams is altered to limit the number of inspectors from the US, and to prohibit Unscom over flights. Imposes travel ban on officials to be lifted when full cooperation resumes. Sanctions review to be in April 1998 if cooperation has been restored. 58

 1134 (23 October 1997): Iraq-Kuwait

o Reaffirms Iraq's obligations to cooperate with weapons inspectors after Iraqi officials announce in September 1997 that "presidential sites" are off-limits to inspectors. Threatens travel ban on obstructive Iraqi officials not "carrying out bona fide diplomatic assignments or missions" if non-cooperation continues. Sanctions reviews again delayed.

 1129 (12 September 1997): Iraq-Kuwait

o Alters timing of permitted Phase II oil sales in response to Iraqi government's refusal to sell oil until its Distribution Plan was approved by the UN.

 1115 (21 June 1997): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Condemns the repeated refusal of the Iraqi authorities to allow access to sites" and "demands that they cooperate fully" with Unscom. Suspends the sanctions and arms embargo reviews (paragraphs 21 and 28 of SCR 687) until the next Unscom report and threatens to "impose additional measures on those categories of Iraqi officials responsible for the non-compliance".

 1111 (4 June 1997): Iraq-Kuwait

o Begins Phase II of "oil for food", to start on 8 June 1997.

1996

 1060 (12 June 1996): Iraq.

o On Iraq's refusal to allow access to sites designated by the Special Commission.

 1051 (27 March 1996): Iraq

o Establishes mechanism for long-term monitoring of potentially "dual use" Iraqi imports and exports, as called for by SCR 715.

1995

 986 (14 April 1995): Iraq

o New "oil for food" resolution, allowing $1 billion in oil sales every 90 days. Memorandum of understanding signed by UN and Government of Iraq on 20 May 1996; Phase I begins on 10 December 1996.

1994

 949 (15 October 1994): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Condemns recent military deployments by Iraq in the direction of ... Kuwait", demands an immediate withdrawal and full co-operation with Unscom. According to a spokesman for the US Central Command, the resolution was passed following a threatening buildup of Iraqi forces near the border with Kuwait, and bars Iraq from moving SAMs into the southern no-fly zone.

 899 (4 March 1994): Iraq-Kuwait

o Allows compensation to private Iraqi citizens who lost assets to the boundary demarcation process.

1993

 833 (27 May 1993): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Welcomes ... the successful conclusion of the work of the [Boundary Demarcation] Commission". The Iraqi National Assembly recognized the territorial integrity and political independence of the State of Kuwait, within the boundaries laid down by the Boundary Demarcation Commission, on 10 November 1994, and its decision was ratified in a decree signed by Saddam Hussein on the same day.

 806 (5 February 1993): Iraq-Kuwait

o Arms UNIKOM to prevent border incursions by Iraq.

1992

 778 (2 October 1992): Iraq-Kuwait

o Deplores Iraq's refusal to implements SCRs 706 and 712 and recalls Iraq's liabilities. Takes steps to transfer funds (including Iraqi assets overseas) into the UN account established to pay for compensation and humanitarian expenses.

 773 (26 August 1992): Iraq-Kuwait

o Responds to a report on progress by the UN Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission and notes that the Commission "is not reallocating territory between Kuwait and Iraq". 60

1991

 715 (11 October 1991): Iraq

o Approves the plans of Unscom and the IAEA, including for long term monitoring. Iraq agreed to the monitoring system established by this resolution on 26 November 1993.

 712 (19 September 1991): Iraq

o Rejects the Secretary-General's suggestion that at least $2 billion in oil revenue be made available for humanitarian needs; instead allows total sale of $1.6 billion. Eventually rejected by Government of Iraq.

 707 (15 August 1991): Iraq

o Condemns Iraq's non-compliance on weapons inspections as a "material breach" of Resolution 687, and incorporates into its standard for compliance with SCR687 that Iraq provide "full, final and complete disclosure ... of all aspects of its programmes to develop" prohibited weaponry. Also grants permission for Unscom and the IAEA to conduct flights throughout Iraq, for surveillance or logistical purposes.

 706 (15 August 1991): Iraq-Kuwait

o Decides to allow emergency oil sale by Iraq to fund compensation claims, weapons inspection and humanitarian needs in Iraq.

 705 (15 August 1991): Iraq

o "Decides that ... compensation to be paid by Iraq ... shall not exceed 30 per cent of the annual value of the exports".

 700 (17 June 1991): Iraq-Kuwait

o Approves the Secretary-General's guidelines on an arms and dual-use embargo on Iraq and calls upon states to act consistently with them. Paragraph 5 of this resolution makes the 661 committee responsible for the on-going monitoring regime, thus ensuring that it would retain a role in the long-term relationship between the UN and Iraq.

 699 (17 June 1991): Iraq

o Approves the Secretary-General's plan for Unscom and the IAEA and asks for support from Member States.

 692 (20 May 1991): Iraq-Kuwait 61

o Establishes the UN Compensation Commission and asks the Secretary-General to indicate the maximum possible level of Iraq's contribution to the Compensation Fund.

 689 (9 April 1991): Iraq-Kuwait

o Approves the Secretary-General's report on the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM).

 688 (5 April 1991): Iraq

o "Condemns the repression of the Iraqi civilian population" in the post-war civil war and "demands that Iraq ... immediately end this repression". 688 is occasionally claimed to provide the legal basis for the American and British "no fly zones". These claims are incorrect both because 688 does not invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter, a necessary condition for the use of force, and because it does not authorize specific measures to uphold human rights in Iraq, such as "no fly zones".

 687 (3 April 1991): Iraq-Kuwait

o Declares effective a formal cease-fire (upon Iraqi acceptance), establishes the UN Special Commission on weapons (Unscom) extends sanctions and, in paragraphs 21 and 22, provides ambiguous conditions for lifting or easing them. Described as a "Christmas tree", because "so much was hung on it". The fourth preambulary clause, on "the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions", has been referred to as the "Saddam Hussein clause" as it has been used to link the continuation of sanctions with the survival of the present Iraqi regime.

 686 (2 March 1991): Iraq-Kuwait

o Affirms the "independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq" and sets out terms for a cease-fire. The use of force remains valid to fulfill these conditions.

 685 (31 January 1991): Iraq-Islamic Republic of Iran

1990

 678 (29 November 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Authorizes Member States ... to use all necessary means" to bring Iraq into compliance with previous Security Council resolutions if it did not do so by 15 January 1991.

 677 (28 November 1990): Iraq-Kuwait 62

o Concerned by Iraq's attempts to "alter the demographic composition of ... Kuwait and to destroy the civil records".

 676 (28 November 1990): Iraq-Islamic Republic of Iran

 674 (29 October 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Reminds Iraq that ... it is liable for any loss ... as a result of the invasion ... of Kuwait".

 670 (25 September 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Strengthens and clarifies the embargo; confirms that it applies to aircraft. France and the USA disagree on whether 670 requires 661 approval for flights without cargo. Paragraph 12 of the resolution also invokes the possibility of unspecified "measures" against states that evade the sanctions regime. This paragraph seems to have been directed against Jordan and Sudan in particular. It caused disquiet within delegations, as the United Nations Charter has traditionally been interpreted as only permitting the Security Council to impose such measures against the state responsible for a breach of or threat to the peace.

 669 (24 September 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Asks the Sanctions Committee to consider requests for economic assistance from countries harmed by the sanctions on Iraq.

 667 (16 September 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Protests "the closure of diplomatic and consular missions in Kuwait".

 666 (13 September 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o "Decides [to] ... keep the situation regarding foodstuffs ... under constant review", giving the Security Council responsibility for determining when "humanitarian circumstances" had arisen.

 665 (25 August 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Imposes a shipping blockade by calling for the use of "such measures ... as may be necessary" to enforce the maritime embargo. In effect, this resolution reassigns some of the practical responsibility for monitoring compliance with sanctions away from the UN machinery, in the form of the 661 committee, and to the States imposing the naval blockade.

 664 (18 August 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Demands that Iraq release "third state nationals".

 662 (9 August 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Decides that Iraq's annexation of Kuwait is "null and void". 63

 661 (6 August 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Imposes comprehensive sanctions on Iraq and establishes a sanctions committee (the "661 committee") in paragraph 6 to monitor them. Paragraphs 3 and 4 drawn from those of SCR 253

 660 (2 August 1990): Iraq-Kuwait

o Condemns the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and demands Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

2.3 Impacts of United Nations Comprehensive Economic Sanctions on Iraq

Woodrow Wilson, the thirty- fourth president of America, once spoke to the League of Nations describing economic sanctions as follows: A nation boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need for force. It is a terrible remedy. It does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted, but it brings pressure outside upon the nation that, in my judgment, no modern nation can resist (quoted in Barry, 1988:23).

President Wilson was right; a comprehensive economic sanction may surpass the damage of “total war,” in size of human and economic costs. In wartime, only the soldiers are subject to enemy attacks; civilians are supposedly not. Even the siege and blockades of civilians are considered as immoral because the civilians are innocent. There are several international laws that demand protection of civilians from the indiscriminate effects of siege. For example, the fourth Geneva convention (article 23) requires free passage of medical supplies for civilians and foodstuffs for children under fifteen and the first Geneva protocol (1977) (articles 69-71) requires that essential humanitarian supplies be provided to the civilian‟s in non-occupied territory if the civilian population is threatened in its survival (Christiansen and Powers,1995). Comprehensive economic sanctions hit everybody in society, including the poor and young children. Economic sanctions reduce the level of employment and increase the rate of inflation faster than the income growth rate. Thus, most of the people will feel the cold of unemployment and the heat of inflation. In Iraq, for example, the unemployment rate has been estimated at 70 percent in the industrial sector. At the same time, food prices were 4000 to 5000 times their August 64

1990 level, while monthly salaries of most wage earners ranged between 3000 to 5000 dinars (FAO, 1995). At 5000 dinars monthly income, a person can buy thirty eggs, two kilograms of beef and a few kilograms of vegetables and fruits. A family of six (the average family size) needs at least 200,000 dinars a month to have the minimum calories required (providing 3,000 kilocalorie per person per day). The government coupons (ration) provide about 37 percent of the calories needed; a family of six would still need approximately 125,000 dinars monthly to purchase the shortfall in food. Per capita income reaches the lowest in the world (about $44), less than income of an Indian villager (UN Children‟s Fund, 1993). Increasing food prices restricted the population‟s access to essential food. Malnutrition quickly emerged as one of the biggest threats to Iraqi children and their mothers. According to the World Health Organization (1996), the percentage of low birth weight babies (less than 2.5 kilograms) quadruped from 4 percent in August 1990 to 17 percent in late 1992 and 22 percent in 1995. Sanctions have resulted in shortages of doctors and medical supplies. It is being reported that some hospitals have lost up to 75 percent of their pre-1990 staff (UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs, 1995). Hospitals also are short of vaccines, syringes, anesthetics, surgery tools, radiology, and laboratory and diagnostic tests. Beth Osborne Daponte (1993), of the United States Census Bureau, estimated that 111,000 civilians died in 1991 from the health effect of the Gulf War, of these deaths 70,000 were children under fifteen years of age, while another 8,500 were people of sixty-five years or older. The health conditions further deteriorated in recent years. FAO (1995) estimated the death rate of children under five years old to be five times higher than during the immediate pre-war (1990) period. The team appointed by FAO reached the conclusion that about 500,000 children died in the five years period following the Gulf War between 1991 and 1995. The critical shortage of drugs is still a problem to physician. A doctor at Saddam Hospital lost about seventy-five children during a two-week epidemic of chest infection and gastroenteritis. He believed every one of then could have been saved with antibiotics, which are commonly available in neighboring countries (Kinzer 1998). As of February 2002, shortages in the medical supplies are very common. A doctor at the Basra Maternity complained about the irregularity of the medical supplies thus: 65

We have fewer drugs available this year than we had last year, but the real problem is that we don‟t have consistency, so that a patient may not have a full course of say, antibiotics or other drugs, and therefore will not heal properly with an incomplete course (San Francisco Chronicle, 2002:15).

Deteriorating standards of living in Iraq are also reflecting on women‟s health and children‟s behavior. A research done by Bhatia and Kawar (1992) found 60 percent of women suffered from psychological problems, such as depression, anxiety, headache, and insomnia. During the same time, Raundalen and Dyresrov (1992) interviewed 214 children of primary school age. They found that two-thirds of the children did not even believing they would survive to become adults. They concluded that postwar Iraqi children were “the most traumatized children of war ever described.” Another study conducted by Geoff Simons (1996) on a sample of 2000 male and female children from 50 schools in Baghdad, found that the sanctions are affecting the children behavior and performances. The study found a number of startling increases in the children‟s misbehaviors after the sanctions: anxiety among children rose from 22.2 percent to 49.4 percent; the desire to acquire and possess things (including theft) went from 20.9 percent to 48.8 percent; lying doubled, from 24.4 percent to 51.9 percent; aggressive behavior nearly doubled from 22.5 percent to 43.9 percent; falling asleep during studies from 18 percent to 33.7 percent; loss of confidence moved from 23.3 percent to 40.1 percent; difficulty in concentrating from 25.3 percent to 50.9 percent, and failure to do homework also doubled from 24 percent to 50.7 percent. The above facts and figures are incompatible with all United Nations conventions. The human tragedy and economic deprivation caused by the economic sanctions contradict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration called for preserving human life and dignity. Article I stated that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood;” while Article 5 stated that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The condition of the Iraqi children is violating the Geneva Declaration of September 1924 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25, paragraph 2 of the Declaration stated that “Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and 66 assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.” The rights of Iraqi children are also violated according to 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The last covenants were adapted on December 16, 1966 and incorporated some of the fundamental rights of the child, such as the right to enjoy the highest standard of health and the right to enjoy the protection and care of their family and society as long as they are minors. Several prominent writers started to question the wisdom of economic sanctions, demanding they be lifted. According to Cortright and Lopez (1995), The current sanctions have been partially successful in containing Iraq‟s weapons programs and limiting its military potential, but those gains have come at too high a price in human suffering (Cortright and Lopez, 1995: 23).

Mueller and Mueller (1999:14) aver that: “Economic sanctions may well have been a necessary cause of the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so- called weapons of mass destruction throughout history.” Zunes (1998:21) wrote, “Indeed, perhaps there has been no other time in history when so many other people have been condemned to starvation and deaths from preventable diseases due to political decisions made over seas.” Andraw K. Fishman (1999:45-50) wrote “The sanctions against Iraq have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.” And Andrew Mack and Asif Khan (1999:32) wrote that the number of children under-five-year-old who died as a consequence of sanctions exceeded 200,000, a number “far more than the total number of Iraqis killed in the Gulf War.”

TABLE 1 Child Deaths in Iraq due to UN Sanctions

Source: Iraqi Ministry of Health with UNICEF support.

According to Louay M. Safi (2000), Nine years of economic sanctions have devastated the Iraqi population, and brought untold sorrow and misery to ordinary Iraqis, particularly the most vulnerable. Latest statistics about the socioeconomic conditions in Iraq, furnished by UN organs such as WHO and UNICEF, reveal a horrifying picture of the sorrow state of affairs inside Iraq, and compelling many members of the UN, as well as countless civil society organizations to call for the end of sanctions, and to question the propriety of using economic sanctions against an entire population. The severity of the sanctions regime has forced two senior UN officials to resign in protest of the inhumane conditions brought about as a result. The representatives of US and UK, under pressure from close allies, and in response to international criticism, introduced in 1997 an oil-for- food plan. But as latest statistics reveal, the plan did very little to rectify the situation.

ECONOMICALLY: Recent figures show that the Iraqi economy is in shambles. The UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that over 4 million Iraqis, constituting 20% of the 68 population, live in extreme poverty. The purchasing power of the local currency has been greatly reduced. By 1997, the exchange rate between the Iraqi Dinar (ID) and the US dollar has dropped from US$3 = 1 ID in 1990 to about US $1 = ID1,500 in 1997. The drastic reduction in the purchasing power of the Iraqi Dinar, coupled with the destruction of the industrial infrastructure during the 1991 war, resulted in the complete collapse of the Iraqi economy. The GDP per capita has been reduced from $3500 to $600 and the current salary of public workers now averages about $3 to $5 per month, compared with $50-100 prior to 1990. While food received through public rations is not sufficient to provided minimal nutrition, soaring food prices makes the food sold on the market inaccessible to most Iraqis. At least 80% of a family's income is spent on food.

HEALTH-WISE: The Gulf war and later the UN sanctions have tremendously reduced Iraq‟s ability to provide good sanitation. Water treatment plants lack spare parts, equipment, treatment chemicals, proper maintenance and adequate qualified staff. Plants often act solely as pumping stations without any treatment. The distribution network, on which most of the population relies, has destroyed, blocked or leaky pipes. There have been no new projects to serve the expected population increase over the past seven years. Combined with the reduced accessibility to nutritious food stuff by most Iraqis, the lack of good sanitary conditions have led to sudden rise in health problems, particularly among children and the elderly. “The increase in mortality reported in public hospitals for children less than five years of age (an excess of some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is mainly due to diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. In those over five years of age, the increase (an excess of some 50,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney diseases. With the substantial increase in mortality, under-registration of deaths is a growing problem.” "Malnutrition was not a public health problem in Iraq prior to the embargo. Its extent became apparent during 1991 and the prevalence has increased greatly since then.” UNICEF reported that 18% in 1991 to 31% in 1996 of all children under five suffer from “chronic malnutrition (stunting); 9% to 26% with underweight malnutrition; 3% to 11% with wasting (acute malnutrition), an increase in over 200%. By 69

1997, it was estimated about one million children under five were [chronically] malnourished.”

EDUCATIONALLY: The destruction of the education system as a result of the Gulf War and UN sanctions has been extensive. Decline in school enrollment is on the increase. UN sanctions are so watertight and unsparing that even school supply does not escape. The most basic school supplies, such as blackboards, chalks, pencils, notebooks and paper (designated as "non-essential" by the Sanctions Committee), are inaccessible. Further, 84% of all schools need rehabilitation.

OIL FOR FOOD PLAN The oil-for-food Plan that was meant to ease the suffering of the civilian population, has not been effective in achieving the desired goal, and has brought very little comfort to the Iraqi population. In addition, there has been serious complications and bureaucratic maneuvering in its implementation. Although the Security Council resolution that established the Oil-for-Food Plan (SCR 983) “is meant to provide US$210 million for each six month period of the Phase I and II, only US$80 million (i.e., 20%) had been received ” by the end of the first six months. The UNICEF 1998 report made it abundantly clear that “Oil for Food plan has not reduced widespread suffering, nor provided supplies in full, in a timely manner.” "The Oil-for-Food plan has not yet resulted in adequate protection of Iraq's children from malnutrition/disease. Those children spared from death continue to remain deprived of essential rights addressed in the Convention of Rights of the Child." The continuation of the sanctions, despite their inhumane effects on the Iraqi population, raises serious questions about their usefulness and propriety. There is no evidence that the sanctions have contributed to the weakening or de-stabilizing the Iraqi government. To the contrary, the sanctions have contributed to weakening the Iraqi population and have destroyed whatever remains of the civil society of Iraq under Saddam‟s regime, thereby making the possibility of popular mobilization against the regime more difficult if not impossible. 70

2.4 The effectiveness of comprehensive sanctions on Dictatorships

As mentioned earlier in this study, the end of the Cold War brought about a proliferation of mandatory sanctions by the Security Council pursuant to Article 41 of the

UN Charter. Following Iraq‟s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Security Council

demanded the withdrawal of Iraqi troops by 15th January 1991. Four days later, it banned all trade and means of transportation, imposed an oil and arms embargo as well as froze the Government‟s financial assets. These were followed by aviation and maritime sanctions. When Saddam‟s Government failed to withdraw its troops by the 15th January

1991 deadline, the Security Council authorized a US-led coalition of more than thirty able and willing states to assist Kuwait to drive them out. After the victory of Operation

Desert Storm, it established a cease-fire as well as imposed a ban on WMD and ballistic missiles with a range of over 150 kilometers, subject to international inspection.

However, it did not terminate the sanctions it had imposed prior to the cease-fire nor did it subject them to a temporal limitation, as they were viewed as necessary to obtain the

Iraqi Government‟s compliance with its disarmament obligations.

The Security Council applied similarly broad sanctions against the SFRY and

Haiti in 1991 and 1993 respectively. Against the SFRY, it imposed an arms embargo in response to the heavy fighting that broke out in various parts of the country. Following its dismemberment, the Security Council took further measures confined to the territory of the newly proclaimed FRY (Serbia and Montenegro). These included a comprehensive ban on all imports and exports, a flight ban, the severance of financial relations, a reduction of diplomatic representation, suspension of sporting contracts, scientific and technical co-operation and cultural exchanges. These were later strengthened to cover all 71 communication and transport as well as the freezing of assets. The Security Council also denied the new Serbian entity membership into the UN.

In Haiti, sanctions were imposed following the ousting of President Jean-Bertrand

Aristide by a military coup. They included an oil and arms embargo as well as freezing of assets controlled by the de-facto authorities. While these measures were suspended two months after they had been imposed, they were reinstated in October 1993, and tightened the following year, to include all commodities and products, with the exception of medical supplies and foodstuffs.

The measures imposed against Iraq, FRY and Haiti had certain features in common. Firstly, they were based on the prevailing punitive concept of sanctions at the time; the best strategy for facilitating the change desired by the international community through comprehensive economic sanctions that are not only fully enforced, but are aimed at completely alienating the target economy from the rest of the world.

Secondly, they gave rise to unintended adverse consequences. These included the emergence of black markets, which created windfall profit-making opportunities for the political elite, as well as loss of market and economic damage on third states, in particular those neighboring the target state. In addition, humanitarian agencies were denied access to supplies that were essential for their work, as well as subjected to arduous procedures to obtain the necessary exemptions.

Thirdly, they had a detrimental humanitarian impact on the civilian population.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Iraq which saw a sharp decline in food production and water quality, as well as an increased incidence in infectious diseases, chronic malnutrition and infant mortality. By 1999, Iraq‟s infant mortality rates were among the 72 highest in the world while only 41% of the population had regular access to clean water, a sharp contrast to the situation that prevailed prior to 1990-1991.

Lastly, comprehensive economic sanctions proved highly ineffective and counterproductive, as they were premised on the false assumption that the civilian population would either remove the offending regimes from power or otherwise pressurize them to alter their offending policies and/or conduct. As the Sub–Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights noted:

The theory behind comprehensive economic sanctions is that economic pressure on civilians will translate into pressure on the Government for change. This theory is bankrupt both legally and practically, as more and more evidence testifies to the inefficiency of comprehensive economic sanctions as a coercive tool. The traditional calculation of balancing civilian suffering against the desired political effects is giving way to the realization that the efficacy of a sanctions regime is in inverse proportion to its impact on civilians (SCPPHR 1998:12).

The above state of affairs was largely due to the fact that the Security Council failed to acknowledge that authoritarian regimes assume and maintain power by force.

Consequently, they are not accountable or responsive to the very same citizens for whom they are being forced to alter their offending policies and/or conduct. Ironically, the sanctions imposed went a long way in strengthening the political hand of the ruling elite, particularly in Iraq and SFY, where they manipulated their populace into believing that these measures were in fact one action in a long line of historical attempts by the West to demean and dominate the East. While the international community was labeled as “the common enemy”, the sanctions built solidarity between the citizenry and the target regimes. Consequently, the ruling elite remained in power and continued to enjoy an opulent lifestyle, while their citizenry bore the brunt of these measures. 73

Thus, criticism against the damage and futility of comprehensive economic sanctions came from a variety of sources, including former UN Secretary-General,

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who referred to them as „a blunt instrument‟. Various UN agencies and independent researchers initiated studies to assess their humanitarian impact, while human rights activists, political observers and scholars began to question their legality. Against the backdrop of mounting public criticism, the Security Council attempted to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Iraq by establishing the

Oil for Food Programme which did little to redress the magnitude of the crisis. The Iraqi sanctions regime led to the resignation of three top UN officials, and it was eventually declared unequivocally illegal under existing international human rights and humanitarian law. Moreover, its damage and futility, coupled with the US and UK‟s reluctance to adopt alternative measures, created the perception that certain countries were willing to sacrifice individuals in other parts of the world, so as to achieve their political goals. This much was affirmed by former US Secretary of State and Ambassador to the UN, Madeline Albright, who, when asked whether she thought that the death of half-a-million Iraqi children was an acceptable price for sanctions, responded by saying;

“We think the price is worth it.” It is ironical that in attempting to dissociate itself from evil, the Security Council created an even greater evil.

2.5 Comprehensive economic sanctions and the incidence of global terrorism

Prior to 1990, comprehensive economic sanctions were only imposed on

Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. But since the end of the Cold War, the Security

Council has imposed economic sanctions increasingly often, in the cases of Afghanistan,

Angola, Ethiopia and Eritrea, the former Yugoslavia (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), 74

Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan; all in a bid to deter acts of aggression and curb global terrorism.

Edward (1978), views global terrorism as “the use or threat of use of anxiety inducing extra-normal violence for political purposes by an individual or group, whether acting for, or in opposition to established governmental authority, when such action is intended to influence the attitudes and behaviour of a target group wider than the immediate victim”. Sample (1987) defines global terrorism as “a clandestine act of violence against non-combatants for the specific purpose of bringing about political change.” The United States Department of State on its part defines global terrorism as:

Politically motivated violence perpetrated against non- combatant targets by States, Sub-national groups or clandestine agents (U.S. DEPT. of State, 2001:11)

Thus, global terrorism can be viewed as the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives; thereby threatening global peace and security. Global Terrorism is not a new phenomenon; rather it has affected the world for millennia. This is not to say that the act of terrorism has remained static. Rather, as the difficulties involved in defining it reflect, terrorism has evolved considerably over the years, while still retaining characteristics that have historically described it.

However, the debate has lingered on the effectiveness of comprehensive economic sanctions to curb the incidence of global terrorism. And empirical evidence has proven beyond reasonable doubt that comprehensive economic sanctions have not been 75 able to curb the incidence of global terrorism. This is buttressed by the following key- points:

 The Ethical Dilemma

Sanctions are widely considered to hurt innocent civilians while sparing the political leaders. In the 1995 Supplement to the Agenda for Peace, UN Secretary-General

Boutros Boutros-Ghali termed sanctions a “blunt instrument” and questioned whether inflicting suffering on vulnerable groups in the target country is a legitimate means of putting pressure on political leaders. He proposed the establishment of a mechanism to monitor the application of sanctions and to evaluate their impact on the target State.

Similar concerns have been voiced by numerous UN agencies and NGOs. Among them is the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which expressed in its World Disaster Report 1995 a growing misgiving about the humanitarian impact of sanctions. The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross

(ICRC) voiced particular concern about the situation in Iraq to the General Assembly on

28 November 1998, noting that the high price paid by the most vulnerable groups of the county‟s population were apparent. Almost every sanctions regime contains provisions allowing humanitarian exemptions for essential needs such as food and medicine in order to mitigate the regime‟s otherwise comprehensive impact. However, a near unanimity exists on economic sanctions literature that Humanitarian exemptions tend to be ambiguous and are interpreted arbitrarily and inconsistently. And those delays, confusion and the denial of requests to import essential humanitarian goods cause resource shortages. While these effects might seem to be spread evenly across the target populations, they inevitably fall most heavily on the poor. Recent statements from 76 various UN committees have also reflected a desire to take the humanitarian impact of sanctions into account. The Subgroup on the Question of UN Imposed Sanctions stressed that unintended side effects on civilians should be minimized by making an appropriate humanitarian exception in the Security Council resolutions. Likewise, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated in December 1997 that more attention needed to be paid to safeguarding the rights of the vulnerable in target countries and that sanctions might violate basic economic, social, and cultural rights. Critics of UN sanctions have accordingly suggested that more targeted or smart sanctions be developed which would reduce the unintended adverse consequences of sanctions regimes. Smart sanctions are conceptualized to hurt the political leaders or those responsible for the threat or breach of the peace, while sparing the civilian population. Thus, the concept of smart sanctions was endorsed by the current UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in his

Millennium Report.

 Lack of Transparency

Once sanctions are in place, they are supervised by a sanctions committee of the

Security Council, which operates secretly and cannot be monitored or held publicly accountable. The UN General Assembly demanded that the transparency of the sanctions committees be increased. The Security Council expressed its intention to move in this direction, calling in a presidential statement for a formal mechanism to assess the potential impact of sanctions and to monitor their effect.

 Double Standards

Another criticism is that sanctions imposed by the Security Council are based on biased or unevenly applied standards. When sanctions were imposed on Iraq to induce it 77 to withdraw from Kuwait, skeptics pointed out that many invasions and occupations by other countries such as Turkey, Israel and Indonesia had not resulted in the imposition of sanctions. All existing sanctions regimes except on the former Yugoslavia are targeted at

Countries of the south.

 Missing Legal and Constitutional Concept

The lack of institutional arrangements to objectively address the humanitarian impact of sanctions has limited the United Nations‟ capacity to respond to the adverse humanitarian consequences of the sanctions regimes effectively. The UN Department of

Humanitarian Affairs commissioned a study in 1998 which recommended that the guiding legal principles for the imposition of sanctions be established and clear objectives be defined. A working paper submitted by the Russian Federation stressed that sanctions regimes must pursue well defined purposes, have a time frame, be subject to regular review and provide clearly stipulated conditions for their determination, and not be politically motivated. For its part, the so-called “Bossuyt Report” which was prepared at the request of the Sub- Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, recommended a six prong test in order to evaluate a sanctions regime. According to this test, the first issue to be examined is whether the sanctions are being imposed for a valid reason, meaning there must be a threat of or an actual breach of international peace and security. Second, the sanctions must target the proper parties who are responsible for the threat or breach of the peace and not the innocent civilians. Third, only proper goods or objects - not humanitarian goods – may be targeted. Fourth and fifth, sanctions must be reasonably limited by time and effectiveness. Sixth, the protest of governments, NGOs, intergovernmental bodies, scholars, and the general public must be taken into account. 78

 Lack of Effectiveness

Sanctions‟ record in bringing about fundamental changes in the policies of the target countries is poor. Any changes usually took years. A 1991 study calculated that sanctions had proven effective in mere 34 per cent of 115 cases (Hufbauer et al 1991).

 Effects on Third States

Sanctions often cause hardship to the neighbours and major trading partners of the targeted countries, in the case of the sanctions imposed on Iraq, 21 countries have claimed losses in their revenues as a result of damage to their economic links with Iraq.

The belief that the new, credible, inexpensive and potentially potent weapon against small and medium size troublemakers has been discovered (Mueller, 1994: 363), reflected by the recent proliferation of the multilateral economic sanctions, certainly calls for critical review. Sanctions are mostly imposed on the countries with little or no democratic tradition (Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Somalia), and that strengthens rather than weakens the existing authoritarian regimes. As a State is less democratic, the punishment is more unfair, since there is no possibility for the majority to influence the acts of government (Dimitrijevic, 1993: 12). Moreover, even if this possibility existed, it is unlikely that the citizens of those states would translate the economic signals in their electoral behavior. Misperceptions of this kind can be compared only with the US action in Somalia, when an extremely powerful TV signal transmitter was installed to inform the people what was really going on. Only afterwards was it realized that a number of privately owned TV sets was very small, thus necessitating the installment of a radio- signal transmitter. The same can be said about the economic sanctions applied against undemocratic countries - their population is not used to judge and change governments 79 according to their economic performance. Finally, the poverty that inevitably increases due to sanctions makes the citizens of the state in question ever more dependent on the state and hence receptive to totalitarian regimes. This invites the conclusion that, even if the stated policy objectives are achieved, the solution of the problem is temporary at best.

Therefore, the international community should address the cause rather than cure the consequences - helping democratization in those countries can be of greater use to foreign policy goals than the imposition of economic sanctions.

Thus, from the foregoing analysis, it is deducible that comprehensive economic sanctions have not been able to curb the incidence of global terrorism as exemplified in the cases of Iraq, Haiti and Yugoslavia. Rather it has created a more complex problem of humanitarian catastrophe for the United Nations Organization.

CHAPTER THREE

UNITED NATIONS COLLECTIVE SECURITY MECHANISM IN IRAQ AND

GLOBAL INSECURITY

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the proposition that “the United Nations

Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq tends to be constrained by the interests of the dominant powers, thus creating global insecurity”. To carry out this objective, we will proceed by examining:

 The United Nations Collective Security System in the Resolution of the Iraq-

Kuwait Crisis; and

 United Nations Collective Security System and Resolution of the Iraq

Disarmament Crisis.

In this light, we have some main indicators to shape our thought pattern in addressing the challenges posed to the United Nations collective security regime by the dominant powers in the Iraqi crisis. These include the intervention of the United Nations

Security Council in Iraq and the enforcement of its collective security regime to stave off

Iraqi standoff over U.S. – British global influence, and lack of United Nations Security

Council consensus.

3.1 Iraqi Threat to Global Security

The controversy that surrounded Iraq‟s Osiraq project fueled the suspicion that

Iraq was up for nuclear weapons. When under international pressure, France which had originally in 1976, proposed selling to Iraq 72 programmes of highly-enriched uranium, material directly usable for nuclear weapons, proposed a substitute fuel that could not be used for nuclear arms, Iraq objected, claiming that only the highly-enriched uranium, 81 which France originally proposed could permit a full range of research activities at

Osiraq. When Osiraq was destroyed by Israel, Iraq was negotiating with Rome for a larger reactor and a reprocessing installation through covert purchase of centrifuges, and blueprints for them (Spector, 1985:20; Creveld, 1993:116 & 136; Hamza, 2002:426).

This insistence by Iraq has been taken as an intention of Iraq to divert the fuel into bomb- making, which was against non-proliferation safeguards. The French government, based on Iraq‟s insistence agreed to provide the highly-enriched material but only in smaller quantities in order to avoid enough research beyond Osiraq for weapons manufacture

(Snyder, 1983:565; U.S. congress, 1984:388; Spector, 1984:166-183).

Records show that the Iraqi government launched air attacks with chemical gas against Iran and Iran‟s nuclear power station on February 12 and March 4, 1985. Thus,

Iraqi‟s military had attacked an enemy nuclear reactor site apparently for the purpose of inflicting economic injury (Spector, 1985:164 &166). Iraqi‟s military action promoted the thesis that if allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein would have no restraining hand to use them against perceived enemies, perhaps for economic reasons as the invasion of Kuwait and attacks on Iranian nuclear reactor have shown.

Furthermore, Iraqi invasion and attempted annexation of the sovereign State of

Kuwait, a fellow member of the Arab League and the United Nations, with all intents and purposes, constituted clear violation of the noble principles of international law and, therefore, required enforcement procedure under the United Nations Security Council.

Although, not the remote cause, it was surely the immediate and overt cause by which the

Security Council rolled out its draconian UNSCR 687 condemning Iraq of clandestine 82 march towards acquisition of Weapons of Mass Destruction, terrorism, stealing of

Kuwaiti property and abuse of Kuwaiti and Third country nationals.

Iraqi government‟s action was interpreted not only as an aggression against another member of the United Nations, but in utter violation of Iraqi obligation to the

1925 Geneva Protocol for the prohibition of the use of poisonous or other gases and of

Bacteriological methods of warfare; the 1968 Treaty on the Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons; the 1972 Convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and toxic weapons and on their destruction.

The Iraqi government was expected to reaffirm, unconditionally, its obligations under these and other treaties, protocols and conventions with a view to “establishing in the Middle-East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery” with the clear objective of achieving “a global ban on chemical weapons” for global peace and security (Eminue, 1999:7). It was an action in coercion; conflict and war; which contradicted the desire of an international system that is searching for cooperation, bargaining and peaceful change (Shultz, Godson & Greenwood, 1993:2).

Saddam Hussein was labelled in the Middle-East region as one autocrat who relishes in terror as the solvent towards playing a major role on the Middle-Eastern stage, where Iraq could be tied to no one (Miller 7 Mylroie, 1990:53 & 105).

Saddam was accused of brutalizing and repressing the Kurdish and Shiite Moslem population, which the United Nations Security Council said threatened global security.

Earlier, the United Nations had refused to intervene when Iraq lashed out at the Kurds, based on the American insistence “that supporting the Kurds was beyond the United

Nations mandate” (Robertson, 1991:41) in order to seek what was best for America. 83

Against this backdrop, in a Cable News Network of 4 March, 2003, President Bush charged that the war in Iraq was to bring peace roadmaps in the Middle-East because “a true Iraq will work with rules and laws, not dictatorship…when we say we are going to

Basra, we mean it, Saddam Hussein will be gone, we will not leave until he is gone.”

The other raw consideration is the strategic relevance of oil in the modern world.

Oil provides the pleasure that fuels a way of life no energy source can satisfy so plentifully and so cheaply. The situation generated immeasurable greed, rivalry and collusion. Against the tapestry of Middle-East possessions, the struggle over the control of oil is the one inextricable chord that binds the region‟s combustible admixture of historical rancour, nationalist sentiment and religious fervour. That struggle is at the heart of the confrontation in the Persian Gulf in the Iraqi-Kuwait crisis in 1991 and its polarization. So, most obviously, the U.S. Secretary-of-State, James Baker (1993) stated that:

What is at stake economically is the dependence of the world on access to energy resources of the Persian Gulf…it is not just a narrow question of the flow of oil from Kuwait and Iraq. It is rather about a dictator who, acting alone, could strangle the global economic order, determining by fiat whether we all enter a recession or even the darkest of a depression (James Baker, 1993:191-192).

Also, in the OPRA in Cable News Network of March 4, 2003, Thomas

Fredman, columnist in the New York Times, affirmed that the war in Iraq will help in a progressive strategy to remove totalitarian governments in the region of the Middle-East as well as to promote democracy and not specifically focused on disarmament.

3.2 United Nations Collective Security Mechanism in the Iraq-Kuwait Crisis

The United Nations Collective Security System was boldly enunciated in Chapter

VII of the United Nations Charter to ensure a system of unified response against aggression and as a measure for the U.N. to “act quickly and decisively” under crisis

(Spiegal and Wehling, 1999: 195 – 198). The basic tenets of collective security system are clear:

i. Countries forswear the use of force except in self-defense;

ii. All agrees that peace is indivisible, i.e., an attack on one is an attack on all;

iii. All pledge to unite to halt aggression and restore the peace; and

iv. All agree to supply whatever material or personnel resources are necessary to

form a collective security force associated with the U.N. to defeat aggressors

and restore peace (Rourke, 1997: 260 – 265).

Essential too, to the collective security system, is that the Security Council of the United

Nations is regarded as “the heart of the United Nations to function” and is made up of five permanent members – the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China and France and ten elected members, with one vote each and not representation on continental basis, who shall act on behalf of others (Deutsch, 1978: 218 – 191) in determining “the existence of a threat to peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression”. If the

Council does so, it is enjoined to prescribe action of two kinds: measures not involving the use of armed force (article 41); and action by air, sea or land forces (article 42- blockade) being specified under this article. In the case of measures under article 41, the

Security Council may call on members of the U.N. to apply these measures and (by 85 article 25); they are obliged to comply (Calvocoressi, 1991: 135). As a mechanism for conflict management, collective security system envisages:

The establishment and operation of a complex scheme of national commitments and international mechanism designed to prevent or suppress aggression by any State against another State, by presenting to potential reliable promise of effective collective measures, ranging from diplomatic boycott, through economic pressure to military sanctions, to enforce peace. It was conceived as a systematic arrangement that human contrivance could muster, to confront would-be aggressors whoever they might be and whenever they might venture to strike, with an overwhelming collection of restraining power assembled by the mass of States in accordance with clear and firm obligations accepted and provided in advance (Claude, 1971: 247).

In the Iraqi case, the United Nations Security Council was invited into the crisis by alarm and pressure mounted upon the council by the President of the United States,

George Bush. Quite quickly and promptly, the United Nations peace and security appropriately determined Iraq‟s invasion and attempted annexation of sovereign State of

Kuwait a threat to international security and the Middle East region and on the same day

August 6, 1990 passed its resolution 660 on Iraq.

After the determination of Iraq‟s invasion as a threat, and demanding its immediate and unconditional withdrawal to no avail, the United Nations, using its appropriate measures within its collective security mechanism, on August 6, 1990, also passed a 13: 2 vote resolution 661, proclaiming economic sanctions against the Republic of Iraq.

Iraq‟s invasion and annexation of Kuwait violated the fundamental norms of international society, its expansionist tendency also threatened the peace and security of 86 the region and, therefore, reinforced “strategic and political anxiety about Iraq‟s military capabilities and possible pretensions at regional hegemony” (Speedman, 1991: 200).

Calvocoressi (1991) points out that in a series of resolutions adopted during

August, the Security Council:

Unanimously demanded Iraq‟s immediate withdrawal from Kuwait and a negotiated settlement; imposed, by thirteen votes to two, a commercial, financial and military embargo (medical supplies specifically excepted and rules permitting the supply of food on humanitarian grounds to be worked out by a committee of the Council); declared, unanimously, that the annexation of Kuwait was null and void; demanded, unanimously, that Iraq allow and facilitate the immediate departure from Kuwait and Iraq of all nationals of third states; and authorized, by thirteen votes to two, the use of force to make the embargo effective by, if necessary, stopping and inspecting merchant ships (Calvocoressi, 1991:135).

According to Calvocoressi, the first series of resolution established sanctions against Iraq and the use of force to monitor them, but not the use of force for other purposes. Although the sanctions were U.N. collective measures of integrated elements to pile pressure on Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait by controlling Iraqi oil revenue and imposing screening process on Iraqi contracts to avoid importation of dual-capable items of civilian-military nature except those on humanitarian concerns under a U.N. Sanctions

Committee of member Security Council, the U.S. was not satisfied with the measures.

The U.S. under President Bush, the same day, August 6, while the sanctions regime was being evolved against Iraq, in its obvious perennial mantra to blend diplomacy with force, unilaterally ordered the deployment of thousands of U.S. forces to

Saudi Arabia (Luck, 1988, 107 – 125).

The governments of the United States and Britain, two dominant members of the

Security Council maintained that article 51 of the Charter allowed them to use military 87 force against Iraq under the phrase “individual and collective self-defence”. Calvocoressi

(1991: 135 – 136) avers that there were two distinct issues to be satisfied before article

51 may be legitimately linked in the Iraqi issues:

First, the question whether the action proposed or undertaken was defence or retaliation and secondly, the meaning and scope of the term “collective”…collective self-defence, besides being a contradiction in terms, implied that an attack on one U.N. member may be resisted by forces other than those of the State attacked. They are presumably the forces of allies, but it is open to question whether the alliance needs to be in existence at the time of the attack or may be concluded after it (Calvocoressi, 1991:135 – 136)

Article 51 was a late addition to the U.N. Charter at San-Francisco in 1945, a move which was to assuage the worries of members of existing regional alliances (the

Organization of American States and the Arab League) who feared that by signing the charter; they would invalidate the arrangements in their regions for mutual help against aggression. The conditions of article 51, albeit vague, ipso facto finds the U.S. –UK action as an aberration of the international legal order since they were not members of the Arab League to ratify how an attack on Kuwait in the Persian Gulf region could dictate their military intervention in “collective self-defence” even if the victim State

(Kuwait) was willing to welcome that action. Thus in terms of world order and usefulness of the U.N., Iraq‟s attack on Kuwait served to reanimate the Mechanisms of the U.N. testing its strengths and exposing its weaknesses.

It was no surprise, therefore, that the U.S. and Britain sought for other resolutions to define and regulate their actions under the U.N. mandate. A state of affairs that culminated into the passage of a twelfth resolution – UNSCR 678 (1990) of 29

November 1990 by twelve votes to two (Yemen, Cuba) with one abstention (China) 88 which authorized the use of all necessary measures including military force, if after 15

January 1991, Iraq refused to withdraw from Kuwait (Calvocoressi, 1991:367).

The passage of the resolution despite the unilateral, and unpopular American-led international military force in the region against Iraq, marked a prospect of co-operation in international affairs between the superpowers, U.S. and USSR, in order to keep the peace and uphold the law.

The consensus of the permanent members soon dissolved after securing the deadline for opening of military onslaught against Iraq. The governments of the United

States and Britain pushed for war and on January 1991 at 12:50am, Bush ordered for the outbreak of war against Iraq (Sunday Champion, 1991: 11; Sunday Champion, 1991: 9).

To prosecute the war against Iraq; if not for its domination oriented policies, United

States government leading role in a U.N.‟s undertaking in the Iraq problem was proper and desirable, but Bush conducted it as an American operation and overshadowed the

U.N. undertaking, almost to the point of obliterating it. The deadline for military expedition against Iraq was set not because sanctions were not meeting expectations but because Bush could not afford to keep his forces inactive in the Middle East and being burden-stressed by the huge cost even though more than half was underwritten by Saudi

Arabia. American aims – e.g., the regime change – were widely approved but the methods used demonstrated something different: the power and will of a single national government in the context of a threat to its own national interests. Thus international action and order were subordinated to a national purpose with consequences for the U.N., which were at best ambivalent. 89

It was under the U.N. ambivalence difficulty, and marginality in managing the

Gulf war that gave the U.S. the blank cheque in determining the scope, strategy, duration and condition for cessation of hostilities between Iraq and the allied forces indicating that

Pentagon was implementing a pre-planned system of military action on Iraq against the collective security regime. Bassey (1999: 91 & 93) argued that the U.S. subordinated the collective measures of economic sanctions to “logic of confrontation and military policy” thus transformed the U.N. into an “agency of collective victimization” for the emerging hegemony in the “new world order”, the coalition of dominant Western powers. Among the dominant powers of the Security Council, it was little wonder that U.S. and Britain co-sponsored the UNSCR 687 – the ceasefire resolution, which was passed by the

Council on April 3, 1991 mandating Iraq to respect the sovereignty of Kuwait and under international weapons inspectors, do away with:

i. All its weapons of mass destruction – all chemical, and biological weapons,

all stocks of agents and all related subsystem and components, and all

research, development, support and manufacturing facilities related thereto;

ii. All ballistic missiles with a range greater than one hundred and fifty (150)

kilometers limit as imposed by the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), and

related major parts and repair and production of facilities;

iii. All nuclear weapons or nuclear- weapons usable materials or any subsystems

or components; and

iv. Any research development, support, or manufacturing, facilities related to the

above (Eminue, 1991: 7; The Economist, 1996: 48). 90

X-raying the U.N. –Iraq war, many factors accounted for the United Nations Security

Council consensus. It has to be noted that although Operation Desert Shield, was unilaterally constituted and ordered into the Gulf region by United States on request by

Saudi Arabia, it constituted no direct violation of the U.N. Charter since it was the U.N.

Security Council resolution that authorized its use under Operation Desert Storm in order to evict Iraq out of Kuwait. The role of the U.N. in the resolution of the crisis resulting from Iraq aggression and annexation of Kuwait was performed beyond the process established for the U.N. collective security mechanism.

In actual practice of the mechanism, the U.N. envisaged the gathering under pre- existing commitments by States, of overwhelming force to deter or stop a transgressor

(Calvocoressi, 1991: 130). Howbeit, the U.N.S.C. consensus was easier to achieve because of convergence of interests among the Arabs and the dominant powers in the

United Nations Security Councils.

Apart from the fact that the Arabs held it against Saddam Hussein that He violated standing principles, proclaimed by himself in 1980, to ensure that no Arab State should attack another and that all issues in the Arab should be settled by Arabs themselves without seeking or provoking non-Arab intervention, dominant members of the U.N. condemned Iraq‟s action as a calculation of a massive proportion by one member of the U.N. against another. The action, therefore, provided both the justification and obligation for collective security measures by the Security Council and served as the first time since the Second World War in 1945 that that the U.S. and Soviet Union united in taming an aggressor-State for global security (Burke, 1994: 11). The consensus of the members of the Security Council yielded to the U.N. – Iraq ceasefire and by 91 extension, the conditions of the ceasefire resolution and disarmament in Iraq-two fundamental conditions for global peace and security.

3.3 United Nations Enforcement of Collective Security and the role of Dominant

Powers in Iraq

Our objective is to investigate the interplay between the actions of the dominant powers and the United Nations collective security mechanism in the implementation of the U.N. approved disarmament of Iraq. As we have earlier noted, it took a special form of collective security to institutionalize the U.N. economic sanctions, as well as the disarmament process in Iraq under the twin agencies of the United Nations-the

International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, and the United Nations Special

Commission, UNSCOM. The U.S. and British governments, especially, played spectacular roles to ensure that Iraq complied with the resolutions of the U.N. Security

Council disarmament or be forced to allow the U.N. inspectors to perform, unhindered, the assignment endorsed by the Security Council.

Under UNSCR 687 (1991) of 3 April 1991, the United Nations Security Council established UNSCOM to work with the IAEA team in Iraq. The institution demanded that Iraq should make haste within 15 days from the Ceasefire, to provide accurate, “full and final” declaration of all aspects components, production facilities, locations and usable materials of its programme on nuclear, biological, chemical and ballistic missiles and development as necessary steps for the achievement of all the Security Council objectives to restore international peace and security. More so, the resolution ascribed to the weapons agencies the responsibilities to:

i. Uncover the special warheads for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; 92

ii. Search for a production of VX nerve gas;

iii. Discover Iraq‟s biological weapons materials and data; and

iv. Undertake the inspection of all designated sites including the Presidential

palaces (The Middle East, 1998:68):

The U.S. and Britain were far more intrusive than other members of UNSCOM.

Iraq spotted the U.S. as their major problem and protested to the UN over a cluster of issues including composition of UNSCOM and inclusion of the Presidential palaces as designated site for inspection.

On the composition of UNSCOM, Iraq alleged that the composition was dominated and preponderantly Anglo-Savon with Americans and Britons dominating the membership. Iraq alleged that the American and British members of UNSCOM were subversive human elements, (SHE) and, therefore, demanded for their removal including placing “off-limit” status on 8 designated Presidential palaces among other 60 sites to be inspected. Iraq also protested that the inclusion of the Presidential palaces constituted security breaches against the integrity, sovereignty and independence of Iraq (Sunday

Champion, 1998:6) and, therefore, threatened “Holy war” if the U.N. failed to listen to its grievances as a party to the conflicts.

The misunderstanding between the weapons inspectors and Iraqi authorities led to the Security Council decision under UNSCR 715 (1991) of October 1991 to demand that

UNSCOM should be given unrestricted, unfettered and unimpeded access to monitor

Iraq‟s weapons programme.

Relying on the legal authorization and recognition of UNSCOM, its Director,

Rolf Ekeus reported to the Security Council, among other things, that based on the list of 93 equipment supplied by Iraq to UNSCOM, two European firms sold to Iraq 39 tons of bacteria growth germ, BGM, in 1998. The report concluded, as it were, that Iraq‟s biological weapons programme was large and advanced. After the Ekeus report, a 75- member Scott Ritter commission took over when Iraq‟s allegations and protests heated up. According to U.N.‟s report, from 1996 to 1998, Iraq‟s actions, which were alleged to include endangering weapons inspectors‟ helicopters, manhandling an inspector, especially from the inspection team, and preventing inspectors access to suspected weapons sites led to numerous condemnations in Security Council resolutions and the consequent expulsion of the Scott Ritter UNSCOM team on 29 December 1998 (The

Guardian, 1998:9; The Guardian, 1998: 1 & 9; GAO Report, 2002: 6). The expulsion of the U.N. weapons inspectors gave rise to double standoffs between the governments of

Iraq and U.S.-Britain and between the Iraqi government and United Nations.

 The Role of Britain as a Dominant Power

Over the raging controversy on Iraq weapons programme, the British Prime

Minister, Tony Blair made furtive efforts to convince Britons and the international community, through a 50-page British intelligence dossier that Iraq would deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of the order being given” (This Day,

2003:54; The Guardian, 2002: 10; The Guardian, 2003:3; Daily Champion, 2004:42).

The dossier also pointed out to the Security Council that the targets of Iraq were to destroy British military bases in Cyprus, NATO allies in Greece and Turkey, Israel and

Iraq‟s Middle East neighbours and adds that Iraq obtained fissile material and other essential components from foreign sources and, therefore, concluded that Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon in between one and two years.” 94

However, Blair‟s attempt to galvanize support from countries allegedly targets of

Iraq turned into unsuccessful episode full of criticisms, protests and Cabinet resignations against his administration; it was a demonstration of public indignation and disapproval of British policy on Iraq. Consequently, Blair was made to face legislative inquiry over suicide of British weapons of mass destruction (WMD) expert David Kelly and the exaggerated case against Iraq (Ojiabor, 2003:61 – 62; Coughlin, 2004: 374).

To demonstrate opprobrium, British Minister of International development, Clare

Short, and U.K. Government Minister and former British foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, resigned their positions in Blair‟s government over charges of gross illegalities, inconsistencies and deceit by the Prime Minister. Short regretted that the new status of

Britain and the U.S. as occupation forces in Iraq violates international law upon which the hope for international peace and security rests. She also regretted that the development contradicted Blair‟s earlier assurances to her that the United Nations would manage post-Saddam reconstruction of Iraq. Speaking in a World Press Conference on the Cable News Network on 11 May 2003, Robin Cook noted quite disappointingly Inter alia that:

History will be astonished over the unilateral and illegitimate actions of the U.S., Britain and other allies because just a year ago, the whole world sat and agreed on a wider issue of war against terrorism. There is no urgent and compelling reason for war in Iraq which will attract civilian casualties. This is why it is difficult to get agreement… We cannot base our strategy on the assumption that Iraq military is weak…There is no clear indication that Iraq poses any direct danger to Britain and there is no need for action of force by Britain. There is no justification for war with Iraq when our big brothers have refused to accede to war option. It is against these observations with heavy heart; I resign my position (Robin Cook, Cable News Network on 11 May, 2003).

Cook‟s reaction explains the British governments‟ complicity in the U.N. disarmament process in Iraq and that there were more to the British interest than the international community was made to believe in the collective security process of the

United Nations in resolving the disarmament crisis between the U.N. and Iraq.

 The Role of the United States as a Dominant Power

In the fashion of British involvement, the U.S. administration led by President

George Bush, in its report also painted Saddam Hussein as “a grave and gathering danger” to American interests, Israel existence and global security. The U.S. noted in its report that Iraq‟s lethal resources were as great as North Korea‟s and even worse since it is alleged “Saddam will use whatever he‟s got whenever he thinks he can get away with it (Saturday Champion, 2003:24 & 25). President Bush, therefore, grandiloquently stated:

Given the goals of rogue States and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today‟s threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries‟ choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first…Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents, whose so-called solider seek martyrdom in death and whose most potent protection is statelessness. The overlap between States that sponsor terror and those that pursue WMD compel us to action (Bush, 2003:15).

The U.S. felt its objectives of containing Iraq and deterring Saddam Hussein in order to restore peace and security in the economically strategic Persian Gulf region had failed and, therefore, required, as in the opinion of U.S. Senator John McCain in a Cable

News Network of 13 February 2003 for: 96

Reliable allies, a clear goal with a consistent doctrine, the economic and military capability to enforce the doctrine and the political will to support the demands of policy (Cable News Network, February 13, 2003).

The alleged nuclear threat of Iraq became part of U.S. strategic game-plan to weaken Iraq militarily. Retired U.S. General Zinni (in Saturday Champion 2003: 18 –

19) reinforced also American complicity in the U.N. disarmament of Iraq and observed that it was an earlier U.S. objective during the Gulf war to link Iraq to terrorism and when it could not hold, the U.S. accused Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Little wonder therefore, stepping into his father‟s shoes, George Bush Jr, during his swearing into office as the 43rd U.S. President, emphatically promised the world gathering in a Live Cable News Network on 20 January 2001 (18:03 hrs) that with civility, compassion, character and courage, he will promote democratic tradition, confront weapons of mass destruction and shape balance of power in the world.

Based on the foregoing, the U.S. heaped its excuses on Iraq‟s alleged non- compliance to the U.N. resolutions as a forward strategy and the first-live test of

American world view and insisted that preventive war was imperative and morally justified to effect the disarmament of Iraq because “defending against terrorism and other emerging 21st century threats may well require that the war is taken to the enemy”

(Sunday Champion, 2002: 36: Saturday Champion, 2003: 18 – 19).

The U.S. insisted that Iraq had not told UNSCOM all that was required about its weapons programme and requested the U.N. Security Council to discountenance Iraq‟s protests. The U.S. threatened to employ military action to make Iraq fulfill its obligations to the U.N. over the weapons inspection. The U.S. complained to the U.N. also that the 97 crux of the matter was the obstruction of the U.N. disarmament process by Iraq. It was as a result of the double standoffs between UNSCOM and Iraqi government and between the governments of Iraq and U.S./Britain that resulted to the expulsion of the weapons inspectors thus culminating into the Iraqi government U.N. Standoff.

3.4 United Nations Security Council’s Disunity over the Sanctions in Iraq

At the United Nations Security Council Torrance Taylor in Barzagan (1997:14 –

15) observed that, it took the intrusive inspection of the U.N. to wield the consensus of the Council that Iraq had not told UNSCOM all that the commission was required to know about Iraq‟s weapons programme. The standoffs over Iraq disarmament process developed into rivalries between the dominant members in the Security Council, especially, the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia.

The governments of U.S. and Britain told members of the Council that their patience was running out with U.N. Security Council mediation in the impasse. The U.S.

– U.K. plan to use war against Iraq on allegation of Iraq‟s obstinacy was resisted by

France, Russia, China and Germany. These members refused to swallow hook, line and sinker, the U.S. –U.K. built-up allegations without better evidence of the Iraqi malfeasance provided by the appointed weapons inspectors of the Council (William,

2003:8). The U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, had reflected the Council‟s stance during a year-end interview with Israeli Army Radio on 30 December and stated:

…at the rate the inspectors are keeping up, we will soon figure out what is happening in Iraq (it is) premature to be making any judgments and the whole Council is waiting for inspectors, who have been given that responsibility.

Annan, therefore, counseled the U.S. and Britain to chain their actions to multilateral approach warning against the duo‟s attitude over broader international problem thus:

When States decide to use force to deal with broader international peace and security, there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations…I stand before you today as a multilateralist by precedent, by principle, by Charter and by duty (The Guardian, 2002: 1 & 2).

Annan called attention to the Millennial Declaration reinforcing faith in the U.N.

Charter and global solidarity. He expressed surprise at U.S. and Britain use of force in the matter of Iraq without the U.N. approval and regretted that the development

“represents a fundamental challenge to the principles” that had held world peace and security for the last fifty-eight years. Akpuru-Aja (1999:219) stated that the governments of China, France and Russia voting against the action of U.S. and Britain in Iraq amply demonstrated the great strength and depth of opposition of the Council over the action against Iraq. He, therefore, explained:

The veto power clause is deliberately provided against the majority conspiracy capable of endangering world peace and security. It is hoped that any authorized action by the consensus of the five permanent members is for the general interest of the world community. In principle, it is not expected that any member of the Security Council should disrespect an exercise veto power. Similarly, it is also not expected that in the event of lack of consensus among the Big Five, no permanent member is expected to carry out any action except under the auspices of the Security Council as endorsed by the Secretary General of the United Nations (Akpuru-Aja, 1999:219).

Yet, in the American-Britain obsession for the use of force against Iraq, Donald

Rumsfeld underscored the supremacy of American national interest and frustration over 99 the United Nations Security Council‟s process, which is the barometer of global politics and the last hope of the smaller powers (Ejiofor, 1981: 82), stating, as it were, that the

U.S. does not depend on the decision of other members of the Council and, therefore, “it is less important to have unanimity than to be making the right decisions and doing the right thing” (The Guardian, 2002: 10). In order to carry out the American war objective, the U.S. Secretary of States Colin Powell in The Guardian (2003: 12) addressing world leaders in Economic Forum held at Davos, Switzerland, also defended that:

Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction... we seek nothing for ourselves other than to bring security to the region…We will work through these issues patiently and deliberately with our friends and allies… We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military action against Iraq along or in coalition of the willing (Colin Powell in The Guardian, 2003: 12).

The U.S. began to shop for support for its war project outside the Security

Council authorization and, in this regard, sponsored Arab peace economic summit in

Doha in October 1997. The Summit, rather than support the American stance, presented it with palpable disappointment. The U.S. then decided to draft Russia into mediation. The objective for Russian mediation was to restore confidence in the Arab Nations while the

U.S. promised to work through the U.N. diplomatic framework if Iraq would allow

UNSCOM and IAEA unconditional and unfettered access to the designated 68 weapons sites (including the Presidential palaces).

The U.S. seeming recapitulation to the U.N. collective security system is based on a number of factors. In the Council, while Spain a member of the European bloc in the

Council was regarded as not living up to its potential foreign policy field, it had the 100 economic clout to resist the United States. The government of Pakistan, which was courting the U.S. government but not at the detriment of its population, was conscious of the members of the Third World States like Chile and Angola. So, diplomatically, the new configuration of the Council meant that the U.S. Government had to work very hard to regain the consensus it achieved with the old Council members at the outset of the

Iraq U.N. military tango in 1991 Gulf war. However, in its motley of countries and so- called “Coalition of the Willing”, the U.S. in the Security Council of 15 members, failed miserably to secure a “moral majority” of nine votes outside her vote, including Britain,

Spain and Bulgaria; even after threatening potential negative consequences against those not supportive of its rather adjudged “coalition of the sinning” military campaign against

Iraq (Anderson, Dennis, & Leaver, 2003: 2 & 4). The Council members argued that if disarmament is the remaining objective in curbing Iraq‟s threat to international security, evidence of banned weapons was a necessary pre-requisite.

While the Council was waiting for the report of the weapons inspectors, the U.S. was quietly deploying equipment and supplies in a large-scale mobilization of troops; thus giving credence, as it were, to Iraqi government claims that the U.S. Government had prejudiced the U.N. arms inspection process.

To complete the circle of doom, the head of UNSCOM, Australian diplomat

Richard Butler reported to the U.N. Security Council that Iraq had large Anthrax to devastate Israeli capital city, Tel Aviv. The report complicated the matter because Israel felt its restraint was mistaken for weakness. The Jewish State warned that if it is attacked by Iraq, Israel will retaliate with nuclear bomb. It was based on reactions to Butler‟s report that the Iraqi government demanded for his suspension on charges of 101 incompetence, recklessness and blocking of diplomatic channel to the resolution of the crisis.

It was at this stage that the U.S. approached Russia as an old ally of Iraq to mediate and restore the confidence of Iraq and the Arabs-World over the impasse. But more regrettably, the Moscow compromise proposal from the Arab League was rejected by the U.S. government on the suspicion that the Russian government was tipping Iraqi government on the targets of weapons inspectors and profiteering in contracts and debt of more than $10 billion to be recovered with an end to the biting economic sanctions on

Iraq. The U.S. condemned the Moscow proposal as “just a Russian trap” and, therefore, drew some irreducible conditions for the resolution of the problem. These include:

i. Iraq must allow U.N. Inspectors to resume work without any restrictions or

conditions;

ii. Saddam would have to continue to include Americans; and

iii. The U.S. and the U.N. would not be bound by any secret deals cut by Russia

and Iraq (Newsweek, 1997:8).

The U.S. rejection of the Moscow Plan forced Russia to assume the leader of

European anti-American war option, while the U.S. engaged in tours to France, Germany,

Britain and Russia to explain its position. Unyieldingly, France, Russia and China, three dominant and veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, stood for diplomatic openness in order to give Iraq a chance to climb down and cooperate with the weapons inspectors (The Comet, 2002:1) and, therefore, rejected U.S. insistence to go to war with

Iraq over weapons inspection (The Comet, 2003:9). 102

Juxtaposing the principle of Collective Security in Ejiofor (1981:80-81), the action of the U.S., Britain and their allies was unilateral and not supported by an affirmative vote of nine members, including the concurring votes of the other permanent members of the Security Council: China, France and USSR; the U.S.-British action was illegitimate without either unanimity votes or “benevolent abstention” because China,

France and Russia scored negative votes against the action of force, thus bringing the enforcement right to nullity.

Ultimately, the roles played in the disarmament crisis by the dominant powers were primarily predicated on safeguarding their national interests. The head of Chinese

National People‟s Congress, Qiao Shi, explained that China‟s policy in the Iraq debacle is quite very illuminating. He stated:

China stands for a fair and remarkable solution as early as possible to the issues left over by the Gulf war; including the sanctions against Iraq on the basis of the relevant U.N. Security council resolutions…We hold that the sanction cannot last long (The Guardian, 1998:10).

The Chinese government urged that the United Nations Security Council would not be stampeded and should be allowed to make “fair and objective judgment based on the findings of the weapons inspection team in Iraq (The Punch, 2002:13).

France also held the view that war should be avoided as a solution to the Iraq disarmament impasse, but the French President Francois Mitterrand quoted in New York

Times (1991:27) had, during the Gulf war, maintained imperialist stance by marching

French armies into the war despite his country‟s aversion of the option of military solution in the Iraqi affair. Mitterrand insisted: 103

France must be a party to any settlement in the affairs of the Middle East. It was dangerous to allow some few great powers to fill the vacuum created by leadership crisis in the Middle East (New York Times (1991:27).

France‟s position was dictated by greed over the war spoils that were imminent from the Iraq-Kuwaiti crisis. Accordingly, successor to Francois Mitterrand, President

Jacques Chirac in Saturday Champion (2003: 24-25) noted that “any community with only one dominant power is always a dangerous one”.

Apart from China and France, Russia which led the European anti-American campaign, was more vociferous in condemning America‟s demand for the application of military force in Iraq. The Russian President Boris Yeltsin Daily Times (1998:15) cautioned:

I realize it‟s not easy to break old habits…but I have to say that attempts of some countries to impose a unipolar model on the world, to assume the role of leader, are unrealistic and even dangerous (Daily Times, 1998:15)

From the foregoing, McGeorge et al (1982:13) observed before the 1990s, that the importance of the Middle East to both the U.S. and Soviet Union was built on a cycle of greed, and that offered possibilities for trouble beyond balance of terror. As logic would expect, the greed became the driving force in the activities of the dominant powers in the

U.N. disarmament exercises in Iraq. According to a British source, which implicated the complicity of the dominant powers in the U.N. Disarmament process, it epitomized the scenario thus:

104

France will want to be difficult, but in the end, they won‟t want to be left behind. Russia wants to maintain its relationship with the U.S., but it wants to know that Iraqi debts (to Russia) will be paid off; and the Chinese do not want to be isolated (Sunday Champion, 2003:36-37).

At the Security Council, the continuing disagreements, based on special national interests of the dominant powers, degenerated and denied the council of unanimity or the requisite consensus to solve the Iraq-U.N. standoff over the disarmament process in Iraq, pursuant to the U.N. Security Council‟s responsibility to maintain or restore global peace and security.

Rather than collective security measures as required, more disappointingly, the

U.N. turned into a spectre of a “disunited Nations”. It was only saved by the intervention of the good offices of its sympathetic secretary General, Kofi Annan. The Secretary

General discovered the dynamics of the power-play and muscle-flexing over the politics of U.N. disarmaments in Iraq and decided to accord respect to Iraq‟s sovereignty and independence as a party to the dispute by appointing “a special group” of diplomats, headed by a Commissioner also appointed by him to accompany UNSCOM‟s team to the controversial Presidential sites as requested by Iraq.

It was, therefore, based on the disagreements that the show of Iraqi absolute refusal to allow unfettered access to UNSCOM inspection had by October 1997 resulted to a split in the Security Council on the subject of threatening Iraq with additional sanctions of travel ban on its officials for non-compliance. Sequel to this development,

Goldstein (1998:42-53) revealed that France, Russia, China, Egypt and Kenya exercised a stunning abstention from voting for UNSCR 1134 of 23rd October that year. The 105 development, as it were, was a remarkable instance in the recent years of a breakdown in the Council‟s consensus, perhaps since after the Cold War.

Further to the breakdown of Council consensus-building, is the domination- oriented approach of the members of the Council on whose shoulders are rested the responsibility to maintain and restore global peace and security. The breakdown further casts understanding on realist tradition and the leitmotif of the dominant powers in the

U.N. disarmament politics in Iraq.

As our investigation has amply revealed, some dominant powers in the Security

Council, for instance, Russia and France were primarily motivated along the line of economic interests, specifically in ending sanctions and assuming robust oil trade with

Iraq. Others, like China, Egypt, Kenya, without imperialist obsession, were simply moved by sympathy for the suffering of Iraqis to react against further sanctions on Iraq.

Going by the disposition of the dominant powers to protect their national interests above their unique role to maintain or restore global security, it was, therefore, little wonder that U.S. and Britain opted for unilateral and illegitimate action against U.N. stance on resolution 1441 of 2002 (Saturday Champion, 2003: 29), which afforded Iraq

“a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council.” Rather than sanctions against the governments of U.S. and

Britain for their deviant behaviour, the two dominant powers sought for and won a huge diplomatic victory of 14-0 votes for a unanimous approval of UNSCR 1483 (2003) of 22

May 2003, with the absence of Syria. It was a “Historic resolution.” And a product of

U.S. - British draft, which legitimized the unauthorized U.S.-led occupation forces and 106 their activities in the post-Saddam Iraq and allowed the dominant powers and their allies to:

i) give legitimacy to the post-conflict forces in Iraq;

ii) lift the 13-year old sanctions on Iraq;

iii) appoint U.N. Special consultants to Iraq;

iv) define the U.N. role in post-war Iraq reconstruction; and

v) establish Economic Development Fund for distribution by the governments of

U.S. and Britain (This Day, 2003:54).

The domination-oriented approach adopted by the U.S. in the Security Council clearly vindicates Tinder (1970) who wrote:

Every man with power consequently seeks his own good alone and sacrifices the welfare of others to attain it because the justice maintained by governments is nothing but the interest of the stronger (Tinder, 1970:93).

The U.S. - British actions, whatever Pyrrhic victory, conforms to Tinder‟s position, and constitute security dilemma and abuse of international law because when

Member-States sideline the principles of United Nations and resort to unilateral measures to deal with broader threats to global peace and security, the States arrogate to themselves the right to solve international problems and that constrains the legitimacy and effectiveness of the United Nations and downgrades the international system to a theatre for experimenting force on both real and imagined threats to national security. The application of force by the U.S. and its allies in the guise to maintain global peace and security re-institutes, dangerously, the obsolete doctrine of deterrence and, therefore, reinforces the use of force and anarchy in the world system more so, because the invasion 107 and occupation of the sovereign State of Iraq, many have also argued, pose greater danger to global peace and security (Newswatch, 2002: 18-23; Saturday Champion, 2003: 24-25;

Tell, 2002:50).

Since the American-British “Coalition of the Willing” crushed Iraq in 2003 to eliminate the alleged Saddam‟s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) arsenals, remove the threat of international terrorism and promote democracy in Iraq and the surrounding areas of the Middle East; the situation in Iraq did not meet U.N.‟s parameters for global peace and security. First, the huge cost of prosecuting a war of predatory objective of few dominant powers in a poverty-induced world of security dilemma cannot, in any way, approximate the global vision of peace and security. Available record shows that Saudi

Arabia contributed $16.8 billion; Kuwait, $16billion; Japan, $10.7 billion; Germany,

$6.66 billion; United States, $61, 1 billion and other donation made $7.4 billion

(Saturday Champion, 2003:29). More so, the human carnage was horrendous; an international human rights organization put civilian deaths in Iraq at estimated 8,000 (out of which 2,000 were post-war casualties). Human Right Watch added that 74 of this casualty figure were killed by U.S. Soldiers and so far, a total of 449 U.S. troops were estimated to have died. Also, 52 of U.K. troops have died and Iraqi forces have lost an estimated 6,000 (Adzegeh, 2003:51).

Second, the left over Iraq has witnessed daily stampedes, multiple lacks and heavy death tolls signifying that the end of a war may as well mean the beginning of another by other means. The spectacle in Iraq leaves security dilemma that if the ugly tide is not stemmed, Iraqi population would be completely destroyed and supplanted by western imperialist folks. In this light, Iraq was intended as the starting point or model for 108

global security under the U.N Security Council, then from what is being experienced;

Iraqi case paints a picture of paralysis in the question of Arab stability and by extension,

global peace and security.

We have examined the proposition that “the UN Collective Security Mechanism

in Iraq appears to worsen the incidence of insecurity across the globe” and it follows that:

i) The main impediment to the effectiveness of the United Nations Security

Council is great power dominance.

ii) It is difficult for the Untied Nations Security Council to maintain peace and

security as presently constituted with only dominant powers as permanent

members; and

iii) The power-play by the dominant powers compromised the consensus of the

U.N. Security Council on which the effectiveness of the United Nations

capacity to restore or maintain global peace and security depends.

TABLE SHOWING MAJOR INCIDENCE OF TERRORISM BETWEEN 1990 AND 2003 (AFTER THE UNITED NATIONS COLLECTIVE SECURITY MECHANISM IN IRAQ)

YEAR INCIDENT NUMBER OF CASUALTIES 1990 The Persian Gulf War: Iraq invades Kuwait and annexes it as “the Iraqi province of Kuwait”. The United States begins bombing Iraq and sends ground troops.

1992 Ethnic civil war under Taliban leadership in Kabul, 50,000 are killed, Afghanistan mainly Persians 1992 A Christian centre in Argentina is bombed by Imad Mugniyah of Hizballah. December 20, 1992 A hotel in Aden, Yemen, recently used by U.S troops 2 tourists are killed preparing to go to Somalia is bombed; February 26, 1993 A Rented van packed with explosives in The World A Rented van Trade Centre‟s underground garage packed with explosives in The World Trade Centre‟s 109

underground garage February 26, 1993 The World Trade Centre bombing $500 million in damage April 14, 1993 An attempt to assassinate U.S. President George Bush in Kuwait fails August 1993 Jihad members attempt to assassinate Egyptian interior Minister Hassan al Alfi, but fail September 13, Terrorist attacks in Israel 256 Israeli civilians 1993-September and soldiers were 2000 killed

October 4, 1993 Black Hawk Down: Two U.S. helicopters on a 18 U.S. soldiers are humanitarian mission are shot down in Mogadishu, killed, and some of Somalia, by militants trained by Al Qaeda using weapons their bodies are supplied by Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef abused and dragged through the streets March 1994 A plot between Yousef and the Abu Sayyat group to the driver of the attack the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok with an truck is found dead ammonium nitrate fuel oil bomb fails when a truck carrying the bomb crashes November 1994 An Israel cultural centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is bombed by Hezbollah agents December 11, 1994 PAL Flight 434 en route to Japan is bombed 1 passenger is killed November 19, 1995 Islamic Jihad explodes a truck bomb at the Egyptians 15 are killed Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan March 8, 1995 Unidentified gunmen attack the U.S. Consulate in 2 U.S. diplomats Karachi, Pakistan. are killed and a third wounded April 19, 1995 A car bomb is detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah 168 killed Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (including 19 children) and injuring 600. September 1995 The U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia, is attacked by rocket-propelled grenades November 4, 1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Israel by Yigal Amir November 13, 1995 A Saudi National Guard training facility run by U.S. 7 are killed officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is attacked by car bomb 1996 The Taliban takes control of Afghanistan and conquers Jalabad and Kabul; Kabul University is shut 110

down. Taliban law limits male students to a high school education and bans female students over the age of 12 from all schooling. The Jamiat-ul- Ulema-e-Islam political party in Pakistan assists in the organization of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is expelled from Sudan and establishes a training facility near Jalabad, Afghanistan, to develop al Qaeda into an international terrorist network June 25, 1996 A truck is donated outside the U.S. Air Force complex 19 U.S. servicemen Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia are killed and 515 people are injured, including 240 U.S. citizens

January 2-13 1997 Letter bombs with Alexandria, Egypt postmarks are discovered at Al-Hayat newspaper bureaus and at a prison facility in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Leavenworth, Kansas, USA; London, England; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia February 23, 1997 A Palestinian gunman opens fire on an observation deck Danish national atop the Empire State Building in New York City tourists from the U.S., Argentina, Switzerland, and France were killed. November 12, 1997 4 .U.S. auditors and a Pakistan driver are killed in Karachi Pakistan, by the Islamic Inquilabi (Revolutionary) Council, and the Aimal Khufia Action Committee June 21, 1998 The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, Beirut, is attacked by 111

rocket-propelled grenades August 7,1998 Truck bombs are denoted almost simultaneously outside More than 5,000 two U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya injured November 15, 1998 The 11-year-old son of a U.S. businessman is kidnapped, held for $1 million ransom, and later released December 28, 1998 The Aden Abyan Islamic Army takes 17 western tourists hostage in Yemen December 14, 1999 Ahmed Ressam‟s plot to blow up LAX airport is thwarted when U.S. Customs agents find explosives in the trunk of the vehicle he was attempting to drive across the Canadian-U.S. border at Port Angeles, Washington

August 12, 2000 4 U.S. citizens are taken hostage in Kara-Su Valley by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; the hostages later escape.

October 12, 2000 A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, is rammed by a 17 sailors were small boat loaded with explosives in Aden, Yemen killed and 39 others injured December 30, 2000 A plaza across the street from the U.S. Embassy in 9 people were Manila, Philippines, is bombed by the Moro Islamic injured Liberation front September 11, 2001 9/11: American Airlines flight 11 en route from Boston More than 6,000 to Los Angeles is hijacked and crashed into the World are killed, and Trade Centre (north tower); U.S. Airlines flight 175 from thousands more are Boston to Los Angeles is hijacked and crashed into the injured. World Trade Centre (south tower); United Airlines flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco is hijacked and crashes in South-Western Pennsylvania American Airlines flight 77 en route from Washington to Los Angeles is hijacked and crashed into Pentagon. Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda mastermind Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and 19 hijackers plan and carry out the attacks.

September 13, 2001 An al Qaeda plot to attack U.S. Embassies and the Eagle Base airfield in Paris, France, and Brussels, Belgium, is thwarted by NATO officials. In a separate incident, Israeli authorities prevent a radioactive backpack-bomb from entering Israel; the smugglers have ties to al Qaeda.

September 18, 2001 Letters containing anthrax are mailed from Trenton, N.J., One recipient dies to five U.S. media outlets, along with notes, one of which read “09-11-01, this is next , take penacilin [sic] now, death to America, death to Israel, Allah is great October 8, 2001 Plots to bomb U.S. Embassy in Paris, France, and 112

possible NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, are uncovered October 9, 2001 A second batch of letters containing a new, weaponized 22 people develop form of anthrax (previously unseen by bio-weapons infections, and 4 experts) are mailed to two Democratic senators in die Washington, D.D., along with notes that read “09-11-01. You can‟t stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to Israel. Allah is great December 1, 2001 Two Hamas suicide bombers attack a mall in Jerusalem, 11 killed, and 188 Israel injured February 18, 2002 Palestinian uprising According to Associated Press figures, 941 Palestinians and 273 Israelis died August 7, 2003 A car bomb is denoted outside the Jordanian Embassy in 19 are killed, 65 Baghdad, Iraq injured August 19, 2003 A truck loaded with surplus Iraq ordnance explodes 23 killed, more than outside the U.N Headquarters 100 injured December 25, 2003 Two suicide truck bombings in Rawalpindi, Pakistan 14 people were killed Source: Timeline of Terror (2006)

Thus, we take the view that the effectiveness of the Security Council is constrained by the interests of the dominant powers and this creates a scenario of global insecurity; thereby undermining the U.N. Collective Security Mechanism.

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CHAPTER FOUR

AMERICA’S NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE UNITED NATIONS’

SANCTIONS IN IRAQ

In this chapter, we intend to investigate the proposition that “there is a positive link between the United States perception of its national security and UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq.” The objective here is to study the relationship between America‟s

National Security and the United Nations imposition of sanctions in Iraq. In the pursuit of this task, we examine the following:

 Meaning and conceptualization of National Security

 National Security and the rationale behind Iraq‟s invasion and violation of

Kuwait‟s sovereignty

 United States National Interests in the Middle-East

 Establishment of U.S. military base in the Gulf

 UN intervention and enforcement of sanctions in Iraq

 The defense of United States‟ National Security in Iraq

In view of these objectives, we rely on the following main indicators: Control of

Iraqi oil resources by America, U.S. global hegemonic power in Iraq and how they conduced to measures by the U.N. Security Council against Iraqi threat to global security.

4.1 Meaning and Conceptualization of National Security

In its operational sense, national security of a State ensures the protection and promotion of national interests, objectives, principles and core values.

Trout and Harf (1982: 13 – 56), avers that as an environmental condition, national security is a state of mind of several individuals within which range physical leaderships 114 rationalize their quest for security, as well as raise and maintain military power in order to be strong and effective in the pursuit of their interests. They identify five important scenarios for State behaviours, which bear virtually upon the role of military power in international politics. These include that:

i. All States must fend for themselves;

ii. All States much make provisions for their physical security;

iii. All States must put concern for their short-term positions relative to others

above concern for the long-term absolute goal of all;

iv. All States are in a position of strategic independence; and

v. All States find it difficult to be moral in the “dirty pool”.

In this light, international relations are often identified as tantamount to a “state of war” because of the crystal exceptional situation of resort to force as the ultimate recourse of States, which manifest in military posture of states. It has become generally accepted that to ensure national security, military force makes a state‟s diplomacy effective even when not physically used because the mere presence of a credible military option is often sufficient to make the point.

National security accounts, for the role and influence of actors in the crisis, the involvement and polarization of the crisis and the United Nations role between 1991 and

2003 in Iraq. Here we deal with the national security interests at stake in Iraq that shaped the attitudes of the actors in the Iraqi crisis; and how the national security of these actors determines their roles in the crisis.

In the affairs of States, as in men, conflicts are interest-driven. Since interests guide relationships between States in a world of limited resources with limitless desires, 115 conflicts become endemic. International relations reflect governing state of world government of supranational authority to resolve the disputes that inevitably arise among

States.

From the state of affairs, every State seeks for peace security. “Peace” and

“security” are thus two inseparable and inescapable concepts in our world. Peace is a more common concept that is used to explain a situation of absence of trouble, conflict and unsettled situation of conflict, but not predictable. It does not give assurance of the future situation. Security, on the one hand, explains a situation of absence of anxiety or tension. Green (1981:3) sees security as a state of relatively predictable environmental condition, which an individual or group of individuals may pursue its needs without deception or harm and without fear of such disturbance or injury. Security in organizational sense is a means by which safety and stability may be attained through a wide variety of institutional and cultural patterns.

Thus, security is not a natural attribute but an environmental condition reflecting the society and its institutions. It is a pervasive phenomenon and a response to a changing society, mirroring not only its social structure but also its economic conditions, its conception of law and perception of crime and its morality. Rockley and Hill (1981:48 –

49) conclude that the “need for security is confirmed with unfailing regularity” because the scope of problems resulting from lack of it is enormous.

It is, therefore, not a surprise that in international relations, national security demonstrates primary concern for the well-being, if not the survival of a particular State.

Thus, it is common that the threat and/or use of military power are seen as a principal instrument for ensuring State‟s survival in the anarchic international system, where no 116 single agency has a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. It is the requirement to ensure national security that States adopt in its security policy in a variety of means including alliances; arms control agreements and other multilateral arrangements (Shultz,

Godson & Greenwood, 1993: 1 – 2).

4.2 National Security and the rationale behind Iraq’s invasion and violation of

Kuwait’s sovereignty

National security interests underlie the Iraq-Kuwait crisis following spiral events. The two neighbouring countries are located in the Middle East with the common problems of violence caused by the search for political development and modernization by States in the Gulf region. Besides, these two countries‟ quest to ensure their respective national security has hinged on historical claims, economic, geopolitical and strategic dimensions.

Historically, though Kuwait and Iraq belong to the Babylonian city- States, Iraq has no history of colonization but Kuwait‟s independence came in 1961 after the British had washed its hands off the running of Kuwait‟s foreign relations and defense (World

Almanac Books, 1995: 789). As a result of Kuwait‟s independence, Iraq treated the newly independent State of Kuwait with reservation and the Prime Minister of Iraq,

General Abdul Karim Qassim, on 25 June of 1961, announced that he would incorporate

Kuwait into the republic of Iraq based on the old Ottoman arrangement, which administered Kuwait as part of the district (vilayet) of Basra (Kelly, 1980: 277). It was based on the border drawn up by Sir Percy Cox in the 1920s and Sykes-Piscot agreement of 1916 that the British government merged its spoils of the Ottoman provisions entered on Baghdad, Basra and the northern city of Monsul, to form the new State of Iraq (Miller

& Mylorie, 1990: 58 – 59; Coughin 2004: 248). 117

Part of Iraq‟s claim of defense of its national security came from its restiveness and misconception from the artificial and inchoate borders between her and her neighbours, including Kuwait. The border problems were central in fueling the disputes of oil fields in Warbah, Bubiyan and Rumaila between Iraq and Kuwait.

More so, the economic factor played its role too. The war between Iraq and Iran

(1980 – 88) left its toll on Iraq. As the fourth military power in the world (in Burke, 1994:

93 – 116; Javetski, et al, 1990: 14 – 17; Akpuru-Aja, 1999), the Iraqi government sought petrol-dollar in order to bolster its economy and maintain its one-million-man army for its national security. As the oil price started a slow steady slide, Iraq became frustrated and complained that some members of the OPEC cartel forced the downward slope of oil price through production of oil above the OPEC approved quota. Among those members accused by Iraq, Kuwait was more vocal dismissing Iraq‟s complaint as ranting from a frustrated member that could not cheat (Adelman, 1993: 292). More so, the Emir of

Kuwait was insistent that Iraq must pay its wartime loans to Kuwait without further grants from Kuwait while the oil production would remain. According to Coughlin

(2004:249), Saddam handed the Kuwait government a list of demands, which included the stabilization of the international oil price, a moratorium on Iraq‟s wartime loans, and the formation of an Arab plan similar to the Marshall Plan to assist Iraq‟s reconstruction programme. Saddam Hussein warned that if the Kuwaitis failed to oblige,

We will have no choice but to resort to effective action to put things right and ensure the restitution of our rights (Coughlin, 2004:249).

From the reaction of the Kuwaiti government, Iraqi government became peeved over the humiliation and following the deterioration in relations between the governments 118 of Iraq and Kuwait, on one side and the resultant economic quagmire of Iraq. The

President of the Iraqi Council of Foreign relations urged concessions to Iraq regarding oil pricing, production and territory. Following the pressure mounted by the government of

Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait were compelled to revert to OPEC production quota but the reversion did not appease the Iraqi leadership, which insisted that the act amounted to

“direct aggression”, which must be deterred by military force. Iraqi leadership, therefore, accused the Kuwait government of stealing $2.400 million in value of oil from the disputed borders between them (Obienyem, 1992: 72). It was against this backdrop that

Iraq and Kuwait stationed armed forces on alert near the disputed borders in defense of their respective national security.

As a result of the brewing tension, the U.S. government appeared to mediate but employed the game of political deception and crisis escalation when the American

Assistant Secretary of State, John Kelly, on 31 July 1990, told a U.S. Congressional

Committee that the U.S. was not bound by any defence treaty with any Persian Gulf

State. In her early diplomatic effort into the degeneration of the crisis, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Mrs. April Glaspie counseled Saddam Hussein to toe a peaceful path for the settlement and assured the Iraqi president that although the U.S. sympathized with

Iraq over her economic plight, Iraq should embrace peace with Kuwait (Anderson &

Atta, 1991:105; Adelman, 1993:546; Apuru – Aja, 1999:89).

It was under pretence and political deception that the U.S., through its ambassador, hid its national interest through mythical distance in the Iraq – Kuwait crisis, thus deceiving Iraq into predatory invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The Iraqi invasion brought to full circle a 30 year strategic national objective to take over Kuwait 119 and annex the country as the 19th province of Iraq. Initially, Saddam set up a

“provisional revolutionary government” and gave the impression that when the Islands of

Warbah and Babiyan have been successfully annexed to Iraq, Iraqi forces would withdraw from Kuwait (Coughlin, 2004: 254). Contrary to Saddam‟s projection, on

August 8, 1990, the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council rubber stamped the return of

Kuwait as a “branch” to the “root” of Iraq.

Following the developments in Kuwait, members of the ruling family of Kuwait fled to Saudi Arabia to establish a government in exile. Westerners were taken hostage.

In the twist of faith, Iraqi neighbours felt threatened and Saudi Arabia invited the United

States to intervene. The invitation of the United States accentuated the internationalization of the conflict. President George Herbert Walker Bush strongly condemned the Iraqi action and called for Iraq‟s immediate and unconditional withdrawal while spiritedly working for the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security

Council on the matter.

4.3 United States National Interests in the Middle-East

The international political debacle in Iraq between 1991 and 2003 was a function of overplay of national security interests of external forces and members of the United

Nations. Shahram Chubim “Perspective and commentary: ATBMs and Middle East” in

Hafner and Roper (1988:261 – 271) aver that many reasons account for the perilous state of affairs in which war is constantly in the minds of the people of Middle East. He argued that:

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The prospect of war can be made more likely or more tempting by changes…including shifts in the assessment of the military balance, actual or perceived changes in the domestic orientation of the antagonist States, regional trends that encourage bellicosity and a false or real sense of unity, whether in the name of Arab nationalism or Islamic solidarity; and superpower policies and regional perceptions of the superpowers commitments define the state of relations between regional actors and the superpowers and do also decide whether there is a real or national military “balance”. This state of affairs grows from war to war and the U.S. and Soviet Union, shifted from being bystanders to becoming arms suppliers, diplomatic shapers, and even defenders of last resort (Hafner and Roper, 1988:261-271).

The United States interests in the Middle East played a dominant role in the Iraqi crisis. Okolie (2004) opines rightly that after the demise of the cold war, the primary objective of the US was just a singular issue:

Instituting liberalization of trade and unfettered movement of labor and international finance across territorial units. Thus, her primary objective in the Middle East was to guarantee uninterrupted flow of oil as cheaply as possible into American soil and for the sustenance of her growing industries (Okolie, 2004:37).

Sharabi (1981) attempted to capture America‟s interest in the Middle-East as follows: American Foreign Policy in the area seems motivated by three objectives: firstly, to secure relations of peace and stability in the region; secondly, to assure continuous flow of oil at an adequate price level; and thirdly to contain Soviet Union‟s strength and influence thereby remaining indomitable and a force to reckon with in the region (Sharabi, 1981:121).

In the American national security behaviour, any threat not directed against its interest will be ignored. Snow (1994:93 – 116) admits quite correctly that the shifting threat in global scene following the “dramatic, unprecedented and largely unforeseen end of the

Cold War” has necessitated a change in American national security policy. This is because the Cold War had placed the Soviet and their proxies, e.g. Iraq as the chief 121 menace to U.S. vital political and economic interests in parts of the world including the

Persian Gulf. With the disappearance of the Soviet threat, therefore, America believes that petroleum is the only Third World commodity worth fighting over (Snow, 1994: 94

– 95). Truly, “the Persian Gulf War of 1991 offers obvious testimony of the continuing relevance of access to Persian Gulf oil” (Brzezinski, 1992: 5 – 14, Abshire, 1992: 23 –

42).

 Economic Security of the United States in the Iraqi-Kuwait Crisis

Following the commingling of historic grievances of Iraq‟s leadership and radical position against Western oil interest in the OPEC, as well as contemporary political development of the collapse of Soviet Union; President Bush address in the Congress of

September 11, 1990 (Gurtov, 1994: 238) made no pretenses attesting to the fact that “the

Gulf War put the new world (order) to test. And…we passed that test” to protect

American vital interests in “dangerous” world full of regional instability (that) can be global. Combs (1986: 357 – 364) avers that the U.S. involvement in the Middle East regional substance of power is to ensure stability such that can protect its oil interest in the region. In the American defence of its national security, the war was seen as a test of the U.S. military post-cold war doctrine to ensure regional and global stability to deter would-be revisionist States from taking actions detrimental to U.S. interests.

There were also the traditional U.S. national interests that underpinned its role in

Iraq. By seizing Kuwait oil fields, Iraq gained control of 7 percent of the world‟s oil output which hampered the U.S. reliance on the Middle East for about 11.5 percent of its supplies in 1990. The Americans believe that if you are at the heart of Iraq, you are at the heart of the Middle East. In the U.S. strategic thinking, protecting the OPEC monarchs 122 had long been part of the American national security deal to ensure uninterrupted supply of oil at reasonable prices and keeping a reasonable balance of power, which is also mainly about oil – “keeping it flowing our way and out of the hands of our enemies.

Those goals have also included protecting Israel” (Telhami, 2004: 7 – 19). Nye Jnr.

(1992: 82 – 86) attests strongly that the aftermath of the Gulf war in 1991 demonstrated the first time in history an initiative to stifle threat to oil.

 Political Security of the United States in the Iraqi-Kuwait Crisis

Critical to oil security were regional balance of power question with America‟s spirited efforts to restore balance of power in the Middle East region by removing Iraq from Kuwait, effecting regime change, implanting a puppet democratic political dispensation and imposing unprecedented controls on Iraq‟s nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons programme.

Balance of Power

The U.S. government policy of balance of power in the Middle East had been fashioned for decades in order to stall the two strongest States of Iraq and Iran from assuming preponderant power in the region through a policy of equal containment”(Patrick and Cockburn, 2002: 447). In the 1990s, after Iraq emerged as a victor in the war with Iran and then invaded Kuwait, the U.S. waged a war that significantly reduced the Iraqi one-million army and its war-making weapons by a third of its known military strength. The weakening of Iraqi military in the guise of fighting weapons of mass destruction rather strengthened Iran‟s position in the Gulf. The new position of regional dominance in which Iran has found itself without the like of 123 militarily powerful Iraq has placed additional problem of containing Iran‟s nuclear ambition in the effort to keep Middle East a weapons of mass destruction-free zone.

Regime Change

One of the prime motives of American security interest in Iraq was to remove

Saddam Hussein from power. Adewale (1991:37) and Guardian editorial (2002:22) wrote that at a press conference with the visiting German Chancellor, Helmut Kohr, on May 20,

1991 President Bush revealed “…my view is we don‟t want to lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power”. From 1991 onwards, the U.S. and U.K. intelligence services explored possible options for removing Saddam (Coughlin, 2004: 287). The

U.S. authorities maintained that all possible sanctions will be in place against Iraq until the “discredited” Saddam Hussein and his regime were changed for endangering U.S. oil interest and attempting to assassinate the American President George Herbert Walker

Bush during his visit to Kuwait in April 1993, an attempt which led to the U.S. launching a missile attack at Iraq‟s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad on June 26, 1993 (World

Almanac, 1995: 775). Saddam Hussein was perceived by the U.S. government as a revisionist and dictator seeking nuclear power ascendancy to assume the position of the

Arab leader who would avenge the humiliations suffered at the hands of colonialism during the 19th and 20th centuries and to restore the kind of greatness that the Arabs had known during the early Middle Ages (Ba‟aram, 1980: 129 & 137).

Saddam Hussein‟s objective ran against that of the U.S. to foster globalist establishment by supporting “efforts in the U.S. and abroad to contribute ideas, develop leaders, and encourage institutions in the transition to global interdependence”

(Robertson, 1991: 139). Hoffman in Robertson (1991:45) warned: 124

The fate of this new world will depend on the ability of the (sources of military, economic, and demographic power) to cooperate enough in order to prevent or moderate conflicts, including regional ones, and to correct those imbalances of the world economy that would otherwise induce some states, or their publics, to pull away from or to disrupt the momentum of interdependence (Robertson, 1991:45).

Accordingly, Nye (2002:253) affirms that this was particularly true in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when no country could match or balance the

United States. With the U.S. unsurpassed global military, economic and cultural power, the Gulf War at the beginning was made an easy victory for the U.S. Thus, the uniting mission statement during the January 17, 1990 Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf was clearly presented by U.S. President Bush:

There will be no compromise on the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait. We cannot compromise with brutal, naked aggression. We cannot permit one country to bully a neigbhour and take it over without making them pay the price (Useni, 1990:31 – 32).

However, the 2003 invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003 with Shock and awe” expedition of 141 sorties in 24 hours of the first day in an operation Iraqi Liberation to achieve the ultimate but unstated objective of the national security interest of removing Saddam Hussein from power in the quest to create a stable Persian Gulf region

(Cohen in Shultz, Godson & Kenwood, 1993:77 – 113). On March 18, 2003, the U.S.

President George Walker Bush Jr. had set a 48 –hour deadline for the Iraqi President

Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein to leave the country of Iraq or face military action. By the time of the ultimatum, political and military preparations for the invasion were well advanced. The U.S. plan to invade Iraq heightened in September 2000 with a report by the “Project for New American Century 125

(PNAC)” upon the dissolution of Soviet forces to its unilateral “straight power concepts” to enforce the American new world order by agents of world government in the same way that agents of Kremlin enforced their rule throughout Soviet Russia (MacManus, in

Drummey 1991:15; Citing Alan Ned Sabrosky, Pfaltzgraff in Shultz, Godson &

Greenwood (1993: 141 – 177) observed that:

The U.S. interest was to engage in a revisionist war with the goal to gain oil resources in Iraq and with the regime change to alter Iraq‟s form of government and by extension, the regional power balance in favour of Israel. Unknown to an extensive and unique web of alliances, among the purposes, are to ensure regional and global stability and to deter would-be revisionist states (like Iraq) from taking actions detrimental to U.S. Interests (Drummey, 1991:15).

Adewale (1991: 36 – 37) quoted the U.S Secretary of State James Baker as saying:

His meeting with foreign officials of other countries during his Middle East peace tour had convinced him that Hussein would not remain in power for another eight months…the U.S. would like to see a new government in Iraq (Adewale, 1991: 36 – 37) . So, ab initio, part of the American objective had been to remove Saddam Hussein from power but the difficulty for not overtly stating it as U.N. objective was on lack of justification. It was, therefore, to actualize the regime change that the U.S. embarked on shopping for Gulf member-States that promised in private, to assist the Americans with strong military to force Saddam Hussein to capitulate to U.N. disarmament demands or at driving him out of power (Alan, 1997: 41). Klare (1991: 33), therefore, averred that the

American unilateral use of military power to secure its interest invites “military action as a response to disagreements that will inevitably arise with emerging regional powers in the Third World”. This scenario, he warned, “will produce a new America in which U.S. soldiers are the principle instrument of regional stability”. 126

Nevertheless, the September 22, 2001 terrorist attacks were seen by members of the PNAC, majority of who were in the Bush administration, as the opportunity of ages to justify the invasion plan. An expert in Middle East, Maurie Mylroie quoted in Ufuoku and Tampa (2001: 27 – 28) stated: “You can‟t deal with the issue of terrorism without getting rid of Saddam”. By late 2002, there was a steady flow of U.S. forces in the region.

By March 17, 2003, about 70, 000 U.S. and British troops were in the region. With considerable opposition by the Permanent members of the Security Council notably,

France, China and Russia including Germany; President Bush met with his British

Counterpart on 15 and 16 March 2003, declaring that “diplomacy had “failed” and announced their intention to attack Iraq regardless if Saddam Hussein did not abdicate.

Albeit Americans had hoped to leverage on the (UNSCR) 1441, which states that

“serious consequences” would result from Iraq‟s failure to disarm, claimed that:

i. Iraq presents a clear threat to the U.S.;

ii. The extent of Iraq‟s partial disarmament was inadequate to remove that threat;

iii. The weapons inspection process no longer had any chance of effecting the

disarmament in Iraq;

iv. There is reason to believe that Iraq is an important supporter of terrorism;

v. Iraq represents a more significant or urgent threat to the United States than the

other nations with weapons of mass destruction and dictators; and

vi. The existing U.N. resolutions provide a sufficient legal basis for an invasion.

The U.K. and U.S. governments have presented detailed legal justifications, but these have been rejected by others, including the U.N. and Secretary – General Kofi

Annan (U.N., 2003: 15 – 16). 127

At the start of the war of invasion code-named “Operation Iraq Liberation” on March 19,

2003; Tony Blair, few days into the war, addressed the members of British parliament. In a News Conference with the MPs soon after Saddam Hussein‟s “Historic Speech” of

March 24, 2003, the 5th day into the war, in the cable News Network, Blair emphasized to the MPs in an unmistakable terms:

Saddam will go; his regime will be replaced…Iraq is debased by barbarity. Saddam will go and be replaced. His Elite will resist strongly. Coalition victory is certain…To remove Saddam as a root to disarmament process and the March to Baghdad, therefore, is of strategic importance (cable News Network, March 29, 2003).

Throughout, the U.S. and Britain relied on enforcement action under International law to disarmament and deter aggression to invade, depose Iraqi leadership and establish a puppet democratic political dispensation with the Iraq‟s 25 – member Governing

Council headed by Adnan Pachachi, the former Iraqi foreign minister who had returned from exile under American cover to head the Council under the protection of the U.S.

Civil Administration for Iraq under Bremer. The independent capacity of Iraq to provide for its well-being and political development free from domination was impaired by the

U.S. and British “armed intervention in violation of international law” (Shaw, 1991: 25).

To unseat Saddam Hussein from power and stem what the Americans regard as frustration in the Arab world, Donald Rumsfeld in The Guardian, 2002:10) reiterated the supremacy of American national interest over the entire process and maintained that

America‟s security interest would be jeopardized by the U.N. unanimity support because

“it is less important to have unanimity than it is to be making the right decisions and 128 doing the right thing”. Joseph Nye in Gibbs (1997: 24 – 26) criticized American radicalism in the new World order, observing with cynicism that:

The changing nature of power will take more patience than what we‟ve seen before…True, America is No. 1, but No. 1 isn‟t what it used to be (Gibbs 1997: 24 – 26).

United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cueller exposed the American control of the United Nations initiative. Cueller absolved himself of the United Nations Security

Council from the ugly spate in the Gulf crisis. He stated:

These are American resolutions. This is an American age. What the United States presents is the thing that is passed (resolution 678 authorizing war) and not what the Security Council wants… that is not a classic U.N. war…The council which has authorized all these, is informed only after the military actions have taken place. As I am not a military expert, I cannot evaluate how necessary are the military actions taking place now, (Quoted in Anim, 1991: 24 – 25).

The U.N. Secretary-General told the British Independent newspaper that he was not running the Gulf war because he handed control over to U.S., British and French governments and only knows what goes on after they had taken actions. The U.S. was quoted in diplomatic sources as expressing the view that having authorized the use of force; the Security Council had no business, monitoring them until the allies have liberated Kuwait (Anim, 1991: 25). American ex-President Richard Nixon (1994:24) better elucidated the American U.N. strategy to secure its national security interests:

When we do intervene militarily to protect our interest, we should follow President Bush‟s example in the Persian Gulf War, using the U.N. not being use by it (Richard Nixon, 1994:24)

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In the U.S. calculation, the U.N. is imperative when it becomes difficult for the

U.S. to secure its interest. Robertson (1991) contended:

America as the undisputed leader in the post-cold war world with unrivalled military might fears it would be most unwise to surrender the sovereignty of the United States to any world body, and particularly one that is as poorly constituted and inept as the present United Nations (Robertson, 1991: 92 – 92).

Thus, to evict Iraq out of Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council was compelled into passing the American sponsored resolution, which the U.S. secretary of

States James Baker said:

…Would lay the political of foundations for possible use of force if we were unable to achieve peaceful and political solution to the crisis (Olumhense, 1990: 13).

As a result, on May 23rd 2003, Paul Bremer formerly dissolved the armed forces of Iraq in post-Saddam Iraq and placed $25 million as financial reward for information that would lead to Saddam Hussein‟s capture (Akpaekong, 2004: 40 – 41) and $ 10 million for information that will lead to the whereabouts of his sons. During the

Operation Iraqi Freedom, the first aim, from the intelligence advice of the director of the

CIA, George Tenet was to take out Saddam Hussein and the entire leadership of the regime with well-aimed missiles (2 EGBU – 27 bunker-buster bombs, each of 20001b) homed on a bunker under a villa compound in the southern suburbs of Baghdad where intelligence report had it that he was hiding with his two sons and a number of other key aids (Coughlin, 2004: 339). Later, information regarding his sons‟ hideout was made available. The 101st Airborne Division and twenty-third special forces from Task Force

20, as well as CIA agents with sniper riffles, cache helicopter gunship; swung into action on tip-off on July 21, 2002 that Saddam‟s sons were hiding at a villa in the northern city 130 of Mosul. In the operation: Uday, Quasay, a bodyguard and Qusay‟s fourteen-year-old son (Mustafa) were all killed (Coughlin, 2004: 361 – 362). For 249 days, about seven months after Saddam Hussein‟s deposition, December 14 2003, he was incarcerated in a six-foot „spider hole‟ near his home-town at Tikrit. In that “moment of “drama”, Saddam became the first president to be convicted and killed by hanging even where the

Yugoslavian ex-President Slobodan Milosevic face the same charges in the 1990s under the International Criminal Court at The Hague, later to die in tribunal custody in 2006 before a verdict was delivered in his own trial (Vanguard, 2009: 41). Handing Saddam over to his American installed successor- the Iraqi Governing Council – completed what critics say was to end “The Bush-family showdown with Saddam”. (Thomas &

Nordland, 2003: 16 – 26).

U.S. Establishment of Tutelary Democratic Dispensation in Iraq

The deposition of Saddam Hussein from power paved the way for the western- styled democratic dispensation that brought in a tutelary regime in Iraq. In order to continue the role of regional power balancer in the region and explain its access to gulf oil wealth, the U.S. Civil Administration in Iraq abolished western-styled democracy despite resistance by Iraqis to have democracy with Islamic principles established in Iraq.

Although the 25 – member Iraqi Governing Council was headed by Adnan Pachachi from exile, other members were drawn from defectors and anti-Saddam organizations, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) under the headship of Ahmed Chalabi with headquarters in Iraq equipped with rival television station and news paper and operating a network of high-placed contacts and also a London based Iraqi National Accord (INA) headed by Dr. Ayad Allawi. This was a result of the fact that the U.S. department had 131 preferred to work with some dissident in exile for their anti-Saddam value. For instance

Ahmed Chalabi was instrumental to the American passage in Congress of the Iraqi liberation Act. As a London-based banker and head of Iraqi National Congress, he said that the U.S., covered by the fig leaf of non-interference in Iraqi affairs was waiting for

Saddam to butcher the insurgents in the vain hope that he can be overthrown later by a suitable officer and concluded that it amounted to U.S. policy of supporting dictatorship in order to maintain stability (Thomsky, 2003: 397). More so, he had proposed to the

Americans the option to use Iraqi National Oil Company that was to be reformed to double daily oil production of 2.5 million in order to give foreign firms share that will open the way for a $30 billion investment in oil wells, pipelines and terminals (Daily

Champion, 2003: 1 & 4) and to use the oil proceeds and Iraqi assets frozen in U.S. banks since 1991 to finance the provisional government of Iraq that was to be established

(Patrick and Cockburn in Menthe, 2002: 446).

The U.S. Civil Administration in Iraq, on 28 June, 2004, two days earlier than

June 30 scheduled handover date, transferred political power to interim Iraqi government under Ayad Allawi and Ghazi al-Yawer, prime minister and President respectively.

Allawi is a Shiite Muslim and neurologist and Al-Yawer, was U.S. trained and had long- term relationship with the U.S. State department and Central Intelligence Agency, CIA.

(Akpaekong, 2004:42). The political arrangement attracted scathing criticisms. Saddam

Hussein Warned that “whoever is appointed by the foreign occupier cannot give his people and the country anything other than the will of the occupier” (Coughlin, 2004:

361 – 377). 132

It is against the background of these political leaders that they were never trusted nor supported because the Arab countries concluded that the interim government was a puppet of America because the political arrangement was far from a legitimate and independent government that Iraq voted for. Thus far, the Arab countries agreed not to recognize or consider sending troops to Iraq to defend it from insurgency. The Arabs sabotaged the Ayawi-led interim government without their support, which led to the election of a new Prime Minister, Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, who was seen as a stooge of his master and was also forced out of office as a result of alleged inability to curb the violence that engulfed Iraq during his reign. To fill the political gap created by Al-

Jaafari‟s removal, a subsequent election was held on April 22, 2006 to install the new prime minister of Iraq Awadal-Maliki.

It was, therefore, based on commingling tutelary government of Iraq that the Iraq

High Tribunal, presided over by Rasheed Abdul Rahman, drew its answers and on

November 5, 2006 sentenced Saddam Hussein, who was held under custody of CIA and

FIB as HVD-1 (High-Value Detainee One), to death by hanging. The death sentence was based on crimes against humanity. These include the killing of 148 Shiites in the Dujail district of Northern Baghdad in 1982 popularly referred to as “The Dujail trial”, the 1988 cleansing in the Kurdish region in which thousands of people lost their lives in genocidal actions (Ugborgu, 2005:55).

The hanging of Saddam Hussein, no doubt raised a groundswell of criticisms and corresponding statements of confession, most significant among them was made by the

Iraq High Tribunal presiding Judge Abdul Othman. Accordingly he stated:

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The hanging of Hussein is not justifiable. The whole process was masterminded by the United States because of their vested interest in Iraqi oil. Every nation of the world is supposed to have political sovereignty (Ogunbayo, 2007: 50 – 53).

4.4 Establishment of U.S. military base in the Gulf

The U.S. government considered the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait a terrible development but not so much as the issue of the potential invasion or domination of

Saudi Arabia by Iraq. The U.S. Secretary of States, James Baker, on September 4, 1990 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee noted:

Perhaps, most obvious what is at stake economically is the dependence of the Persian Gulf…It is not just a narrow question of the flow of oil from Kuwait and Iraq. It is about a dictator who, acting along, could strangle the global economic order, determining by fiat, whether we all enter recession or even the darkness of a depression…For this nightmare to come true, however, Iraq would have to achieve what it has not threatened: the takeover of Saudi Arabia. Not Kuwait, but the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf is the administration‟s concern. An American military presence is necessary…in order to bolster perceptions of strength and will to deter aggression. Weakness in the face of such a challenge would be tantamount to accepting the impermanence of the territorial settlement at the colonial era in the Persian Gulf (Miller & Mylroie, 1990: 191 – 192; Robertson, 1991: 14).

While the possibility of military reprisal against Iraq loomed, Holmes (1994: 182) argued that the U.N. actions from 8 August, 1990 onward were duly orchestrated by the

U.S. which sought military solution to the crisis virtually from the outset. On 12 August,

1991; the U.S. stated that it did not need Security Council authorization for its actions. It was little wonder President Bush Warned:

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Iraq will not be permitted to Annex Kuwait…that‟s not a threat, not a boast…that‟s just the way it‟s going to be. Our policy cannot change. And it will not change. The multilateral force facing Baghdad would be ready to push Iraq out of Kuwait after January 15 (Newswatch, 1991:32).

On three separate occasions, President Bush underscored the American internationalist ambition; President Bush during his January 29, 1991 “State of the

Union” address said that the military response to Iraq‟s invasion of Kuwait was meant to be a bold statement of international purpose and therefore stated that:

What is at stake is more than one small country. It is a big idea – a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle, and worthy of our children‟s future (Robertson, 1991:40).

Also, addressing families of U.S. Servicemen at Fort Gordon, Georgia on 1

January 1991, Bush underscored American unilateral ambition and narrated in an unequivocal term:

When we win, and we will, we will have taught a dangerous dictator, and any tyrant tempted to follow in his footsteps, that the United States has a new credibility and that what we say goes, and that there is no place for lawless aggression in the Persian Gulf and in this new world that we seek to create (Robertson, 1991: 40).

Bush (1991: 109) had earlier on September 11, 1990 soon after Iraqi invasion of

Kuwait admonished the U.S. Congress on the real objective of the U.S. in the Persian

Gulf crisis. He stated:

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…our involvement in the gulf is not transitory; it predated Saddam Hussein‟s aggression and will survive it. Long after all our troops come home, and we all hope it‟s soon, there will be a lasting role for the United States in assisting the nations of the Persian Gulf. Our role with others is to help our friends in their own self-defence (Bush, 1991: 109).

Historically, the U.S. has been hugely concerned about the possibility that the

Gulf region and so much of the world‟s oil could fall into the hands of the U.S. enemies.

It was this fact that the Truman administration of the U.S. put in place a secret “oil-denial policy” intended to deny the possibility of Soviet control of Middle East oil. The doctrine stipulated that in case of an imminent Soviet takeover of the region, the U.S. would blow up the oil denials to deny the Soviets the power that would come with control of oil. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration also concerned by the rise of regional powers such as that of Egyptian-Arab nationalist leader Gamel Abdel Nasser, extended this “oil- denial policy” to include “hostile regimes” of the “regimes”, where Iraq is categorized, was re-branded within the nexus of U.S. government‟s “axis of evil” triumvirate nations.

The U.S. president, therefore, insisted that:

i. Iraq must withdraw from Kuwait completely, immediately and

unconditionally;

ii. Kuwait‟s exiled leadership must be restored;

iii. The security and stability of the Persian Gulf must be assured;

iv. American citizens abroad must be protected, and

v. A New World Order freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of

justice, and more secure in the quest for peace must be enthroned (Robertson,

1991: 39). 136

It was Iraq‟s failure to comply with the afore-stated conditions by January 15 ultimatum that opened the corridor for the transformation of operation Desert Shield into

Operation Desert Storm for war between the coalition forces and Iraq. In the state-of-art warfare, the U.S. coalition carried out a 21 days military expedition in Iraq to vindicate its military as “a tightly integrated force capable of quickly and decisively defeating any conceivable adversary” (Boot, 2003: 41 – 58).

After a 100-hour ground battle, which commenced on February 23, 1990, the coalition retook and restored Kuwait‟s sovereignty and leadership and President Bush announced ceasefire on February 28, 1991 with plans under the Bush Administration‟s

National Security Act (NSA) to remove Saddam, dead-or-alive (Eke, 2000: 106 – 107;

Coughlin, 2004: 361).

Based on these experiences and mounting U.S. ceasefire resolution of the Gulf

War incriminating Iraq for its use of chemical and biological weapons against the Kurds of northern Iraq in 1988; the Iraqi government was also accused of parasitic and predatory seizure and attempted annexation of Kuwait to control Kuwait‟s oil against

Western interests; and developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programme.

Worse still, the U.S. government charged the Iraqi government with allegation of hauling scud missiles fitted with chemical warheads into Israel in pursuit of a linkage politics that inflamed the Palestinian – Israel confrontational relationship (The Economist, 1996: 48).

These accusations were perceived to constitute immediate threat to the United

States security beyond the contemplations of the role and capacity of the United Nations

Security Council system, thus warranting U.S. government unilateral and hurried assemblage of multinational force in Saudi Arabia against Iraqi forces. 137

Seen from the above factors, Gurtov (1994: 46) reasoned that the event that brought the war against Iraq in the several months in 1991 were an admixture of Realism and Corporate Globalism:

The search for a balance of power, importance of territory and sovereignty, competition for control of a vital resource, efforts to trade arms for influence, historical and personal animosities, duplicity and megalomania, and ordinary people and cultures caught between destructive nationalist forces (Gurtov, 1994: 46).

Apart from the above reasons, Gurtov (1994:49) also revealed that for whatever

Iraq assumed in military prowess and weapons programme, Soviet Union, France, China,

Britain and more significantly, the U.S. contributed by including major arms deals with

Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. In what was derogatorily referred to as „Iraq gate‟, for instance, President Bush of the United States extended, under agricultural loan, the sum of $4 loan to Iraq in order to “bring Iraq into the family of nations” only two years leading to Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 2 August 1990 (Close Up Foundation, 1994:

248). So, the West armed Iraq and realized Iraq‟s prospects for expansion in the oil-rich corner of the Middle East should be contained (Thompson, 1994: 67; Burke, 1994: 94).

Thus, warranting the United States establishing a military base in the Gulf region.

4.5 UN intervention and enforcement of sanctions in Iraq

By the nature of the threat posed by the Iraqi crisis in the Persian Gulf and the role of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security, the onus of responsibility falls upon the shoulders of the Security Council organ to enforce its resolutions and charter obligations. The Charter as the constituting instrument of the

United Nations set out the rights and obligations of member-States and also the organs 138 and procedures for operations. Among these organs, the U.N. Security Council derives its authority under chapter VII, Article 23 of the U.N. Charter as the primary organ to give prompt and effective response in stemming crisis that pose threat to global peace and security on behalf of other member-States (Deutsch, 1978:218 – 219).

For legal justification of the actions of the Security Council, the Council should be guided by the rules of procedure which include:

i. The Security Council should be invited into a conflict between States;

ii. The Security Council should adopt the process of mediation, investigation and

other conflict resolution mechanism to find peaceful solution; and

iii. In the event of war, its first concern is to bring the war to an end as soon as

possible (Deutsch, 1978:218 – 219).

Talbot (1991-92: 69) wrote that the consummate idea behind Operation desert storm was to preserve the rules of the nation-state system, the liberal order, but not to unleash uncontrollable new forces that might alter the Middle East Map.

In order to achieve the set national objectives of the U.S., Bush acted as the U.S. government saw fit – using the U.N. to craft coalition military actions. Such were carried out under blanket authority that was provided by the United Nations Security Council resolutions. The U.N. intervention in the Gulf crisis manifested a carry-over of the national security interests of the dominant powers, especially the U.S., which exclusively seized the U.N. representative and command, making it difficult to separate American objectives from that of the United Nations. It was the American national interest that transformed what originally was Iraq- Kuwait crisis into Iraq-U.N. Quagmire. 139

On notice of the degenerating situation in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia reported to the United Nations Security Council to discuss the developing scenario in the Middle

East following Iraq‟s predatory invasion and purported annexation of the sovereign State of Kuwait from August 2 to 8, 1990.

At the emergency session, the United Nations unanimously passed the UNSCR

600 (1990) by the members to condemn Iraq, requesting ceasefire and demanding the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. As will be seen, the U.N. actions from August 8, 1990 on, were largely orchestrated by the U.S., which according to

Holmes in Burke (1994: 181 – 199) sought military solution to the crisis virtually from the outset”, because, as it were, President Bush on August 8, 1990 had declared that the

U.S. will not be contained by advocates of multilateralism and, therefore, requires neither the Security Council authorization nor Congressional approval to implement a material blockade of Iraqi and Kuwait shipping through its military deployment under Operation

Desert Shield in the Middle East. Calvocoressi (1991:368) condemned the Operation

Desert Shield under which the U.S. government rather than the U.N. deployed large forces whose primary objectives were not the redress of Iraq‟s offence but the defense of

Saudi Arabia and American interests there including the destruction of Iraqi regime and its war-making capacities. Accordingly, Calvocoressi argued:

These aims, whatever their virtues or legitimacy were incompatible with peaceful settlement within the terms of the United Nations resolutions of the crisis provoked by the Iraqi aggression (Calvocoressi, 1991:368).

The U.S. president assembled one of the most extra-ordinary military and political alliances of the modern times, drafting military forces from Asia, Europe and

Africa, as well as the Middle East. Talbott ( 1991 – 92: 60) opined that Arab 140 participation in the U.S. – woven U.N. coalition was because Saddam Hussein violated a basic, if not implicit rule of the Arab world; Arab States do not order the 1919 boundaries of the region by force, which he did by conquering and attempting to annex

Kuwait . The Arab members of the United Nations in a coalition joined the multilateral force to reverse the Iraqi wrongdoing.

However, the United Nations relied on the basic principles of statehood and brand

Iraq an aggressor-State. Iraq violated the United Nations Charter article II, which specifically enjoins nations to retrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of political independence of any State (U.N.,

1945). Under the United Nations, it would seem, resolutions were passed and the United

States amassed coalition forces larger than history‟s experience in a crisis escalation strategy.

Although Operation Desert Storm offered itself as the first post-Cold War experience where the employment of force was supported by both U.S. and Soviet Union governments because of the outrageous behaviour perpetrated by Saddam Hussein‟s invasion and conquest of Kuwait, and being the first time a member-State of the U.N. had committed such illegal act against another U.N. member. The action, Snow (1991:

113 – 131) argued, was not in conformity with the operation of the United Nations

Security Council collective system as authorized under the charter:

The charter calls for forces from the permanent membership of the Security Council, which should be augmented as necessary by forces from other countries to be permanently available to the United Nations (Snow, 1994: 101).

Operation Desert Storm was crafted using the United Nations as the regulating body for an ad hoc coalition formed under American leadership together for the specific 141 objectives of its creators. The action revealed that international law is genetically cloned with real politik. Russeth and Sutherlin 1991: 69 – 83) argued that in the process, these forces trampled over multilateral and non-violent alternatives, consistent recourse to international law and self-restraint. Based on an early warning system, collective security system of the U.N. would have been better served if a multilateral peacekeeping force had been dispatched by the Security Council to Kuwait prior to August 1990. The contradiction was that after Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, U.S. army rather than the U.N. provided the command of military operations and the war‟s political agenda. Mohammed

Ayoob (1993:52 – 54), “squaring the circle: Collective Security in a System of States” concludes that the “U.N. was reduced to the role of an endorsement agency” in the Gulf

War. Russeth and Sutherlin added that the U.N. Secretary-General was practically cut off from decision-making on the war and even from transformation flow.

It was in fulfillment of the United nations Article 51, which obliges states with inherent rights as individual or collective effort toward their self-defence of member-

States against armed attacks” that the United States sponsored the approval for resolution

600 of the United Nations Security Council, which empowered the assemblage of the multinational forces of more than 38 nations to fight on the side of Kuwait to evict Iraq and restore the status-quo ante.

However, in the days and weeks following Iraq‟s invasion, the U.N. Security

Council pursuant to peaceful settlement, cumulatively passed a total of 12 resolutions condemning Iraq‟s outrageous behaviour and imposing wide-ranging economic sanctions on Iraq. Out of the resolutions, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 of

November 29, 1990 authorized the use of “all necessary measures” including force by the 142

U.N. member-States if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991 (Close

Up Foundation, 1994: 248; Anthony & French, 1991: 674).

4.6 The defense of United States’ National Security in Iraq

Iraq belongs to the region of the Middle-East with huge and unrivalled oil deposit in the world. The presence of oil made the region a global economic cynosure and this situation consequently, determined the pattern of global politics between the hegemonic powers. The U.S. National Security Document of 1953 concluded that since oil was the principle source of wealth and income in the Middle-Eastern oil-producing countries:

Their economic and political existence depends upon the rate and terms on which oil is produced. The operations of the American companies in these countries, how much oil they produced and marketed, and the price they paid for it are for all practical purposes instruments of our foreign policy towards those countries…what they do and how they do it determine the strength of our ties with the Middle-Eastern countries and our ability to resist Soviet expansion and influence in the area (Miller & Mylroie, 1990:182).

The Iraqi experience exposed more the security dilemma orchestrated during the post-cold-war era. Admitting the post-cold-war threats, Allin (1994) cautioned:

Potential new perils are emerging in the post-cold-war Europe…it certainly would be a false reading of recent history to conclude that because Soviet power proved to be hallow, future threats can be dismissed…The foreign policy constraints imposed by America‟s budget deficit, for example, point to a more paradoxical conclusion we may be unprepared for…(Allin, 1994:15).

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As a surviving sole super-power, American global hegemony is threatened by weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. It was little wonder that Sigal in Alter

(1999:6) argued:

American security today is not based on nuclear deterrence, but it is based on getting rid of nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere (Sigal in Alter, 1999:6).

International political observers on the developing scenario in Iraq complained that at no time in history had the hegemonic powers represented the interests of the Third

World countries drawing from the fact that the cold war was motivated and driven by sheer greed by the great and leading powers of the world; that the four policemen USA,

Russia, Britain and China-would not always work by consensus: USA, Russia and China might have to gang up against Britain to force the disgorging of the colonies; USA,

Britain and China, in other instances, would constitute an ever-ready coalition against the

Russians (Gaddis, 1982:10).

In the American unilateral view, institutions like the United Nations constrain

American sovereignty and freedom of action abroad, and this is the core of the American imposed new world order and self-defined goals. Thus, with the U.S. unrivalled and preponderant power, it seeks to attain its National Security. The U.S. Middle-East policy had been that of sustaining a Saddam Hussein in the Middle-East balance-of-power politics as a linchpin of warding-off hostile States in the region with vast reserves of oil, which is considered the life-blood of the industrialized world and a slew of historical ties to America. America tolerated Saddam Hussein as a foreign ally when he protected U.S.

National Security by fighting against the American hated Iran. So, it is the U.S. long-term 144 policy to remain the Middle-East power balancer “with a defanged but still threatening

Saddam” to help secure American interest in the region (Zakaria, 1996:43).

The U.S. government sees working through international organizations as frustration because according to Keohane (1989:163), international institutions are

“persistent and connected sets of rules (formal or informal) that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations.” Hegemonic powers, especially the

U.S., have remained reluctant to cede independent authority and resources to give United

Nations either the mandate or the capability to act effectively where their National

Security is held in jeopardy. The financial plight of the U.N. is particularly perilous due to the U.S. Congress‟ refusal to pay American arrears totaling about U$ 1.3 billion, a sum roughly equivalent to United Nations‟ annual operating budget (Mills & Stremlau,

1999:16).

The American tactics of financial strangulation of the U.N. made it relatively easy for the U.S. to win its war with Iraq under the Coalition of the willing. It was much harder, therefore, for the United Nations, with its means limited by the U.S., to secure peace and ensure security in the region. The logical consequence was that without the means, the U.N. lacked the political and economic muscle to effectively wade into the

Iraqi crisis and administer its principles to maintain global peace and security.

The American hegemonic roles in the Iraqi crisis wholly created a picture of acute paralysis in the question of Arab stability. With the governments of China, France and

Russia negative votes which rendered United Nations Security Council‟s enforcement action null after evicting Iraq from Kuwait, the U.S. and Britain in their effort to break 145

Iraq and share the war spoils maintained a policy of sustained war as a major instrument of achieving their political, economic and geo-strategic objectives.

At the political level, the U.S. and Britain pursued narrower objectives of regime change in Iraq through the deposition of Saddam Hussein, replacing him with American

Interim Administrator, Paul Bremer to usher in democratic government in Iraq as a long- term goal because “democracy in Iraq will not come about overnight.” Part of the judgment of the two hegemonic powers is that long-term military presence in Iraq will provide opportunity, though difficult, to overcome decades of repression and violence that had splitted ethnic, religious and tribal groups against one another in fear (Steinberg,

2003:1). In a high-stake diplomatic offensive, to remove the tag of imperialism, the U.S.

Secretary of state Collin Powell explained:

United States‟ record is not one of imperialism, it is one of doing the job…if it is necessary to have a conflict, it is all for the purpose of making Iraq a good neighbour, not developing weapons that are threatening its neighbours…so, we are going to Iraq not to destroy the place, but to make it better (The Guardian, 2003:8).

Powell‟s assurance to make Iraq better was quickly contradicted and squashed by

President Bush when he assured the American Congress in November 11, 1990 that:

Our involvement in the Gulf is not transitory. It predated Saddam Hussein‟s aggression and will survive it. Long after all our troops come home, and we all hope it‟s soon, there will be a lasting role for the United States in assisting the nations of the Persian Gulf. Our role, with others, is to help our friends in their self-defence… (Drummey, 1999:109).

U.S. political consideration was chiefly relied on the balance of power notion to achieve a number of economic, political and geo-strategic interests in the region, which 146 includes the need to help its friends to self-defence. This is the Israeli connection, which brought several governments to awareness of the potential unrest across the Middle-East region, particularly in Israel, unless progress was made in stemming the Israeli-Palestinian debacle and making progress towards a peace settlement. The Israeli-Palestinian question began to haunt the American government‟s credibility in its search for stability in the region because the U.S. is accused of pretence and unwillingness to risk its prestige to help more actively and completely in the search for peace between Israel and her Arab neighbours. It is surprising that Henry Kissinger (in Newsweek, 1991:34) averred that an attack on Iraq was inevitable in order to enthrone a new balance of power which peace can be maintained in one or two ways: by domination or by equilibrium. Kissinger, therefore urged the U.S. to seize its victory in the Gulf as a historical opportunity to “alter the stalemate between Arabs and Jews, Arabs and the west, and the Jews and world opinion; which he maintained had kept tension in the Middle-East at fever pitch.”

On the economic dimension, the imposition on Iraq of a premeditated sanctions regime on the invasion of Kuwait offered the worst criminal leverage for the hegemonic powers. In the strategic significance of the Persian Gulf, most developing world theorists believed that President Bush and his administration went to war in Iraq to control Iraq‟s oil. However, it is an incontrovertible strategic and economic fact that Iraq has the second- biggest reserve base in the world of the fuel on which the global economy will continue to run for decades. In drawing distinctions between post-war Afghanistan and post-war Iraq

Donald Rumsfeld, matter-of-factly, stated the biggest obvious difference: “Iraq” he said,

“has oil” (Powell, 2002:46). Oil is part of the rationale for military intervention in Iraq. Oil continues, as it did for much of the 20th century, to play a central role in the economic and 147 strategic thinking of dominant powers in the Gulf. This in the current context involves the priority given to oil and energy security in the U.S. foreign policy, central to which are concerns over threats to oil-fields and oil infrastructures of the Persian Gulf by mostly the

U.S., which is the single largest consumer of oil in the world (Energy Information

Administration Office, 2002:13). The punch-line of U.S. economic policy in the Middle-

East is energy export. It is little wonder, therefore, that U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney in a U.S. energy policy released in May, 2001 noted that “Energy Security must be a priority of U.S. trade and foreign policy” (National Energy Policy Development Group, 2001:4).

Energy and Iraq were therefore specifically linked by Cheney following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The U.S. view as expressed by Dick Cheney was that Iraq:

Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world‟s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle-East, take control of a great portion of the world‟s energy supplies, directly threatens America‟s friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail (Cheney, 2002:15)

The regime of Saddam Hussein, therefore, in the context of oil supplies, is perceived as a threat to both regional stability and long-term global economic security.

The prospect of Iraq‟s military power had taken the nose-dive since 1980s to suggest with surprise that with the Gulf War over, Iraq still poses as a nuclear threat to the region. Although there is little evidence to suggest that Iraq currently has any nuclear weapons capability, proponents of military intervention argue that if Saddam is allowed to remain in power, it is only a matter of time before he gains nuclear weapons capability. Whether Iraq is far or near from acquiring nuclear weapons is not the issue. 148

Rather, the U.S. government argues, regardless of containment, weapons inspections, or the sanctions imposed on Iraq, it will eventually acquire nuclear weapons. This long-term threat, President George Bush believes, means:

The world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula, and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator with a history of reckless aggression…with ties to terrorism…with great potential wealth…will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States (Bush, 2002:2).

Berger (2004:49) states that in a chaotic world, the U.S. military hegemony is the only real force for advancing its National Security because as far as the U.S. is feared, it does not matter much if it is admired. The U.S. projects itself as an “indispensable nation with power and influence. Even the carter administration that distrusted military power for economic and technological strength, increased the American budget (in Carter doctrine) to repel outside force‟s attempt to gain control of the Persian Gulf (Diebel,

1987:45-46). This is why the U.S. government recruited an Ad hoc “Coalition of the willing” in Iraq to avoid “too many compromises” in pursuing her foreign policy against the principles of the United Nations and international law, which the U.S. sees as traps set by weaker nations to constrain its National Security. It is on the basis of political and economic leanings of the hegemonic powers in the Iraq crisis that Lake (2001:129-160) described the United Nations as weapons inspection programme as a mere Cat-and

Mouse game because the term National Security connotes expansive definitions to do phoney things in nations not supporting democracy (Hilgartner, Bell & O‟ Connor,

1982:57, 85, 87 & 170). 149

Findley and Rothney (1986:282-283) illuminate on the U.S. rise to global power leadership as a result of migration and economic growth induced by war. After World

War II, the U.S. and Soviet Union turned into warfare States, and with the American capture of Hitler‟s missile designers, the U.S. dedicated itself to the development of new technologies of weapons of mass destruction. In the European arms race that ensued, it was not thinkable that the Soviets could match the U.S. following the depopulation of the

Soviet Union IN World War II by over 20 million people in the face of Soviet weakness.

Therefore, the U.S. attained the high-point of its power in the 20th Century through a combination of:

 redesigning of the world‟s political and economic systems to American

specifications;

 removal of League of Nations Headquarters from Europe and replacing it with

United Nations Headquarters in New York for diplomatic victory;

 assurance of alliance with Britain, France and China: three of the five permanent

members of the Security Council charged with keeping the peace;

 designing IMF as an instrument to balance international payments and loans to

conform to the specifications of U.S. delegation to the international financial

conference held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944; and

 acquisition of over a hundred military bases around the world to cause enough

disruptions or protect its interests and image of a global leader (Findley and

Rothney, 1986:282-283) 150

It was therefore little wonder that the U.S. worked through the Marshall plan of the World Bank and the United Nations to encourage European integration based on the promises of U.S. size and standard of productivity, while merely assimilating the

Third world into the hegemonic order (Maier, 1075:28). The United Nations charter ab initio was a legal resuscitation and institutionalization of global hegemony of superpowers in 1945 by representatives from most of the nations of the world (Bailey,

1944:774). The plans for the United Nations was initiated by the Allied powers, especially USA, Britain and Russia in 1944 at Dumbarton Oaks Conference in order to reflect their insistence on big-power domination through the Veto provisions for the five

“permanent members” of the Security Council. The General Assembly was assigned the forum for smaller nations; a subordinate status. The United Nations rather becoming a stabilizing force became “a verbal battleground for the allegiance of world opinion, a vehicle for condemnatory resolutions, a largely United States-dominated institution, and a graveyard for idealistic hopes” (Campbell, 1973:73).

Johnson (1991:61), therefore, argued that from the beginning, the U.N. was badly flawed by an inability to establish a workable international police force to halt military aggression by wayward nations. This is the cassus belli of the Gulf War fought under the American prism of a new world order to defend American interests abroad using an ad hoc Coalition to avoid too many compromises and thus placing the European and Asian hegemonic powers in a quandary. Britain and France that followed U.S. lead, intent on gaining a position near the centre of global politics as envisaged in the 1940s felt disappointed that after their participation, they gained neither status nor other forms of reward as a consequence. 151

The United Nations has acquired the derogatory appellation of an institution of imperialism because its vision is inextricably tied to the hegemonic powers that control it in order “to give a stamp of legitimacy to the 1945 post-war international status quo”

(Fyson, Malapanis and Siberman, 1993:59).

To pursue imperial objectives in the Iraqi crisis, it was observed that no sooner than the American war propaganda on weapons of mass destruction failed, that the U.S. authorities resurrected the propaganda of “freedom and liberty” in Operation Iraq

Liberation and Operation Iraq Freedom; all leading to regime change that was never contemplated by the United Nations at the outbreak of the war. Dobbin (2003:87-109) revealed that from Germany, Japan and Iraq experiences, the U.S. has continued to use military power in the aftermath of a conflict to universalize its enduring principle of transition to democracy in the world. The U.S. National power grew after the plummeting of Soviet power to an unprecedented global hegemony, where rather than being used by the U.N., uses the international organization to protect its National

Security in the world. Attesting to this pre-sentiment of American use of the U.N. as a camouflage, Berger (2004:52) duly observed:

A few months after the Iraq invasion, the U.S. administration found that the leader of Shia community would not even talk to American officials, much less accept our plan for elections in Iraq. So, the U.S. government begged the U.N. to step in on our behalf: a belated recognition that our actions are seen as more legitimate when the international community embraces them…International law is not self-enforcing. It does not, by itself, solve anything. But when our goals are embodied in binding agreements, we can gain international support in enforcing them when they are violated. By the same token, nothing undermines U.S. authority more than the perception that the United States considers itself too powerful to be bound by the norms we preach to others (Berger, 2004:52). 152

In the American global leadership exemplified in the Iraqi crisis, fiction and lies were close neighbours and with its strength and means as hegemonic power in the global level, the U.S. extolled and pursued a policy that “might is right”, maintaining that Kuwait was not the issue but launching the New World Order under American leadership to defend its interest anywhere in the world (Robertson, 1991:92).

Many have questioned the flashpoints of American military operations in Iraq after

Kuwait had been liberated from the stranglehold of Saddam‟s regime. Saddam Hussein, in a steady “stream of carefully timed concessions” had agreed to allow the destruction of his Al-Samoud Missiles, whose range exceeded the approved 150km threshold; signed a

Presidential decree that outlawed weapons of mass destruction; allowed the inspectors to use aerial reconnaissance, safe in the knowledge that his WMD stockpiles had been carefully concealed; and had acquired a special ground –level radar system to check that these categories of weapons had been properly buried in the desert (Coughlin, 2004:336).

Therefore, U.S.-British Operation Desert Fox, Operation Desert Thunder, Operation Iraq

Freedom and Operation Iraq Liberation in Iraq were all military operations calculated at reprisal attacks and which did not conform to collective security measures both in principles and practice and measures of collective self-help. Admitted that the Security

Council represents a “Security Group”, a factional group that “is the maximal unit in which there is some predictability in the exercise of power and authority” (Vinogrado,

1971:34). Members were disappointed: Russia, China and France in Voice of America on

17-18 December, 1998 and continually condemned U.S.-British attempt at invasion, occupation and control of Iraqi resources as hasty, outrageous and subversive of U.N. principles. The U.N. had insisted that its resolve for war option to make Iraq capitulate 153 could not be chained by multilateralism. Yet, the presence of the U.S. as sole surviving

Super-power cannot obliterate the reality and relevance of the U.N. as an institutional mechanism for the restoration or maintenance of global peace and security by seeming aggressions and other actions not permitted by law. Akpuru-Aja (1999:14) observed that the U.S. action jeopardized global peace and security because it was inconsistent with

“orderly existence of things.” The pattern of the U.N. Charter reinforcement procedure requires:

an affirmative vote of nine members, including the concurrent votes of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council-China, France, USSR, Britain and USA…There must be a unanimity or benevolent abstention, negative (but not a negative vote or veto) by any of the permanent members of the Council (Eminue, 1999:2).

From the foregoing, it becomes manifest that the U.S. government exerted status of the sole surviving Super-power to fulfill some of the aims of the United Nations by pressing U.N. resolutions beyond the objectives explicitly envisaged in them and conducting U.N. operations based on the self-help of the coalition of the willing. The

U.S. government indeed used the U.N. as a mere legitimating body to achieve the political, economic and geo-strategic interests of the hegemonic powers. The U.S. government action, in sum, turned the U.N. away from the role for which it was formed and transformed the Security Council from a position of ineffectuality brought about by years of Super-power neglect and obstruction through Veto-use, to that of near- subservience to American largesse and redemption of financial obligation as the surviving sole Super-power (Holmes, 1994:182-183). 154

The U.S. government policing of States, though in conformity with international principles, have the tendency to an infectious disease, which will not pressure the

American interest or that of the U.N. process in maintaining global peace and security.

Michael Hirsh in Newsweek (2002:15), consequently, proffered that America must listen to the world as much as it leads the world. Since the U.S. government doggedly mobilizes the U.N., in pursuing its self-defined goals, then such actions might as well drive others into opposition and create dangers against global peace and security. Jacques

Chirac noted with regret and frustration that American reckless demonstration of power has illuminated that any community with only one dominant power is always a dangerous one. The logic of U.S.-British occupation troops in Iraq is that without further

UNSC Resolution authorizing military action against Iraq after UNSCR 1441, it became a high stake enterprise that whoever breaks Iraq owns Iraq.

The economic incentive was the raw reason the American government was at the outset pushing for war with Iraq on the understanding, according to U.S. Secretary of

States Collin Powell, that “Victory in the Gulf…” will create a “historic opportunity for

American goals” (The Guardian, 2003:1 & 2). To achieve its objective, the Bush administration capitalized on the UNSCR 661 of August, 1990 which imposed economic sanctions against the Republic of Iraq to further its hidden economic objective by extending the sanctions beyond timeline and managing it in a manner that paid for all the war expenses incurred by participating countries.

The UNSCR 986 of April 1995 established the Oil-For –Food programme, which commenced on December, 1996 when shipment of Iraq oil began. The resolution authorized the Iraqi government to sell given value of its oil and put the proceed into a 155

U.N. escrow account to be managed by a U.N. sanctions committee of 15 representative countries of the Security Council. The fund was set up for Iraqi humanitarian and other goods in only 11 sectors of the economy, which would not involve military related items.

The fund was to implement 75% for Iraqi humanitarian needs and 25% for disbursements by the compensation Commission of the U.N. to pay for war reparations on Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait with 2.2% reserved for U.N. administration of the programme by the U.N. member representative countries of the Security Council and

0.8% fund for the operation of the U.N. monitoring verification, and inspection

Commission in Iraq.

In the management of the fund, it was discovered that the amount reserved as compensation was staggering because of the substantial and disturbing illegal roles by over 2000 notable global corporations from 66 countries that participated in the Oil-For-

Food programme to the tune of U $ 51 billion over a period between 1997-2001, a period before the U.S.-British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Britain had called for the freezing of Iraqi assets in Western capitals for purposes of settling the compensation

(Eminue, 1999:9-10).

Although some Member-States were politically opposed to the continued sanctions on various reasons, including Arab solidarity and their assessment of Iraq‟s threat to regional stability, especially after the Gulf War that reduced Iraq‟s war-making machines, the sanctions were still in place as an integrated system of three elements by the hegemonic powers of the U.S. and its ever-ready ally-Britain to:

156

 Control Iraq oil revenue;

 Rigorously screen and monitor Iraqi imports for proscribed items in a policy of

containment; and

 Ensure that weapons inspectors stopped Iraq from acquiring or developing

nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

It was not until the U.S.-British invasion and occupation of Iraq that the sanctions regime, under UNSCR 1483 of May 22, 2003 otherwise referred to as “Historical

Resolution” lifted the sanctions and empowered the Hegemonic powers to sink their differences to legitimize the post-conflict processes in Iraq, appoint U.N. Special

Consultant to Iraq, endorse, howbeit, U.N. envoy in post-conflict Iraq reconstruction, and establish Economic Development Fund in Iraq under the management of the principal hegemonic powers of the U.S. and Britain. The lifting of sanctions on Iraq by the

Security Council for the occupying forces was in order to effectively reap their war spoils in the post-conflict Iraq. The actions of the hegemonic powers reinforced the position that the only reason for indecisiveness under conflict is demonstrated by the leading powers in the United Nations Security Council “is if that is the price to be paid for a political settlement” (Burk, 1992:55-59). The Iraqi crisis attests strongly to the thesis that

“the root of conflict is economic scarcity and the most important motive of individuals, including States as political actors, is the resolution of this problem” (Mearsheimer,

1990:5-56).

On the geo-strategic angle, the Gulf war presented a geo-political phenomenon as the first post-cold-war military event to obliterate American-Vietnam phobia from 157

American consciousness for the celebration of America as the undisputed leader of the world (Robertson, 1991:91). In the war, the U.S. administration was wont on using the conflict to reclaim its global leadership. The experience of the Gulf War revealed how

Iraqi forces were out-manned, out-gunned and out-thought just to demonstrate the capability gap between the most advanced western military machines and Third World militaries. Snow in Burk (1994:100) argued that this marked a strange new era of

American global leadership, which begs five fundamental questions. These questions, he argued, deal primarily about how the U.S. chooses to face the world. Dandeker in Burk

(1994:117) also expressed frustration over the preference by the hegemonic powers for their national security than global security and duly surmised:

It is possible that this community of States will be more able than the previous ones to operate in a context of collegiality organized through a U.N. Security Council that is likely to be reconstructed to take into account the economic and geopolitical realities of the 21st century rather than those of 1945 (Dandeker in Burk,1994:117).

It is the political, economic and geo-strategic relevance of the Gulf region, above all else, that have combined to propel hegemonic powers to occupy the position of by- stander in the regional political contest, and become the suppliers and diplomatic shapers of last resort (Hafner & Roper, 1988:260-271) however against the collective response to threats to global peace and security under the aegis of United Nations Security Council.

There is no doubt that the way and manner the hegemonic powers pursued their

National Security interests in the crisis precipitated by Iraqi invasion and occupation of

Kuwait in 1990 polarized the conflicts and caused the dissentions over U.S. and British governments actions without diffused consultation, consensus and co-operation of the 158

United Nations Security Council members except for purposes of burden-sharing. The power-play of the hegemonic powers, U.S. and Britain, calls to question the value judgment behind interventions that are not supported on moral principles. This development demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the U.N., which is built on the consensus, engendered by realpolitik.

In conclusion, therefore, it is self-evident that given the American unilateral measures in the Gulf crisis in order to protect its national security, U.S. only invites the

U.N. to play roles of mediation between it and other interests in Iraq at points of deadlock

(Saturday Champion, 2004: 38; Sunday Champion, 2004: 39).

To attain the U.S. unilateral objectives foisted upon the United Nations over the ad hoc Coalition of the Willing, the U.N. was practically reduced from being an agency for maintaining global peace and security to a mere legitimating body to the U.S. universalization principles of regime change, democratization, etc. It is also found that foreign policy goals of nations, especially the world powers, differ on primary national interest. This raises the problems of unanimity and resolve to faithfully and genuinely confront the lingering international problems that the Iraqi crisis created because the interplay of national security and unilateral measures inhibit enthusiastic support of a broad cross-section of the U.N.‟s membership and obscure the maintenance of a coherent strategy for the United Nations future roles that is devoid of marginality, duplication and/or controversy.

It is, therefore, self-evident from the foregoing that unilateral concern for national security constrains the United Nations mechanism to maintain global peace and security.

Thus, the evidence of the U.S. government roles in the Iraqi crisis as the global hegemon 159 with the formidable support of Britain as an ally amply support the fact that global security is subordinated to the National Security of the United States of America. And as such, there is a positive link between the United States perception of its National Security and U.N. imposition of sanctions in Iraq.

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CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

This study examined the prevailing notion in global peace and security literature that the use of comprehensive economic sanctions by the United Nations is an effective antidote for acts of aggression and global terrorism. The study noted that there is an alarming increase in acts of aggression and global terrorism in the world. It however argued first, that the use of comprehensive economic sanctions is a misnomer and an inappropriate measure for curbing global terrorism; second, that the United Nations Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq did not enhance global security; and third, there is a link between American National Security and the U.N. imposition of sanctions in Iraq. The study, which is on Iraq, was based on the following research questions:  Has the use of comprehensive economic sanctions as international punitive measure reduced the incidence of global terrorism?  Did the UN Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq enhance international security?  Is there any link between the United States perception of its national security and UN imposition of sanctions in Iraq? In order to tackle these questions, the study adopted Marxian Political Economy framework as its tool of analysis. This theory was preferred above other contending theories because it possesses adequate explanatory power for illuminating the rationale behind the U.S.-manipulated United Nations sanctions on Iraq, all in a bid to protect her (America‟s) National Security in the Middle-East. It exposed the real forces behind the U.N. prolonged comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq. The forces, the theory unveiled, are the United States with its long-time ally, Britain. Using the Marxian Political Economy Framework, the study proposed the following hypotheses, deriving from the research questions:  The United Nations use of comprehensive economic sanctions as punitive measures has not reduced the incidence of global terrorism.  The United Nations Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq appears to worsen the incidence of insecurity across the globe. 161

 There is a positive link between the U.S. perception of its National Security and U.N. imposition of sanctions in Iraq. These hypotheses were tested in Chapters Two, Three and Four. Chapter Two investigated the use of comprehensive economic sanctions by the U.N. as an antidote for curbing global terrorism and acts of aggression. It found out that contrary to views expressed by extant sanctions literature, comprehensive economic sanctions have not been able to effectively curb global terrorism, rather, it has created more complex humanitarian problems for the United Nations as exemplified in the cases of Iraq, Yugoslavia and Haiti. Chapter Three investigated the U.N. collective Security Mechanism in Iraq. It found out that hegemonic powers hijacked the U.N. Collective Security in Iraq due to the pursuit of their individual National Security, thus, the U.N. Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq did not enhance global security. Chapter Four examined whether there is a link between the U.S. perception of its National Security and U.N. imposition of sanctions in Iraq. It found out that the comprehensive economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. on Iraq were as a result of the U.S. manipulation of the institution. It also revealed that it was in a desperate bid by the U.S. to maintain a balance-of-power in the Gulf region, as well as protect her National Security (i.e. Middle-East oil) that America had to bully the U.N. into imposing prolonged economic sanctions in Iraq. Chapter Five summarizes the study and in addition made some recommendations which if prudently implemented, will reduce to the barest minimum, if not eliminate, global terrorism and acts of aggression without creating a bigger problem of Humanitarian disasters. In concluding this study, we re-state that on the strength of the available empirical evidence, we validated the three hypotheses as stated in chapter one. Therefore, we conclude as follows:  That the United Nations use of comprehensive economic sanctions as punitive measures has not reduced the incidence of global terrorism;  That the United Nations Collective Security Mechanism in Iraq appears to worsen the incidence of insecurity across the globe; and 162

 That there is a positive link between the U.S. perception of its National Security and U.N. imposition of sanctions in Iraq.

RECOMMENDATIONS First, sanctions must have specific measurable goals. Sanctions without goals are doomed to failure. However, the goals have to be measurable, so that the sender will have good reason to keep or lift the sanctions. If sanctions reach their goals, then the sanctions are considered a success, or otherwise sanctions will stay until the target complies with the demands of the sender. In some cases, goals cannot be measured; either because the imposer has undeclared objectives or the objectives are impossible to achieve. For example, the declared objective of the sanctions in Iraq is to end the weapons of mass destruction program, but the undeclared objective of the sanction is to check Iraq from future aggressions against its neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Turkey. Second, sanctions must have a specific time frame. The economic sanctions greatest impact on the target appears in the first year, at most three years (Lopez and Cortright, 1995). Thus, three years is reasonable timetable for sanctions; because beyond three years the impact of the sanctions will be mainly against the innocent civilians and good proof that sanctions will not make “the leaders of the targeted states behave rationally as defined by the states that impose sanctions.” Third, sanctions must have an effective humanitarian provision for the affected population. Economic sanctions do not discriminate. Their harms affect the entire population, but they hit the poor the most. And if sanctions stay for a longer period of time, say more than five years, and then it is the responsibility of the United Nations and the sponsors of the sanctions to provide the affected populations with foods, medicine, and a visa to those who would like to leave the country. Sanctions that leave people sick and starving are worse than war. Fourth, sanctions against a dictatorship regime should aim at the leaders and the elite of his regime. A dictator comes to power either by force or party promotion not by elections. Hence, the population has no responsibility for the dictator‟s international misbehavior or the power to stop him. Therefore, sanctions‟ sponsoring countries have to help opposition leaders inside and outside the target by supplying them with financial 163 needs, military supplies, and news media. Another way to punish the dictatorship regimes is to freeze their personal financial assets, deny them visas, prevent them from attending international meetings, and, if possible, sue them. In other words, the U.N. should adopt “targeted” or “smart” sanctions as against comprehensive economic sanctions. Fifth, sanctions must be a subject of annual evaluation. Whether the sanctions are unilateral or multilateral should be evaluated by the senders so that they will have some understanding of their present and future effectiveness. The annual review will include answers to many questions, such as the economic, political and military impact of sanctions, the degree of international support and oppositions, the criteria for lifting the sanction, the expected cost to the sender, the humanitarian effect on the population of the target country, whether the original goals of the sanctions continue to make sense and whether sanctions continue to be an appropriate policy tool. Annual sanctions evaluation works like loss and profit of a business statement. Profits mean a business is accomplishing its objective, while losses indicate a business policy has to be changed. Hence, when the negative sides of sanctions exceed the positive sides, policy makers will have fewer reasons to use sanctions any more. Finally, the United Nations should be reformed in such a way that the powers of the permanent members of the Security Council will be reduced. This will enable the U.N. pursue its aims and objectives without being manipulated and „bullied‟ by the Dominant Powers. Also, the United Nations as a whole should give priority attention to the issue of the adverse consequences of economic sanctions and, as a minimum, should incorporate the proposed six-prong test in all deliberations on sanctions.

164

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