The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003
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THE REGIME CHANGE CONSENSUS: IRAQ IN AMERICAN POLITICS, 1990-2003 Joseph Stieb A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Wayne Lee Michael Morgan Benjamin Waterhouse Daniel Bolger Hal Brands ©2019 Joseph David Stieb ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joseph David Stieb: The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 (Under the direction of Wayne Lee) This study examines the containment policy that the United States and its allies imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and argues for a new understanding of why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. At the core of this story is a political puzzle: Why did a largely successful policy that mostly stripped Iraq of its unconventional weapons lose support in American politics to the point that the policy itself became less effective? I argue that, within intellectual and policymaking circles, a claim steadily emerged that the only solution to the Iraqi threat was regime change and democratization. While this “regime change consensus” was not part of the original containment policy, a cohort of intellectuals and policymakers assembled political support for the idea that Saddam’s personality and the totalitarian nature of the Baathist regime made Iraq uniquely immune to “management” strategies like containment. The entrenchment of this consensus before 9/11 helps explain why so many politicians, policymakers, and intellectuals rejected containment after 9/11 and embraced regime change and invasion. This project makes several important historiographical contributions. First, I challenge arguments that the Bush Administration’s concerns about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were a disingenuous pretext for war. In fact, regime change advocates from the Gulf War forward articulated a unified strategy in which the threat of WMD and terrorism and the need for political transformation in the Middle East were inseparable planks. Second, I demonstrate that while neoconservatives led the political coalition against containment, this coalition also drew iii significant support from Democrats, liberals, and humanitarian activists, creating a wider than expected base of support for the 2003 invasion. Finally, while historians have focused on the role of cultural perspectives like Orientalism in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East, my study stresses the importance of ideas about political regime type in debates about Iraq. iv To my family, especially my parents, and my wife. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………..…..1 Between Triumph and Tragedy: The Bigger Historical Picture……………………...…......... 11 The Iraq War as Historiography and History………………………………...………..14 CHAPTER 1: A HOPE, NOT A POLICY: CONTAINMENT AND REGIME CHANGE DURING THE GULF CRISIS, AUGUST 1990-FEBRUARY 1991......................27 Constructive Engagement: 1988-August 1990………………………………….......... 31 Responding to the Invasion of Kuwait: August-November 1990……………………..38 The Debate Heats Up: November 1990-January 1991………………………...……... 52 Rejecting Regime Change, Planning for Containment: December to February 1991………………………………………………...…………64 Regime Change Advocates during the Gulf Crisis……………………………............ 77 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...…….. 86 CHAPTER 2: THE FALLOUT FROM VICTORY: CONTAINMENT AND ITS CRITICS: 1991-1992………………………………………………………............ 88 Ending Desert Storm…………………………………………………………...……...9 2 Installing Containment: March-June 1991…………………………………….……..10 0 The Fallout from Victory: Political Backlash at Home, March-June 1991……......... 114 Enforcing Containment: June 1991-November 1992………………………….......... 128 Early Critics of Containment: 1991-1992…………………………………….……...1 39 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….…….. 147 CHAPTER 3: THE LONG WATCH: THE HIGH YEARS OF CONTAINMENT, 1993-1996…………………………………………………….……..15 1 vi New President, Old Policy: Clinton Takes Over Containment………………………15 5 A Chronic Migraine: Crisis after Crisis: 1993-1996…………………………………17 2 Debating Containment at Home: 1993-1996…………………………………………19 4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………... 203 CHAPTER 4: SADDAM HUSSEIN MUST GO: ENTRENCHING THE REGIME CHANGE CONSENSUS: 1997-2000…………………………………………….20 6 The Inspections Crises and the Road to Operation Desert Fox: 1997-1998…………21 0 The Political Revolt Against Containment and the Making of the Iraq Liberation Act………………………………………………...… 230 The Rollback Alternative to Containment…………………………………………... 253 The Anti-Climax: Iraq Policy after Desert Fox: 1999-2000………………………… 260 Conclusion: Containment as of November 2000……………………………………. 271 CHAPTER 5: NOT WHETHER, BUT HOW AND WHEN: THE IRAQ DEBATE FROM 9/11 TO THE INVASION…………………………………………………………...27 3 Bush’s Case for War: Fall 2001-Fall 2002………………………………………….. 278 “The Right Way to Change a Regime:” The Public Debate on Iraq and the Powell-Blair Approach……………………………………………………………… 308 Congress, Inspections, and the Coming of the Iraq War: October 2002-March 2003…………………………………………………………... 328 Conclusion: The Path to the Iraq War………………………………………………. 349 CONCLUSION: CONTAINMENT, LIBERALISM, AND THE SEARCH FOR LIMITS………………………………………………………… 351 Containment Strategies as Theories of Social and Political Change………………... 352 The Concept of the Regime in American Foreign Relations………………………... 367 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………...…………….…3 74 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AEI American Enterprise Institute BNL Banca Nazionale del Lavoro CCC Commodity Credit Corporation CENTCOM United States Central Command CIA Central Intelligence Agency CPSG Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf DIA Defense Intelligence Agency IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency ILA Iraq Liberation Act INA Iraqi National Accord INC Iraqi National Congress JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff KDP Kurdish Democratic Party KTO Kuwaiti Theater of Operations MEPP Middle East Peace Process MOU Memorandum of Understanding NEA Near Eastern Affairs Office, State Department NDZ No-Drive-Zone NFZ No-Fly-Zone NIC National Intelligence Council NIE National Intelligence Estimate NSA National Security Agency viii NSD National Security Directive OSP Office of Special Plans PCTEG Policy Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group PNAC Project for a New American Century PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan R2P Responsibility to Protect SAM Surface-to-Air Missiles SCIRI Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iran UNMOVIC United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission UNSCOM United Nations Special Commission WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction ix INTRODUCTION The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 is now widely seen as one of the worst U.S. foreign policy blunders since the Vietnam War. Between 2003 and the departure of U.S. combat forces in 2011, 4,410 American military personnel died in Iraq and 31,957 were wounded, according to the Department of Defense.1 Iraq descended into a civil war during the occupation that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.2 Although the “surge” of U.S. troops in Iraq from 2007 to 2008 helped tamp down this violence, the Iraqi state continued to be dominated by corrupt Shia parties that rigged elections, hoarded resources, and abused the Sunni minority.3 The persistence of these political tensions combined with the upheaval of the Arab Spring in Syria to set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State, which seized several major cities in Iraq in 2014 and perpetrated horrible atrocities. The United States and its allies were forced to re- 1 U.S. Department of Defense, “Operation Iraqi Freedom U.S. Casualty Status,” February 5, 2019, dod.defense.gov, accessed February 5, 2019, https://dod.defense.gov/News/Casualty-Status/ 2 Estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties between 2003 and 2011 vary considerably based on different methodologies in different studies. The website Iraq Body Count states that 120,026 Iraqi civilians died in the conflict between from 2003-2011. This is a more conservative estimate because Iraq Body Count measures only deaths with a “verifiable documentary record,” using cross-referenced media sources, hospital, morgue, non-governmental organization, and official government figures. See: “Iraqi Deaths from Violence 2003-2011,” January 2, 2012, iraqbodycount.org, accessed February 5, 2019, https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2011/. Household surveys calculate increases in the death rate over time have calculated far higher totals. One survey from a University of Washington public health team in the early 2010s found 405,000 excess deaths from violence and indirect war-related causes like the collapse of infrastructure. See: Amy Hagopian et. al., “Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003-2011 War and Occupation,” PLoS Medicine 10, no. 10 (2013), available at https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001533#abstract1. 3 Useful sources on continued corruption, violence, and ethno-sectarian division in the post-Baathist Iraqi government include: Ranj Alaaldin, “Sectarianism, Governance, and Iraq’s Future,” November 26, 2018, brookings.edu, accessed January 11, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/research/sectarianism-governance-and-iraqs- future/; Emma Sky, The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq (New York, Hachette Book Group, 2015); Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser, Losing Iraq, July 29, 2014, pbs.frontline.org, accessed May 2, 2016, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/losing-iraq/credits/.