Abstract
This chapter was published shortly before the start of the 2003 Iraq War and examined what might be the consequences of a war as it appeared at that time. It argued that in the event of a war, it should be expected that there would be many thousands of civilian casualties and that anti-American attitudes across the region would increase. There was a probability of violent opposition to post-war foreign military presence and increased support for paramilitary action. If, as was possible, Iraq had maintained a small stock of chemical and biological weapons, there was a risk it would use them if the regime was threatened with termination, and this possibility could lead to retaliation using nuclear weapons. The analysis concluded by arguing that a war with Iraq would be counterproductive and other means of resolving the crisis should have been investigated.
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Notes
- 1.
This text was first published as: “Iraq: Consequences of a War”, Briefing Paper, Oxford Research Group, October 2002 of which the author retained the copyright. The author would like to thank General Sir Hugh Beach, Dr. Scilla Elworthy, Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden, Professor Bill Kincaid, Susan Kincaid and Dr. Jack Mendelsohn for commenting on a draft of this report, and Nick Ritchie for his help with the production. He takes take full responsibility for its contents.
- 2.
On 16 February, 1991, a missile narrowly missed a large pier complex in the Saudi port of al Jubayl. It landed in the sea some 300 m from the US Navy’s aviation support ship Wright and close to the large amphibious warship Tarawa, both of which were moored alongside a pier complex which included a large ammunition storage dump and a petrol tanker parking area. Details of this incident only entered the public domain several years later but it is credited with having a considerable impact on US military attitudes to states armed with ballistic missiles. See: John D. Gresham, “Navy Area Ballistic Missile Defence Coming on Fast”, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, January 1999.
- 3.
The development of the current US security paradigm is outlined in an earlier paper in this series: Paul Rogers and Scilla Elworthy, The United States, Europe and the Majority World after 11 September, Oxford Research Group Briefing Paper, October 2001.
- 4.
Interview with member of the Bush transition team, Washington DC, November 2001.
- 5.
Paul Rogers and Scilla Elworthy, A Never-Ending War? Consequences of 11 September, Oxford Research Group Briefing Paper, March 2002. As well as drawing on the experience of US operations in the first Gulf War, in Serbia and in Afghanistan, this section is compiled from two principal sources. The first is a wide range of reports from The Washington Post and the New York Times and agency reports from Reuters and Agence France Presse, most of these being available at www.globalsecurity.org. Secondly, it uses material from a range of defence publications, particularly Defence News, Jane’s Defence Weekly and Aviation Week and Space Technology. Three articles in the last of these were of particular value: David Fulghum, “Iraq Strike Has Focus, But There’s No Timetable (5 August, 2002); David A. Fulghum, “War Planning for Iraq Continues on Target” (23 September 2002); David Fulghum and Robert Wall, “Oil Wells, WMD Sites Fall Off Bombing List” (30 September 2002).
- 6.
“Wind-corrected munitions kit goes operational on F-16 and B-52”, Flight International, 14 November 2000.
- 7.
“Washington Outlook”, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 2 September 2002; David A. Fulghum, “USAF Acknowledges Beam Weapon Readiness”, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 7 October 2002.
- 8.
An account of the development and deployment of area impact munitions after the Vietnam War is contained in a chapter on conventional weapons of mass destruction in: Paul Rogers and Malcolm Dando, The Directory of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms and Disarmament, 1990, Tri-Service Press, London, 1990.
- 9.
Further thermobaric weapons are currently under development and may be ready for deployment in a war against Iraq. See: Andrew Koch, “USA speeds development of thermobaric weapons”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 28 August 2002.
- 10.
David A. Fulghum, “Iraq Strike Has Focus But There’s No Timetable”, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 5 August 2002.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
A detailed assessment of Iraq’s security and intelligence forces is in: Ibrahim Al-Marashi, “Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis”, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3, September 2002.
- 13.
See, for example: Michael R. Gordon, “With his army weak, Saddam might force war into the cities”, International Herald Tribune, 27 August 2002, and: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Iraqis would use urban warfare to trap U.S. troops”, International Herald Tribune, 28 September 2002.
- 14.
Peter Sluglett and Marion Farouk Sluglett (editors), The Times Guide to the Middle East, Times Books, London, 1991.
- 15.
Paul Rogers, “Security Consequences of the Osiraq Raid”, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1998.
- 16.
Most of the information on CBW development and deployment came into the public domain four years after the Gulf War with the publication of a report from the UN Special Commission on Iraq: Report of the Secretary-General on the status of the implementation of the Special Commission’s plan for ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq’s compliance with relevant parts of Section C of Security Council resolution 687 (1991), New York, UN Security Council report S/1995/864, 11 October, 1995.
- 17.
In 1996, the US Department of Defense made available on the Internet a large number of reports and studies relating to the Gulf War. These included, by mistake, a classified report relating to the National Intelligence Estimate of November 1990 that had concluded that moves to destroy the regime would be likely to entail a biological weapons response. This report was quickly removed from the website but not before it had entered the public domain. Theresa Hitchens, ‘Wargame Finds US Short in Biowar’, Defense News, 28 August 1995.
- 18.
Partly because of difficulties in destroying deeply-buried military facilities, the United States has developed an earth-penetrating version of the B61 tactical nuclear bomb, the B61-11. This can burrow 15 m below ground before detonating, producing an earthquake effect. The B61-11 is reported to have an explosive yield that can be varied between 0.3 and 300 kilotons (the Hiroshima bomb was about 13 kilotons) and its principal delivery vehicle is the B-2 bomber. It is therefore highly flexible and fits in with the idea that small but very accurate nuclear weapons might be used in limited conflicts. See “Nuclear Bomb Passes Final Drop Test, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 1 April 1996, and Greg Mello, “New Bomb, No Mission” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June, 1997. The development of a more sophisticated earth penetrator, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) is awaiting authorisation under the 2003 national defense authorisation bill, see: Eric Miller: “Bunker-Busting Nuke Expands U.S. Options”, Defense News, 16 September 2002.
- 19.
Responding to Mr. Dalyell’s question, Mr. Ingram said: As he knows, it has been the practice of successive governments never to confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons at any particular location or at any particular time. I have no intention of deviating from that line… Hansard, Vol. 390, No. 187, column 151, Tuesday 24 September 2002.
- 20.
The term “weapons of mass destruction” tends now to be applied in an undifferentiated manner to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Both of the former can cause heavy casualties, especially if used against unprotected civilian populations. Nevertheless, nuclear weapons can be hugely more destructive and their use would break a threshold that has held since the attack on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
- 21.
For a discussion of UK independent targeting see, Paul Rogers, “Sub-Strategic Trident, a Slow-Burning Fuse”, London Defense Studies No. 34, Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College, London, 1996. The evidence for nuclear deployments during the Falklands War is not conclusive but does come from several sources.
- 22.
David Miller, “Britain Ponders Single Warhead Option”, International Defense Review, September 1994.
- 23.
Transcript from the Jonathan Dimbleby Programme, 24 March 2001.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
Discussed in another paper in this series: Scilla Elworthy and Paul Rogers, “The ‘War on Terrorism’: 12-month audit and future strategy options”, Oxford Research Group Briefing Paper, September 2002.
- 27.
See, for example: Patrick E. Tyler and Richard W. Stevenson, “Iraq war could shock shaky U.S. economy”, International Herald Tribune, 31 July 2002.
- 28.
“CEOs Leery of Iraq War”, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 30 September 2002.
- 29.
Philip H. Gordon, Martin Indyk and Michael E. O’Hanlon, “Getting Serious About Iraq”, Survival, Vol. 44, No. 3, Autumn 2002, pp. 9–22. According to this analysis: “If elite Iraqi armed forces fight, then, Iraq could suffer 10,000 or more military deaths and a similar number of civilian deaths, while US troops might lose from many hundred to several thousand soldiers in action” (p. 18).
- 30.
Counting the Human Cost of the Gulf War, Medical Education Trust Background Paper, London July 1991. At the time of writing this briefing, an assessment is being undertaken by the London-based non-government organisation MEDACT into the longer-term health consequences of a new war on a population already affected by a decade-long sanctions regime. This study, Collateral Damage: the health and environmental costs of war on Iraq, will be published in mid-November 2002 and will be available at www.medact.org.
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Rogers, P. (2019). Iraq: Consequences of a War (2002). In: Paul Rogers: A Pioneer in Critical Security Analysis and Public Engagement. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95150-8_13
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