'Has the war already started then?' So asked an American journalist yesterday, as reports claimed that British and American forces had upped the stakes in their policing of Iraq's no-fly zones by bombing Iraqi rocket launchers and other 'surface-to-surface' weapons.
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US and UK fighter jets launched attacks in the southern province of Basra on Sunday night, as part of what US defence officials called the 'softening up' of Iraq for a ground invasion. The UK Guardian claimed that Britain and America had 'all but fired the first shots of the second Gulf War' (1), while Bernard Jenkins of the UK Tory Party argued that 'the second Gulf War has already started'. Meanwhile Iraqi officials claimed that six civilians were killed 'in this latest imperialist assault'. So, has the war already started then?
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The USA and UK aren't so much fighting a war, as playing a despicable war game. The increased policing (ie, bombing) of southern Iraq is not about fulfilling a military objective, so much as a political one. Most of Iraq's missile defences are in and around Baghdad, not in the south. By stepping up its campaign in the no-fly zones, the USA is attempting to exert pressure on both Saddam's Iraq and those Western states still dithering about military action. The clashes between the major powers over what to do about Iraq are increasingly being played out in Iraq itself.
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It is still unclear what got bombed in southern Iraq on Sunday night, or why. According to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the claims of 'expanded bombing' in the southern no-fly zone emanated from the Pentagon itself, from officials who spoke to the press 'on the strict condition of anonymity' (2).
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Hours after the story broke, Britain's Ministry of Defence denied that there had been any changes to the no-fly zone patrols. The UK Guardian reported that 'Britain denies Pentagon reports that allied planes were increasing their strikes on Iraqi targets', while a spokesman for prime minister Tony Blair said: 'The policy in the no-fly zone continues as it was. They patrol the no-fly zones as they did before.' (3)
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American and British boasts, claims and denials about heightened action in the no-fly zones confirmed one thing: the closer war gets, the harder it becomes to sort fact from fiction. Yet the fact that the no-fly zone story originated from the Pentagon suggests that the USA is stepping up its action in southern Iraq (or at least claiming to) for more than practical military purposes. US officials want their action in the no-fly zones to make a broader impact - as much in political and media circles in the West, as on the ground in Basra.
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 | | The no-fly zones create a permanent state of war in Iraq |
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US and UK fighter jets have been bombing the no-fly zones in Iraq since they were set up after the first Gulf War in 1990/91. There is a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, ostensibly to protect Iraq's Kurdish minority from Saddam's regime, and a larger one in southern Iraq, again described as a 'humanitarian' measure to protect Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims. Iraq is forbidden from flying military aircraft into the no-fly zones; even civilian flights are often followed by British and American fighter jets, and sometimes forced to land.
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Behind the humanitarian justifications, the no-fly zones granted America, Britain and France control over large parts of Iraq following the Gulf War. Operation Northern Watch enforces the northern no-fly zone, with Britain and America providing 45 aircraft and more than 1400 personnel. Operation Southern Watch polices the no-fly zone in the south, and is made up of 150 British and American aircraft and 6000 forces.
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For all the claims that the north and south were being policed to protect Iraq's minorities, America and Britain turned a blind eye to Turkey's many incursions into northern Iraq to combat Kurdish forces. For the USA and the UK, the support of NATO ally Turkey easily trumped any protection of the Kurds.
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The no-fly zones create a permanent state of war in Iraq. American and British forces have launched air attacks in southern Iraq almost weekly for the past two years. Last week alone, there were three air assaults in the south. On Thursday, US and UK planes attacked a communications system near Basra; on Friday they bombed a surface-to-air missile system in An Nasiriyah, 170 miles southwest of Baghdad; and on Saturday they attacked another communications system, again in An Nasiriyah (4).
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The bombings of the no-fly zones reveal much about the current row over what to do about Iraq. They show that America and Britain have no compunction about bombing Iraqi territory, and that they aren't averse to taking action without United Nations' authority (the no-fly zones have no specific UN mandate). Rather, the USA and UK's reticence about launching all-out war in Iraq, instead of 'undeclared war' in the north and south, is about something else.
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Western forces are more than happy to bomb Iraq - and that includes the supposedly anti-war French. France was involved in policing and bombing northern Iraq until 1996, and southern Iraq until 1998. After that, it withdrew from the no-fly zone operations - not as an anti-war gesture, but because it had increased its trading with Iraq, and feared that policing the no-fly zones represented a 'conflict of interest'. (Yet the Pentagon website still lists France alongside America and Britain as part of Operations Northern and Southern Watch….time for a new webmaster?)
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| | US and UK forces have no deep respect for the authority of the UN |
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Likewise, by policing the no-fly zones for the past 10 years, America and Britain have demonstrated their willingness to take international action without UN backing. The Pentagon website claims that the no-fly zones are an attempt to monitor Iraqi compliance with UN Security Council resolution 688. This resolution was enforced after the Gulf War, but it says nothing about invading Iraqi airspace or launching attacks. Rather, the resolution condemns Iraq's repression of the Kurd and Shi'ites, and demands that Saddam's regime cease its 'repression of the Iraqi civilian population' (5).
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According to the New York Times, UN resolution 688 provides a 'dubious justification' for launching air assaults (6). In 1993, the UN legal department announced that it could find 'no existing Security Council resolutions authorising the USA, Britain and France to enforce the no-fly zones' (7). According to one American journalist: 'Other UN Security Council nations have never accepted the legitimacy [of the no-fly zones].' (8) (However, none of this stopped the UN from either quietly supporting or turning a blind eye to the bombing of northern and southern Iraq over the past decade.)
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The no-fly zone action indicates that US and UK forces have no deep respect for the authority or legitimacy of the United Nations. Rather, the current dithering over launching a real war on Iraq, and America's continual return to the UN for agreement and support, suggests that the big issue haunting the Bush administration is its inability to build an international coalition and its cautiousness about going it alone on the world stage. It is America's own uncertainty that drives it to the UN, rather than any attraction on the part of the UN itself. The UN has become a fig-leaf to give a nervous USA the cover of internationalism.
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To this end, America now appears to be upping the stakes in Iraq itself in an attempt to pressurise sceptical elites in the West. The Pentagon's description of the alleged threat posed by the Iraqi targets bombed in southern Iraq on Sunday evening sounded unconvincing. US Airforce Colonel John Warden could only say that the Iraqi military installations posed 'a little bit of a danger' to US forces (9).
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One official says Iraqi troops could use surface-to-surface missiles in southern Iraq to launch 'devastating attacks' on British and American troops concentrated in Kuwait. But Iraqi forces appear to have little stomach for action against allied forces - especially Iraqi troops in the US/UK-policed area of southern Iraq. According to a story reported by Richard Littlejohn in the UK tabloid The Sun, a group of 'elite' Iraqi soldiers in southern Iraq recently surrendered to a Kuwaiti wedding party that had accidentally crossed into Iraqi territory, believing them to be hostile forces.
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The ratcheting up of tension and action in southern Iraq is part of the USA's political campaign over the Iraqi crisis, rather than being driven by any military necessity. It is a further attempt to send a message to Western powers about the need to take action against Iraq - and what better way to do that than to launch action, creating a sense that other powers will be left behind unless they sign up?
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| | France's demands for inspections have become a means of asserting its authority |
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UK defence sources have announced that 300 SAS troops are already engaged in various parts of Iraq. It is unprecedented for military officials to make this kind of public announcement about supposedly secretive military action. This fits into the pattern of a political and PR war, where Western elites increasingly seem to be taking action (or talking about action) to make an impact here in the West as well as in Iraq.
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Meanwhile, the French and Germans have responded to America's claims of expanded action in southern Iraq by demanding further, harder and more intrusive weapons inspections. French ministers criticise US forces for launching attacks without specific UN authority (even though they did the same for seven years), and instead demand more authority for Hans Blix's inspections team - a team that derives its authority from the threat of invasion, from the fact that its findings could trigger a UN-backed assault on Iraq.
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Just as America's targeting of southern Iraq is driven more by political than military concerns, so French and German demands for tougher inspections have become a means of asserting their authority in the Iraqi crisis.
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There is an 'undeclared war' in Iraq - between Western elites. America, Britain, France and Germany are vying for international influence and authority through the Iraqi issue, and increasingly, they seem to be doing that on Iraqi territory. As for the further destabilisation of Iraq and the loss of Iraqi lives - that seems to be a price Western powers are prepared to pay in order to win their war games.
Brendan O'Neill is coordinating the spiked-conference Panic attack: Interrogating our obsession with risk, on Friday 9 May 2003, at the Royal Institution in London.
Read on:
spiked-issue: War on Iraq
(1) Allies bomb key Iraqi targets, Nicholas Watt, Richard Norton-Taylor, and Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, 3 March 2003
(2) Air strikes in Southern Iraq no-fly zone mount, Washington Post, 15 January 2003
(3) MoD denies change in no-fly zone bombings, Guardian, 3 March 2003
(4) Allies bomb key Iraqi targets, Nicholas Watt, Richard Norton-Taylor, and Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, 3 March 2003
(5) Did the United Nations authorize 'no-fly zones' over Iraq, Chris Mooney, Slate, 19 November 2002
(6) Did the United Nations authorize 'no-fly zones' over Iraq, Chris Mooney, Slate, 19 November 2002
(7) Did the United Nations authorize 'no-fly zones' over Iraq, Chris Mooney, Slate, 19 November 2002
(8) Did the United Nations authorize 'no-fly zones' over Iraq, Chris Mooney, Slate, 19 November 2002
(9) Target scope extended in no-fly zones, Reuters, 3 March 2003
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