With analysts predicting the long-term costs of war to reach well into the hundred-billion-dollar range¹ and Gulf-based NGOs bracing for a humanitarian disaster, political pundits, academics, and average citizens alike are beginning to question the Bush administration’s pro-war paradigm. Three official reasons for the assault on Iraq have been issued in President Bush’s State of the Union Address and several White House statements that preceded it since September 2002; in order of importance, they are: the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the continuation of the war on terror, and the promotion of democracy in the region.² But how accurate are the official White House motives for war, and why is the rest of the world unconvinced? 

#1- Weapons of mass destruction

Eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has been the Bush administration’s mantra since the beginning of the Iraq war PR campaign in September. If this motive is to be believed, then the question arises, what about North Korea, Pakistan, and now Iran? Particularly with regard to North Korea and Pakistan, both countries have nuclear arsenals, whereas Iraq is years away from an even-remotely threatening nuclear program. North Korea and Pakistan also have viable delivery systems for WMD. Iraq’s remaining twenty-odd Scud missiles generating enough pre-launch heat to be located and destroyed with relative ease, with an inaccurate and paltry maximum range of 400 miles, as well as its oft-cited 1952 Czech-made “drone planes” with a top speed of 160 mph and range of 600 miles, pose an imminent threat to no one save an invading army.³

Even Iran and Kuwait do not fear Saddam Hussein despite their proximity to him. If the United States has a moral imperative to remove WMD from the hands of men like Saddam Hussein, then why did the US Department of Defense, up to and including the years in which Dick Cheney became Secretary in 1989, provide Iraq with satellite data of Iranian military positions despite the State Department’s acknowledgment, on November 1, 1983, that Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians “almost daily?”

#2- The war on terror

The continuation of the war on terror, the second-most important and arguably the most preposterous of the Bush administration’s war justifications, is nothing less than toying with the American peoples’ post-September 11th fears. Not a single historical or rational link has been drawn between Saddam Hussein and groups such as al-Qa’eda, and even independent al-Qa’eda operatives are rarely, if ever, Iraqi. Iraq under Saddam Hussein represents the bane of groups like al-Qa’eda’s existence, namely a morally corrupt and avidly secular dictatorship in the Muslim world.

Furthermore, while US military dominance may win the battle in Iraq, the anti-American sentiment it has already generated in the Muslim world is clearly a losing step in its larger war on terrorism.

#3- Democracy

The promotion of democracy in the Middle East, the third official motive for the US war in Iraq, begs the question, why did the Reagan administration, represented by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld among others, embrace Saddam Hussein’s regime in the early 1980s for the sake of the war of attrition against Iran if the US is bound to such lofty and altruistic ideals as the spreading of democracy in the region?

After Israel, Egypt is the world’s second-highest recipient of US aid, yet Egyptian President Husni Mubarak has never won reelection by less than 94% of the popular vote. Recently, the US has been kowtowing to the Kuwaiti and Saudi regimes, neither of which put up even the pretenses of democracy, in an effort to garner support for its “war to spread democracy.” The same conciliatory attitude on the part of the US toward despotic regimes can be seen in the examples of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.⁴

Then Why the War?

What would motivate the United States to be willing to fight its war on Iraq unilaterally if not world security and the spread of democracy? Critics are quick to cry “oil,” and indeed with the US relying on imports to meet almost 60% of its oil needs, a figure that is expected to only go up in the next few years, and Iraq’s being second only to Saudi Arabia in untapped oil reserves, it is tempting to dismiss the war as a war for oil.

But getting the booty will require money – and lots of it. The Bush administration has been extremely reticent when it comes to the cost of its war in Iraq, while independent estimates reflect a huge range. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments gives an upward figure of $688 billion if we include long-term occupation and rebuilding. Yale University’s Prof. William Nordhaus factors in the impact on oil and the world economy to reach a high-end estimate of $1.92 trillion.⁵

Who exactly will foot the bill if the US pursues a unilateral approach remains unclear. To hedge the price of war against income from Iraqi oil reserves fails to take into account the large amounts of money and time that are needed to revive the country’s devastated (and soon to be more devastated) infrastructure. To reach the ambitious production goal of six million barrels of oil per day will require an additional $20 billion of investment and upwards of ten years. None of these figures takes into account Iraqi debt, estimates of which range between $60 and $140 billion.⁶

Enter Production-Sharing Agreements (PSAs)

Only the world’s largest private oil companies can afford to restore Iraqi oil production and establish the infrastructure to access untapped oil. Rarely approved by oil-rich nations due to its exploitative nature, a PSA establishes exclusive oil rights for private oil corporations at the cost of a fixed profit tax for a 30-year contract. Once a PSA has been established, the foreign corporation is awarded a dispensation from its home country and is subsequently not bound by domestic environmental, tax, and safety laws. A decade ago, under the pressure of UN sanctions, Iraq acquiesced to Russian and French PSAs, even though the same sanctions prevented the carrying out of the contracts – convenient enough for US interests. Now the tables have turned, and American and British oil giants are poised to gain exclusivity to Iraqi PSAs, much to the chagrin of France and Russia, incidentally the two most vehement opponents to the war in Iraq.⁷

The Stranglehold

For over half a century, the US government has understood the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf and the oil that it provides. Until the early 1970s, the US relied on Britain to protect its regional oil interests, followed by the Shah of Iran. With the rise of the Islamic revolution in Iran and the threat that it posed to US oil interests, the Carter Doctrine of January 23, 1980, was issued: “An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

One may ask, but how much of a threat to US interests does today’s Saddam Hussein actually play; wouldn’t a policy of containment be easier and cheaper while still guaranteeing US access to Iraqi oil? Not if the “outside force” stated in the Carter Doctrine is taken not to mean Iraq, but rather China, Russia, and the EU. The Saddam Hussein regime awarded $1.1 trillion in oil contracts to China, Russia, and the EU.⁸ These same nations are concerned that the soon-to-be puppet government established under US auspices will not honor the pre-war contracts. In fact, the Bush administration has portentously stated that it “has not decided whether such oil development contracts would be accepted by the United States in a post-Saddam government.”⁹ 

In 1990, Dick Cheney testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the nation that controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil maintains a “stranglehold on the economies of most of the other nations of the world.”¹⁰ Syllogistically, if the US can position itself to control the flow of Iraqi oil, then IT maintains a stranglehold on all other economies, particularly the three economies that pose a threat to US economic hegemony, namely those of China, Russia, and the EU.

With the death count climbing daily in the Palestinian occupied territories, and no long-term solution in sight, the US is apt to free itself from its dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia, a nation that has and will use its influence to pressure the US and its pro-Israel policies. With the world’s second largest oil reserves, Iraq represents the only viable alternative.

But Oil is Only Half the Story

The United States has not discussed an exit strategy from Iraq nor considered the possibility of a containment and/or deterrence policy in the country simply because it doesn’t plan to leave. The Bush administration’s National Security Strategy Report, released on September 20, 2002, points out the need for a permanent American military presence and domination around the world, particularly in the Persian Gulf.¹¹  And while some may consider this aim reasonable from an American perspective after the events of September 11, 2001, a similar sentiment is reflected in the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” report of September 2000, written by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think tank established in 1997 and headed by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld’s deputy), and Jeb Bush. The report reads, “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American military presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

Five years ago, PNAC initiated the drafting and passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act, which set the legal impetus for the military operations in Iraq over the past few years that are only now reaching crescendo. The committee delivered a letter to President Clinton in 1998 reproaching him for not fully implementing the Act by driving troops in Baghdad. Incidentally, PNAC is chaired by Bruce Jackson, an ex-vice president of weapons manufacturer Lockheed-Martin, while PNAC-cofounder Dick Cheney’s position as chairman and chief executive officer of Halliburton Petroleum and its subsidiary, Brown & Root, is a well-known fact. During Cheney’s chairmanship, Halliburton did $73 million worth of business with Saddam Hussein, and the company has recently been awarded the exclusive contract to extinguish burning oil wells and prepare them for service once war in Iraq starts.

Brown & Root, after winning the $300 million contract to build the holding cells for Camp X-Ray detainees in Guantanamo Bay in 2002, has been awarded a major share of the $900 million government contract to rebuild the basic infrastructure of post-war Iraq.¹² PNAC’s stated goal is nothing less than the establishment of a “Pax Americana” through an imperialist agenda of global military and economic hegemony. A permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf, the aforementioned stranglehold of all major national economies, represents a crucial step in the realization of American world dominance as advocated by the committee.¹³

And Let’s Not Forget Israel!

As Democratic Congressmen from Virginia Jim Moran explains, “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.”¹⁴ There is no denying the fact that many hawks in the Bush administration are Zionist, most notably PNAC-cofounder Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and coauthor of the report “A Clean Break.” The report was prepared by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a right-wing Israeli think tank with ties to Benjamin Netanyahu, and in it is stated, “Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.”¹⁵

If, for the sake of argument, one assumes that Saddam Hussein does have chemical and/or biological weapons, his short-range delivery systems pose a threat, and a weak one at that, to no regional power save Israel. Ironically, it is Israel’s weapons of mass destruction that stifle UN Resolution 687, which advocates the disarming of Iraq through inspections. Article 14 of the resolution threatens Israeli nuclear dominance of the region by calling for a general disarmament of the Middle East.¹⁶

Domestic Concerns

While economic, hegemonic, and strategic concerns govern the war’s objectives, its timing is strictly a domestic factor. With its policies that infringe upon domestic privacy rights and arguably human rights, the Bush administration’s Homeland Security Department’s Gestapo tactics demand a foreign crisis to distract the American public’s attention.

Operation Atlas, the New York Police Department’s war-time security intensification, calls for the deployment of multiple heavily-armed elite police units to patrol the streets of the city in addition to constant air patrols and surveillance, all at the cost of over $5 million per week.¹⁷ New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dismissed the unprecedented measures saying, “We will have plenty of opportunities to express to the public that they should feel comforted when they see additional police protection on the streets. It shouldn’t be scary. Quite the contrary.”

Furthermore, the ramshackle US economy, its high unemployment rate, and the recent tax breaks that favor a privileged few, necessitate a quick victory in Iraq to garner public approval for President Bush before the presidential election season starts. Though the Bush administration could strategically delay its war in Iraq for perhaps years on end, it has opted to hasten its military operations, much to the dismay of the United Nations, in order to pave the way for a reelection victory. The same goes for the congressional elections of 2002, about which political activist Prof. Noam Chomsky points out, “Iraq wasn’t brought up as a matter of immediate significance until September of this year, when the election season started.”¹⁸

It is clear that the stated motives for the US-led war in Iraq were conceived to cruelly play off the collective fears of the unquestioning masses. Our ability to challenge the altruistic façade put forward by wholly bellicose policy makers who have highjacked the democratic process stands as our secret weapon in this “war of terror.”

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Noor ad-Deen Theodore is editor and staff writer for IslamOnline. He is an International Relations graduate from Tufts University and is currently pursuing an MA in Arabic Language and Literature in Cairo, Egypt. Born in the United States, he embraced Islam in 1994. He hopes to return to America and teach Arabic and Islamic studies. You can reach him at atabek@islam-online.net

1- Gongloff, Mark, “How Much will War Cost?” CNNMoney, March 17, 2003.

2- Klare, Michael T., “The Coming War with Iraq: Deciphering the Bush Administration’s Motives,” Foreign Policy in Focus, January 16, 2003.

3- “Scud,” Wikipedia.

4- Klare, Michael T., “The Coming War with Iraq: Deciphering the Bush Administration’s Motives,” Foreign Policy in Focus, January 16, 2003.

5- Gongloff, Mark, “How Much will War Cost?” CNNMoney, March 17, 2003.

6- “Special Report: Rebuilding Iraq,” The Economist, 8 Mar. 2003.

7- Eviatar, Daphne and Christopher Dickey, “What Big Oil Wants,” Newsweek, March 24, 2003.

8- Rainey, Brian, “Bush’s Motives: Increase US Global Dominance,” CounterPunch, November 11, 2002.

9- Reuters staff, “Iraq Opposition to Discuss Oil at US Meeting,” ProletarianNews, October 8, 2002.

10- Klare, Michael T., “The Coming War with Iraq: Deciphering the Bush Administration’s Motives,” Foreign Policy in Focus, January 16, 2003.

11- Bookman, Jay, “The President’s Real Goal in Iraq,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 29, 2002.

12- Pitt, William Rivers, “Blood Money”, Truthout, February 27, 2003.

13- For the full PNAC document, see Cryptome.

14- “Lindbergh Lives,” The Economist, March 15, 2003.

15- Perle, Richard, et. al, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, 8 Jul. 1996.

16- Badawi, Omar and Faiz Ahmed, “Interview with Noam Chomsky,” The Link, November 26, 2002.

17- “NYPD: War Would Lead to Higher Security”, CNN.com, March 16, 2003.

18- DiMaggio, Anthony, “Noam Chomsky Analyzes Bush’s War on Iraq,” Santa Fe New Mexican, December 9, 2002.  

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