May 30, 2003
Geopolitical Diary: Friday, May 30, 2003
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in a Vanity Fair interview, said the public justification for the invasion of Iraq was not primarily based on the fear of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Wolfowitz was quoted as saying, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Of lesser importance but explosive nevertheless was a BBC report that the British had deliberately exaggerated the presence of WMD in Iraq. The two stories, emerging on the same day, inevitably combined to create a shock in the international system. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scrambled, later in the day, reasserting in a radio interview the original administration position.
Wolfowitz's admission is an argument that Stratfor has made from the beginning: The United States invaded Iraq for strategic reasons -- to exert power against surrounding Islamic countries -- and used the issue of weapons of mass destruction to build an international coalition. The invasion would have taken place had no weapons of mass destruction existed. Wolfowitz's statement is no surprise to us at all. What is a surprise is that all of this is leaking out now, let alone while the United States is in a confrontation with Iran over the same issue and U.S. President George W. Bush is preparing to visit the Middle East.
Wolfowitz's statement could have been simply a mistake. He has had many hours to deny making the statement but hasn't, leading us to conclude that it is true. It might have been simply a slip, letting the cat out of the bag, but Wolfowitz is not prone to making slips on this order of magnitude. A second explanation is that the administration is grappling with the fact that it has failed to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and has decided that the best strategy is to simply admit that the war's purpose was strategic, not about weapons of mass destruction. A third reason is that brutal bureaucratic infighting has broken out inside the Bush administration now, centered around the failure to discover WMD. Wolfowitz, feeling pressure over the issue, decided his strongest move was to go public with the truth, putting his critics on the defensive as naïve.
As you can see by the many reasons listed, we really don't have any good theories. The idea of a planned leak is hard to believe. The idea of an accident of this magnitude is equally hard. We guess that leaves us with savage infighting, but this bit of savagery would hurt the administration as a whole and doesn't leave Wolfowitz looking too good either, to say the least.
It always seemed to us that the cover story was not as effective as the real reason, but the administration seemed to believe that the international community and the American public would be more likely to rally around the WMD argument rather than the strategic one. Having given that as the prime answer, the administration found it difficult to switch gears in the middle.
It has always seemed likely to us that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction, even if that was far from the primary reason for invasion. The reason for our view is simply this: If Hussein had no weapons and none under development, why did he behave as he did with chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix? Why not let the scientists leave the country so they could discuss the nonexistence of nuclear weapons. Why not produce records of the destruction of WMD? Why not videotape the destruction process? Hussein was facing a war that he could not win where the public justification was false. Why deny the existence of WMD and then behave in a way that supported the plausibility of the Anglo-American position?
Wolfowitz, in the end, did not say that Iraq didn't have WMD. What he said was that this was not the primary reason for going to war. However, combined with the British leak and the increasingly embarrassing failure to find WMD in Iraq, a serious firestorm is brewing. This will not occur only in U.S. politics, although the Democrats will be all over this. It also will change the tone of the G8 meeting this weekend. Most important, it undermines the credibility of U.S. charges against Iran and, at a time when U.S. forces are facing increased resistance in Iraq, it strengthens the position of the Baathist opposition, who can now portray themselves as the victims of U.S. duplicity.
Wolfowitz's statement strikes us as generally true, although his explanation about withdrawing U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia as the prime goal is woefully insufficient. Why he felt a compulsion to tell the truth is more difficult to understand. Perhaps it is a trial balloon by the administration for explaining the failure to find WMD. If there is no firestorm, it becomes the postwar rationale. If there is a firestorm, Wolfowitz looks for an exciting new career.
Bottom line: In the past 24 hours we have the report from CBS that the attempt to kill Hussein on the first day hit a building without a bunker in it; an intensifying set of claims that the hostage rescue was staged; Wolfowitz's interview; and the BBC report. The administration has started hemorrhaging credibility. It normally controls perception, and it has suddenly lost control. Very odd.