Richard Butler, who led the UN inspection teams in Iraq until 1998, accused the United States of promoting "shocking double standards" in considering unilateral military action against Iraq. He said, "The spectacle of the United States, armed with its weapons of mass destruction, acting without Security Council authority to invade a country in the heartland of Arabia and, if necessary, use its weapons of mass destruction to win that battle, is something that will so deeply violate any notion of fairness in this world that I strongly suspect it could set loose forces that we would deeply live to regret." In pointing out that the United States has not responded in the same way to Syria, which is also suspected of having weapons of mass destruction, and that several US allies, including Pakistan, India, and Israel, have such weapons without having signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Butler asked why the United States is "permitting the persistence of such shocking double standards". However, part of the U.S.'s position is that Iraq is a unique case. Iraq is the only country out of this list that has had 12 years of defiance against 17 U.N. resolutions calling for its disarmament. Butler himself, upon leaving Iraq for the last time in 1998 said he could not say that Iraq had disarmed. Nor could he confirm that Iraq possessed WMDs.
In 2003, the Vatican of Pope John Paul II tried to prevent the US-led invasion of Iraq, instead urging a peaceful solution. In his 2003 State of the World address, the Pope declared his opposition to the invasion by stating, "No to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity." [1] He sent former Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United States Pío Cardinal Laghi to talk with American President George W. Bush to express opposition to the war. John Paul II said that it was up to the United Nations to solve the international conflict through diplomacy and that a unilateral aggression is a crime against peace and a violation of international law.
This is consistent with his previous proclamations about peace. For example, in 1999, in preparation for the 33rd World Day of Peace, he sent out a message saying:
Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.
— Pope John Paul II [2]
In February, 2003, Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, sharply criticized Bush and his drive for war, saying, "If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America." Mandela also said, "One power with a president who has no foresight – who cannot think properly – is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust." Mandela also accused Bush of "ignoring the U.N.". Mandela went on by asking "Is this because the secretary general of the United Nations is now a black man?" Mandela and Sir Richard Branson planned, with Kofi Annan's blessing, a secret trip to Iraq to convince Saddam to step down, but the bombing starting just before they were to leave. [3] Bush's supporters argue that he had been working through the U.N. on this issue since the previous September; however, he and his Cabinet made it clear that they would act with or without UN agreement.
As of August 2002, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who believes U.N. inspections effectively verified the destruction of over 90% of Iraq's weapon capabilities, is actively campaigning against an invasion, and challenging the Bush administration to make public any evidence that Iraq has rebuilt the capabilities which were destroyed under the auspices of UNSCOM. Says Ritter, "If Iraq was producing weapons today, we would have definitive proof." However, critics of Ritter point out that four years earlier he had exactly the opposite view as inspectors were forced to leave Iraq. In 1998, upon leaving Iraq, Ritter sharply criticized the Clinton administration and the U.N. Security Council for not being vigorous enough about insisting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction be destroyed. Ritter also accused U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan of assisting Iraqi efforts at impeding UNSCOM's work. "Iraq is not disarming," Ritter said on August 27, 1998, and in a second statement, "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike."
Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and ex-president of Ireland Mary Robinson was also highly critical, in an article published in The Irish Times.
Leader of the opposition to the communist regime in Poland during the 1980s, former president of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lech Wałęsa supports the invasion and said that the UN should accept the war because it has done nothing worthy of its name in the last few years.
The most well known and highly regarded dissident in Communist Czechoslovakia and later President of democratic Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Václav Havel spoke in favour of a projected American and Allied invasion of Iraq as early as September 2002, stating that "Saddam Hussein's regime poses a major threat to many nations and to his own people ... there should be an international intervention." [4]
Adam Michnik, the most important intellectual of the Polish Solidarity movement, also issued statements in support of the war, pointing to historical reasons for the former eastern bloc countries' support for the American action in Iraq. [5]
Former American Presidents Carter and Clinton have both offered criticism on the war. While Clinton was in favor of regime change, and supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, he strongly objected to the ways in which he perceived the Bush administration to be ignoring the will of the America's traditional allies and undermining proper UN procedures. President Carter opposed the war entirely, and the Carter Center outlined a specific "alternative to war" plan that involved an increased presence of weapons inspectors.
The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.
The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999 and its mission lasted until June 2007.
Hans Martin Blix is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979) and later became the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As such, Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union on-site and led the agency's response to them. Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos. In 2002, the commission began searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none. On 17 March 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered an address from the White House announcing that within 48 hours, the United States would invade Iraq unless Saddam Hussein would leave. Bush then ordered all of the weapons inspectors, including Blix's team, to leave Iraq so that America and its allies could invade Iraq on 20 March. In February 2010, Blix became head of the United Arab Emirates' advisory board for its nuclear power program. He is the former president of the World Federation of United Nations Associations.
Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s. Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was an inspection regime created by the United Nations to ensure Iraq's compliance with policies concerning Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War. Between 1991 and 1997 its director was Rolf Ekéus; from 1997 to 1999 its director was Richard Butler.
This article describes the positions of world governments before the actual initiation of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and not their current positions as they may have changed since then.
Opposition to the Iraq War significantly occurred worldwide, both before and during the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States–led coalition, and throughout the subsequent occupation. Individuals and groups opposing the war include the governments of many nations which did not take part in the invasion, including both its land neighbors Canada and Mexico, its NATO allies in Europe such as France and Germany, as well as China and Indonesia in Asia, and significant sections of the populace in those that took part in the invasion. Opposition to the war was also widespread domestically.
William Scott Ritter Jr. is an American author, former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector and convicted sex offender.
Colonel General Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid was the son-in-law and first cousin once removed of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He defected to Jordan and assisted United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection teams assigned to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was killed the following year for betraying Saddam.
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy stating that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, and states that it is the policy of the United States to support democratic movements within Iraq. The Act was cited in October 2002 to argue for the authorization of military force against Iraq.
Richard William Butler, is a retired Australian public servant, United Nations weapons inspector, and a former Governor of Tasmania.
The following lists events in the year 2003 in Iraq.
There are various rationales for the Iraq War, both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent hostilities. The George W. Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the United States Congress known as the Iraq Resolution. The US claimed the intent was to "disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people".
A dispute exists over the legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The debate centers around the question whether the invasion was an unprovoked assault on an independent country that may have breached international law, or if the United Nations Security Council authorized the invasion. Those arguing for its legitimacy often point to Congressional Joint Resolution 114 and UN Security Council resolutions, such as Resolution 1441 and Resolution 678. Those arguing against its legitimacy also cite some of the same sources, stating they do not actually permit war but instead lay out conditions that must be met before war can be declared. Furthermore, the Security Council may only authorise the use of force against an "aggressor" in the interests of preserving peace, whereas the 2003 invasion of Iraq was not provoked by any aggressive military action.
The Bush–Blair 2003 Iraq memo or Manning memo is a secret memo of a two-hour meeting between American President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that took place on 31 January 2003 at the White House. The memo purportedly shows at that point, the administrations of Bush and Blair had already decided that the invasion of Iraq would take place two months later. The memo was written by Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, who participated in the meeting.
In Shifting Sands: The Truth About Unscom and the Disarming of Iraq is a 2001 documentary by Scott Ritter that discusses the UNSCOM inspections in Iraq. Ritter was a chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. These inspections were in search of "weapons of mass destruction" during the later years of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Operation Mass Appeal was an operation alleged to have been set up by the British Secret Intelligence Service in the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In December, 2003, former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter said it was a campaign aimed at planting disinformation in the media about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Prior to the Iraq War, the United States accused Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction and having links with al-Qaeda. In 1991, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 was adopted and subsequent UN weapons inspectors were inside Iraq. This period also saw low-level hostilities between Iraq and the United States-led coalition from 1991–2003.
Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi is an Iraqi microbiologist, dubbed Dr Germ by United Nations weapons inspectors, who worked in Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program. A 1999 report commissioned by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) named her as one of the world's most dangerous women. Dr Taha admitted producing germ warfare agents but said they had been destroyed.