The long shadow of Iraq and its lessons today

Twenty years on, the invasion of Iraq still haunts the US. Americans grew weary and wary of wars in the wider Middle East. But Washington may still reflexively confront dangers with a mixture of fear, good intentions, and overconfidence instead of prudence and a judicious exercise of power.

Melvyn P Leffler ably examines these issues in this first scholarly history of President George W Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Leffler, professor at the University of Virginia and one of America’s pre-eminent diplomatic historians, has set a high standard. His cautionary tale is not exculpatory; it is explanatory.

Historians usually cannot begin their scrutiny within 20 years because they cannot read classified government files. Leffler, however, assembled extensive released materials — including the interviews for Britain’s Chilcot report — conducted detailed interviews, and then pushed for more declassifications of papers. The professor takes his readers back to the now foreign land of 2001-03 in order to understand why and how America went to war.

Leffler explains how intelligence reports created a distorted image of Saddam’s weaponry

Confronting Saddam Hussein opens by recalling what Saddam Hussein was really like. The author’s account replays the horror and revulsion that Americans felt 20 years ago. Saddam’s ruthless cruelty included raping loved ones in front of their families, dipping victims in acid, invading two neighbours, and using chemical weapons against domestic and foreign foes. In 1991, after the Gulf war to liberate Kuwait, the world was shocked to learn that Saddam had enriched uranium and had an advanced nuclear bomb project.

Leffler explains how the shock of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington rattled the White House. Attitudes became a risky mix of guilt, fear, anger and the hubris of power — especially after the rapid fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The responses of the White House and intelligence agencies created a perpetual state of apprehension. The CIA supplied Bush with a daily threat matrix, compiled from reports over the prior 24 hours, that ran to 40 to 50 pages every day — with over 400 threats per month. This new national security mindset treated worst case dangers as everyday reality.

The administration’s greatest dread imagined a combination of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. Leffler clarifies that Bush did not believe Saddam had connections with al-Qaeda.

But the combination of Saddam’s past behaviour, the breakdown of sanctions, and the risk that Iraq could provide terrible weapons to people who wanted to destroy America led the president down the path of confrontation with Saddam. Bush’s first focus was on protecting the US, not on expanding democracy.

In 2002, the president and all his advisers made a fateful decision, without debate, not to rely on deterrence. No one argued that deterrence, even with its risks, was the best of bad options. The US has grudgingly relied on deterrence in the face of nuclear dangers from North Korea, Iran, and Russia. But when frustration, impatience, and moral certainty mould the Washington mindset, there is no room for questioning worst cases or living with perilous enemies. No one ever prepared a serious presentation of pros and cons of alternatives.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colin Powell, US secretary of state, opted instead for a procedural route: they persuaded the president to turn to the UN to press Saddam to accept inspections. This process was supposed to build international support for “coercive diplomacy.”

The problem with coercive diplomacy is that if diplomacy fails, coercion must follow — unless one is willing to back down. President Obama learned this lesson when he retreated in 2013 from his “red line” with Syria. Bush recognised the high likelihood that Saddam’s co-operation would fall short — but once the president had invested US credibility, he could not pull back without creating a security vacuum that Saddam was likely to fill.

Leffler explains how intelligence reports created a distorted image of Saddam’s weaponry. Leffler did not find examples of purposeful distortions of evidence. But the accumulation of summary reports — best judgments based on assumptions and speculations — created a false image of certainty. As late as December 2002, Bush and Condoleezza Rice, US national security adviser, pressed CIA director George Tenet about the lack of hard evidence, but no one followed up.

Presidents need intelligence directors who are willing to ask difficult questions and say things that leaders do not want to hear. Adding to the confusion, Saddam was in fact deceiving inspectors because he feared that acknowledging Iraq’s disarmament would strengthen his enemies.

Leffler’s account concludes by examining what the administration expected to do in Iraq after winning the battles. Bush put Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defence, in charge. But Rumsfeld just wanted to get the army out, whereas Bush felt a sense of responsibility for Iraq. After the president appointed Jerry Bremer to lead the project to build a new Iraq, Bremer recognised the need for more US troops to establish security, but Rumsfeld wanted the US to turn over authority to Iraqis right away. No one faced up to the fundamental contradiction.

Confronting Saddam Hussein establishes an impressive foundation for future historians. Yet policymakers can apply Leffler’s insights now. His account of the Washington mindset 20 years ago bears a disturbing similarity to the Johnson administration’s assumptions about Vietnam in late 1964-early 1965. Leffler believes the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 is “arguably the most important foreign policy choice of the post-cold war era.” Today’s Washington zeitgeist wants to force a showdown with China. Leffler’s history suggests the need to ask lots of questions and to consider options carefully.

Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W Bush and the Invasion of Iraq by Melvyn P Leffler, OUP, $27.95/£21.99, 368 pages

Robert Zoellick is the author of ‘America in the World: A History of US Diplomacy and Foreign Policy’. He served in the administrations of both President Bushes, but had no role in the events discussed in this book