1.1. Intdoduction
The Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq or Operation Iraqi Freedom is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United Kingdom Prior to the war, the governments of the U.S., U.K, and Spain claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed an imminent threat to their security and that of their coalition allies.
United Nations weapons inspectors found no evidence of WMD, giving support to earlier criticism of poor intelligence on the subject. After the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its WMD programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons for which the coalition invaded. Some U.S. officials also accused Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting Al-Qaeda, but no evidence of any collaborative relationship was ever found. Other reasons for the invasion stated by U.S. officials included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses, and an effort on the part of the coalition forces to spread democracy in the country and region. Some officials said Iraq's oil reserves were a factor in the decision to invade, but other officials denied this.
The invasion led to the quick defeat of the Iraqi military, and the eventual capture and execution of Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led coalition occupied Iraq and attempted to establish a new democratic government. However, violence against coalition forces and among various sectarian groups soon led to asymmetric warfare with the Iraqi insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. The number of Iraqis killed through 2007 ranges from "a conservative cautious minimum" of more than 85,000 civilians to a survey estimate of more than 1,000,000 citizens. UNHCR estimates the war uprooted 4.7 million Iraqis through April 2008 (about 16% of the population of Iraq), two million of whom had fled to neighbouring countries. fleeing a humanitarian situation that the Red Cross described in March 2008 as "among the most critical in the world".
In June 2008, U.S. defense officials claimed security and economic indicators began to show signs of improvement in what they hailed as significant and fragile gains. In August 2008, Iraq was fifth on the Failed States Index. Member nations of the Coalition withdrew their forces as public opinion favoring troop withdrawals increased and as Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for security. In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi governments approved a Status of Forces Agreement effective through January 1, 2012. The Iraqi Parliament also ratified a Strategic Framework Agreement with the U.S. aimed at ensuring international cooperation in constitutional rights, threat deterrence, education, Energy development, and other areas. In late February 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for "combat forces", leaving behind 30,000 to 50,000 troops "to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and surveillance". Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he supports the accelerated pullout of U.S. forces.
2.1 The Purpose of the Law of Occupation
In order to minimize the impact of violence in war in the widest possible arenas, international humanitarian law deliberately takes no position on the legitimacy of the conflict as such. The law of occupation stipulates a simple factual test, i.e. any territory “actually placed under the authority of the hostile army,” is deemed to be occupied for the purpose of the applicability of the rules. This factual test does neither depend on the recognition of the occupation by the occupier nor is it contingent on the armed conflict that gave rise to the occupation having been in conformity with international law.
2.2. International opinion
According to a January 2007 BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, 73% of the global population disapproves of the US handling of the Iraq War. A September 2007 poll conducted by the BBC found that 2/3rds of the world's population believed the US should withdraw its forces from Iraq. According to an April 2004 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, only a third of the Iraqi people believed that "the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger. Majorities in the UK and Canada believe the war in Iraq is "unjustified" and - in the UK - are critical of their government's support of US policies in Iraq (Canada opposed the U.S.-led invasion force and has one observer blue helmet in Iraq.) According to polls conducted by The Arab American Institute, four years after the invasion of Iraq, 83% of Egyptians had a negative view of the US role in Iraq; 68% of Saudi Arabians had a negative view; 96% of the Jordanian population had a negative view; 70% of the UAE and 76% of the Lebanese population also described their view as negative. The Pew Global Attitudes Project reports that in 2006 majorities in the Netherlands, Germany, Jordan, France, Lebanon, China, Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Morocco believed the world was safer before the Iraq War and the toppling of Hussein. Pluralities in the US and India believe the world is safer without Hussein.
2.3. Iraqi opinion
A woman pleads with an Iraqi army soldier from 2nd Company, 5th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division to let a suspected insurgent free during a raid near Tafaria, The US government has long maintained its involvement there is with the support of the Iraqi people, but in 2005 when asked directly, 82–87% of the Iraqi populace was opposed to the US occupation and wanted US troops to leave. 47% of Iraqis supported attacking US troops. Another poll conducted on September 27, 2006, found that seven out of ten Iraqis want US-led forces to withdraw from Iraq within one year. Overall, 78% of those polled said they believed that the presence of US forces is "provoking more conflict than it's preventing." 53% of those polled believed the Iraqi government would be strengthened if US forces left Iraq (versus 23% who believed it would be weakened), and 71% wanted this to happen in 1 year or less. All of these positions were more prevalent amongst Sunni and Shia respondents than among Kurds. 61% of respondents said that they approve of attacks on US-led forces, although 94% still had an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaeda.
A March 7, 2007 survey of more than 2,000 Iraqis found that 78% of the population opposed the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq, that 69% believed the presence of U.S. forces is making things worse, and that 51% of the population considered attacks on coalition forces acceptable, up from 17% in 2004 and 35% in 2006. In addition: 64% described their family's economic situation as being somewhat or very bad, up from 30% in 2005. 88% described the availability of electricity as being either somewhat or very bad, up from 65% in 2004. 69% described the availability of clean water as somewhat or very bad, up from 48% in 2004. 88% described the availability of fuel for cooking and driving as being somewhat or very bad. 58% described reconstruction efforts in the area in which they live as either somewhat or very ineffective, and 9% described them as being totally nonexistent.
A 2007 survey for the first time asked ordinary Iraqis their view on the highly contentious draft oil law. According to the poll, 76 percent of Iraqis feel inadequately informed about the contents of the proposed law. Nonetheless, 63 percent responded that they would prefer Iraqi state-owned companies – and not foreign corporations – to develop Iraq’s extensive oil fields.
2.4. Relation to the US Global "War on Terror
Former President Bush consistently referred to the Iraq war as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the US pulls out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here. While other proponents of the war have regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict has dragged on, members of the US Congress, the US public, and even US troops have begun to question the connection between Iraq and the fight against anti-US terrorism. In particular, a consensus has developed among intelligence experts that the Iraq war has increased terrorism. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna frequently refers to the invasion of Iraq as a "fatal mistake. London's conservative International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for jihadists and that the invasion "galvanised" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there.
The US National Intelligence Council concluded in a January 2005 report that the war in Iraq had become a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists; David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." The Council's chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity. And the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which outlined the considered judgment of all 16 US intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.
2.5. The legality of the Iraq War
The legality of the Iraq War has been widely debated since the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and several other countries launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq. US and UK officials have argued that existing UN Security Council resolutions related to the first Gulf War and the subsequent ceasefire and to later inspections of Iraqi weapons programs had already authorized the invasion. Critics of the invasion have challenged both of these assertions, arguing that an additional Security Council resolution, which the US and UK failed to obtain, would have been necessary to specifically authorize the invasion.
No UN member has brought this issue of the war's legality before the Security Council and no nation-member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has expressed the desire to have the ICC rule on the war's legality. The ICC does have jurisdiction over war crimes and has issued the opinion that all known war crimes are being addressed by national authorities. The political leaders of the US and UK have publicly argued the war was legal, while many legal experts and other international leaders have argued that it was illegal. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004 that: "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal."The Secretary-General's personal opinion is not that of the United Nations Organization as a whole however, because the Charter gives "primary responsibility" for matters of international peace and security to the Security Council, which has not adopted any resolutions on the matter.
The UN Security Council, as outlined in Article 39 of the UN Charter, has the ability to rule on the legality of the war, but has not been asked by any UN member nation to do so. The United States and the United Kingdom have veto power in the Security Council, so action by the Security Council is highly improbable even if the issue were to be raised. Despite this, there is no legal boundary to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) asking that the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—"the principal judicial organ of the United Nations" (Article 92)—give either an 'advisory opinion' or 'judgemen' on the legality of the war. Indeed, the UNGA asked the ICJ to give an 'advisory opinion' on "the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel", by its resolution A/RES/ES-10/14, as recently as 12 December 2003; despite opposition from permanent members of the Security Council. It achieved this by sitting in tenth 'emergency special session', under the framework of the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution. As "the principal judicial organ of the United Nations", any future ruling by the ICJ on the legality of the war would carry considerable weight.
2.6. Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
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 (whether the conditions set in place after the Gulf War allowed the resumption if Iraq did not uphold to the Security Council resolutions). 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.
There is a heated debate regarding whether the invasion was launched with the explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council. The Government of the United States believes that the invasion was explicitly authorized by Security Council Resolution 678 and thus complies with international law. There is no debate that Security Council Resolution 678 authorizes UN Member States "to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area." just debate about what that resolution actually means. The only legal jurisdiction to find "aggression" or to find the invasion illegal rests with the Security Council under United Nations Charter Articles 39-42. The Security Council met in 2003 for two days, reviewed the legal claims involved, and elected to be "seized of the matter". The Security Council has not reviewed these issues since 2003. The public debate, however, continues. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed his opinion that the invasion of Iraq was “not in conformity with the UN charter…from the charter point of view, it was illegal.”
2.7. Cost of the War and Occupation
Iraq has sustained enormous costs during the conflict, yet economists have made little effort to estimate what those costs might be. Colin Rowat of the University of Birmingham has made a preliminary effort. He has used data from the International Monetary Fund and the Iraq Central Bank to study Iraq’s economic shortfall from expectable peacetime levels of GDP. Drawing on Rowat’s calculations, Anna Bernasek of the NewYork Times estimates Iraq’s economic losses in 2006 at roughly $24 billion. During the four years of conflict, loss on this scale might have totaled $100 billion or more. But the real cost for Iraqis is much higher than foregone GDP. It must also include the economic costs of the premature deaths, long-term injuries, brain drain, destruction of cities and infrastructure, massive displacement and relocation of people and many other factors.
There is much more work to be done by economists on this subject, but in the end these tragedies cannot be measured in purely economic terms. For the United States, the onflict has been extremely expensive – far more so than policymakers first estimated. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels announced prior to the war that the cost would be around $50 billion, but as of December 2006 Washington had actually had spent approximately $400 billion in direct government appropriations for the conflict.
These budget costs are rising rapidly in 2007 and are likely to rise much further in the period beyond. US federal war costs are buried in complex Pentagon budgets, but we know that they have risen from about $4 billion per month in 2003 to more than $8 billion per month in late 2006. In fiscal year 2006 alone, Iraq war spending may have been as high as $120 billion and estimates suggest that 2007 spending could 113 reach $170 billion. To these costs must be added the budgets for Iraq reconstruction grants, the costs of building up Iraq’s military forces, the cost of secret intelligence operations, and more. Future costs of the Iraq conflict will depend on the number of troops deployed, the nature of the military operations and the length of the conflict. With Washington sending 20,000 or more additional troops in the first half of 2007, spending will certainly increase substantially and could rise beyond $12 billion per month in 2007. So the budgetary cost may approach $600 billion by the end of 2007 and could eventually approach $1 trillion.
The US Federal budget figures, large as they are, greatly under-estimate the true cost of the war. Economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz point out that the budgeted costs do not account for the economic effect of military deaths and injuries (over 3,000 US soldiers have died and more than 23,000 have been wounded27) for which death benefits, life insurance and medical treatment will be paid for long into the future. Nor does it include the increased costs of armed forces recruitment, or demobilization. A real assessment of the costs, Bilmes and Stiglitz argue, should also take into account a wide array of other costs, ranging from the replacement and depreciation of military equipment to macroeconomic costs such as higher costs of oil, interest paid on the national debt and other long term negative impacts on the economy. Bilmes and Stiglitz put the estimated total cost in a range from $1-2.2 trillion, an estimate they made prior to delivering the paper in January 2006. But in a subsequent version of the paper, published about nine months later, they concluded that the costs were running much higher and that a $2 trillion estimate was “low.” The Iraq Study Group report, released in November 2006, used a $2 trillion figure as definitive.
The costs incurred by other Coalition members for their contingents should also be taken into account, but the calculation exercise is exceedingly difficult, given the many small contingents and the hidden budget numbers for many participant governments. The biggest of Washington’s partners, the UK, offers some glimpse of other Coalition costs.
Though the UK government has hidden its Iraq expenditures and did not make them available to Parliament or the public, researchers using the Freedom of Information Act discovered that the UK had spent about £4.5 billion (about $9 billion) for its military involvement in Iraq as of late 2005. According to some estimates, and in spite of substantial draw-down of forces, each additional year in Iraq will cost the UK treasury an extra £1 billion. So UK costs as of late 2006 would total about $11 billion. Such budgeted figures do not take into account costs such as refurbishment or replacement of military equipment that the British Ministry of Defence will eventually have to cover. Nor does it take account of the many other long-term costs including death benefits and health care costs for veterans. These enormous and upwardly-spiraling war costs soak up precious national resources that could be spent on schools, hospitals, transport, alternative energy and many other citizen priorities. Since the US war costs are financed by Federal budget deficits, future generations will eventually be required to pay the bill.
Conclusion
In spite of growing opposition within the US Congress and within the Iraqi government, the Bush administration is pushing rapidly ahead with its construction programs for the long-term bases and the massive embassy. Those who conceived these projects clearly had little sensitivity as to how Iraqis might react and little awareness of the powerful imagery and symbolism the US was creating.
Such mammoth construction projects, costing billions of dollars, strongly suggest that their authors see Iraq as a US client state and as a base for US military operations in the Middle East region. As US Congress Member Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, observed: “This [embassy] structure in Baghdad sends a message, like the military bases being built, that we expect to be in Iraq and running Iraq for a long time to come.
The Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq or Operation Iraqi Freedom is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United Kingdom Prior to the war, the governments of the U.S., U.K, and Spain claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed an imminent threat to their security and that of their coalition allies.
United Nations weapons inspectors found no evidence of WMD, giving support to earlier criticism of poor intelligence on the subject. After the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its WMD programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons for which the coalition invaded. Some U.S. officials also accused Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting Al-Qaeda, but no evidence of any collaborative relationship was ever found. Other reasons for the invasion stated by U.S. officials included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses, and an effort on the part of the coalition forces to spread democracy in the country and region. Some officials said Iraq's oil reserves were a factor in the decision to invade, but other officials denied this.
The invasion led to the quick defeat of the Iraqi military, and the eventual capture and execution of Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led coalition occupied Iraq and attempted to establish a new democratic government. However, violence against coalition forces and among various sectarian groups soon led to asymmetric warfare with the Iraqi insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. The number of Iraqis killed through 2007 ranges from "a conservative cautious minimum" of more than 85,000 civilians to a survey estimate of more than 1,000,000 citizens. UNHCR estimates the war uprooted 4.7 million Iraqis through April 2008 (about 16% of the population of Iraq), two million of whom had fled to neighbouring countries. fleeing a humanitarian situation that the Red Cross described in March 2008 as "among the most critical in the world".
In June 2008, U.S. defense officials claimed security and economic indicators began to show signs of improvement in what they hailed as significant and fragile gains. In August 2008, Iraq was fifth on the Failed States Index. Member nations of the Coalition withdrew their forces as public opinion favoring troop withdrawals increased and as Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for security. In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi governments approved a Status of Forces Agreement effective through January 1, 2012. The Iraqi Parliament also ratified a Strategic Framework Agreement with the U.S. aimed at ensuring international cooperation in constitutional rights, threat deterrence, education, Energy development, and other areas. In late February 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for "combat forces", leaving behind 30,000 to 50,000 troops "to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and surveillance". Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he supports the accelerated pullout of U.S. forces.
2.1 The Purpose of the Law of Occupation
In order to minimize the impact of violence in war in the widest possible arenas, international humanitarian law deliberately takes no position on the legitimacy of the conflict as such. The law of occupation stipulates a simple factual test, i.e. any territory “actually placed under the authority of the hostile army,” is deemed to be occupied for the purpose of the applicability of the rules. This factual test does neither depend on the recognition of the occupation by the occupier nor is it contingent on the armed conflict that gave rise to the occupation having been in conformity with international law.
2.2. International opinion
According to a January 2007 BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, 73% of the global population disapproves of the US handling of the Iraq War. A September 2007 poll conducted by the BBC found that 2/3rds of the world's population believed the US should withdraw its forces from Iraq. According to an April 2004 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, only a third of the Iraqi people believed that "the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger. Majorities in the UK and Canada believe the war in Iraq is "unjustified" and - in the UK - are critical of their government's support of US policies in Iraq (Canada opposed the U.S.-led invasion force and has one observer blue helmet in Iraq.) According to polls conducted by The Arab American Institute, four years after the invasion of Iraq, 83% of Egyptians had a negative view of the US role in Iraq; 68% of Saudi Arabians had a negative view; 96% of the Jordanian population had a negative view; 70% of the UAE and 76% of the Lebanese population also described their view as negative. The Pew Global Attitudes Project reports that in 2006 majorities in the Netherlands, Germany, Jordan, France, Lebanon, China, Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Morocco believed the world was safer before the Iraq War and the toppling of Hussein. Pluralities in the US and India believe the world is safer without Hussein.
2.3. Iraqi opinion
A woman pleads with an Iraqi army soldier from 2nd Company, 5th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division to let a suspected insurgent free during a raid near Tafaria, The US government has long maintained its involvement there is with the support of the Iraqi people, but in 2005 when asked directly, 82–87% of the Iraqi populace was opposed to the US occupation and wanted US troops to leave. 47% of Iraqis supported attacking US troops. Another poll conducted on September 27, 2006, found that seven out of ten Iraqis want US-led forces to withdraw from Iraq within one year. Overall, 78% of those polled said they believed that the presence of US forces is "provoking more conflict than it's preventing." 53% of those polled believed the Iraqi government would be strengthened if US forces left Iraq (versus 23% who believed it would be weakened), and 71% wanted this to happen in 1 year or less. All of these positions were more prevalent amongst Sunni and Shia respondents than among Kurds. 61% of respondents said that they approve of attacks on US-led forces, although 94% still had an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaeda.
A March 7, 2007 survey of more than 2,000 Iraqis found that 78% of the population opposed the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq, that 69% believed the presence of U.S. forces is making things worse, and that 51% of the population considered attacks on coalition forces acceptable, up from 17% in 2004 and 35% in 2006. In addition: 64% described their family's economic situation as being somewhat or very bad, up from 30% in 2005. 88% described the availability of electricity as being either somewhat or very bad, up from 65% in 2004. 69% described the availability of clean water as somewhat or very bad, up from 48% in 2004. 88% described the availability of fuel for cooking and driving as being somewhat or very bad. 58% described reconstruction efforts in the area in which they live as either somewhat or very ineffective, and 9% described them as being totally nonexistent.
A 2007 survey for the first time asked ordinary Iraqis their view on the highly contentious draft oil law. According to the poll, 76 percent of Iraqis feel inadequately informed about the contents of the proposed law. Nonetheless, 63 percent responded that they would prefer Iraqi state-owned companies – and not foreign corporations – to develop Iraq’s extensive oil fields.
2.4. Relation to the US Global "War on Terror
Former President Bush consistently referred to the Iraq war as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the US pulls out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here. While other proponents of the war have regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict has dragged on, members of the US Congress, the US public, and even US troops have begun to question the connection between Iraq and the fight against anti-US terrorism. In particular, a consensus has developed among intelligence experts that the Iraq war has increased terrorism. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna frequently refers to the invasion of Iraq as a "fatal mistake. London's conservative International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for jihadists and that the invasion "galvanised" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there.
The US National Intelligence Council concluded in a January 2005 report that the war in Iraq had become a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists; David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." The Council's chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity. And the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which outlined the considered judgment of all 16 US intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.
2.5. The legality of the Iraq War
The legality of the Iraq War has been widely debated since the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and several other countries launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq. US and UK officials have argued that existing UN Security Council resolutions related to the first Gulf War and the subsequent ceasefire and to later inspections of Iraqi weapons programs had already authorized the invasion. Critics of the invasion have challenged both of these assertions, arguing that an additional Security Council resolution, which the US and UK failed to obtain, would have been necessary to specifically authorize the invasion.
No UN member has brought this issue of the war's legality before the Security Council and no nation-member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has expressed the desire to have the ICC rule on the war's legality. The ICC does have jurisdiction over war crimes and has issued the opinion that all known war crimes are being addressed by national authorities. The political leaders of the US and UK have publicly argued the war was legal, while many legal experts and other international leaders have argued that it was illegal. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004 that: "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal."The Secretary-General's personal opinion is not that of the United Nations Organization as a whole however, because the Charter gives "primary responsibility" for matters of international peace and security to the Security Council, which has not adopted any resolutions on the matter.
The UN Security Council, as outlined in Article 39 of the UN Charter, has the ability to rule on the legality of the war, but has not been asked by any UN member nation to do so. The United States and the United Kingdom have veto power in the Security Council, so action by the Security Council is highly improbable even if the issue were to be raised. Despite this, there is no legal boundary to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) asking that the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—"the principal judicial organ of the United Nations" (Article 92)—give either an 'advisory opinion' or 'judgemen' on the legality of the war. Indeed, the UNGA asked the ICJ to give an 'advisory opinion' on "the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel", by its resolution A/RES/ES-10/14, as recently as 12 December 2003; despite opposition from permanent members of the Security Council. It achieved this by sitting in tenth 'emergency special session', under the framework of the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution. As "the principal judicial organ of the United Nations", any future ruling by the ICJ on the legality of the war would carry considerable weight.
2.6. Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
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 (whether the conditions set in place after the Gulf War allowed the resumption if Iraq did not uphold to the Security Council resolutions). 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.
There is a heated debate regarding whether the invasion was launched with the explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council. The Government of the United States believes that the invasion was explicitly authorized by Security Council Resolution 678 and thus complies with international law. There is no debate that Security Council Resolution 678 authorizes UN Member States "to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area." just debate about what that resolution actually means. The only legal jurisdiction to find "aggression" or to find the invasion illegal rests with the Security Council under United Nations Charter Articles 39-42. The Security Council met in 2003 for two days, reviewed the legal claims involved, and elected to be "seized of the matter". The Security Council has not reviewed these issues since 2003. The public debate, however, continues. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed his opinion that the invasion of Iraq was “not in conformity with the UN charter…from the charter point of view, it was illegal.”
2.7. Cost of the War and Occupation
Iraq has sustained enormous costs during the conflict, yet economists have made little effort to estimate what those costs might be. Colin Rowat of the University of Birmingham has made a preliminary effort. He has used data from the International Monetary Fund and the Iraq Central Bank to study Iraq’s economic shortfall from expectable peacetime levels of GDP. Drawing on Rowat’s calculations, Anna Bernasek of the NewYork Times estimates Iraq’s economic losses in 2006 at roughly $24 billion. During the four years of conflict, loss on this scale might have totaled $100 billion or more. But the real cost for Iraqis is much higher than foregone GDP. It must also include the economic costs of the premature deaths, long-term injuries, brain drain, destruction of cities and infrastructure, massive displacement and relocation of people and many other factors.
There is much more work to be done by economists on this subject, but in the end these tragedies cannot be measured in purely economic terms. For the United States, the onflict has been extremely expensive – far more so than policymakers first estimated. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels announced prior to the war that the cost would be around $50 billion, but as of December 2006 Washington had actually had spent approximately $400 billion in direct government appropriations for the conflict.
These budget costs are rising rapidly in 2007 and are likely to rise much further in the period beyond. US federal war costs are buried in complex Pentagon budgets, but we know that they have risen from about $4 billion per month in 2003 to more than $8 billion per month in late 2006. In fiscal year 2006 alone, Iraq war spending may have been as high as $120 billion and estimates suggest that 2007 spending could 113 reach $170 billion. To these costs must be added the budgets for Iraq reconstruction grants, the costs of building up Iraq’s military forces, the cost of secret intelligence operations, and more. Future costs of the Iraq conflict will depend on the number of troops deployed, the nature of the military operations and the length of the conflict. With Washington sending 20,000 or more additional troops in the first half of 2007, spending will certainly increase substantially and could rise beyond $12 billion per month in 2007. So the budgetary cost may approach $600 billion by the end of 2007 and could eventually approach $1 trillion.
The US Federal budget figures, large as they are, greatly under-estimate the true cost of the war. Economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz point out that the budgeted costs do not account for the economic effect of military deaths and injuries (over 3,000 US soldiers have died and more than 23,000 have been wounded27) for which death benefits, life insurance and medical treatment will be paid for long into the future. Nor does it include the increased costs of armed forces recruitment, or demobilization. A real assessment of the costs, Bilmes and Stiglitz argue, should also take into account a wide array of other costs, ranging from the replacement and depreciation of military equipment to macroeconomic costs such as higher costs of oil, interest paid on the national debt and other long term negative impacts on the economy. Bilmes and Stiglitz put the estimated total cost in a range from $1-2.2 trillion, an estimate they made prior to delivering the paper in January 2006. But in a subsequent version of the paper, published about nine months later, they concluded that the costs were running much higher and that a $2 trillion estimate was “low.” The Iraq Study Group report, released in November 2006, used a $2 trillion figure as definitive.
The costs incurred by other Coalition members for their contingents should also be taken into account, but the calculation exercise is exceedingly difficult, given the many small contingents and the hidden budget numbers for many participant governments. The biggest of Washington’s partners, the UK, offers some glimpse of other Coalition costs.
Though the UK government has hidden its Iraq expenditures and did not make them available to Parliament or the public, researchers using the Freedom of Information Act discovered that the UK had spent about £4.5 billion (about $9 billion) for its military involvement in Iraq as of late 2005. According to some estimates, and in spite of substantial draw-down of forces, each additional year in Iraq will cost the UK treasury an extra £1 billion. So UK costs as of late 2006 would total about $11 billion. Such budgeted figures do not take into account costs such as refurbishment or replacement of military equipment that the British Ministry of Defence will eventually have to cover. Nor does it take account of the many other long-term costs including death benefits and health care costs for veterans. These enormous and upwardly-spiraling war costs soak up precious national resources that could be spent on schools, hospitals, transport, alternative energy and many other citizen priorities. Since the US war costs are financed by Federal budget deficits, future generations will eventually be required to pay the bill.
Conclusion
In spite of growing opposition within the US Congress and within the Iraqi government, the Bush administration is pushing rapidly ahead with its construction programs for the long-term bases and the massive embassy. Those who conceived these projects clearly had little sensitivity as to how Iraqis might react and little awareness of the powerful imagery and symbolism the US was creating.
Such mammoth construction projects, costing billions of dollars, strongly suggest that their authors see Iraq as a US client state and as a base for US military operations in the Middle East region. As US Congress Member Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, observed: “This [embassy] structure in Baghdad sends a message, like the military bases being built, that we expect to be in Iraq and running Iraq for a long time to come.
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