{"id":51724,"date":"2019-11-06T12:30:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T01:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=51724"},"modified":"2019-11-06T12:08:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T01:08:54","slug":"from-the-bookshelf-meeting-saddams-men-looking-for-iraqs-weapons-of-mass-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-meeting-saddams-men-looking-for-iraqs-weapons-of-mass-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"From the bookshelf: \u2018Meeting Saddam\u2019s men: looking for Iraq\u2019s weapons of mass destruction\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Compared with the rich trove of memoirs from American practitioners, Australia has far too few accounts from our diplomats, members of the armed forces and intelligence officers about the practical processes of Australian engagement with the world.<\/p>\n

Such accounts are not just interesting; they\u2019re important. They can give the Australian public a much better understanding of the way our statecraft operates than the long wait for the archives to be opened for the professional historians.<\/p>\n

Ashton Robinson\u2019s new book<\/a>, Meeting Saddam\u2019s men: looking for Iraq\u2019s weapons of mass destruction<\/em>, has an additional value in helping us understand how the United States\u2019 decision to invade Iraq in 2003 contributed to the dysfunction of the current international order.<\/p>\n

As Robinson writes, the Iraq war:<\/p>\n

altered the strategic geography [of the Middle East] more profoundly than any event since the creation of Israel, not least by altering the strategic balance in Iran\u2019s favour. It also paved the way for the strategic rampage of the selfstyled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) through the region after the fragmentation of Iraq and the collapse of the Arab Spring \u2026<\/p>\n

President George W. Bush\u2019s launching of a major war in response to a non-existent WMD threat diminished much of the moral authority that the United States and the broader West had accumulated by the end of the Cold War.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The heart of the book is the period in 2004 when Robinson was in Baghdad as a participant in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the trilateral body, involving the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, created hurriedly in 2003 to find and account for the weapons of mass destruction which were the ostensible cause of the war itself.<\/p>\n

But he also gives us a comprehensive account of how Iraq had reached a point where its WMD programs were of such concern to the rest of the world, a persuasive description of how the ISG operated and reflections on the nature of contemporary warfare.<\/p>\n

We get portraits of a number of admirable and honourable figures, notably including Charles Duelfer, the American official in charge of the ISG and the author of the report which summarised its findings. Those findings, as Robinson notes, \u2018definitively put to rest the story of Iraqi WMD\u2019.<\/p>\n

One of the valuable features of the book is the astute and humane way in which Robinson describes not just the allied figures trying to discover the truth, but the roles and approaches of Saddam Hussein\u2019s men, especially the four senior leaders of the Iraqi weapons program whom he interviewed in detention. These men, including Tariq Aziz, Taha Yasir Ramadan and \u2018Chemical Ali\u2019, were all servants of an appalling regime and culpable in their own ways, but they nevertheless emerge from Robinson\u2019s account as complete human beings.<\/p>\n

Australians have averted our collective attention away from the origins and consequences of the Iraq war. In part that is because it was so clear from the start that Australia\u2019s principal interest was in alliance management with the US. We haven\u2019t, and won\u2019t, see here any equivalent of the UK Chilcot inquiry\u2019s forensic examination of the decision to participate in the war.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a pity because there is much to learn and our commitment was substantial. As Robinson notes, Australia\u2019s six-year air campaign in Iraq and Syria concluding in 2017 probably exceeded anything the RAAF had undertaken since 1945, including the air campaign in the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

But in the absence of such a review, there are plenty of lessons for Australian policymakers to take from Robinson\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

First, investing in ideas pays off. Australia\u2019s long involvement in the work of arms control and our technical knowledge of chemical weapons was instrumental to our capacity to contribute to the ISG. It was the reason we were nationally held in such high regard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reminder that if Australia is to have influence on shaping international responses to contemporary international issues, ranging from climate change through nuclear weapons to cyber security, we need to ensure we have officials who can engage in the debate at the most detailed technical level.<\/p>\n

Second, Robinson again makes the basic point, central to the Australian model of intelligence first put in place by Justice Robert Hope, that we always need to ensure that our intelligence process and our policy responses are separate and independent.<\/p>\n

It was clear that the \u2018faulty intelligence\u2019 the government had blamed for getting us into the war was not there. On the whole, as the 2004 review by Philip Flood showed, our intelligence agencies, especially the Defence Intelligence Organisation, did well. But if that independence of analysis is threatened, the consequences can be disastrous.<\/p>\n

Third, and worryingly, we learn again from the chapter on the Oil-for-Food Programme and the Australian Wheat Board how successful Saddam was in perverting the UN sanctions system and how willingly some Australian players participated in that, or averted their eyes from what was going on. Our own system is not immune from corruption and we must be vigilant against it.<\/p>\n

This is an important work of history, analysis and reflection, imbued with deep moral purpose. Ashton Robinson has done all of us, including the next generation of Australia\u2019s policy practitioners and intelligence analysts, a great service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compared with the rich trove of memoirs from American practitioners, Australia has far too few accounts from our diplomats, members of the armed forces and intelligence officers about the practical processes of Australian engagement with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":628,"featured_media":51728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2330,17,191,1396],"class_list":["post-51724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-arms-control","tag-australia","tag-iraq","tag-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the bookshelf: \u2018Meeting Saddam\u2019s men: looking for Iraq\u2019s weapons of mass destruction\u2019 | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-meeting-saddams-men-looking-for-iraqs-weapons-of-mass-destruction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From the bookshelf: \u2018Meeting Saddam\u2019s men: looking for Iraq\u2019s weapons of mass destruction\u2019 | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Compared with the rich trove of memoirs from American practitioners, Australia has far too few accounts from our diplomats, members of the armed forces and intelligence officers about the practical processes of Australian engagement with ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-meeting-saddams-men-looking-for-iraqs-weapons-of-mass-destruction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-06T01:30:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-06T01:08:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/GettyImages-1160989.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"802\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Allan Gyngell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Allan Gyngell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-meeting-saddams-men-looking-for-iraqs-weapons-of-mass-destruction\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/GettyImages-1160989.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/GettyImages-1160989.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":802,\"caption\":\"393984 01: Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (2nd R) listens to Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz as they look at a model of the al -Amiria shelter September 3, 2001 in Baghdad. 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