The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
586.
In response to
a request from the Security Council, Mr Butler submitted a
report
on the
consequences of Iraq’s decision of 31 October, on
2 November.237
587.
Mr Butler
stated that Iraq’s decisions of 5 August and 31 October
made it
“impossible
for the Commission to implement its disarmament and monitoring
rights and
responsibilities”
and that it was “not in a position to provide the Council with any
level of
assurance
regarding Iraq’s compliance with its obligations”.
588.
Mr Butler’s
report also confirmed that routine logistic and maintenance work
had
not been
prohibited.
On
26 January 1998, a Washington think tank, the Project for the
New American Century,
published
an open letter to President Clinton calling for a stronger
approach:
“The only
acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that
Iraq will be
able to use
or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term,
this
means a
willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly
failing. In the
long term,
it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from
power.” 238
The 18
signatories included Mr Donald Rumsfeld, Mr Paul
Wolfowitz, Mr John Bolton,
Mr Richard
Armitage and Mr Robert Zoellick, each of whom became prominent
members
of the
administration of President George W Bush.
In
February, a wider, bipartisan US group, the “Committee for Peace
and Security in the
Gulf”,
published a further open letter to President Clinton, which
said:
“For years,
the United States has tried to remove Saddam by encouraging
coups
and
internal conspiracies. These attempts have all failed … Saddam must
be
overpowered;
he will not be brought down by a coup d’état … Iraq today is ripe
for a
broad-based
insurrection.” 239
A
bipartisan group of members of Congress drafted a bill, which made
it the policy of the
US to
support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from
power in
Iraq and to
promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that
regime.
It
authorised expenditure of US$97m to provide military support to the
Iraqi opposition.
It was
approved by the House of Representatives by 360 votes to 38, and
unanimously
by the
Senate. It was signed into law by President Clinton on
31 October 1998 as the Iraq
Liberation
Act, and regime change in Iraq became the official policy of the
US.
237
UN Security
Council, 4 November 1998, ‘Letter dated 2 November 1998
from the Executive Chairman
of the
Special Commission established by the Secretary-General pursuant to
paragraph 9 (b) (i) of
Security
Council resolution 687 (1991) addressed to the President of the
Security Council’ (S/1998/1032).
238
Letter
Project for the New American Century to Clinton, 26 January
1998.
239
Feith
DJ. War and
Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on
Terrorism. Harper
Collins, 2008.
134