1.1 | UK
Iraq strategy 1990 to 2000
Mr Webb
told the Inquiry the MOD had looked at how effective the action in
1998 had
been in
“keeping the WMD lid on by bombing … and we concluded that it was
not
effective
and we were not able to offer any reassurance that you have been
able to deal
with the
WMD problem solely by air power.” 294
In response
to a further question, he said it
was “Not
conclusively ineffective, but it hadn’t achieved a result of which
one felt assured”.
Mr Webb
added: “It did have a very useful effect on reducing the capacity
of the Iraqi
Integrated
Air Defence System, which was posing a threat to the
aircraft.”
Dr
Condoleezza Rice wrote in her memoir that, in July 2003, it became
clear that “the
air assault
on Iraq’s WMD in 1998 had been more successful than we had known,
and
serious
damage had been done to Saddam’s capabilities at the
time”.295
The
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded
in 2004 that JIC
assessments
in 1998 would have left the impression “of suspicion and concern
about Iraq’s
break-out
capability, coupled with possible possession of chemical [and
biological] agent
stockpiles,
in breach of its [Iraq’s] United Nations obligations” and “concern
about the ability
of Iraq to
regenerate a small number of ballistic missiles” in the minds of
readers.296
Professor
Marc Weller, Professor of International Law and International
Constitutional
Studies at
the University of Cambridge, suggests that Operation Desert Fox had
three
important
consequences for future policy towards Iraq:
“First,
Iraq terminated all co-operation with the UN arms inspection
regime, arguing
that the
action demonstrated that inspections would only be used to prepare
for further
military
action. Second, support for any further action by the Council
resulted in a
stalemate
due to the ‘breakdown in the Security Council’ after the bombing
campaign
… Finally,
and most damaging for the negotiations leading up to resolution
1441 (2002),
several
states resolved not to be lured again into the finding of a breach
that might be
invoked to
justify the use of force, as had been the case with resolution
1205.” 297
754.
Operation
Desert Fox had created a deep fissure at the United Nations
and
within the
P5. The Kosovo campaign, bitterly opposed by Russia and not
mandated
by the
Security Council (because of the certainty of a Russian veto), was
a further
complicating
element.
755.
After
Operation Desert Fox, Iraq embarked on a policy of uncompromising
defiance
of the UN
rather than partial and intermittent co-operation.
756.
Iraq
repudiated the NFZs, and attacks on aircraft became a common
occurrence.
Iraq fired
surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery or targeted
aircraft by fire
control
radar, although no coalition aircraft were ever shot down. In
response to this
threat,
coalition aircraft targeted a variety of different elements of
Iraq’s Integrated
Air Defence
System (IADS), such as radar sites and associated communications
and
control
networks, surface-to-air missile batteries and anti-aircraft
artillery positions.
294
Public
hearing, 24 November 2009, page 76.
295
Rice
C. No Higher
Honour: A Memoir of My Years in Washington. Simon
& Schuster, 2011.
296
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
page
52.
297
Weller
M. Iraq and
the Use of Force in International Law. Oxford
University Press, 2010.
165