Cover Story

Why I oppose an attack on Iraq

17 August 2002

Former shadow foreign secretary Gerald Kaufman reveals his deep suspicion of President Bush, and warns Tony Blair that war would mean a widespread Labour revolt

It might be argued that all of these possibilities are scars that would fade away quickly if American action succeeded and Saddam were removed. But would it succeed? Reports coming out of the United States, ranging from a lengthy, authoritative article in the New Yorker to a news story in the Financial Times last week, indicate that there are huge arguments within the United States administration about what sort of action to take. Bush, himself the most intellectually backward American president of my political lifetime, is surrounded by advisers whose bellicosity is exceeded only by their political, military and diplomatic illiteracy. Pity the man who relies on Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice for counsel. The only man in the US administration who knows the score is Colin Powell, who actually won the last war against Iraq. He is so marginalised as to be an object of pathos.

It is also worth pointing out that, in Afghanistan, where the military opposition to Allied forces was a rabble and the Allies had substantial support on the ground from the Northern Alliance, fighting is still going on some ten months after it started. Saddam has a modern army and access to weapons of mass destruction. His forces were expelled from Kuwait easily enough, but it is impossible to rely on a quick victory (or a victory at all) against them if they have their backs to the wall in their own homeland. In Afghanistan innocent civilians continue to be killed. Deaths of civilians would be inevitable in any war against Iraq, and could heighten opposition internationally to an invasion.