Oscar Wilde once claimed that "The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal." No observation could be in greater error. The past provides a context to understand the present and the present is our only opportunity to change the future. This is what makes a recent article in the Washington Post about what Iraqi captives are saying about pre-war Iraq so interesting.
Apparently former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has been spilling his guts to American interrogators now that the US has removed Aziz's family from Iraq for protection. Of course, whatever Aziz says now must be carefully weighed against independent sources of information. He may still have reasons to not tell the entire truth. Nonetheless, what Aziz has been saying goes a long way toward helping to understand the thinking of the Iraqi regime before the war.
For example, given Bush's obvious determination to resort, if necessary, to the military option in dealing with Iraq, why was Iraq not more forthcoming with respect to UN inspectors? Given how difficult it has proven to be to search out weapons of mass destruction after the war, Saddam Hussein could have averted a war by allowing unfettered inspections and by providing complete documentation of WMD programs. What ever happened to the anthrax that the Hussein regime acknowledged that it had?
One reason may be that Hussein did not take the prospect of military action from the US seriously enough. According to Aziz, the French and the Russians, through back channels, had assured the Iraqis that they could stop an US military action through the UN Security Council. At the same time that the French were assuring American Secretary of State Colin Powell they were serious about holding Iraq to its obligations under UN resolutions, the French were undermining both the UN and the US. We can only wonder how differently Iraq may have behaved, if instead the French and the Russians had consistently warned Hussein that this time he really had to fully comply with the UN resolutions. How differently would Hussein have acted if he realized that his back was truly against the wall? It is also possible that Hussein was so self-delusional that even if the French had provided better advice, he would have ignored it.
Even on the eve of the war, when US military action was imminent, Hussein was assured his regime could survive. According to Aziz, the French were certain that the US would begin the war, like Gulf War 1991, with a prolonged air campaign. If Hussein could just hold out against the air assault, the French and the Russians could broker a cease fire. Indeed, when the land assault began, Hussein was convinced that it was simply a diversionary tactic and did not commit troops from the north to the defense of Baghdad. It seems that both the US and the Iraqis were ill-served by the French.
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