War enthusiasts wise after the fact

ON this Saturday last year, 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin to protest against an impending war. It was the biggest mass demonstration for 20 years or more, as were the ones in London and other European cities. None made a whit of difference.

The war was as inevitable as rain in Belmullet. It happened. The Government here, as elsewhere, was swayed by greater powers.

What has happened in the intervening year has seen an unravelling of all the certainties and predictions made in the run-up to war on both sides. Many detractors talked about a long and messy war. They were wrong. But those in favour of war were very wrong too. Many had bought the line that the occupying US troops would have be greeted with flowers as happened in France at the end of WWII.

Whatever the motives there are for pursuing the war, the first battle that will take place will necessitate the use of the pen (and the camera) rather than the sword. The overriding concern of any propaganda war will be to present the other guy as Beelzebub.

There are a couple of examples demonising the foe. The worst was the tale doing the rounds in the First Gulf war. The gist of it was Iraqi soldiers ripped babies from incubators in a Kuwait City hospital, so they could bring the machines back to Iraq. A tearful 15-year-old girl who had witnessed it gave a lachrymose account of the inhumane act on primetime American TV. It was later to be one of the factors when Congress backed President Bush to go to war.

The story had one slight flaw, though. It wasn't true. The witness happened to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US who had been in Washington during the whole of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. It was a piece of naked propaganda.

Certainty is the other key ingredient. Certainty of the cause. Certainty of the outcome. Certainty of the justness of it. There is no room for doubt or for nuance. But conflict is messy and outcomes are not always cut to the measure of the cloth. The world will be better off without this demon, the righteous tell us. Deposing the dictator will bring a free and democratic Kosovo/Afghanistan/Iraq, they say.

Unfortunately, in practice, it never quite works out that way. Almost a decade after the Dayton Accord, Bosnia is still struggling to rebuild.

In Afghanistan outside Kabul, one group of bearded despots has been replaced by another group of bearded despots. The 'liberation' of Iraq looks very much like a foreign occupation to many ordinary Iraqis.

The British and American administrations have admitted in recent weeks that the stated reason for going to war Iraq's possession of WMD and the consequent threat it posed to the West was based on flawed intelligence. The Americans, especially vice-president Dick Cheney, spent the run-up to the war busily dissing the abilities and credibility of Hans Blix and Mohamed al-Baradi, the UN weapons inspectors.

The clanger dropped by David Kay that Iraq did not possess any WMD at the time of the invasion had led to that arrogance and certainty being shattered.

Uncertainty, though, is a word that doesn't occupy the sentences of Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen. Questioned in the Dáil on Thursday about the recent admissions from America and Britain about the absence of any WMD in Iraq, he gave a mesmeric performance that induced the usual shock and awe.

His response to the recent disclosures on the absence of WMD was classic. He did accept the "increasingly firm conclusion" Iraq did not possess WMD at the time of the invasion. His analysis of why this came to be was breathtaking. Yes, he said, it did raise questions about intelligence but he refused to contemplate the notion that any blame might lie with the British or American governments for over-gilding the lily and over-selling Iraq's threat.

Instead, he zeroed in on Saddam with the adept use of a pure rhetorical device. If the good guys have made mistakes, the ultimate blame for that rests with the bad guy because if he had co-operated in the first place the mistakes would not have been made.

"Why Saddam Hussein refused to co-operate with the UN and thereby avoid the possibility of conflict is a question I hope he will answer one day," he said.

Later he expanded on this theme: "Of concern is how the international community should deal with a leader such as Saddam Hussein who is prepared to defy the UN Security Council and to allow the impression to persist that he is in possession of WMD, even to the extent of bringing UN sanctions, invasion and occupation upon his people," said the minister.

The Irish Government did receive intelligence and private briefings from the British and the Americans but the Irish Government relied on its own intelligence. There were five factors underlying this he said.

The first three were historical. There was the hard evidence Iraq had once had chemical weapons; that it had sought to develop nuclear weapons; and that it had defied the demands of the Security Council to dismantle its WMD. The other two were its refusal to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors and the fact the weapons inspectors were not satisfied that Iraq had complied fully with Resolution 1441.

There are a couple of remarkable aspects to the Irish Government's position. For one, it has not uttered one word of criticism of the British and US invasion or occupation. Ever. In addition, while saying it has fully supported the position adopted by Kofi Annan and the UN, it has never publicly echoed any of his many pointed criticisms of Messrs Bush and Blair. Moreover, Mr Cowen has always taken a partial view of the UN weapons inspectors' reports (and weren't they both proved 100% right in the end).

Iraq was faced with the same dilemma as the character in Alice in Wonderland. "Give your evidence and don't be nervous, or I'll have you executed on the spot," said the king.