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1251. Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq

Author:
David Cortright, Alistair Millar, George A. Lopez, and Linda M. Gerber
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
The failure of U.S. and British forces in Iraq to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction has sparked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic and in the wider international community. Two contending explanations have been offered for why the Bush administration made apparently questionable claims about weapons of mass destruction. The first alleges an intelligence failure. The best analysts in the CIA simply had no foolproof way of discerning what Saddam had. They gave the administration a wide-ranging set of estimates, from benign to worst-case, and, given the way bureaucracies behave, the president's advisors adopted the worse case scenario. The second claim, more odious in form and substance, is that the administration inflated and manipulated uncertain data, possibly even requesting that material sent to it be redone to fit preconceived notions. The Bush administration has gone to great pains to reassert that it stands by its previous pronouncements that prohibited weapons will be located in due time.
Topic:
International Relations, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

1252. Hidden Costs of War

Author:
William D. Hartung
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
The Bush administration's war on terrorism and its proposed military intervention in Iraq have sparked the steepest increases in military and security spending in two decades. Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has approved over $110 billion in increased military spending and military aid. Spending on national defense is slated to reach $399 billion in the Fiscal Year 2004 budget, and to rise to over $500 billion annually by the end of this decade. These vast sums do not include the costs of the ongoing war in Afghanistan or a war with Iraq. Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of the Fiscal Year 2003 Pentagon budget is being set aside for anti-terror activities and homeland security.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Government, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

1253. The Progress of UN Disarmament in Iraq: An Assessment Report

Author:
David Cortright, Alistair Millar, George A. Lopez, and Linda M. Gerber
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
After two months of increasingly intensive inspection activity, UN weapons monitors in Iraq, by their own account, have achieved considerable progress in establishing the disarmament process mandated in Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002). During his 27 January update to the Security Council, UN inspections chief Dr. Hans Blix reported that "Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far" with UN inspectors. "It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access." Although Baghdad has not fully disclosed its weapons activities as required by UN resolutions, and many unanswered questions remain, weapons inspectors have established an effective disarmament verification system in Iraq. They have asked for the "unified resolve" of the Security Council to support an ongoing inspection process. In contrast with the experience of UN weapons monitors during the early 1990s, the inspectors with the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have received unfettered access to Iraqi facilities and have been able to conduct more than 350 on-site inspections. They are employing the world's most advanced technology for detecting nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and are installing an ongoing monitoring system that will provide permanent surveillance of Iraq's weapons activities.
Topic:
United Nations, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

1254. Sustaining Global Democratization: Nation Building and Intervention

Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
This panel on global democratization is part of an ongoing ISD effort to focus policy debate on a topic of growing importance. The first in this series of panel discussions was held shortly after 9/11, and was entitled "Sustaining Global Democratization: a priority now more than ever". That title could serve well for this panel also, as the connected issues of democratization and nation building are more timely and urgent than ever. In the new National Security Strategy, the President commits the U.S. to "extend the benefits of freedom across the globe." Democratization is no longer on the fringes of the policy debate. Uppermost on the agenda of policy maker and analyst are the open questions relating to Afghanistan, Iraq and the West-Bank/Gaza. How our democracy promoting goals are to be pursued and achieved in these and other cases is far from clear. Panelists today and at subsequent forums will bring the benefit of their wide experience to these issues. The problems that we discuss are global in nature. Today's panel will for the most part focus on the Middle East. Other regions will be the focus of attention at subsequent forums.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East, and Gaza

1255. Conflict Commodities: Addressing the Role of Natural Resources in Conflict

Author:
Natalie Pauwels
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Security Information Service
Abstract:
The role that the availability of lucrative natural resources including gem stones, minerals and timber plays in the incidence of violent conflict in several countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, is the subject of significant policy debate and academic research. Indeed, it is generally recognised that the trade in certain commodities has played a role in the continuation of several wars, providing resources to both rebels and governments to finance their military campaigns.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Environment, and War
Political Geography:
America

1256. Ten Years Since Oslo: The PLO's "People's War" Strategy and Israel's Inadequate Response

Author:
Joel S. Fishman
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Israel and the PLO have been confronting each other according to completely different paradigms of conflict. Since the late 1960s, the PLO has adopted a "people's war" paradigm that continued to guide its policies even after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. According to the "people's war" paradigm, borrowed from Marxist-Leninist traditions in China and Vietnam, conflict is waged on both the political and military levels, but for militarily weaker guerilla groups, political conflict is more important, especially the delegitimization of an adversary and the division of his society. Prior to 1993, Israel largely responded to the PLO militarily as a terrorist threat, but not politically. After 1993, with the PLO "renouncing" terrorism, Israel embraced the PLO leadership and ignored the signs that the PLO was still engaged in political warfare against it (incitement, reluctance to alter PLO Covenant, UN votes, textbooks). Israeli governments later complained about these symptoms of political warfare, without identifying the cause. Established Israeli traditions place undue emphasis on the narrowly-framed military approach to the detriment of the political, which leaves Israel particularly vulnerable to broad-based strategic deception. Israeli policy-makers must reexamine the assumptions upon which they have based political and military policy over the last decade.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and War
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Israel, Vietnam, Arab Countries, and Oslo

1257. The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
The motivating premise of this study is that nations cannot wage war responsibly or intelligently without careful attention to its costs. The broader context in which "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was conducted -- that is, the campaign against terrorism -- makes attention to the repercussions of war even more urgent. Effective action against terrorism depends in fair part on an effort to win hearts and minds. Success in this effort turns significantly on issues of legitimacy and responsible action, especially with regard to the use of force. And the first principle of responsible action is to take account of its effects.
Topic:
Human Welfare and War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

1258. Factional Politics and Credit Networks in Revolutionary Vermont

Author:
Henning Hillmann
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Studies of state formation tend to emphasize the demise of localism through centralization. This article specifies empirically the social structural conditions that strengthen localism understate formation. The historical case is the creation of Vermont during the Revolutionary War and the local factionalism it involved. Probate records are used to reconstruct credit networks that provided the relational foundation for localism and factional identities. The evidence demonstrates that network segregation between factional regions intensified over time, and was supported by strong cohesion within these regions. Local brokers who forged cohesion within factions consistently attained important political offices while mediators between opposing factions increasingly failed to obtain offices. This structural process coincided with the shift of Vermont's domestic politics into national level conflicts between Federalists and Jeffersonians. Within this escalation local and national factions crystallized around equivalent pairs of binary categorical oppositions. T h e evocation of national politics directly resonated with local lines of conflict, and reinforced factional identities and localism.
Topic:
Government, Human Welfare, Politics, and War
Political Geography:
United States

1259. Establishing a Stable Democratic Constitutional Structure in Iraq: Some Basic Considerations

Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
As the situation in Iraq continues to stabilize, the people of Iraq will turn to the task of reconstituting an Iraqi state. One of the first steps in this process will be to design, agree upon, and implement a new constitutional structure. While drafting a new constitution is a difficult and contentious process for any country, the challenges are substantially magnified for Iraq given its complex mosaic of ethnic and religious identities, the history of repression under Saddam Hussein, the necessary presence of American forces, and Iraq's complex relations with its neighboring states.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

1260. Data Sheet on Coalition Fatalities in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Subsequent Occupation

Author:
Eli Jellenc
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
For the most “official” figures: As of July 21, the Department of Defense's “Defend America” site acknowledges the following fatalities. (Note: the DoD's figures lag behind most major news sources by a few days but details tend to be more accurate overall)
Topic:
Demographics, Human Welfare, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Arabia