The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce

2010 ISSS/ISAC Annual Conference Providence, RI 14-16 October 2010

Professor Rodger A. Payne Department of Political Science 203 Ford Hall 2301 S. Third Street University of Louisville Louisville, KY 40208 R.Payne@louisville.edu (502) 852-3316 (office) (502) 852-7923 (fax)

Abstract Realist international relations theorists commonly describe world politics in terms of tragedy. Dramatically, tragic narratives focus on the downfall or death of an elite character, often caused by the protagonists inherent character flaws. The stories are set in the Great Hall or on the battlefield and reveal how little control (despite concerted attempts) the protagonist has over difficult situations and conflict. Despite the obvious parallels with realist views of IR, however, the events of global politics sometimes seem more like farce than tragedy. Farcical narratives often focus on elites, but place the characters in improbable or ludicrous situations that may be exaggerated for comic effect even though the threat of violent action that would shock the audience often looms over the tale. These are usually frantically paced stories serving to reveal the ridiculous and to critique the characters and the situation. A farce often turns on intentional acts of deception, but does not end in the complete downfall or death of the protagonist. This paper will explain the buildup to the Iraq war in terms of farce focusing on the period between August 2002 and March 2003. As is now well-known, the war was premised on evidence and rationales that have been largely undermined by subsequent revelations and events. In retrospect, the claims were improbable and perhaps even ludicrous. Can international relations scholars recognize a farce while they are observing it?

The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce It is difficult to imagine many subjects more deadly serious than the study of international relations (IR). The practice and study of interstate politics literally centers around life-or-death political and security issues often, the accumulation and use of military force. Historically, for instance, war has been the paramount concern for IR scholars and foreign policy practitioners alike because the associated violence is horrific and extraordinarily lethal. In the twentieth century alone, many tens of millions of people were killed during wartime. A number of weighty issues tend to dominate discussions about politics among nation-states, such as their relative material power or the various military threats and political risks they confront. Realist scholars and statesmen are self-described pessimists as their view of international political life emphasizes perpetually recurring dilemmas that tend to limit national policy choices often providing options that yield bad, or even worse, results. The condition of international anarchy, or perhaps some primal urge in human nature, generates tremendous fear, promotes perceptions of insecurity, and encourages competition even when no states are actively seeking to exploit apparent advantages over others. To help explain their views, realists commonly argue that interstate relations are best explained in terms of tragedy stories about heroic figures doomed by their own flaws or by circumstances beyond their control. For example, as will be elaborated below, the recent Iraq war has frequently been discussed in terms of tragedy.1 As part of the so-called war on terrorism, the United States and its coalition partners expended tremendous amounts of resources to topple Saddam Husseins regime and destroy its capacity to build weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but wound up involved in a prolonged and violent struggle against insurgent forces. Moreover, as it turned out, Iraq did not possess significant WMD capabilities and the war improved the strategic position of neighboring Iran, which has a clearly more menacing nuclear research program. Even though other narrative storylines might occasionally

See, for instance, Rob Zaleski, Professor Sees Iraq War as Tragedy, Madison Capitol Times, November22, 2005 (available at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htm); and Associated Press, McCain Calls Iraq war great tragedy, April 27, 2007 (available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/).
1

be employed to describe elements of the Iraq war, the tragic storyline has some built-in advantages that make it seem especially persuasive in this and other cases.2 In fact, tragic stories often seem to overwhelm other narrative possibilities. To the extent students of IR embrace the tragic narrative to explain adverse outcomes, they arguably make it difficult to find fault with foreign policymakers or to suggest means to avoid tragedy in the first place. If a result seems inevitable, then the critical decisions seem unavoidable. In this paper, however, I argue for an alternative narrative that could perhaps be employed to challenge the veracity of key decisions as they are publicly debated. In broad terms, of course, alternative narrative forms involve very different plot devices, agendas, interpretations of events, and moral choices. As a result, audiences and critics will draw very different conclusions about decisions and events. I have argued elsewhere, for instance, that comedic narratives generally provide a unique and interesting perspective on the field focusing on a wider array of concerns, including the diverse needs of ordinary people around the world, and suggesting the possibility of happy endings.3 Below, I specifically discuss the potential value of interpreting the buildup to the Iraq war during 2002 and early 2003 as farce rather than as a tragedy. The paper is divided into three major sections. In the opening section, the traditional realist concern with tragedy is summarized to cement the importance of dramatic narratives in the field and to stress the contours and limits of the typical tragic story. The tragic interpretation of the Iraq war is also very briefly outlined. The second section develops a case for studying comedy in world politics by stressing the importance of farce. The third section overviews the farcical elements of the buildup to the Iraq war, focusing particularly on the period between August 2002 when the George W. Bush administration in the US launched the public relations campaign in support of the impending war and March 19, 2003, when the first airstrikes on Baghdad found their targets. Finally, the conclusion considers whether audiences, including international relations scholars, can recognize, highlight, and react to a real-world farcical situation while it is occurring.

See Erik Ringmar, Inter-Textual Relations: The Quarrel Over the Iraq War as a Conflict between Narrative Types, 41 Conflict and Cooperation, 2006, 403- 21. 3 Rodger A. Payne, The Comedy of Great Power Politics in the 21st Century, 48th Annual Convention, International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Hilton Chicago, IL, February 2007.
2

I.

The Tragic Realist Narrative While it is widely accepted that social constructivists, critical theorists, and postmodern

A. The Tragedy of power politics. scholars study the role of discourse and communication in international politics, it is important to emphasize that realists too have developed and highlighted a specific narrative vision to help explain their perspective of international political life. It is not unusual to find examples of hard-nosed realists openly discussing discursive elements of international politics.4 Additionally, many scholars who analyze realism from critical or postmodern theoretical viewpoints often reflect upon its paradigmatic stories and narrative forms.5 Almost everyone in the field, including realists, considers states and other global entities to be principal actors, or perhaps players, in international politics. After all, these terms are standard jargon in the discipline. Likewise, IR scholars commonly place these actors in specific narrative settings, such as in a Hobbesian state of nature or in the midst of stag hunt. In an interview with the editors of the journal International Relations, the neorealist John Mearsheimer on several occasions refers to the story or even to my story when differentiating his version of neorealism from other accounts.6 Other scholars argue that these well-established stories shape player preferences and behavior in a manner that generates familiar outcomes. The neorealist Stephen Krasner describes various features of international politics as cognitive scripts, including both the Westphalian model in general and the international legal understanding of sovereignty.7 Similarly, the constructivist John Gerard Ruggie claims that actors, in the context of these [neorealist and neoliberal institutionalist] models, merely enact (or fail to) a prior script.8

Elsewhere, I have argued that realists both reject and embrace certain communicative dimensions of critical theory. See Rodger A. Payne, Neorealists as Critical Theorists: The Purpose of Foreign Policy Debate, 5 Perspectives on Politics, 2007, pp 503-514 5 For example, see Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman, eds. Post-Realism; the rhetorical turn in international relations (East Lansing: Michigan State, 1996); and Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy; the Continuing Story of a Death Foretold (NY: Routledge, 1998), p. ?. 6 Conversations in International relations, Interview with John J. Mearsheimer (part II), 20 International Relations, 2006 p. 241. See also, part I, pp. 115, 121. 7 Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty, Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, 1999) pp. 41, 69. 8 See Ruggie, What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge, 52 International Organization, Autumn 1998, p. 876. Somewhat similarly, Hollis and Smith discuss actors working within states fulfilling specific roles in the same manner as theatrical actors in a play. See Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 155-7.
4

Some scholars go even further, viewing the participants in international politics as if they are skilled theatrical artists appearing in elaborate performances. For instance, in his seminal work published more than thirty years ago, Kenneth N. Waltz employed the standard realist usage of many key terms: As long as the major states are the major actors, the structure of international politics is defined in terms of them. That theoretical statement is of course borne out in practice. States set the scene in which they, along with nonstate actors, stage their dramas.9 Likewise, Hans Morgenthau commonly discussed political actors on the scene, playing roles, and occasionally employing disguises or enacting policies of deception. For instance, when describing prestige politics, Morgenthau noted that the essence of a policy of bluff is well illustrated in the theater device of letting a score of extras, dressed as soldiers, walk about the stage, disappear behind the scenery, and come back again and again, thus creating the illusion of a great number.10 As elaborated below, many realists have a "genuinely tragic" vision of international political dramas.11 Classically, a tragedy was a deadly serious dramatic story focused on the downfall of a prominent even aristocratic protagonist. The heros demise would typically be caused by his or her own human fallibility, often developed as an inherent character flaw. In some tragedies, the failing could be attributed to a greater power beyond the control of the protagonist, such as fate. As befitting a noble, the tragic tale would ordinarily be set in the Great Hall or on the battlefield, and the tragic decline would be initiated by some sort of critical test. The story would turn on this conflict, which could be the source of tremendous torment for the protagonist. The dramatic plot would highlight the virtual inevitability of the heros collapse, generally his (or her) death, given the circumstances. The main characters reaction to the conflict typically worsens the situation, though before death the protagonist often discovers that attempts to control and resolve the conflict have actually compounded it. In other words, the hero finally recognizes the fact that many of his problems are of his own making. Throughout these dramatic narratives, tragic heroes are passionately egocentric and answer only to themselves. They can thus be viewed as "radically unsociable beings who are
Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979), p. 94. Hans J. Morgenthau, revised by Kenneth W. Thompson, Politics Among Nations; The Struggle for Power and Peace 6th edition (NY: Knopf, 1985), pp. 98, 103, 494 11 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (NY: WW Norton, 2001), p. 3. For an interesting overview of realist views, see Michael Spirtas, A House Divided: Tragedy and Evil in Realist Theory, 5 Security Studies, 1996, pp. 385-423.
9 10

willing to suffer in the service of their own vision of themselves.12 In other words, tragic heroes behave almost exactly like realists expect states to act in IR. Like the classic genre of Greek drama, realists argue that the grand stage of interstate politics is dominated by rich and powerful nation-state protagonists. Indeed, realists openly proclaim and embrace a generic national interest in grabbing and maintaining political power so as to assure state survival and achieve other important goals. Interests are defined fairly simply and narrowly in terms of material gain, not by the attainment of pie-in-the-sky ideals or alignment with particular moral codes. The strategic logic of realism is based on an ethic of necessity, favored because adherents believe that the alternatives are obviously worse. Inevitably and tragically, realists concede, a world comprised of egotistical power-seeking states is bound to feature recurring competition and violence. The game might be rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, but every state has strong incentives to pursue policies that maximize any advantage, avoid critical losses, and minimize perilous risks. Inspired by thinkers like Niccol Machiavelli and statesmen like Otto von Bismarck, realists have long embraced an essentially pessimistic understanding of the world. Nation-states have virtually no choice but to build up military power and to seek fulfillment of their own selfish desires, even though these pursuits are almost certain to conflict with the actions of other states and make the use of violence virtually inevitable. International political life among the great powers is thus akin to a Hobbesian state of nature, potentially a war of all against all. The academic realist Waltz, for instance, warns that international relations occur in the brooding shadow of violence.Among states, the state of nature is a state of warwar may at any time break out.13 As do the heroes of classic dramatic productions, states make critical but unavoidable errors in their relations with other states and thereby produce great pain and suffering and often their own collapse. The parallels are obvious, as both dramatic playwrights and realist scholars tell compelling stories centered upon important figures that are forced to confront the limits of their power. The stories often end with calamity the rise and fall of great powers is a recurring IR storyline. Frequently, realists explain that great powers fall because the reach of

Ian Johnston, Lecture, prepared for English 366: Studies in Shakespeare, June 1999, Malaspina University College, Nanaimo, BC. This text is in the public domain and was last revised in December 2000. Available February 6, 2010 at http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/eng366/lectures/lecture1.htm. 13 Waltz, 1979, p. 102.
12

their ambition exceeds their grasp, as understood in the notion of imperial overstretch.14 Realists frequently make great use of metaphorical tragedies as well, including Rousseaus socalled stag hunt parable and sometimes the prisoners dilemma game (PDG).15 Both the stag hunt and PDGs are tragedies because fully informed and rationally self-interested players nonetheless find themselves condemned to a jointly dispreferred outcome.16 Some scholars also apply the so-called tragedy of the commons metaphor to international relations.17 B. The Iraq War as Tragedy Realists were very skeptical of the Iraq war and proved to be among the most vocal critics of the Bush administration during the public debate.18 Realist scholars like Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt did not think that Hussein was a particularly great threat to U.S. or western interests and had actually behaved rather predictably in the past vis--vis his neighbors and towards bigger powers. These and other realists believed in the ability of the US to contain Hussein at best and perhaps to deter any nascent WMD at worst. As Ringmar describes their view, a war against the country was unnecessary, foolhardy, and simply not in the national interest of the US. By their account, the war was irresponsible adventurism sold to the American public under false pretenses with cheap patriotic rhetoric.19 It was also predictably tragic. Fighting for our ideals may be a noble thing to do, but it is also foolish, and the hubris of the romantic hero is always the cause of his fall. Hubris distorts our judgment and makes us embark on badly considered ventures.20 Schmidt and Williams, though somewhat critical of the realist role in the public debate, acknowledge that many realists would view the argument about Iraq as essentially tragic, given that realist timeless wisdom was cast aside.21

Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict (New York: Random House, 1988). 15 In the stag hunt, every hunter in a group outing has an individual incentive to leave fellow hunters in the lurch should a tempting hare be spotted. 16 See John Tilley, Accounting for the tragedy in the Prisoners Dilemma, 99 Synthese, May 1994, pp. 251-76. 17 See Louis Ren Beres, Bipolarity, Multipolarity and the Tragedy of the Commons, 26 Western Political Quarterly, December 1973, pp. 649-58. 18 See Payne, 2007. 19 Ringmar, pp. 408-9. 20 Ringmar, p. 406. 21 Brian C. Schmidt and Michael C. Williams, The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: Neoconservatives Versus Realists, 17 Security Studies, 2008, p. 209.
14

C. The Limits of the Tragic Narrative The tragic understanding of global politics is seriously constricted and obviously cannot explain every action or aspect of international political life. Tragic stories focus on a narrow set of characters staging their dramas in a limited domain. One or more alternative narratives may sometimes better explain international relations and may well end happily, rather than tragically. While this paper primarily explores the possibility of a specific alternative narrative form, it is nonetheless worthwhile to summarize the broader critique of tragedy. To begin, the pessimistic realists who embrace this perspective and focus their attention narrowly on interstate competition, do not say nearly enough about global politics writ large. Put simply, by studying statesmainly the great powersthey overlook most other actors in global politics. As Waltz argues, nonstate actorsshow no sign of developing to the point of rivaling or surpassing the great powers. Rather, the most significant nonstate actors are stronger than just a few of the minor states.22 As a consequence, realist tragedies do not devote much attention to nongovernmental organizations, international institutions, transnational corporations, or even terrorists.23 Additionally, the worlds bottom billion people usually do not figure prominently into realist stories, even though individuals are increasing prioritized by a growing literature on human security.24 In fact, realists tend even to overlook the entrepreneurial behavior of middle and minor powers.25 Second, while the setting for both tragic dramas and realist tales of international politics is in the Great Hall or on the battlefield, world politics should be seen as having a much broader scope. Realists tend to neglect a plethora of global concerns often defined fairly pejoratively as low politics, including economic well-being, the global environment, poverty, disease, human trafficking, human rights abuses, and sexual violence. Nonetheless, the fate of literally millions if not billions of human begins may well hinge on the successful political resolution of these
Waltz, Political Structures, in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane (NY: Columbia University, 1986), p. 89. 23 On non-state actors in world politics, see Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell University: 1998). 24 Paul Collier, The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it (Oxford University, 2007); and Human Security Centre, University of British Columbia, Human Security Report 2005, War and Peace in the 21st Century (NY: Oxford, 2005). 25 See Christine Ingebritsen, Norm Entrepreneurs, Scandinavias Role in World Politics, 37 Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, 2002, p. 11-23; and Lloyd Axworth and Sarah Taylor, A ban for all seasons, The landmine convention and its implications for Canadian diplomacy, International Journal, Spring 1998, pp. 189-203.
22

potential life-and-death issues. Some of these threats kill or menace far more people than war and even many utilitarian or instrumental perspectives would designate them as higher priorities on the global agenda. Third, realist stories feature tragic plots that cannot explain nearly all international political behavior. Realists, for instance, downplay the potentially large amount of mutual interest and genuinely cooperative behavior that links states and other actors in global politics. According to realist accounts, states in the international system tragically cannot solve shared problems, no matter how pressing they are. In his seminal treatise, Waltz briefly discussed an array of world-shaking problems such as poverty, population, pollution and proliferation that cry out for global solutions, but there is no global agency to provide them. Necessities do not create possibilities. 26 When states do seek to cooperate in organizations, realists argue that the pursuit of relative gains and fear of cheating preclude meaningful cooperation. Mearsheimer says policymakers place false faith in institutional theories.27 However, by way of contrast, the literatures on norm construction28 and international regimes29 suggest the successful institutionalization of solutions that directly address shared problems. As shall be developed below, realists tragic plots likewise stand in stark contrast to farcical plots, which serve very different narrative purposes. Fourth, realists vehemently reject happy endingsor what critical theorists call emancipatory purpose. The characters in dramatic tragedy make fateful choices that virtually always end badly. At best, realist theory reflects a very strong status quo bias that makes it almost impossible to explain or predict desirable transformations in world order. According to realist logic, great powers cannot escape the security dilemma. Mearsheimer explains his pessimism as a pragmatic inevitability: it behooves us to see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.30 Morgenthau likewise famously called for studying IR as it actually israther than as people would like to see it. Morgenthau embraces the moral principle of national

Waltz, 1979, pp. 109, 210. Mearsheimer, The False Promise of International Institutions, 19 International Security, Winter 1994/95, pp. 5-49. The quote is from p. 49. 28 For an overview of the norms literature, see Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, International Norm Dynamics and Political Change, 52 International Organization, Autumn 1998, pp. 887-917. 29 For a neoliberal essay that directly addresses many of realisms boldest claims, see Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory, 20 International Security, Summer 1995, pp. 39-51. 30 Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 4.
26 27

survival and consider[s] prudenceto be the supreme virtue in politics. The best that can be hoped in international relations, Morgenthau wrote, is the realization of the lesser evil rather than of the absolute good.31 While some realists literally assert the maxim might makes right, virtually all would agree that the balance of power almost certainly does not reflect either a just order or magnanimous cooperation. Scholars who imagine the possibility that the international system might be transformed into a more harmonious and meaningful political community are accused by realists of promoting fantasy theory.32 To turn the tables on such claims, note that the critical IR theorist Robert W. Cox dubbed neorealism a science at the service of big-power management of the international system.33 In sum, realist tragedies do not address many globally important actors and settings, even though these stories are arguably importantand end happily at least some of the time. Indeed, even if one shies away from the kind of end-of-history gloating that some neoconservatives proclaimed in the 1990s, almost everyone should recognize that there has been a steady stream of good news in global politics over the past few decades that is difficult to explain from a tragic realist perspective. Mearsheimer may miss the cold war, but most ordinary people in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states likely do not. Great power war itself has apparently disappeared from the international system, and even the remaining internal conflicts seem to reflect the remnants of war rather than a dangerous Hobbesian world of interstate competition.34 Democratic change has progressed unevenly, with some notable reversals, but many more of the worlds peoples now live under accountable government than ever before in history. Many high profile despotic regimes have been toppled, such as the apartheid government in South Africa, and non-democratic states such as China seem inevitably destined to confront popular demands for change. Events in Rwanda and Darfur prove that genocide can happen again, but the world is much more attentive to human rights norms than it was through the first half of the twentieth century. Institutions like the United Nations and International Criminal Court may bring only a modicum of justice to current world politics, but that nonetheless compares favorably to the more distant past.

Morgenthau, 1985, pp. 17, 12, and 4. Randall L. Schweller, Forum: Fantasy Theory, 25 Review of International Studies, 1999, pp. 147-150. 33 Robert W. Cox, Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory, in Neorealism and its Critics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane (NY: Columbia, 1986), p. 248. 34 John Mueller, The Remnants of War (Cornell University, 2004).
31 32

10

These transformations in world politics have for the most part occurred non-violently typically in response to goals pursued by political movements, not armed forces on the battlefield. Indeed, many of the most emancipatory changes to the prevailing world order have occurred because entrenched political actors and systems were recognized as illegitimate. Those who challenged the status quo identified and criticized the hypocrisy often embedded in established order and demanded the creation of legitimate arrangements.35 II. Farce While I have argued elsewhere for a comedic turn in the study of global politics, this section narrowly focuses on the potential narrative value of farce. Generally, comedic narratives focus on the concerns of ordinary people and offer the prospect of happy endings. However, farce can provide an exaggerated means by which to critique the attitudes and behavior of powerful elites especially in situations weighed down by the threat of violence. Farce is a form of drama that tends to feature stereotypical characters that frequently appear in disguise and may well be mistaken for one another. Ridiculous wordplay often makes a speaker out to be a fool or clown. Many characters in farce are said to be deliberate monuments to stupidity, though a farce will also feature a knave who is the equivalent of the villain in melodrama. The knave is a trouble-maker with a spirit of mischief, but farce is forever demonstrating that the knaves ingenuities get him nowhere.36 Actually, either the fool or the knave may behave outrageously and they are often involved in highly improbable situations and plots. Farce is the form in which we temporarily forget what makes the world a well-ordered place.37 Booth similarly argues that farce is a mechanism for revealing disorder or contesting established norms. Farce functions by profaning approved moral, sexual, social and familial codes and flourishes in periods of stability when such codes are the received dogma of the audience.38 Masons description is apt: Farce challenges the spectator, vacillating between an apparent depiction and a travesty between what seems to be and what lurks, leering gleefully,
See Rodger A. Payne and Nayef H. Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics (SUNY, 2004); and Samhat and Payne, American Foreign Policy Legitimacy and the Global Public Sphere, 18 Peace Review, #2, 2006, pp. 251-9. Realist IR theorists ignore, overlook and even embrace hypocrisy. For example, realists argue that organized hypocrisy has been an enduring attribute of international politics. Krasner, 1999. 36 Eric Bentley, The Life of The Drama, (NY: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 1964), pp. 249-50. 37 Richard L. Homan, Farce after Existentialism: Pirandellos It is So! (If You Think So), in Themes in Drama 10: Farce, ed. by James Redmond (Cambridge, 1988), p. 202. 38 Michael R. Booth, Feydeau and the farcical imperative, in Redmond, p. 149
35

11

just beneath the surface. The farceur acts on the knowledge that probability necessarily implies an improbability which carries a license for wild nonsense.39 He continues, the farce-world appears to be as capricious and as unreliable as Alices Looking-Glass World; not only does it refuse to follow the laws of the ordinary world, it declines to be consistent within its own context. It is the product of the tension between its realistic basis and the farcical artifice that dominates the action.40 Influential scholar and critic Eric Bentley asserts simply that farce is an extreme case of the extreme. Farce characteristically promotes and exploits the widest possible contrasts between tone and content, surface and substance41 While farce is characteristically irreverent, coarse, and rudely figurative, the chief rhetorical devices employed in farce are hyperbole and extended oxymoron.42 Farce is often condemned as vulgar, base and primitive.43 A typical farce is fast-paced and relatively brief. Some critics write that the rapid pacing makes the action seem automatic and explosive rather than generated by free will.44 A farce must be brief because of the means it employs staccato speech and action, exaggerations of all kinds; the reductio ad absurdum within simple propositions of behavior; brutal directness; brisk reversalsand so on; all of which call for short rhythms and brief limits.45 However, Bentley claims that farce is not merely absurd, farce is a veritable structure of absurdities.we find reason in the madness: the absurdities which we would be inclined to call stupid are connected in a way we cannot but consider the reverse of stupid. There is an ingenious and complex set of interrelationships.46 Homan, in fact, finds farce to be a form for examining quite serious matters: Hunger, sexual inadequacy and poverty are serious problems in real life, yet we accept them as material for farce.47 Other scholars such as Booth highlight this apparent dichotomy between absurd style and serious subject. Farce is of course a remarkable paradox. The darkness of its world, the

Jeffrey D. Mason, The fool and the clown: the ironic vision of George S. Kaufman, in Redmond, p. 207. 40 Mason, 1988, p. 215. 41 Bentley, 1964, p. 243. Bentley (p. 242) also argues that the contrast between appearance and reality, order and disorder (and violence) constitutes a double dialectic. 42 Robert C. Stephenson, Farce As Method, 5 Tulane Drama Review, December 1960, p. 90. 43 Gregory Dobrov, The dawn of farce: Aristophanes, in Redmond, p. 15. 44 Eric Bentley, ed. Introduction: The Psychology of Farce, Lets Get a Divorce! And other plays (NY: Hill and Wang, 1958), p. xx. 45 Stephenson p. 90. 46 Bentley, 1964, pp. 244-5. 47 Homan, p. 203.
39

12

emptiness it sees at the heart of the human condition, are conveyed to its audience by marvelous comic techniques which are not only superbly entertaining and laughter-producing but are also entirely expressive of the nature of that condition and the content and viewpoint of farce itself. He continues by explaining that nobody in a farce has the slightest sense of humour. What is uproariously funny to the audience is a dreadful nightmare to the characters.48 Sren Kierkegaard argued that the audience can just as well be moved to sadness as shaken by laughter when viewing a farce.49 Farce, argues Bentley, depicts man as a violent animal who chiefly uses his intelligence to think aggression when he is not committing it.50 He argues that the impulse to attack is the principal moter of farce.51 Moreover, Bentley explains that this hostility is not rationalized within the context of the story. In farce, what lies beneath the surface is pure aggression, which gets no moral justification, and asks none.52 Bentley is certainly not alone in arguing that the prospect of violence often lurks throughout the typically fast-paced narrative of a farce. Labinger has similarly noted that nearly everyone who has ever written about farce acknowledges the brutality that lurks just beneath its festive surface.53 Marcoux argues that this violence fits readily within the archetypal farcical narrative: The characters in a farce suffer a great deal; at times the innocent along with the guilty. Physical violence is common; psychological damage often inflicted. We are invited to laugh at what seems to be a monstrous exaggeration of the human condition. Characters in a farce are often out of control and seem headed for inevitable disaster. Since they do not recognize their own self-indulgence, the characters often seem shallow and totally manipulated by circumstances or by their own passionPlot seems little more than a mere chain of events, while motives are either non-existent or obviously forced.54 As typical examples of farce, consider the Marx Brothers films, including the geopolitical Duck Soup, as well as much of the work of Charlie Chaplin. Bentley points out, in fact, that Chaplins film farces, such as his wartime story, The Great Dictator, are for the most part taken up with
Booth, p. 152. Sren Kierkegaard, Farce Is Far More Serious, 14 Yale French Studies, 1954, p. 4. 50 Bentley, 1958, p. xix. 51 Bentley, 1964, p. 255. 52 Bentley, 1964, p. 296. However, according to Bentley (p. 243), farce offers the interaction of violence and something else, which means that violence is not the essence of farce. 53 Andrea G. Labinger, The cruciform farce in Latin America: two plays, in Redmond, p. 219. 54 J. Paul Marcoux, Georges Feydeau and the serious farce, in Redmond, p. 131.
48 49

13

violent pursuit and violent combat. Fantasy multiples movements and blows by a thousand.55 As these films illustrate, farce can feature absurd physical acts of violence or verbal threats, even during horrific times of war. Literary theorists widely reference Bentleys comic catharsis thesis to explain the importance of this violence in farce. The critic claimed that farce offers a special opportunity for release of pent-up desires perhaps of aggression. The audience members enjoy the privilege of being totally passive while on stage our most treasured unmentionable wishes are fulfilled before our eyes by the most violently active human beings that ever sprang from the human imagination.56 In another essay, Bentley has argued that the violent release is comparable to the sudden relieving hiss of steam through a safety valve.57 In sum, a farce is a fast-paced and outrageous story featuring characters who freely employ hyperbole and make nonsensical claims about their situation. Protagonists and antagonists can often be described as reckless fools or devious knaves, though the regular instances of mistaken identity may blur the distinction for members of the audience. Frequently, the threat of physical violence or aggression looms over the story. III. The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce During the buildup to war, former UNSCOM biological weapons inspector Richard Spertzel argued that the ongoing weapons inspections in Iraq were a sham and made for farce. Inspectors were only visiting the facilities that Iraq wanted them to see and scientists were not interviewed for information. Of course inspectors could not find weapons, he argued, as these kinds of inspections only help proliferant states like Iraq maintain plausible deniability.58 Most other contemporary observers would likely have said that the most overtly farcical elements of the early Iraq war were provided at the regular media briefings of the man known informally as Baghdad Bob." Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf, also called comical Ali by the world press, made all sorts of outrageous statements about the opening stages of the war, perhaps most famously claiming for the assembled cameras and microphones that Baghdad was safe even as American troops could be seen on television entering the city:
Bentley, 1958, p. xii. Bentley, 1964, p. 229. 57 Bentley, 1958, p. xiii. 58 Richard Spertzel, No Smoking Gun; Farce revealed, National Review Online, January 13, 2003. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205498/no-smoking-gun/richard-spertzel
55 56

14

As information minister, he was the regime's mouthpiece, called on to give an upbeat assessment of events at the same time the world's media showed the noose tightening around Baghdad. His daily televised briefings caused amusement and confusion to journalists and audiences across the world because of his forthright and often skewed view of the conflict.59 However, the evidence presented in this section reveals that the seven month American buildup to the Iraq war can also be viewed as farce.60 The movement towards war was fast-paced and the main characters repeatedly made hyperbolic claims that in retrospect seem foolish, skewed, and perhaps nonsensical. Obviously, the threat of aggressive violence loomed over the story as it developed. Looking back, analysts could reasonably argue that the entire plot was a strange case of mistaken identity. Saddam Husseins Iraq was erroneously linked to the 9/11 attackers, while Pakistan, in contrast, may have been far more deserving of US preemptive war threats. As then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card told the New York Times, the Bush administration in September 2002 began a concerted marketing campaign to sell its Iraq policy.61 Iraq had been soundly defeated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then disarmed by weapons inspectors and impoverished by more than 10 years of strong international economic sanctions. Moreover, the U.S. was the worlds only superpower and was much stronger than Iraq by essentially any measure. Thus, it could have proved challenging to demonstrate that Iraq was a menacing threat to the U.S. that must be addressed quickly. The National Security Strategy of the United States, released by the White House in September 2002, made a strong contribution by reframing the debate around the 9/11 attacks and suggesting the need to act promptly against the kind of threat Iraq allegedly posed. The document acknowledged that the U.S. enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great economic and political
BBC, Profile: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, 27 June 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2927031.stm. For examples of al-Sahhafs statements, see We Love the Iraqi Information Minister, http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/ 60 Many observers would now view another early 2003 wartime event as farcical. On May 1, President Bush landed in the co-pilots seat of a Viking jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. He was photographed wearing a naval flight suit and claimed that he had helped fly the plane. Hours later, he appeared in a business suit and declared that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. At the time, he was standing under a large banner that read simply, Mission Accomplished. CNN, Commander in Chief Lands on USS Lincoln, May 2, 2003. http://articles.cnn.com/2003-0501/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS. 61 Elisabeth Bumiller, Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq, New York Times, September 7, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sellpolicy-on-iraq.html.
59

15

influence. However, it avowed that The events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states.America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. The NSS therefore declared that the US would begin taking proactive counterproliferation measures, even if that meant preemptive options would be used. The United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of todays threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first. Bluntly, the document embraced an aggressive strategy, stating that the best defense is a good offense.62 The farcical application of this policy to Iraq was arguably best reflected in the certain language employed by administration officials to describe a threat from Saddam Husseins regime that did not exist at the time. On August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney jumpstarted the marketing campaign when he delivered an important speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The address offered bold declarations that reflected great and unwarranted certainty about the supposed threat from Iraq. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. Worse, Cheney added, we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. . . . Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.63 This comment preceded by about five weeks the intelligence communitys production of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that ostensibly reflected the latest information about Iraq and would later be referenced to justify the public claims about the risks. Soon, whatever doubt the administration was willing to acknowledge was dismissed by reference to potential horrific images of destruction. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made worldwide headlines when she uttered these words in an interview with CNN on September 8, 2002: The problem here is that there will always be
White House, National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002. http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemys attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively. 63 Richard Cheney, Vice President Speaks at VFW 1034d National Convention, 26 August 2002, < http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html >. Cheney noted that the information was obtained from defectors.
62

16

some uncertainty about how quickly he [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we dont want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.64 Again, Dr. Rices comments preceded the production of the NIE by many weeks. President Bush used the same imagery in his October 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati, Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proofthe smoking gunthat could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather.65 Again and again, the administration strongly implied that the worst-case fears about Iraq were related to very real and immediate threats. The President himself declared in midSeptember: Should his [Saddam Husseins] regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.66 This was perhaps literally true, but the assessment made no mention of the difficulty a state like Iraq would have in acquiring sufficient fissile material. In Cincinnati, Bush used the word urgent several times to describe the nature of the threat from Iraq and the obligation the risk placed on the US to act: Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.67 In a November 23, 2002, radio broadcast, Bush said Iraq posed a unique and urgent threat.68 By that late fall date, the military had apparently fashioned a war plan, later dubbed shock and awe, and was preparing to deploy tens of thousands of personnel to the Persian Gulf region in order to be able to implement it.69 The threat of overwhelming violence clearly loomed over the Iraq discussion. The marketing campaign to sell war featured multiple key presidential and vice presidential speeches that were bolstered by advisors appearing on prominent television news programs and in other high profile venues. Thus, the argument for war continued at a harried
Condoleezza Rice, quoted in Interview with Condoleezza Rice, CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 8 September 2002, CNN transcript #090800CN.V47, <http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/08/le.00.html>. 65 George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on Iraq, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 7, 2002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002): 1718. 66 George W. Bush, The Presidents Radio Address, September 14, 2002, Weekly Compilation of President Documents 38 (2002): 1546. 67 Bush, October 7, 2002. 68 Bush, President Recaps Historic Week in Domestic and Foreign Affairs, Radio Address of the President to the Nation, November 23, 2002. http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021123.html. 69 Thomas E. Ricks, War Plan for Iraq Is Ready, Say Officials, Washington Post, November 20, 2002, p. A1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33459-2002Nov9.html.
64

17

pace and never really let up. In January, after international weapons inspectors were at work in Iraq, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told the assembled media, We know for a fact that there are weapons there.70 In his decisive and widely publicized February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared, We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.71 Just days before the war was launched in March, on the Sunday morning NBC television program Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney informed journalist Tim Russert that Saddam Hussein has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.72 Altogether, these and many other similar statements created the very strong and yet false impression that Iraq had an active and dangerous weapons program, including a nuclear one that was precariously close to success. Based on the information they received from the administration, the US Congress was goaded into voting prior to the 2002 midterm elections to authorize the use of force against Iraq on the prospect that diplomacy and weapons inspections would fail. The decisive Senate vote was 77-23 and the House tally was 296-133. The United Nations Security Council likewise voted unanimously (15-0) in favor of Resolution 1441 to require Iraqi reporting about alleged WMD, as well as the return of UN inspectors. Though the US sought an enforcement provision in this resolution, other states refused to agree to such a measure in advance of the inspections and it was not included. By the turn of the calendar in 2003, inspectors were on-site in Iraq, but the US was busily preparing a final onslaught at the UN in the form of the now infamous presentation about WMD by Secretary Powell. After failing diplomatically to gain another UNSC resolution, President Bush declared that the US and its coalition partners had lost all patience with the Iraqi regime. In that March 17, 2003, speech, Bush continued to make absolute assertions about the threat Iraq allegedly posed: Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons

Office of the Press Secretary, Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, January 9, 2003. http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030109-8.html. 71 UN News Centre, Powell presents US case to Security Council of Iraq's failure to disarm, 5 February 2003, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6079&Cr=iraq&Cr1=inspect. 72 Richard Cheney, quoted in Vice President Dick Cheney Discusses a Possible War with Iraq, Meet the Press, 16 March 2003, LexisNexis news transcript database, <http://www.lexis-nexis.com>. In response to the IAEAs failure to find evidence of an Iraq nuclear weapons program, Cheney declared flatly, I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong.
70

18

ever devised.Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed.73 Bush provided Iraq with a 48 hour ultimatum to eject Saddam Hussein and his two sons. This threat was rejected and the war began on March 19, 2003. As is common in a farce, the buildup to the Iraq war appeared to involve a case of mistaken identity. As has already been documented, the Bush administration portrayed Iraq as a state in possession of weapons of mass destruction perhaps even a nuclear-armed state, which is a very small subset of states. Perhaps even worse, given the recent 9/11 attacks on the US, the administration attempted to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda. In February 2002, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post quoted President Bush as saying on September 17, 2001, I believe Iraq was involved [in the 9/11 attacks], but Im not going to strike them now.74 In the January 2002 State of the Union address, Bush identified Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as states posing a grave and growing danger because of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, Bush said that these states, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.75 The day after delivering the speech, Bush went further: He [Saddam Hussein] is a danger not only to countries in the region but, as I explained last night, because of his al Qaeda connections, because of his history, he is a danger to Americans.76 Throughout the pre-war marketing campaign, Bush often linked Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorists that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. The danger, he argued, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddams madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. Both of them need to be dealt with. . . . [Y]ou cant distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.77 On September 28, the New York Times reported Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfelds assertion that the US had bulletproof evidence of links between Iraq and al-

Bush, President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours, March 17, 2003. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html. 74 Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, Combating Terrorism: It Starts Today, The Washington Post, 1 February 2002, p. A1. Bush then apparently said, I dont have the evidence at this point. 75 George W. Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 29, 2002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002): 133-39. 76 CNN, Bush: Iraq, al Qaeda linked, January 29, 2003. http://articles.cnn.com/2003-0129/politics/sprj.irq.bush.iraq_1_qaeda-mohammed-aldouri-declassifiedintelligence?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS. 77 Bush, quoted in United States, White House Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks Prior to Discussions With President Alvaro Uribe of Columbia and an Exchange With Reporters, September 27 2002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002), p. 1619.
73

19

Qaeda.78 In his Cincinnati speech in October, Bush claimed that Saddam Husseins regime had sponsored international terrorists in the past and Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. In the same breath, he asserted that al-Qaeda leaders had fled Afghanistan for Iraq and that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.79 He added that Iraq and al-Qaeda viewed the U.S. as a common enemy. Arguably, another farcical act in this period concerned the US-Pakistan relationship. President Bush declared simply in fall 2001 that Pakistan is a strong ally.80 However, given the way the U.S. defined threats after the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan might well have been perceived as an enemy from the start of the war on terror. Pakistan had for years supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and at least indirectly had ties to al Qaeda via its support for Muslim insurgency in Kashmir. Many analysts thought that Pakistan was connected to transnational terrorism. The State Departments Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, which issued the annual Patterns of Global Terrorism, was clearly concerned about Pakistans links to terrorists even before the 9/11 attacks. The report released in April 2001 noted the following: If the United States deems a country to repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism, the US Government is required by law to add it to the list [of state sponsors of terrorism]. In South Asia, the United States has been increasingly concerned about reports of Pakistani support to terrorist groups and elements active in Kashmir, as well as Pakistani support, especially military support, to the Taliban, which continues to harbor terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, alGama'a al-Islamiyya, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.81 Additionally, the 2000 Report of the National Commission on Terrorism (NCT), which was created by congressional legislation, found that Pakistan provides safehaven, transit, and moral, political, and diplomatic support to several groups engaged in terrorism. The NCT

Eric Schmitt, Rumsfeld says US Has Bulletproof Evidence of Iraqs Links to Al Qaeda, New York Times, September 28, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/world/threats-responsesintelligence-rumsfeld-says-us-has-bulletproof-evidence-iraq-s.html 79 Bush, October 7, 2002, p. 1717. 80 Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by the President and President Musharraf of Pakistan President of Pakistan Reaffirms Commitment to Fight Terrorism, November 10, 2001. Available at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011110-6.html. 81 U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, April 30, 2001.
78

20

Report even recommended that Pakistan be considered a target for U.S. economic sanctions because it was not cooperating fully on counterterrorism.82 Pakistan on 9/11 also maintained dubious relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and reportedly to al Qaedas Muslim insurgency efforts. In fact, when the attacks occurred in 2001, Pakistan was one of only three governments to recognize the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was also the last state to withdraw the status that autumn.83 It is widely acknowledged by analysts and journalists that Pakistan, particularly its military and intelligence agency, sponsored the Talibans rise to power in Afghanistan. A Special Report by the United States Institute of Peace in 1998 explained that the Taliban movement got a significant boost from the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI [Inter-Service Intelligence], which reportedly provided extensive organizational, logistical, and material support to the Taliban militia.84 Ahmad Shah Massoud, the former Defense Minister of Afghanistan who was assassinated on September 9, 2001, told The New York Times that his anti-Taliban forces were having difficulties defeating the Taliban partly because they were supported by 2,500 regulars from Pakistan's military.85 Perhaps most problematically, Pakistans ISI has long been suspected of working indirectly with al Qaeda throughout the 1990s and more directly with Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir against India.86 Moreover, Pakistan was a state clearly armed with the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction. Perhaps more than any other proliferant, Pakistan also seemed like the nucleararmed state most likely to share its capabilities with dubious international actors. Pakistan

Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, Countering The Changing Threat Of International Terrorism (June 2000), pp. 24, 25. Available at http://www.gpo.gov/nct/nct9.pdf 83 CNN, Pakistan closes Taliban embassy, November 22, 2001. Available at http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/11/22/gen.taliban.embassy/html. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also recognized the Taliban regime on 9/11, but withdrew ties in September 2001. 84 United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Special Report: The Taliban and Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security and Options for International Action, 1998. Available at http://web.archive.org/web/20011107141441/www.usip.org/oc/sr/sr_afghan.html. 85 Barry Bearak, Cornered Afghan Foes Hope Winter Will Slow the Taliban, The New York Times, November 6, 2000. Available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E3DB1239F935A35752C1A9669C8B63&sec=&spo n=&pagewanted=all 86 James Risen and Judith Miller, Pakistani Intelligence Had Links to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say, The New York Times, October 29, 2001. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/international/asia/29PROB.html?ex=1223697600&en=9dcc2011f 1bbcee7&ei=5070.
82

21

detonated five nuclear bombs in 1998 and in the words of Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute, became the Typhoid Mary of proliferation.87 Its chief atomic scientist, A.Q. Khan, was directing the most dangerous proliferation network in the world. He apparently distributed nuclear information or technology to five states that the U.S. viewed as sponsors of terrorism and allegedly even offered to provide a nuclear bomb design to Saddam Hussein. Khan was not arrested until 2004 and the definitive evidence of his guilt apparently did not appear until October 2003 when the U.S. and its allies seized a freighter headed for Libya. When challenged with the evidence aboard the vessel, Libya agreed to disclose and abandon its nuclear program, apparently in hopes of losing its rogue status. However, the U.S. and other intelligence agencies had been monitoring Khans international travel literally for decades and the CIA certainly in 2001 feared that he had developed a proliferation network. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. communicated some of its concerns to the Musharraf government and publicly expressed worries that Pakistani nuclear scientists had met with members of al-Qaeda.88 Some members of the U.S. security bureaucracy viewed Pakistan as a dangerous rogue state in 2001 prior to the 9/11 attacks. This was perhaps made most clear in May 2001 within the first months of office for members of the new Bush administration when State Department envoy Richard Armitage, visiting India at the time, hinted that the U.S. viewed Pakistan as a rogue states. This was a designation for outlaw or challenger states widely used in the 1990s by the Bill Clinton administration that continued to appear in speeches by Bush officials. In December 2001, for instance, President Bush declared that Rogue states are clearly the most likely sources of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons for terrorists.89 Likewise, the 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy warns about threats from rogue states armed with missiles and WMD. It notes that nuclear weapons hold special appeal to rogue states and terrorists.90 According to the Indian newspaper covering his 2001 visit, Armitage named the following rogue states: Libya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other countries in your neighbourhood.
MSNBCs Buchanan & Press Interview of Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute, May 8, 2003. Available at http://www.nci.org/03NCI/05/buchanan-press-transcript.htm. 88 William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, The Bomb Merchant: Chasing Dr. Khans Network, New York Times, December 26, 2004. Available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7DE1F30F935A15751C1A9629C8B63&sec=&sp on=&pagewanted=all 89 Office of the Press Secretary, President Speaks on War Effort to Citadel Cadets, December 11, 2001. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011211-6.html. 90 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March 2006. pp. 18-9. Available at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/.
87

22

Pressed to elaborate, he said we have questions about Pakistan which are well known and of which you are equally aware.91 The 2008 Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, prominently asserted in a September debate with Barack Obama that Pakistan was a failed state in 1999 when General Musharraf came to power.92 Moreover, this was not the first time McCain had levied this charge. On a previous occasion the Senator also asserted that General Musharraf had saved Pakistan from its failed status. In December 2007, McCain was campaigning in Iowa and reportedly said, Prior to Musharraf, Pakistan was a failed state. He continued, They had corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and Musharraf basically restored order.93 Based on her travels throughout Pakistan in 2001, veteran New Yorker journalist Mary Anne Weaver wrote that after the 1980s, when it was the conduit for American assistant to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Pakisan had been transformed into one of the most frightening places on earth. She speculated in her 2002 book that failure to reform Pakistan could lead either military or religious hard-liners to take over the country. Under these scenarios, Pakistan will become a theocracy like Iran, or the country will be faced with complete chaos and fall apart. Pakistan could well become the worlds newest failed state a failed state with nuclear weapons.94 While these scenarios are worrisome and suggest that Pakistan was in trouble in 2001, Weaver does not write that Pakistan was literally a failed state at that time. Though other analysts felt quite differently about Pakistans stability

C. Raja Mohan, Bush proposals aimed at rogue states: Armitage, The Hindu, May 12, 2001. Available at http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/05/12/stories/01120001.htm. 92 McCain added: Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state. For a transcript of the event, see CNN, Transcript of first presidential debate, September 26, 2008 (updated October 14, 2008). Available at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.mississippi.transcript/. 93 Associated Press, Pakistan's crisis puts new focus on candidates' foreign policy skills, Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 28, 2007. Available at http://www.startribune.com/world/12904501.html. The American ambassador to Pakistan in 1999, William Milan, was quoted by a journalist-blogger as writing, Pakistan was not a failed state as we normally define such states. I am on record as stating publicly that, having come to Pakistan from Liberia a year before the takeover, I had a pretty good idea of what failed states look like, and it was not one. See Matthew Yglesias, Former Ambassador to Pakistan Milam, Think Progress Yglesias Blog, September 30, 2008. Available at http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/former_ambassador_to_pakistan_milam_i_had_a_ pretty_good_idea_of_what_failed_states_look_like_and_it_was_not_one.php. See also Paul Richter and Julian E. Barnes, Fact-checking the debate, The Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2008. Available at http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-factcheck27-2008sep27,0,5241908.story. 94 Mary Anne Weaver, Pakistan; In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan (Macmillan, 2002), p. 10.
91

23

and status in 2001, the U.S. surely could have viewed it as dangerously weak given the periodic propensity of democracy to give way to military coup. IV. Conclusion In retrospect, the buildup to the Iraq war could reasonably be interpreted as a farce. The action was relatively fast-paced and the threat of aggressive violence clearly loomed as the Bush administration pushed the US and many other states towards launching a war it framed as unavoidable and justified. Indeed, one could interpret the push to war against Iraq in terms of Bentleys comic catharsis thesis. The US population seemingly had a pent-up vengeful lust for aggression after the 9/11 attacks and the demonization of Iraq was a convenient means to relieve that pressure. Top-level US government officials certainly helped focus political energy as they showed very little doubt when making frightening claims about the status of alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to transnational terrorists. These assertions, as will be discussed in more detail below, turned out to be outlandishly ridiculous. Moreover, the entire enterprise could be interpreted as an embarrassing instance of mistaken identity. Not only was Saddam Husseins secular Iraqi regime falsely linked to the 9/11 al-Qaeda jihadists, but also Pakistan was at the same time deemed a vital ally in the war on terror. This was despite the fact that nuclear-armed Pakistan had nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan and encouraged Muslim jihadists in its struggles with India over Kashmir. Can scholars and other observers of international affairs recognize, highlight, and react to a foreign policy farce when they see it? Some realists became prominent critics of the impending war, but they mostly doubted the significance of Iraq weapons of mass destruction for US security. They argued that Iraq could be contained or deterred and would likely not recklessly transfer any WMD to terrorists.95 Likewise, the French and German governments primarily argued that war should be a last resort. They favored weapons inspections to attempt to disarm Iraq and did not seriously challenge the idea that Iraq had these weapons. These critics did not argue that the administrations entire set of claims about Iraq WMD threats were outrageous, though some realists did argue that the war would distract the US from its fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. At the time of the buildup to war, in fact, very few analysts argued that Iraq absolutely did not have weapons of mass destruction. After all, the regime had
95

See Schmidt and Williams, 2008.

24

managed to develop and use chemical weapons against Iran and its own Kurdish population. It certainly seemed plausible that Iraq could have repeated this past success. Among members of the foreign policy elite, it was commonly presumed that Iraq had or could readily have WMD. David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group testified to the Senate in January 2004, we were all wrong about the alleged weapons of mass destruction.96 He repeated this point multiple times for emphasis, but noted that even governments opposed to the war had also been wrong, including France and Germany.97 Then again, as former intelligence analyst and National Security Council staffer Kenneth M. Pollack has argued, Iraqs alleged nuclear program was the real linchpin of the Bush Administrations case for an invasion.98 Indeed, a recent scholarly study found that many members of Congress gave the nuclear threat as the main or one of the main reasons for their votes supporting the war resolution in October 2002.99 Could a third-party observer have known that the Bush administrations claims about the Iraq nuclear program were farcical? Former US marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter perhaps came closest to challenging the Bush administrations public claims, though he too seemed to be working primarily to avoid war and sustain an inspections regime: I have never given Iraq a clean bill of health! Never! Never! I've said that no one has backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam's doing it is in total disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he's a dead man and he knows it. Deterrence

CNN, Transcript: David Kay at Senate hearing, January 28, 2004. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-0128/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS 97 In the end, the pro-war governments had the most egg on their faces. By summer 2003, officials in the British government were retreating from claims made in a so-called dodgy dossier prepared earlier that year about the threat from Iraq WMD. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it a complete Horlicks, which is British slang for a total mess. See George Jones, Campbell: Iraq dossier was dodgy, The Telegraph (UK), 26 June 2003. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-wasdodgy.html. 98 Kenneth M. Pollack, Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong, The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004, p. 81. 99 Chaim Kaufman, Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War, 29 International Securit,y Summer 2004, p. 31.
96

25

has been adequate in the absence of inspectors but this is not a situation that can succeed in the long term. In the long term you have to get inspectors back in.100 Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace declared more decisively in August, 2002: "Iraq almost certainly does not have nuclear weapons....There is no evidence that Iraq has a nuclear weapon or will soon have one." Cirincione cited open intelligence from the US finding that Iraq unconstrained would need several years to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon.101 British academic Glen Rangwala likewise used open intelligence sources to declare fairly decisively in advance of the war that Iraq did not have a nuclear program. In September, he wrote this with MP Alan Simpson, There is no case for a war on Iraq. It has not threatened to attack the US or Europe. It is not connected to al-Qa'ida. There is no evidence that it has new weapons of mass destruction, or that it possesses the means of delivering them.102 After the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441, international nuclear weapons inspectors operated relatively freely in pre-war Iraq and visited over 140 Iraqi sites looking for signs of nuclear activity. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors also conducted interviews with Iraqi scientists and other personnel of interest and reviewed a significant amount of written documentation related to Iraqs nuclear program that was provided by the regime. Thus, it is very significant that before the Iraq war was launched in mid-March, the IAEA had found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. In January 2003, agency director Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations Security Council, We have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon programme since the elimination of the program in the 1990s.103 By March 7, ElBaradei was able to further cement this finding: After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.104 Ultimately,

Massimo Calabresi, Scott Ritter In His Own Words, Time, September 14, 2002. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html. 101 Joseph Cirincione, Iraq's WMD Arsenal: Deadly But Limited, 5 Carnegie Proliferation Brief, #11, 2002. http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050 102 Alan Simplson and Glen Rangwala, The Dishonest Case for War on Iraq, Iraq Watch, September 16, 2002. http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/rangwala-091602.htm 103 Mohamed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq, 27 January 2003, <http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n003.shtml>. 104 Mohammed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections In Iraq: An Update, 7 March 2003, <http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml>.
100

26

everyone learned that these reports were accurate as US inspections of occupied Iraq likewise found no significant WMD efforts or programs. The assertions about links to al-Qaeda may have been more difficult to challenge prior to the war. However, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known popularly as the 9-11 Commission) somewhat decisively dismissed the links between Iraq and al-Qaeda in their 2004 report. The Commission did acknowledge some relatively minor meetings between representatives of Iraq and al Qaeda. We have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.105 Commission spokesperson Al Felzenberg was even more sweeping when talking to the media that June when the report was released: "We found no evidence of joint operations or joint work or common operations between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government, and that's beyond 9/11.106

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004, p. 66. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf. 106 See Dana Milbank, 9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront, Washington Post, June 20, 2004, p. A1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54702-2004Jun19.html
105

27