As Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld meets Saddam Hussein
The use of chemical weapons is unconscionable. The massacre of civilians is unconscionable. Watching from afar as people are slaughtered is heartbreaking and infuriating and endlessly frustrating. That doesn't mean we can do anything about it. That doesn't mean even the commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful military can do anything about it.
If in the past decades we have learned anything about the uses of even the most technologically sophisticated forms of military power, it's that their effectiveness is limited, and often proves counter-productive. Regarding Syria, as Meteor Blades just succinctly summarized: Any time there are no good options, better to choose one of them that doesn't include bombing. But that doesn't mean the United States can't do anything about the use of chemical weapons. The United States can, in fact, bring to justice those complicit in the use of chemical weapons. It won't require bombing people who don't deserve to be bombed. It won't require attacking a nation with whom the United States is not at war. It won't result in consequences that we cannot now predict, and that may prove disastrous. It will only require the investigation of crimes and the application of justice to people already in the United States.
As just reported by Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid in that most mainstream of mainstream political journals, Foreign Policy:
The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.
In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn't disclose.
Continue reading about the use of chemical weapons below the fold.
If 1988 seems far too long ago, remember that we are talking about possible war crimes, and that for even lesser use of these same war crimes the bombing of a nation with whom the United States is not at war is expected soon to commence. This is old news, but there is new evidence.
According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.
The use of these chemical weapons in 1988 would constitute a war crime.
The use of chemical weapons in war is banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which states that parties "will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the" agreement. Iraq never ratified the protocol; the United States did in 1975. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the production and use of such arms, wasn't passed until 1997, years after the incidents in question.
Iraq was not party to the convention that made the use of chemical weapons in 1988 a war crime, but the United States was. The United States did not exert every effort to induce Iraq to accede to the agreement. The United States did, in fact, knowingly enable Iraq to violate the agreement. The defense secretary and national security advisor and other top officials from that era are still alive and well. They could be investigated, and if fairly found culpable, be brought to justice. Without bombing anyone.