Disarming Iraq

Disarming Iraq
Author: Hans Blix
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2004-03-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0375423230

The war against Iraq divided opinion throughout the world and generated a maelstrom of spin and counterspin. The man at the eye of the storm, and arguably the only key player to emerge from it with his integrity intact, was Hans Blix, head of the UN weapons inspection team. This is Dr. Blix’s account of what really happened during the months leading up to the declaration of war in March 2003. In riveting descriptions of his meetings with Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Kofi Annan, he conveys the frustrations, the tensions, the pressure and the drama as the clock ticked toward the fateful hour. In the process, he asks the vital questions about the war: Was it inevitable? Why couldn’t the U.S. and UK get the backing of the other member states of the UN Security Council? Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? What does the situation in Iraq teach us about the propriety and efficacy of policies of preemptive attack and unilateral action? Free of the agendas of politicians and ideologues, Blix is the plainspoken, measured voice of reason in the cacophony of debate about Iraq. His assessment of what happened is invaluable in trying to understand both what brought us to the present state of affairs and what we can learn as we try to move toward peace and security in the world after Iraq.

The Politics of Weapons Inspections

The Politics of Weapons Inspections
Author: Nathan E. Busch
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1503601625

Given recent controversies over suspected WMD programs in proliferating countries, there is an increasingly urgent need for effective monitoring and verification regimes—the international mechanisms, including on-site inspections, intended in part to clarify the status of WMD programs in suspected proliferators. Yet the strengths and limitations of these nonproliferation and arms control mechanisms remain unclear. How should these regimes best be implemented? What are the technological, political, and other limitations to these tools? What technologies and other innovations should be utilized to make these regimes most effective? How should recent developments, such as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal or Syria's declared renunciation and actual use of its chemical weapons, influence their architecture? The Politics of Weapons Inspections examines the successes, failures, and lessons that can be learned from WMD monitoring and verification regimes in order to help determine how best to maintain and strengthen these regimes in the future. In addition to examining these regimes' technological, political, and legal contexts, Nathan E. Busch and Joseph F. Pilat reevaluate the track record of monitoring and verification in the historical cases of South Africa, Libya, and Iraq; assess the prospects of using these mechanisms in verifying arms control and disarmament; and apply the lessons learned from these cases to contemporary controversies over suspected or confirmed programs in North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Finally, they provide a forward-looking set of policy recommendations for the future.

The Search For Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Search For Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
Author: Graham S. Pearson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781349521494

This authoritative account explores the facts that lie behind the Weapons of Mass Destruction programmes in Iraq. Graham Pearson shows how these programmes were gradually uncovered through the efforts of UN specialist exerts, then by UNSCOM and UNMOVIC and finally by the Iraq Survey Group. The book analyses why there was no stockpile of chemical or biological weapons to be found in Iraq. Finally, it examines the lessons for inspection, verification and non-proliferation in the chemical and biological weapons prohibition regimes.

Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq

Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq
Author: James P. Pfiffner
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781603440677

"Drawing on the unusually extensive official documentation that has emerged through multiple inquiries on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as insider accounts of CIA deliberations, the contributors to this volume offer careful and insightful analyses of the national security decision-making process, the foreign policy roles of the President and Prime Minister, the roles of Congress and Parliament, the management and limits of intelligence, the shaping of public opinion, and the ethics of humanitarian military intervention. The book also discusses the dilemmas faced by Australia, a junior ally in the War on Terror, and their implications for Australian intelligence."--BOOK JACKET.

Frontier Justice

Frontier Justice
Author: Scott Ritter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781893956476

"Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter analyzes the overall strategy of the Bush presidency - national security through global domination - and the "Big Lie" he used to sell his brand of frontier justice to the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Germ Gambits

Germ Gambits
Author: Amy Smithson
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2011-07-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804775532

This book tells the tale of how international inspectors beat incredible odds to unveil Iraq's covert bioweapons program, draws lessons from this experience that should be applied to help arrest future bioweapons programs, places the Iraq bioweapons saga in the context of other manmade biological risks, and makes recommendations to reduce those perils.

Combating Proliferation

Combating Proliferation
Author: Jason D. Ellis
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2007-02-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1421402637

Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title The intelligence community's flawed assessment of Iraq's weapons systems—and the Bush administration's decision to go to war in part based on those assessments—illustrates the political and policy challenges of combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In this comprehensive assessment, defense policy specialists Jason Ellis and Geoffrey Kiefer find disturbing trends in both the collection and analysis of intelligence and in its use in the development and implementation of security policy. Analyzing a broad range of recent case studies—Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons, North Korea's defiance of U.N. watchdogs, Russia's transfer of nuclear and missile technology to Iran and China's to Pakistan, the Soviet biological warfare program, weapons inspections in Iraq, and others—the authors find that intelligence collection and analysis relating to WMD proliferation are becoming more difficult, that policy toward rogue states and regional allies requires difficult tradeoffs, and that using military action to fight nuclear proliferation presents intractable operational challenges. Ellis and Kiefer reveal that decisions to use—or overlook—intelligence are often made for starkly political reasons. They document the Bush administration's policy shift from nonproliferation, which emphasizes diplomatic tools such as sanctions and demarches, to counterproliferation, which at times employs interventionist and preemptive actions. They conclude with cogent recommendations for intelligence services and policy makers.

Now They Tell Us

Now They Tell Us
Author: Michael Massing
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2004-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781590171295

Michael Massing describes the American press coverage of the war in Iraq as "the unseen war," an ironic reference given the number of reporters in Iraq and in Doha, Qatar, the location of the Coalition Media Center with its $250,000 stage set. He argues that a combination of self-censorship, lack of real information given by the military at briefings, boosterism, and a small number of reporters familiar with Iraq and fluent in Arabic deprived the American public of reliable information while the war was going on. Massing also is highly critical of American press coverage of the Bush administration's case for war prior to the invasion of Iraq: "US journalists were far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the administration. Those with dissenting views—and there were more than a few—were shut out. Reflecting this, the coverage was highly deferential to the White House. This was especially apparent on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction .... Despite abundant evidence of the administration's brazen misuse of intelligence in this matter, the press repeatedly let officials get away with it." Once Iraq was occupied and no WMDs were found, the press was quick to report on the flaws of pre-war intelligence. But as Massing's detailed analysis demonstrates, pre-war journalism was also deeply flawed, as too many reporters failed to independently evaluate administration claims about Saddam's weapons programs or the inspection process. The press's postwar "feistiness" stands in sharp contrast to its "submissiveness" and "meekness" before the war—when it might have made a difference.

Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace

Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace
Author: Michael Krepon
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1503629619

The definitive guide to the history of nuclear arms control by a wise eavesdropper and masterful storyteller, Michael Krepon. The greatest unacknowledged diplomatic achievement of the Cold War was the absence of mushroom clouds. Deterrence alone was too dangerous to succeed; it needed arms control to prevent nuclear warfare. So, U.S. and Soviet leaders ventured into the unknown to devise guardrails for nuclear arms control and to treat the Bomb differently than other weapons. Against the odds, they succeeded. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for three quarters of a century. This book is the first in-depth history of how the nuclear peace was won by complementing deterrence with reassurance, and then jeopardized by discarding arms control after the Cold War ended. Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace tells a remarkable story of high-wire acts of diplomacy, close calls, dogged persistence, and extraordinary success. Michael Krepon brings to life the pitched battles between arms controllers and advocates of nuclear deterrence, the ironic twists and unexpected outcomes from Truman to Trump. What began with a ban on atmospheric testing and a nonproliferation treaty reached its apogee with treaties that mandated deep cuts and corralled "loose nukes" after the Soviet Union imploded. After the Cold War ended, much of this diplomatic accomplishment was cast aside in favor of freedom of action. The nuclear peace is now imperiled by no less than four nuclear-armed rivalries. Arms control needs to be revived and reimagined for Russia and China to prevent nuclear warfare. New guardrails have to be erected. Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace is an engaging account of how the practice of arms control was built from scratch, how it was torn down, and how it can be rebuilt.