- Editorial
- The Guardian, Tuesday 14 April 2009
They swept in from the Fao peninsula on 20 March 2003 with their commanders proudly explaining how their troops could fight, feed and emote with their foes all at the same time. This was the army that had been through Malaysia and Northern Ireland. It could do counter-insurgency. It knew about hearts and minds. It will finally leave Basra this month a humbler force. What happened in the intervening six years was traumatic. Historians will be harsh in their judgment.
The most ignominious moment of Britain’s Iraq war – the subject of a Guardian series this week – came in September 2007, when commanders struck a deal with the Mahdi militia leaders. Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki was furious. US commanders accused Britain of cutting and running. Neither told their British counterparts about the Charge of the Knights offensive against the Shia militias, which followed the next spring, until the last moment. The analysis may differ; the crucial flaw may vary from one account to another; but almost all of the players – generals, soldiers and analysts interviewed by the Guardian this week – concur on one point: the Iraq operation, including Britain’s part in it, was an avoidable disaster.
Pre-war planning was negligent. This led to a situation in which 100,000 or more Iraqis may have died. Both Britain and the US were unprepared for the consequences of deposing Saddam and for t he implosion of Iraq’s system of governance. The build-up to the invasion lasted months, yet body armour and plates to protect tanks in the desert were not ordered for fear they would be taken as signs that diplomacy would not be allowed to take its course. There was a serious mismatch between military and civilian resources on the ground. The civilian effort was ad-hoc, hand-to-mouth and left the military too much to do in areas where it had limited experience. Security in Basra, which initially provided troops with a benign environment, might not have degenerated if aid had got in quicker.
Public support corroded and, with it, army morale. There were incidents at welcome home parades. The unspoken bond between a nation and its professional soldiers became strained over the army’s unavoidable guilt by association with Tony Blair’s decision to take part in the invasion. The strategy in the south was less reformist and ambitious than the US operation in Baghdad, which dreamed of bequeathing Iraq with democracy. Britain’s political objective was simply to hold the ring in the south. Even if troops fulfilled their tactical objectives, such as handing over control to the Iraqi army, there was no agreement on the political outcomes.
And bit by bit, US forces, about which British commanders had initially been so dismissive, got better at counter-insurgency. Iraq turned the British argument on its head. US soldiers are now better resourced and trained in counter-insurgency than British ones.
Over-stretched and badly equipped – it all sounds reminiscent of another war the army is waging. And the real question posed by the Guardian series this week is whether anything has been learned. Are miscalculations made in Basra not being reproduced in Helmand? If anything, the task in Afghanistan is harder. The deal which allowed US troops to disengage, and which could still crumble, was between two fairly homogenous groups – the Shia government of al-Maliki and the Sunni tribal chiefs. In Afghanistan, there is neither a central government worth the name, nor a clear enemy. Are the Taliban jihadi foreigners, Pashtu nationalists, farmers by day, fighters by night, or some or all of the above? And are the two allies any more prepared than they were in Iraq to deploy a civilian expeditionary force to assist a military operation in states they judge to be failing? Iraq may already be fading from the headlines, but it casts a long shadow.
The threat is the latest in a long line of bellicose statements by Israeli officials about the prospect of attacking the Shi’ite nation, but 
![[Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D- Cali.) in this file photo. Woolsey, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus, had said in an earlier interview that she can't support raising troop levels. (File Photo)]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Lynn-Woolsey.gif "Lynn-Woolsey.gif")
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D- Cali.) in this file photo. Woolsey, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus, had said in an earlier interview that she can’t support raising troop levels. (File Photo)
Peace and Justice Post 
Ban Land Mines and Cluster Bombs
April 14, 2009by Jody Williams | The Boston Globe, April 13, 2009
President Obama is demonstrating that his willingness to tackle the horrors of nuclear weapons has teeth. He and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia announced earlier this month new talks on a treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expires in December. Negotiations will include permanent reductions of their nuclear arsenals beyond any previously agreed upon numbers.
In addition, Obama has put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the effort for the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by the Senate. Russia has already ratified that important nuclear treaty.
For this bold leadership – especially coming on the heels of an administration for whom international treaties were an anathema – the president must be applauded. Some of us actively involved in arms control, disarmament, and international humanitarian law also believe that Obama can take further steps to underscore his commitment to a multilateral approach to arms control and disarmament.
The most obvious would be joining both the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The United States did not play a fundamental leadership role in the process that resulted in the Mine Ban Treaty and walked out of the final treaty negotiations. Ten years later the country stood outside the process – officially at least – that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The international instruments banning land mines and cluster bombs are hybrids of disarmament and international humanitarian law – the laws of war. Each bans an entire class of weapons. Each rests on fundamental principles of the laws of war about the illegality of indiscriminate weapons and that the “means and methods” of warfare must not have an effect on civilian populations disproportionate to their immediate military gain.
This year is the 10th anniversary of the international treaty banning antipersonnel land mines. The treaty has been called a “gift to the world.” Today 156 nations – 80 percent of the governments in the world – are party to it. Its implementation and compliance has been remarkable – again a tribute to government-civil society partnership and cooperation. A similar model of “new diplomacy,” closely following the template of the Mine Ban Treaty, negotiated a treaty banning cluster munitions in Dublin in May. In December, it was signed in Oslo 94 nations; now it stands at 96.
Obama could show important leadership in joining both treaties; Russia hasn’t joined the treaties either. Why move so boldly on nuclear weapons issues without also eliminating these other weapons that violate the same principles of international law?
Tackling the Mine Ban Treaty first should be easy. The United States has been in virtual compliance with the treaty since long before it entered into force. We have not used antipersonnel land mines since 1991 – the first Gulf War. We stopped their export in late 1992. No production has taken place since the mid-1990s and the US military has forsworn their future production. Some 3 million stockpiled land mines have already been destroyed. Even the argument that we “need them for Korea” holds little weight, since the mines in the DMZ belong to South Korea. Given the above, it would seem that joining the Mine Ban Treaty is essentially all benefit at very little cost.
While the United States does not have the same record on the (non)use of cluster munitions that it has on antipersonnel land mines, that is not a reason for the president to avoid signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Obama made a good first step last month when he signed a law permanently banning nearly all cluster bomb exports from the United States. Some of our closest military allies have already signed the cluster convention, including Germany, Japan, France, and the United Kingdom.
During the invasion of Baghdad, some US commanders refused to use the weapon, recognizing it both as a violation of the laws of war and a weapon that would threaten their own troops as they rapidly advanced through areas already littered with the weapon by cluster munitions strikes.
Reconciling the needs and desires of the military with achieving and advancing larger policy goals is no easy matter. But if Obama is as determined as he says to take on the huge issue of eliminating nuclear weapons, surely he can get rid of land mines and cluster bombs now. These weapons – often described as weapons of mass destruction in slow motion – are reviled by tens of millions around the world. The majority of the countries in the world have already banned them. Surely, it is more than time for the United States to join their ranks.
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Tags: cluster bombs, Jody Williams, Mine Ban Treaty, mines, President Barack Obama, United States
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