Christopher Hitchens's "Four Reasons" For Invading Iraq (also Cancer)

Anyone who's even the slightest bit political knows by now that Christopher Hitchens has cancer and would be lucky to even live five more years.
But this isn't about that, this is the belated debunking of Christopher Hitchens's justifications for going to Iraq, which, despite being fairly well articulated break down when someone looks at them at even the most basic level.

The "Four Reasons"

Hitchens lays out the four reasons for why the US had to invade very simply in a bloggingheads debate with Eric Alternman, and since Alterman's view of the world is limited to talking points from the Center of American Progress, he can't simply refute them and loses the argument.


They are as follows:

1. Saddam committed Genocide by gassing the Kurds
2. Saddam invaded his Neighbors
3. Saddam "fooled around" with nuclear weapons
4. Saddam gave aid to terrorists

As ridiculous as some of these reasons are, Hitchens seems to fail to understand how almost all of these can be traced to US support and authorization and how, by his logic, there would need to be Nuremburg-style trials for Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush Sr. as well as Saddam.

Reason 1. Where did Saddam get his chemical weapons?

The United States. Shocker, I know. Actually Saddam’s genocide of the Kurds needs to be put in context to US support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. After the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, the US scrambled to support Saddam and green-lit a full-out attack on Iran. This was guaranteed through loans, "Bear Spare" military aid and of course chemical weapons.

Chemical weapons and the Al-Anafl Campaign

Saddam launched a massive campaign to ethnically cleanse the Kurdish population from 1986 to 1989 using things such as concentration camps. In 1988, Saddam gassed thousands of Kurds using mustard gas, killing about 5,000 and injuring about 11,000 heightening the campaign.

There are three things which allowed this to happen:

1. Iraq was removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, allowing US companies to export technology and mustard gas
2. The US Congress supplied 70 shipments of 8 different kinds of Anthrax to Saddam directly (although Anthrax wasn't used against the Kurds).
3. The US lobbied the UN not to punish Saddam

Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust Canada with 70 shipments of Anthrax let alone a dictator who beheads women. The blame for this is so patently spread out to the US it's ridiculous, you don't supply a genocidal country chemical weapons then lobby the UN not to take action and absolve yourself of responsibility.

Reason 2. Iraq Invading Iran? Good. Invading Kuwait? Bad.

Hitchens seems to find no problem with the US supplying Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war but apparently it's bad when Saddam invades Kuwait (oh right, oil). The invasion of Kuwait itself can be attributed to poor communication on the part of April Glaspie who suggested to Saddam that he can invade Kuwait without repercussion and Iraq's desperate economy after the US armed it to invade Iran.

He also seems to be citing the UN charter's definition of aggression as the justification for invading. Apparently US aggression against Iraq (which has been called by the likes of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz and even Richard Perle as an "illegal war") doesn't count as aggression that needs to be prosecuted.

So, If China invades the US for an illegal war against Iraq (aggression), Chris would have a problem, but not when the US is illegally invading Iraq for illegally invading Iran.

Reason 3. "Fooling around" with a French-bought Nuclear reactor

Saddam's regime bought the Osirak reactor from France and had in part violated the NPT by "[violating] its safeguards agreement with the IAEA" but which was later in 2002 remedied as Iraq "removed all known weapon usable materials".
In Hitchen's mind, this justifies an attack and of course, the thought of holding France accountable for selling a nuclear reactor to a genocidal dictator never even crossed his mind.

Reason 4. Saddam and his Terrorist friends

By this point, Hitchens is grasping at half-existent straws. First off, no ware in international does it say that a country supporting terrorism needs to be invaded, at best, it can be persecuted by the World Court and be forced to pay reparations like how the US was forced to pay reparations to Nicaragua for supporting the contras (spoiler: the US declined to pay).
That aside, his examples are tenuous at best, he gives examples as to how Iraq funded groups like the PLO and various Palestinian groups, as if supporting terrorist resistance movements warrants an invasion.

“Zarqawi in Iraq = we should invade Iraq”

His “best” example is the case of Zarqawi, who after being injured in Afghanistan, snuck into Iraq and did small time operations without Saddam’s support. The CIA has conclusively found in 2004 that “The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything.” Hitchens also misleading states how after the overthrow of Saddam, the remnants of the Baath party allied with Zarqwi and al-Qaeda as proof we should invade Iraq.
That’s like saying we should invade Iran because future Iranian insurgence will attack the US.

Does the UN matter in all this?

Not to Chris. Apparently countries can claim violations of international law and illegally invade other countries without formal UN approval. Of course Hitchens is probably not against UN approval, but the fact that he tolerates illegal invasions sets a very bad precedent.

The Conclusion of all this?

Christopher Hitchens misinterprets international law to further his dumb beliefs. Also he has Cancer.