Iraq after the Gulf War: Iraq suffered a devastating blow in the Gulf War, including political, economic, and military forces, including the comprehensive national strength has been weakened. Before the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq, with its rich oil and natural gas resources to make its economic development in the Middle East region in the middle and upper water value of only 1 / 3 of the pre-war, the per capita income fell to less than 400 U.S. dollars.
It is estimated that the direct economic damage caused by the Gulf War to Iraq amounted to about 200 billion dollars. In the U.S. air strikes on Iraq, the focus of the bombing of some of the oil industry, transportation and other infrastructure and some important military targets, to the future of Iraq's economic construction to bring a heavy blow.
After Iraq went to Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council passed a series of resolutions to impose comprehensive sanctions on Iraq, including the oil embargo, and mandatorily required Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction. To date, the UN sanctions have been in place for 12 years, and they have cost Iraq more than $140 billion in economic losses.
Militarily, the Iraqi army lost more than two-thirds of its overall combat capability in the Gulf War, with more than 40 divisions decimated. Casualties amounted to 85,000 to 100,000 people. The Iraqi navy was largely destroyed in the war.
More than a decade of economic sanctions and the effects of the war, as well as the continued bombing by the United States and Britain, have left the Iraqi economy with no hope of rebounding and the people living in poverty. Although the implementation of the "oil-for-food" program adopted by the Security Council since 1996, but due to the obstruction of the United States and the United Kingdom, the program has not been completely implemented, thus aggravating the humanitarian crisis caused by the sanctions. According to the official figures released by the Iraqi government, since the end of the Gulf War to date, the Iraqi government has 173.2 million people due to lack of medical care and malnutrition and death, the vast majority of them are children.
In addition, the Gulf War also caused serious damage to Iraq's environment. According to Iraqi reports, the United States dropped about 300 tons of depleted uranium bombs on southern Iraq during the Gulf War, and 10 years later, the incidence of leukemia, malignant neoplasms, and other difficult illnesses in the region was 3.6 times higher than the national average, and the proportion of pregnant women who had miscarriages was more than 10 times higher than it had been in the past.
However, the ruling basis and control system of the Iraqi regime after the Gulf War has not been destroyed. For one thing, although Saddam was a defeated army, but still have a certain prestige, especially he dared to confront the world's superpowers, so that he was regarded as a "national hero" image in the country and even in the Arab countries. For the Arab people, they can quickly forget the Iraqi aggression, but they cannot forget Saddam's challenges to the United States and Israel and his "heroic actions" such as launching Scud missiles at Israel. Secondly, Saddam's iron rule for many years made the opposition in Iraq very weak, thus ensuring Saddam's effective control over the domestic situation. Third, Saddam adopted a high-pressure policy, quickly quelled the Gulf War in the country after the insurgency in the north and south, stabilized the situation.
Weapons Verification UN weapons verification of Iraq began in April 1991 with the adoption of Resolution 687 by the UN Security Council. The resolution decided that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - including biological and chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, and missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers - should be verified, registered, destroyed, and the research, production, storage, and testing facilities for these weapons destroyed. The resolution also decided to establish the United Nations Special Commission for that purpose. According to the relevant Security Council resolutions, the United Nations economic sanctions and embargoes against Iraq will be lifted only after the completion of the Special Commission's verification of Iraq's weapons and the submission of a report to the Security Council in which it is clearly stated that Iraq has completely and totally destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam and the inspectors launched a "battle of wits and courage": on the one hand, to provide cooperation, recognized and destroyed a large number of biological, chemical and nuclear raw materials and equipment, as well as missiles, in the hope that the verification of the early completion of the early lifting of economic sanctions against Iraq; on the other hand, and to find ways to hide some of the weapons and raw materials, and set up obstacles to the inspectors, in an attempt to make the verification as early as possible, so that they would not have to be removed. On the other hand, they tried to hide some weapons and materials and put obstacles in the way of the inspectors in an attempt to bring the verification to an early end.
On September 21, 1991, the inspectors, who had just begun the verification, found a large number of classified documents about Iran's nuclear weapons program in a building in Baghdad. As the inspectors prepared to leave with the documents, Iranian officials, who had claimed to be "fully cooperative," forcibly confiscated some of the documents, and the Iranian military deployed armed soldiers to stop the inspectors, who refused to hand over the documents, in a parking lot. The standoff lasted four days. It was only after the Security Council adopted a presidential statement announcing that "further action" would be taken by Council members if Iraq refused to cooperate that Iraq lifted the siege on the inspectors.
Nonetheless, in the years leading up to early 1995, verification had been relatively smooth and productive. Ekeus, the first chairman of UNSCOM, later said that by 1994, after three years of verification, UN personnel had contained Iraq's nuclear and missile programs, but still had nothing on Saddam's chemical and biological weapons program.
Beginning in May 1992, Iraq submitted weapons reports to the Security Council as required by the United Nations, and by the time UNSCOM verification was suspended in November 1998, Iraq had submitted some 10 reports, each of which concluded that it had "fully, completely, and totally declared and destroyed all weapons of mass destruction". But none of these reports were adopted by the Council.
In early 1995, there was a breakthrough in chemical and biological weapons verification. In February, U.N. biologists discovered a weapon of mass destruction in a factory in Al-Hakim, a suburb of Baghdad. In February of that year, UN biological experts at a factory in Al-Hakim, outside Baghdad, found large quantities of barrels of a powder called "growth enzyme," a biological agent that could be used to make proteins, but could also be used in the manufacture of biological weapons. Dr. Rimond Zirinkas, who took part in the verification, said that if it was used to make proteins, it could also be used in biological weapons. Dr. Rimond Zirinkas, who took part in the verification, said that for the manufacture of proteins, Iraq as a whole would need a maximum of one ton of growth enzyme per year, whereas at that time Iraq was importing 34 tons of growth enzyme at a time. The inspectors finally concluded that the plant was probably engaged in large-scale anthrax production.
UNSCOM Chairman Ekeus demanded an explanation from Iraq. The response was, "We are not like you Europeans. You always have a plan, and you define the purpose and then you produce. We in the Arab countries build something first and then think about what to do with it."
In August of that year, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein? Kamal? Hassan defected from the country and confirmed to U.N. inspectors in Jordan that all the evidence about the state of Al? All the evidence about the state of the Al-Hakim plant was confirmed to U.N. inspectors in Jordan, along with new information about Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and missiles, which the U.N. had assumed had been destroyed.
In the face of the evidence, Iraq finally admitted to manufacturing more than 8,000 liters of anthrax spores and 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin, but claimed not to have loaded them onto any warheads.
Beginning in late 1995, UNSCOM and the Iraqi side were in open conflict, with the Iraqi side repeatedly and publicly denying UN inspectors access to some sites. The Security Council repeatedly condemned Iraq for violating U.N. resolutions beginning in 1996, and in June 1997 Ekeus announced his resignation. Butler, an Australian with an allegedly pro-U.S. stance, stepped in to take over the UNSCOM chairmanship in July of that year.
If Ekeus was able to get along with the Iraqi side during his tenure, which allowed the verification to proceed normally, tensions between UNSCOM and Iraq continued to rise after Butler took office, which ultimately led to Butler leaving and the verification had to be halted. There were two main reasons for this: first, the Iraqi side thought that Butler only knew how to pick holes and did not want the Iraqi side to pass the verification; second, the Iraqi side thought that UNSCOM under Butler's leadership had become a tool for American and British spies and posed a serious threat to Iraq's "national security".
In April 1995, UNSCOM Chairman Ekeus stated in his report to the United Nations that "the verification and destruction of Iraqi weapons has been largely completed, and Iraq no longer possesses the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction." By the end of 1996, the Iraqi government believed that the verification process was basically over and that the lifting of the United Nations sanctions against Iraq was in sight. However, in mid-October 1997, Butler submitted a report to the U.N. Security Council, which not only failed to mention the efforts made by Iraq in the implementation of Security Council resolutions after the Gulf War, but instead accused Iraq of still concealing the destruction of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and repeatedly obstructing the normal work of the weapons verification team, and even threatening the safety of the team's staff.
After that, under the urging of the US and the UK, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1134, which demanded Iraq to strictly comply with the UN resolutions and hand over all the "final and complete" information on WMDs as soon as possible, or else new sanctions would be imposed on Iraq. This resolution was like a blow to Iraq, which had been full of hope. Iraq accused the resolution of being made under U.S. pressure, and it rejected the resolution and took measures against verification.
In 1998, UN Secretary General Annan went to Iraq to mediate and reach an understanding, but the conflict between Iraq and UNSCOM under Butler's leadership continued to escalate.
In August 1998, Iraq announced that it was suspending cooperation with the UN inspectors, and that weapons inspections would cease except for the continuation of the monitoring mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In mid-November, Butler ordered all inspectors and other humanitarian aid workers*** to evacuate Baghdad, and on December 17, the U.S. and U.K. launched air strikes against Iraq, code-named "Desert Fox," on the grounds that Iraq was obstructing inspections, hiding suspicious information, and making things difficult for inspectors, in flagrant violation of U.N. resolutions. On December 19, Iraq announced that the UN Special Commission would not be allowed to return to Iraq.
According to statistics, between 1991 and the end of 1998, more than 200 weapons verification teams from the UN*** conducted more than 400 investigations at more than 2,500 sites in Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction destroyed included more than 40,000 chemical munitions, nearly 500,000 liters of chemical agents, 1.8 million liters of chemicals used to make those agents, and seven types of delivery systems, including ballistic missile warheads. Experts estimate that the seven-year-long weapons verification operation disarmed Iraq of 95 percent of its weapons of mass destruction.
In addition, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1284 in December 1999, deciding to establish the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) to continue the verification mission of UNSCOM.In January 2000, Blix, a Swede who had served as the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and participated in the verification of Iraqi weapons, was appointed Chairman of UNMOVIC.On November 8, 2002. The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1441, which sets out provisions to strengthen weapons verification.
On November 27, 2002, the four-year old arms verification of Iraq resumed with the start of the work of the first 17 inspectors. Whether the verification can be carried out smoothly is related to the attitudes of the verifying and verified sides, but the final decisive role is played by factors such as the conflict of interests and the balance of power in international relations. The United States, for the sake of its political and economic interests, has made the launching of a war against Iraq, the overthrow of the Saddam regime and the realization of full control over Iraq its established goal, and it wants to verify the basis of its military strikes and military occupation of Iraq. Europe and Russia, out of the need to safeguard their interests in Iraq and their dissatisfaction with American unilateralism, hope that the Iraqi issue can be resolved peacefully. In essence, resolution 1441 is the result of the interests and strengths of the big powers and their mutual compromises on the international political stage, and the verification of Iraqi weapons is only a continuation of it. This background of international relations is an important factor affecting the progress of verification.
The reason why the United States insisted on the "inversion": After the end of the Gulf War, the issue of Iraq has always been a lingering topic in U.S. politics and diplomacy. The U.S. insists on "inverting" both for political reasons and strategic plans. Early November last year, the United States in Afghanistan after the battlefield, but also the "thorn in the side of" Iraq is locked as the next target of military strikes, both openly and secretly stepped up all aspects of the momentum and preparations. Politically, the Bush administration successively threw out the "axis of evil" and the "pre-emptive" theory; diplomatically, it has sent the vice president and the deputy minister of defense to visit the Middle East for lobbying; militarily, the Bush administration has stepped up its consultations with the Iraqi opposition to study and formulate the war plan against Iraq, and has begun to send a letter of support to the Iraqi government for a military strike. Military, the Bush administration has stepped up consultations with the Iraqi opposition, studied and formulated a war plan against Iraq, and begun to send more troops to the periphery of Iraq. The U.S. is actively preparing to strike Iraq, behind which there are many considerations.
(a) To divert domestic attention and seek political interests. Bush was elected president of the United States political arena, *** and, the Democratic Party, the two parties are evenly matched, in the two houses of Congress, the seats are quite close. Faced with the serious challenges of the U.S. recession and the Democratic Party's strong hold, the Bush administration came to power in the solution of domestic problems, nothing to do in the short term is difficult to do; and the "9-11 incident" precisely for the Bush administration to provide the opportunity to avoid the thorny domestic issues to expand its political influence. The War on Terrorism boosted the popularity of the party and won more congressional seats in the November 2002 midterm elections. After the dust settled from the war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration was again faced with the challenge of choosing political "hype points" to maintain and expand its political popularity. The Iraq issue is relatively less divisive within the United States, and it is easy to make a difference in the short term. At the same time, waging war and controlling Iraq is also an important means of safeguarding the interests of the U.S. arms industry and oil consortium represented by the *** and party governments. Therefore, insisting on the "pouring Sa" has become a logical choice for the Bush administration.
(2), the end of the Iraqi issue, remove the diplomatic burden. After the end of the Gulf War, the United States has been insisting on the policy of containment of Iraq, trying to crush the Saddam regime. However, this has not been the case. Instead of shaking the Saddam regime, the sanctions have led to a chorus of accusations from the international community that the sanctions have caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Facts show that the U.S. strategy of "promoting change through sanctions" on Iraq does not work, and the Iraqi issue has remained unresolved for a long time, becoming a focal point of the conflict between the U.S. and the international community and an increasingly heavy burden on U.S. diplomacy. The determination of the United States to "pour Sa" shows that the overthrow of the Saddam regime by force, the end of the Iraqi problem left over from the Gulf War, while ensuring that U.S. companies to obtain the maximum economic benefits in Iraq has become the United States of America to solve the Iraqi problem of the new ideas.
(c) Control oil supply and expand strategic advantages. The Middle East is the main source of international oil supply. Iraq is rich in oil resources, second only to Saudi Arabia in terms of reserves, and has huge potential for development. Obtaining control of Iraq's oil resources is of great strategic significance to the United States. First, it is conducive to further constraining strategic rivals that rely on international energy supplies. Second, it is conducive to further weakening OPEC's influence on the international oil market, dissolving the efforts of OPEC member countries to limit production and promote prices, and ensuring U.S. control over the security of international oil supply and prices. Third, it creates a major opportunity for U.S. oil companies to return to the region after the climax of oil nationalization in the Middle East in the 1970's. Since the 1990's, Saddam has repeatedly claimed that he wants to use oil as a weapon against U.S. hegemony, which has caused the U.S. to hold a grudge. Get rid of Saddam's regime, the source of international oil supply further placed under the control of the pro-US regime, and even under the direct military protection of the United States, is the United States to expand the international strategic advantage, consolidate its world hegemony of the inevitable choice.
(d) Foster pro-American regimes and weaken anti-American forces. The anti-American forces in the Middle East have always been more active, and since Bush came to power in 2001, this anti-American sentiment has grown further. Bush once admitted that the root cause of the "9-11 incident" was in Palestine. The United States was even more alarmed by the fact that a group of people in Saudi Arabia, a traditional ally of the United States, were suspected of involvement in the September 11 attacks. In addition, in 2000, despite the repeated persuasion of the United States, Saudi Arabia, together with Iran and Venezuela***, initiated the oil production restriction and price increase, and has been insisting on it since then. However, the United States does not realize that the anti-American sentiment in the Middle East is largely related to the United States' Middle East policy. On the contrary, the U.S. and the public have recently come up with an argument that attributes this phenomenon to the centralized political system of some countries in the Middle East and the ineffective crackdown by the previous U.S. administration, and thus believes that only by "integrating" such countries and making them accept the U.S.-style "liberal and democratic values" and political system can the U.S. be able to "integrate" them and make them accept U.S. style "liberal and democratic values" and political system. It was then believed that only by "integrating" such countries and making them accept American-style "liberal and democratic values" and political systems could anti-American sentiments and terrorist activities be prevented. Therefore, in December 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed the "United States Middle East Partnership Program", which included political reforms for Middle Eastern countries. The U.S. government's insistence on overthrowing the Saddam regime and installing a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq that adopts a Western-style democratic political system is aimed at implementing this program and setting up a so-called "model democracy" in Arab countries.
Outbreak of the Iraq War: On March 20, 2003, the Iraq War broke out. This is a new style of modern war in the 21st century, and on May 2, U.S. President George W. Bush officially declared the end of the war in Iraq on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The entire war*** lasted 44 days. In fact, on April 14, the U.S. Army captured Iraqi President Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, the U.S. Army's large-scale military operations are basically over. This war was the second U.S. war against Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. This war and the 1991 Gulf War during the U.S. military casualty figures compared to the basic end of the war in Iraq has two major features: ground war casualties increased greatly, aircraft crashes and friendly fire accidents are significantly reduced.
The reason why the U.S. military in the Iraq War achieved "low casualties", mainly because the Pentagon in the development of operational plans to emphasize the important role of air power and avoid the results of urban street fighting. Although the U.S. military did not deploy many troops this time, but its advanced equipment and training level have formed an overwhelming advantage over the Iraqi army, thus ensuring the smooth end of the entire war. The Iraq war demonstrated the new strategic thinking and theory of the U.S. military, and was the first war in which the U.S. practiced its "pre-emptive" strategy, as well as a large-scale joint integrated attack and occupation of a country's war. Compared with a series of wars launched by the United States in recent years, this war presents some distinctive strategic features. One is to seek the absolute military purpose; the second is to test the informationization of war power; the third is to practice the new war theory; the fourth is to create the asymmetric war situation; and the fifth is to explore the comprehensive effectiveness of the means of warfare.
The impact of the Iraq war on the world pattern and the Middle East: (a) the trend of multipolarity is still in the process of quantitative change, and the trend is enhanced. On the one hand, the United States, relying on its superb economic and military strength, ignored the opposition of other major powers and forcibly realized the goal of "reversal", thus proving that the world pattern of "one superpower" has not changed qualitatively. On the other hand, however, the U.S. hegemony has been challenged by the most serious challenge to its hegemony since the end of the Cold War, and the challenge has come mainly from its Western allies. The divergence of interests and diplomatic independence between France, Germany, Russia and other major powers and the United States on the issue of Iraq has become more obvious. NATO is no longer a tool that the United States can utilize at will, the authority of the United Nations is once again being defended by most countries, and the United States' argument that the "reversal of the Saudis" is directly linked to counter-terrorism is unconvincing, with very few people agreeing with it. The contest between the big powers around the Iraqi issue shows that the United States disregard for the interests of other big powers, the implementation of power politics and "unilateralism" resistance increases, the world pattern of multi-polarization of the quantitative change process continues, the trend of strengthening.
(ii) The international oil price, which has remained high for many years, is likely to decline. International oil prices have remained high for a long time since 2000 for a variety of reasons. From the supply side, both Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela and other major OPEC oil-exporting countries to limit production to promote the price of the results, but also counter-terrorism, "inverted Sa" and Venezuela strikes and other political factors caused by psychological panic and speculative capital speculation in the results. There is no real shortage of international oil supply capacity. Stimulated by years of high oil prices, Russia and other non-OPEC countries have significantly increased their oil production and export capacity. Currently, the Venezuelan strike has gradually subsided. After the Iraqi issue is resolved, oil speculators will lose another "speculation point". Iraqi oil production will also gradually increase. From the demand side, the world economic downturn has led to a significant decline in the growth rate of world oil demand, from an average annual growth rate of 1.4% in the 1990s to an average of 0.4% in 2001 and 2002, and there is still no possibility of a significant increase in 2003. Under this situation of supply and demand, the oversupply of international oil after the "reversal" will become more obvious, the role of market forces on oil prices will become more obvious, and the competition for market share between OPEC and non-OPEC oil-exporting countries will become more intense. As long as the "reverse Sa" process in the Middle East oil fields are not subject to large-scale destruction, the pressure to reduce international oil prices will increase significantly, and lead to a decline in international oil prices.
(c) The situation in the Middle East may ease, but it is difficult to stabilize. "In order to prevent unrest and division in Iraq, the United States may implement some form of military control over Iraq directly or through the use of international forces. Faced with this fait accompli, the governments of the Middle East may adopt a realistic position and avoid confrontation with the United States. But the Middle East may also see some popular anti-American sentiment, not excluding the possibility of radical forces launching attacks against U.S. interests.
(d) The United States to realize the "inverted Sa" after the focus will shift to the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq, the possibility of immediate use of force against other Middle Eastern countries is unlikely to require other Arab countries to immediately adopt a Western-style democratic system is also unrealistic. The U.S. oil consortium will return to Iraq. Political reconstruction may take the form of the "Afghan model", but in order to meet the demands for autonomy of the Kurds and Shiite Islam, federalism may also become an option for the political system. However, the struggle for power and profit among Iraqi opposition factions, the deep ethnic conflicts between Kurds and Arabs, and the sectarian differences between Shiite Islamists and Sunnis will not only erupt during the process of political reconstruction, but will also become a factor affecting the political stability of Iraq in the long term, and may even have an impact on Iraq's relations with its neighboring countries. The U.S. military may be stationed in Iraq for a long time.
(5) The Palestinian question is related to the interests and feelings of the Arab nation. After the "reverse", the United States in order to maintain political influence in the Middle East, weakening the anti-American sentiment in Arab countries, can not help but increase the efforts to restore the Middle East peace process, may urge the two sides in the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and the Russian Quartet to jointly put forward the "road map" program. The two sides may be urged to resume peace talks on the basis of the "road map" program jointly proposed by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and the Russian Quartet, thus easing the violent conflict between the two sides. However, due to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations currently involved in Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees and other key issues intricate and complex, the solution is very difficult, so far there is no practical program, so in the short term the Middle East peace process is difficult to make a breakthrough progress, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will continue to exist.
(6) The U.S.-Iraqi war has damaged traditional security factors and international law. The U.S. attack on Iraq essentially bypassed the United Nations and acted alone with its allies, which will once again weaken the United Nations' influence and power in maintaining world peace. In the long run, the United Nations will be gradually hollowed out and lose its position in international affairs. This will also have a direct impact on the rights and status of other major Powers. After the war, the global expansion of American hegemony will become increasingly obvious.