Bleak vision of what might have been in Iraq

ONE year on from the start of the war in Iraq, and Britain is still gripped by the debate over whether or not the conflict was necessary. Suppose it had not, in fact, been fought: where would we be now?

In the first instance, it is most likely that the United Nations’ sanctions regime against Saddam Hussein would still be in force. As a result, ordinary Iraqis would still be suffering from Saddam’s corrupt use of the oil-for-food programme being run - inefficiently - by the UN. We now know (according to the UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, himself) that Saddam and his henchmen illegally siphoned off more than 5.5 billion of these funds which should otherwise have been spent on food or medicines. Few would have marched in the West to demand Saddam comply with his obligations. Al-Qaeda would not have bombed Baghdad to make Saddam an honest man. Only the Iraqi children would have gone on dying. Currently, the UN’s Office of Oversight Services is conducting an investigation into allegations that UN officials were complicit in the misuse of oil-for-food funds.

Without the invasion, it is likely that the UN-sanctioned "no-fly" zone would have remained in force: containment rather than invasion would have been the order of the day. This costly aerial action was being conducted by the US air force and the RAF, but the French were also using their bases in the horn of Africa to lend it support. At some point, an Allied plane would have been shot down and Allied lives lost. Containment was never a risk-free option. Al-Qaeda would have continued to denounce the containment actions and used them as an excuse to carry out terrorist outrages. The largest potential al-Qaeda operation - to hijack 11 or 12 passenger jets over the Pacific and crash them - was foiled back in 1995: note that this was at a point when the Oslo Accords seemed to be bringing peace to Palestine. For al-Qaeda, the UN sanctions on Iraq and the "no-fly" zone were just as provocative.

The "no-fly" zone also served to keep Saddam’s military out of the freed Kurdish areas in the north of Iraq. In retaliation, Saddam had made an alliance with a group associated with al-Qaeda - the Ansar al-Islam. This fundamentalist terror group operated inside the Kurdish autonomous areas, bombing and murdering as it now does in Baghdad. Its operations were growing in the run-up to the invasion last year. But no-one in the West would have demonstrated against the Ansar and its terror in Kurdistan.

It will be asked: what would have happened if the weapons inspectors had been given more time? First, it must be remembered that the inspectors returned to Iraq in 2002 only because of the threat of invasion - Saddam had stopped co-operating with the UN inspection teams back in 1998. It was the continued and credible threat of force that made inspection possible. Certainly, had inspections continued through 2003, it may have become apparent that the original containment regime had worked far better than anyone had imagined. However, with Saddam still in place, what then? The same political forces that opposed Saddam’s removal would instantly have demanded the end of sanctions and the "no-fly" zone, handing the dictator a victory. The people of Iraq would be under his iron heel to this day. And only the most naive would ignore the fact that if Saddam had escaped justice it would have handed al-Qaeda a victory. For if Saddam could escape, why could the Taleban not regain power in Afghanistan?

A poll of Iraqis last week indicated that the majority of them believe life in their country has improved compared with a year ago. Let theirs be the final verdict.

One in the face for Executive

ACCORDING to an exclusive poll conducted for The Scotsman, the only Scottish Executive minister recognised by more than half of the population is the First Minister himself, Jack McConnell. Even then, despite his daily media appearances, only 55 per cent of Scots know his name. Sadly for Mr McConnell, 2 per cent of Scots think that his job is held by Patricia Ferguson, the parliamentary business manager. Embarrassingly, only 1 per cent of people recognised Andy Kerr, the man who holds the financial purse strings for the Executive, or Peter Peacock, the education minister.

Should we be worried by these findings? People lead busy lives and don’t necessarily have the time to memorise the faces of the Executive. Ignorance might actually betoken a sense that the politicians are doing a good job and the country is quite happy to let them get on with it. Again, the Scottish Parliament is a relatively new affair, so it is to be expected that the voters will be more familiar with the likes of Gordon Brown and Robin Cook.

That said, this is a surprising and rather worrying poll finding. Devolution was meant to bring Scottish politics closer to the electorate - which would suggest a better recognition factor concerning politicians who spend most of our taxes. An uninformed electorate cannot make wise decisions. Besides, faceless politicians can get away with more than those being kept under personal scrutiny. But lack of recognition is also a danger to the politicians themselves: if voters don’t know who they are, then they are unlikely to listen to them or vote for them.

What has caused this ignorance? One explanation is that the First Minister has pursued a rather presidential approach and kept his ministers in the background - or dropped them before they became better known. There is a modicum of truth in this, and Mr McConnell might care to reflect that, if he can garner all the applause, he might also garner all the blame. Inevitably, some will point the finger at the media for the Executive’s invisibility cloak but the evidence suggests that voters think there is too much politics, not too little. Perhaps ministers need to be more focused in their public pronouncements, rather than issue batteries of warmed-over press releases by the day.

There is, of course, another explanation for the Executive’s poor recognition factor. It might just be that the general calibre of ministers is mediocre. The public has no difficulty recognising parliamentary stars such as John Swinney, Tommy Sheridan or Margo MacDonald. If the shoe fits, as they say ...

Where is the game plan?

THE national sporting humiliation is now complete. Despite a new version of Highland Cathedral to pep up the players and fans, Scotland’s rugby team went down to its first scoreless defeat in 26 long years, leaving the French to take on England for a Grand Slam in Paris. Yesterday, at Murrayfield, Scotland proved to have no defensive capability - and no offensive capability either, for that matter. Some naive souls might try to claim that the scoreline was a narrower margin of defeat that the infamous 51-9 massacre when Scotland played France in the Rugby World Cup last year, but at least the national team managed to grab a few points on that sad occasion. Yesterday, if they hadn’t turned up, it wouldn’t have reduced their score.

There will be those who say that we should not talk down a brave side of young, inexperienced players operating under tremendous pressure. There is some truth in that. But in many a famous battle of yore, young Scots at least had the courage and skill to fight to the death. At Murrayfield, it was not clear if the team knew who it was fighting. At one point in the match, Derrick Lee threw a quixotic forward pass while under no pressure, a move that suggested random desperation rather than sporting science.The reality is that no-one watching Scotland’s eclectic performance in the RBS Six Nations understands what the strategy is to develop the team and its standard of play. However, ultimately, if the troops don’t perform, questions have to be asked of the generals. And that is where the post-mortem should begin this morning.