George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as evil. Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America’s peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the lesser evil. This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, lesser evil is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today’s Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright’s veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was US ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism – the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it – is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than ‘cowboy’ language. Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq and the Left
Some peaceniks clear their throats by saying that, of course, they oppose Saddam Hussein as much as anybody, though not enough to support doing anything about him. ibid.
You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After all, Saddam’s ruling Ba’ath Party consolidated its power by first destroying the Iraqi communist and labour movements, and then turning on the Kurds (whose cause, historically, has been one of the main priorities of the Left in the Middle East). When I first became a socialist, the imperative of international solidarity was the essential if not the defining thing, whether the cause was popular or risky or not. I haven’t seen an anti-war meeting all this year at which you could even guess at the existence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, an opposition that was fighting for ‘regime change’ when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally. Not only does the ‘peace’ movement ignore the anti-Saddam civilian opposition, it sends missions to console the Ba’athists in their isolation, and speaks of the invader of Kuwait and Iran and the butcher of Kurdistan as if he were the victim and George W Bush the aggressor. ibid.
I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba’ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.) Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
So, whenever the subject of Iraq came up, as it did keep on doing through the Clinton years, I had no excuse for not knowing the following things: I knew that its one-party, one-leader state machine was modelled on the precedents of both National Socialism and Stalinism, to say nothing of Al Capone. I knew that its police force was searching for psychopathic killers and sadistic serial murderers, not in order to arrest them but to employ them. I knew that its vast patrimony of oil wealth, far from being ‘nationalized’, had been privatized for the use of one family, and was being squandered on hideous ostentation at home and militarism abroad. (Post-Kuwait inspections by the United Nations had uncovered a huge nuclear-reactor site that had not even been known about by the international community.) I had seen with my own eyes the evidence of a serious breach of the Genocide Convention on Iraqi soil, and I had also seen with my own eyes the evidence that it had been carried out in part with the use of weapons of mass destruction. I was, if you like, the prisoner of this knowledge. I certainly did not have the option of un-knowing it. ibid.
Most churches opposed the effort to remove Saddam Hussein, and the pope disgraced himself utterly by issuing a personal invitation to the wanted war criminal Tariq Aziz, a man responsible for the state murder of children. Not only was Aziz welcomed at the Vatican as the senior Catholic member of a ruling fascist party (not the first time that such an indulgence had been granted), he was then taken to Assisi for a personal session of prayer at the shrine of Saint Francis, who apparently used to lecture to birds. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great p34
The liberation of Iraq ... will stand I am convinced as one of the greatest decisions of American statescraft. Christopher Hitchens v Peter Hitchens 2008
We have removed a keystone state of the Middle East from the control and sole ownership of a psychopathic crime family who owned all of Iraq and treated its people as if they were disposable citizens. ibid.
We have undone what Unesco calls ‘the greatest crime against the human ecology every committed’ – the destruction of the marshes of southern Iraq. ibid.
Not to intervene would have been just as imperialist. ibid.
It would have been much better to put an end to the Saddam Hussein regime in 1991; it would have spared the Iraqi people some terrible years of suffering and misery. Christopher Hitchens v Robert Wright 2009
The presumption of guilt in the case of Saddam Hussein and double-dealing on WMDs is absolute. ibid.
Iraq: The Republic of Fear … The surviving half [of the purge] are told to go out in the yard, given guns and told to shoot the victim target. Christopher Hitchens, lecture The Axis of Evil Revisited, Fora TV/Youtube 1.00.52, 2009
People like Mr Hitchens are ready to fight to the last drop of other people’s blood. And it’s utterly contemptible. George Galloway, Galloway v Hitchens, Baruch College New York September 2005
Well in excess of 100,000 people’s lives and hundreds of thousands more have been maimed and wounded. And it was all for a pack of lies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no link between Iraq and al Qaeda. There was no link between Iraq and the atrocities of 11th September. ibid.
There is scarcely a sentient being in the land who any longer believes that the war on Iraq was either necessary or just or a good idea. ibid.
Our two countries [US & UK] are the biggest rogue states in the world today. ibid.
Western policy has created this swamp of hatred against us. ibid.
Saddam Hussein committed real and serious crimes against the people of Iraq. Most of them in the 1980s when he was the closest friend of the United States and Great Britain. ibid.
Do you think they’re planning on going home any time soon of their own violation? Do you think Halliburton intends to leave? Do you think their plans to force the privatisation of all of Iraq’s industries and services are because they intend to allow Iraq to be free? ibid.
cf.
Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. I can honestly tell you that there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt fraternal greetings and support. George Galloway to Saddam Hussein
The clear and indisputable illegality of the war … The is no democracy legitimacy for this war. Andrew Arato vs Christopher Hitchens, debate 2008
This kind of war would create more terrorists than ever. ibid.
Saddam did not have nuclear weapons and no-one assumed that he could have anything resembling them. The lesson the war against Iraq proved that countries must go nuclear if they want to avoid being invaded. ibid.
The Destruction of the Iraqi state … The failure to rapidly organise elected local government … The failure to internationalise the monitoring of the political process … The creation of an exclusionary and ethnicised structure of an interim government … The making of a state bargain exclusively with one group namely the Kurds … The creation of an interim constitution which froze the subsequent political process … The attempt to broaden inclusion much too late … The toleration of illegalities, irregularities. ibid.
I thought there was an arrogance about this war. And a belief flowing from self-righteousness and misdirected idealism that was bound to end in disaster ... There is nothing in this world more terrifying than somebody who thinks he is right. Peter Hitchens, debate Peter Hichens v Christopher Hitchens 2008
Six trillion dollars which the United States does not have expended. Iraq under the control largely of the Ayatollahs of Iran. The resort to torture by the United States ... An untold number of innocent people killed. The certainty that the United States is unable for the foreseeable fortune to mount a justifiable military operation abroad. The diminution of the moral authority of the western democracies again for the foreseeable future. Fantastic. What more could you ask. ibid.
The idea that we had to invade to find out that they didn’t have nuclear weapons is ridiculous. Robert Wright, debate Robert Wright v Christopher Hitchens 2009
Despite international arms inspections taking place in Iraq the Pentagon mounts a massive invasion force in the Persian Gulf. At the United Nations the US and UK lobby for a resolution authorising the war on Iraq. Attempting to rally support, the US offers debt relief to many developing countries. But fails to bring most on board. On March 20 2003 in violation of international law the bombing of Iraq begins. The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror