John Bolton: No regrets over Saddam removal

"Saddam was overthrown during the period of major combat operations, which was a superb campaign, and we accomplished the objectives.

Then other decisions were made that you can debate that perhaps were not so great."

Enthusiastic supporter of regime change

At the time the US-led coalition launched its invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Bolton worked as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

And while he was a relatively junior member of the Bush administration compared with other prominent figures such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bolton was one of the more enthusiastic supporters of regime change in Baghdad.

AFP

A staunch Republican who had previously served in the administrations of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the 74-year-old Washington veteran argues that Saddam's failure to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreed at the end of the First Gulf War in 1991 was one of the main justifications for removing his regime in 2003.

Under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 687, the agreement Saddam signed with the US-led coalition after the successful liberation of Kuwait, the Iraqi dictator agreed to provide a detailed account of Iraq's numerous WMD programmes.

But despite UN inspectors making repeated attempts to visit key military sites throughout the 1990s, Baghdad never provided a full account of its activities.

So far as Bolton was concerned, the onus was on Saddam and his officials to show that they did not have stockpiles of WMD, and their failure to do so ultimately justified the 2003 invasion.

"For me it was about finishing off what should have been finished after the First Gulf War," Bolton explained. "After all, Saddam had shown his willingness to use chemical weapons with his attacks against the Kurds."

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, one of the Bush administration's key priorities was to make sure terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda did not gain access to WMD.

And while Saddam was not personally responsible for the 9/11 attacks, his long history of association with terrorist groups made him a prime subject of concern for the Bush administration.

"It was not linked just to the situation in 2003, but to the future threat," Bolton recalled.

"The terrorist issue was that if he ever re-acquired WMD, given his support for terrorism around the region, the odds of him providing those WMDs to terrorists was extremely high."

"I don't blink at the characterisation that the invasion was preventative. It was preventative, to make sure we did not see a mushroom cloud rising over an American or allied city."

No regrets

And in terms of nullifying the security threat posed by Saddam's regime, Bolton believes the regime change mission was a success, even if mistakes were subsequently made.

"The key point was that Saddam Hussein was removed from power and the threat of Iraqi WMD was eliminated in effect in perpetuity."

Nor does he have any regrets about Saddam's demise, and the impact the Iraq war has had on the rest of the Middle East region.

"People say, look at the Middle East now, as though if only Saddam Hussein had been allowed to remain in power, everything would have been sweetness and light. And that is simply not true."

Post-war mistakes

While Bolton believes the military campaign to remove Saddam was a great success, accomplishing its goals within the space of a month, he is more critical of the Bush administration's performance after Saddam's removal, particularly the failure to involve the Iraqis in the post-war administration of their country.

Bolton believes the coalition should have set up the provisional authority involving Iraqi politicians immediately after Saddam's removal, rather than giving responsibility for running Iraq to Paul Bremer, who was President George W. Bush's personal nominee.

"Paul Bremer became just another political faction within Iraq," Bolton recalled. "The decision not to set up the provisional authority immediately after Saddam's removal was a mistake."

Bolton is also critical of the policies implemented by the influential neo-conservatives who dominated policy-making decisions in Washington in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, and implemented the deeply unpopular de-Baathification policy, which resulted in hundreds of thousands Iraqi civil servants and military personnel being dismissed.

"Another mistake was demobilising the army without thinking about the consequences," said Bolton.

His biggest criticism, though, is reserved for Barack Obama, and his unilateral decision to withdraw coalition forces from Iraq when the country was still struggling to come to terms with the violent aftermath of Saddam's overthrow.

"The worst decision the US made was in 2011 when Barack Obama withdrew US and allied forces. This was the complete opposite of Bush's decision to invade in the first place.

"Having allied forces in Iraq held the ring and allowed the Iraqis to form their own representative government. It kept Iran at bay, it kept the Syrians at bay, and it was a force for social stability inside Iraq.

"So, when people talk about the instability we created, we created instability when we withdrew."

And Bolton believes one major consequence of Obama's decision to withdraw coalition forces from Iraq was the emergence of Daesh (Islamic State), which went on to form its so-called caliphate in northern Iraq and Syria.

Read more: How the US invasion of Iraq set the stage for IS

Bolton is not just critical of Obama's decision to withdraw from Iraq. He believes the former president's failure to follow through on his promise to launch military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013 has been a catastrophe for the West.

"After the expulsion of Iraq forces from Kuwait in 1991, we felt we had overcome the Vietnam Syndrome, and we had demonstrated that we didn't have to accept realities that were threatening to us and our friends, like the unprovoked aggression against Kuwait.

"But unfortunately, the fall-out from the Second Gulf War has produced the opposite effect. It has created a new syndrome that says regime change is always a bad thing and that you cannot use military force."

After serving in the Bush administration, Bolton was appointed US National Security Advisor by US President Donald Trump but resigned in 2019 following a series of disagreements on key policy issues, including Trump's attempts to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

"The worst example was the decision in 2021 to withdraw from Afghanistan, which is its own catastrophe. This was one of the elements that fed into Putin's thinking when he decided to invade Ukraine."

Unsurprisingly, Bolton is a staunch critic of the Biden administration and its handling of the Ukraine crisis, claiming that the Biden White House has no clear plan for resolving the conflict.

"The pattern we have got going in Ukraine now is that the Biden administration essentially wants Russia to lose but it does not want Ukraine to win."

Read more: Pentagon leaks show Western resolve in Ukraine

"And so, we don't have a strategy for what victory is because we don't know what victory is, and we are not supplying the wherewithal of what Ukraine needs. All of this is a collective self-inflicted wound."

Bolton also expressed concern over the deterioration in relations between the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since President Joe Biden took office, a state of affairs he hopes will be resolved after the next US presidential elections, even though he has sympathy for the way the Saudis have been treated by the current US administration.

Read more: Biden security strategy reflects waning US interest in the Middle East

"The Saudis have legitimate concerns about their treatment by the Biden administration, and my advice would be to wait until the outcome of the next US presidential election."

"In this changing world it is well worth remembering that there has been a military alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia for 80 years," Bolton advises.

"And they should not let that go easily."

"My best advice would be to keep in mind Winston Churchill's comment, that you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, usually after they have tried everything else."