Cirincione Cassandra Watch

I woke up this morning to Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace speaking with NPR's Bob Edwards about the war in Iraq [audio]. I put Mr. Cirincione's remarks in context, by quoting from his formidable body of prior statements, predictions and running commentary on other recent situations.

Today (March 25, 2003):

As most observers have noted this not what we expected. It was clear that Secretary Rumsfeld was hoping for a very early decapitation strike or surrender. That did not happen. Saddam seems entrenched in power, still controlling his forces.

November 9, 2001

Things aren't going well in the war [in Afghanistan]

(Kabul fell four days later)

Today

These guerilla tactics are also somewhat unexpected and taking a much higher toll than people thought...[The US military didn't count on] the irregulars and the staunch resistance and the tactics that Saddam seems to have adopted...I think there's no doubt in the end that the U.S. military will win, it's just the toll may be higher than any of us had been expecting, and the fighting, as the President now says, may be much longer than he led us to believe just a week ago

In fact, nothing I've read has indicated that the administration was expecting a cakewalk. The administration has long expected and planned for uncertainty and Cirincione has written as such:
Feb 23, 2003

[administration officials] harbor grave doubts. As one senior official told a New York Times reporter, "We still do not know how U.S. forces will be received. Will it be cheers, jeers or shots? And the fact is, we won't know until we get there."

Today

Ordering the regular forces, not the Republican Guards, but the regular forces that were supposed to be surrendering en masse by now...Ordering them to take off their uniforms, adopt civilian clothes and carry out operations behind enemy lines. Our military is understandably upset about this, thinks it's not, you know, sort of fair, not the proper way to conduct a war. Unfortunately it seems to be very effective.

It is not merely "not, you know, sort of fair" but also a serious war crime. Cirincione does not label it as such.

Today

There's a very high expectation that Saddam in fact does have a large stockpile of chemical or biological weapons. This might not be true. He might have very few of these weapons left. Nonetheless it does slow our progress. As troops come across suspicious rockets or vats or laboratories they're going to understandably stop, take a step back, put up a perimeter, call in the inspectors.

Dec. 9, 2002

The unanimous Security Council resolution ordering Iraqi compliance with United Nations inspections--and the credible threat of war should Iraq not comply--make it very likely that Saddam will cooperate with UN inspections. The early inspections have gone well enough...

If Saddam had complied with the various Security Council resolutions he would not have any illegal weapons, period.

Some more examples of Cirincione's sage predictions:

Dec. 9, 2002

The U.S. administration has convinced most journalists and world leaders that it will soon attack Iraq ... Leaked plans detail a ferocious, short war to isolate, then topple Saddam Hussein. Arab leaders publicly oppose a war, but news reports indicate their quiet support. President George Bush seems ready to let loose the dogs of war at any moment.

Which is precisely why he will not have to...

...there are several very plausible scenarios that could turn the war into a catastrophe. These include the use of chemical or biological weapons against US troops [ with weapons that Cirincione claims that either (a) Saddam doesn't have, or which we (b) shouldn't waste our time looking for]; an attack on Israel that prompts an Israeli counter-attack, possibly with a nuclear weapon...

... it is not likely that the United States will go to war anytime soon.

Feb. 23, 2003

Even if the war itself goes well, and we can avoid the horrors of chemical weapons, house-to-house fighting and torched oil fields, the bombing campaign said to involve 3,000 bombs in the first two days alone will kill thousands. And this time every television station in the world wants to be live from Baghdad. CNN was alone in 1991; now there are dozens of CNNs. Each will broadcast live photos of dead Iraqis being pulled from the rubble.

How did the prediction of "will kill thousands" in the first two days come to pass? The answer is here

So far, Iraqi television apparently has shown little footage of civilian casualties, probably an indication there has not been much, said Korb, an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. He said the Iraqis would repeatedly show footage of any large-scale civilian casualties if they could

Cirincione gave us a whole bunch of other doomsday predictions in an op-ed which appeared in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle

Fatwas are already flowing from mainstream clerics urging all Muslims to resist the U.S. invasion. Governments may indeed fall, but it may be the rulers in Jordan that are threatened, not the dictatorship in Syria

But the war -- whatever the outcome -- will likely increase both amateur and organized terrorism. Much of the terrorism will be spontaneous outrage at the invasion and deaths, striking out at close by, identifiable American targets.

If the war goes well, world publics may fear emboldened, postwar U.S. intentions even more. The Bush doctrine seems likely to generate exactly the anti-U.S. coalitions that it was designed to discourage.

If the war destabilizes Pakistan, nuclear weapons, materials or scientists may flow to other nations or terrorist groups. North Korea, ignored during the crisis, may go overtly nuclear...

...It will destabilize the region, increase terrorism, decrease alliance unity and make the spread of deadly weapons more likely without measurably increasing our national security.

It sounds like a horrifying future to be sure, but given Cirincione's track record for predictions, I'm going to wait a few days before investing in a backyard bomb-shelter.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 25, 2003 12:55 PM