Iron curtain still down on involvement in Iraq war

The Netherlands has not yet held an investigation into events surrounding Dutch support for the Iraq war. What has the government got to hide?

The current development aid minister Bert Koenders (Labour) was a member of the opposition when he spoke out against the way Jan Peter Balkenende’s cabinet handled its support for the Iraq war during a heated debate on June 30, 2004.

“Undemocratic”, he said when the then-defence minister Henk Kamp (right-wing liberal VVD) made it clear that parliament was not to be given any more information about how the government had come to its decision to lend political support to the Iraq war in 2003. “The iron curtain has come down”, Koenders commented bitterly at the time.

But four years on, even with Koenders and other Labour politicians now holding government posts, the curtain is still firmly closed. The social democrats had to drop their demand for a parliamentary investigation into Iraq during the process of forming a new cabinet in 2007. And that formation process was probably the party's best chance of success. Even if Labour were to call for an official investigation now it would never achieve a majority in parliament.

But why is such an investigation so sensitive in the Netherlands? After all, many other countries have held them. And why are the coalition Christian Democrats so totally opposed to examining the considerations which led to political support for the war?

US regrets

When US president George W. Bush recently expressed his regrets about having misinformed the world about the presence of weapons of mass destruction, prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he saw no reason to change his mind about his support for the war. Saddam Hussein had not conformed to UN resolutions and that is why Iraq was invaded, he maintained. “The words of the American president don’t change that,” said the prime minister, who is clearly the prime mover in opposing an official investigation.

But there was more to the Dutch support for the war than mere resolutions. Leaked confidential documents and other sources show that key questions remain to be asked about two important matters. One concerns the legitimacy of the war. The other relates to the presence, or otherwise, of weapons of mass destruction.

For the two main players in the war against Iraq, the United States and Great Britain, the presumed presence of weapons of mass destruction was the trigger for military intervention. And although the Dutch government emphasised Bagdad’s disregard for the UN resolutions, former Dutch foreign affairs minister and current Nato secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that international military action “is rooted in the [presence of] weapons of mass destruction”.

Dutch intelligence ignored

The government maintains that it was never influenced by secret service information - which we now know to be false - and that it arrived at its decision independently.

But what does that mean exactly? Documents which were published by NRC Handelsblad in June 2004 show that unlike British and American political leaders, Dutch intelligence had its doubts about the presence of weapons of mass destruction. Why did the government ignore its own intelligence advice and why was parliament never told?

Legal grounds

And what of the legitimacy of the war which, it will be remembered, was unleashed without an explicit UN resolution. Balkenende claimed to have “sufficient legal grounds” for his support but doubts about this were raised from the start. The legal departments of both the defence and the foreign affairs ministries stated that there was never an iron-clad case for legitimacy. Again, why did the government choose to ignore these signals and why was parliament not informed?

We are left with an incomplete picture of why and how the Dutch government came to lend political support to the war in Iraq. There are documents in a number of government departments which could clarify the matter. Parliament has asked to see them but the previous cabinet always denied access to these documents because it felt parliament had been given enough information.

As long as these questions go unanswered, supporters of an investigation will still be faced with Bert Koenders’ iron curtain.