Bombs, Far Away

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." That was Dick Cheney speaking several months ago. Barton Gellman, writing in the Washington Post, says otherwise.

Comments

[Tom from Texas]

So Saddam bluffed the world into thinking he had an active WMD program. Many believed him (including those opposing the war who claimed hostile action against Iraq would lead to WMD use). The world called his bluff. End of story.

Jesus, this is just like the the 2000 election to some people. I will be pissing in my Depends and someone somewhere will still be screaming, "Bush lied! Bush lied! Bush lied!"

[Jim Henley]

And a fiendishly clever bluff it was! Iraq said over and over, "We have no WMD. None."

Tricky bastards.

[R. C. Dean]

The key, Jim, is that Saddam acted exactly as he would have if he had an active WMD program. Someone with such a program would issue denials, but would then refuse to provide documentation and evidence to support their denials, would interfere with inspections teams, and would be willing to suffer billions of dollars in economic damage due solely to their refusal to demonstrate convincingly that they had no WMD program.

If Saddam was clean as a whistle and not trying to bluff anyone, why did he act as if he were dirty?

[Jason Ligon]

Jim,

Selective memory you have there. Why the obstruction of investigators?

[JSM]

...And it is becoming obvious that Iraqi's themselves bluffed Saddam out of fear of telling him it can't be done.

Whether or not Bush intentionally lied, there where many big statements made by this administration without much solid evidence to back said statements. It puts credibility of the pre-emption doctrine on shaky ground.

[trainwreck]

Tom, don't play poker, you are too easily bluffed. And when calling someone's bluff, it's important to see their hand, as it helps improve your play in the future. But that only works for poker players who possess the strength of self-criticism.

[Bushitler LIED!!!!!!]

Saddam also denied mass murder. Clearly he never did that in past either.

(Notice how Henley say's "Iraq" as if Saddam's regime was the legit government of nation-state. Another freudian slip Jim...careful...)

[Jim Henley]

Why the obstruction of investigators?

RC and Jason: Let me get a handle on where you're coming from. Are you talking about 1998 or 2002-2003?

[HH]

They said they didn't have any WMD, they just weren't interested in, you know, proving it, as the UN resolutions and cease-fire agreement demanded.

[R C Dean]

RC and Jason: Let me get a handle on where you're coming from. Are you talking about 1998 or 2002-2003?

I am talking about the entire period from the cease-fire through the final invasion. At no time did Hussein meet his obligations under the UN resolutions and cease fire agreement. Even his desperate final document dumps and offers to allow inspection fell short.

[Jim Henley]

RC: Thanks for the response. Next question: Let's stick to the final round of inspections, post-resolution, what was it, 141? The one from October 2002.

On what do you base your statements that Hussein's cooperation fell short? This is not a rhetorical question. Rather than address some imaginary hawkish case, I'd like to get a real hawk's specific case.

[thinking out loud]

Heres an interesting scenerio.....

Your country is surounded on all sides by enemys that you have been fighting for 20 years, bitter enemys, enemys that would love to see your entire country destroyed, your land taken and the spoils of war plundered and sold to the higest bidder. You also maintain some of the largest oil fields in the world, oil that your enemys, and allies, and unfriendlies would all love to get thier hands on.

You controled the largest army in the region until 10 years ago in a very short lived campaign versus the largest super power in the world where 80 percent of your ground forces and 95 percent of your air force were utterly and completely destroyed. Your militarys ability to defend your country has almost over night been completely incapacitated. But your still surrounded by enemys, enemys that now overpower your weak, feeble military. To top it off, you have just been hit by sanctions by the largest international organization limiting your ability to rebuild your army, sanctions that are starving off your remaining soldiers, yet you are still surrounded by your enemys.

Then you are asked to account for all of your militarys capacity and capability, which you know is almost non existant, and as soon as you declair your militarys capacity your enemys will soon realize exactly how weak and easy of a target you really are.

But you have one small tactical advantage, the enemy thinks you have a super weapon. You know you dont have a super weapon, but, the fact that your enemy does think you have a super weapon is the deterant that is keeping them from sending troops across the border.

All of a sudden the super power that kicked your ass 10 years ago starts threaten you, asking you to give up the super weapon or they will attack. You start to weigh the options, fold your hand, prove you have no super weapon and avert the super powers wrath, but in the process also give up the one ace in the whole that is keeping your enemy on his side of the border. So now you are in a catch-22, get invaded by the super power, or be invaded by your enemy.

What would you do??? Bluff as long as possible??
Hope that the international community puts preasure on the super power to back down, or tip your hand, avert the super power, but open your country to certain invasion by your enemy.

Saddam was damned if he did, damned if he didnt, invasion by the super power was the better of the two alternatives, and thats the pill he took.

There are no WMDs in Iraq.....

[Blixa]

Cheney said he had no doubt that Iraq had WMD.

Gellman claims that in fact there were no WMD.

These are not contradictory statements.

[trainwreck]

You guys quit tiptoeing around the issues here!

Everyone knows that the last round of UN inspections required more time, and that the UN was slowly gaining Iraqi cooperation, to the point where Iraq was publicly destroying missiles banned under the program.

And everyone knows that the American military presence was built up in Kuwait during the fall of 2002.

The US was faced with was a situation where most of the American army was sitting in a desert waiting for the UN to patiently go about it's business.

The US government agreed to go along with the UN inspections, but was surprised by the fact that Iraq started to comply with the inspections. Iraq compliance was never supposed to be part of the picture, or the troop build up wouldn't have been so early and so big.

And so, it was declared that Iraqi compliance with inspections was inadequate, not by the UN inspectors, but by the USA.

The dishonesty here isn't about WMD--although that was certainly trumped up. The dishonesty in the American policy was in participating the the UN weapons inspection program, so long as it was convenient, then walking away when it was clear our troops could get stuck in Kuwait for an indefinite period.

[Andrew]

Thinking-Out-Loud

"what do you do?"

Resign. Would be a good time to resign, don't you think?

Truth is, being beaten by the US in 91 could have turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Iraq, in terms of her security. Being beaten by Britain, France or some combination of the Euro All-Stars would have left Iraq vunerable...those guys always go home-- they HAVE to.
A new Iraqi government, with a clean slate, would have enjoyed a US security guarantee for a generation...not perfect? A LOT BETTER THAN A WMD BLUFF!

You sound like the felon who negotiates a strict probation-- rather than take the sentence due him-- then complains about having to abide by it.

[fyodor]

Re Iraq's lack of documentation. Could our government fully document where all the weapons it's ever had are or have gone?

I echo Jim Henley's curiosity about what exactly is the case for Saddam's obfuscation.

[thinking out loud]

Andrew:

Your response looks good on paper (like Nigerian Yellow Cake) but, unfortunatly for you, the US Military never occupied Iraq afer the 91 war, so Iraq had NO PROTECTION by the US military from invasion by her enemys.

Your answer of resign again looks good on paper, but do you seriously think that Iran would just give up enemy status because Saddam was no longer in power?? Maybe in some movie script, but not likely in the real world....

But thats the problem with the ChickenHawks, they belive the world works one way, when in reality, it doesnt....

[trainwreck]

Blixa they aren't contradictory once you got done paraphrasing.

[Tom from Texas]

The problem with the PeacePussies is that they would prefer anything, anything, even Saddam Hussein staying in power and continuing his murderous ways, to George Bush accomplishing anything.

Again, and again, and again, the whole anti-war shitpile has never been about the UN, inspections, multilateralism, or "Give Peace a Chance". It has been about hatred of George W. Bush

[fyodor]

TfT,

Well I'm a PeacePussie and I say hurrah to Bush for the new temporary worker program. Whatcha say to that? 🙂

[Andrew]

Thinking Out Loud

I said GUARANTEE. And it would have been a pretty credible one, considering that we had just marched an army through the region.

Do YOU seriously think Saddam brutally suppressed a popular rebellion, because he had an insight about the "persian menace" that his people were to insipid to recognise, and reasoned that his coninuing didtatorship was somehow of benefit to his society? Are you a Baath apologist?

And if the absence of an American Army in Iraq was a cause for concern in 91...well, that is a problem solved.

[trainwreck]

Tom, now I know why you are easily bluffed.

[Blixa]

trainwreck,

Blixa they aren't contradictory once you got done paraphrasing.

How would you paraphrase it? Do you think that what Cheney really meant to say was that there is "no doubt anywhere in the world in anybody's mind" that Hussein had WMDs?

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this "excuses" their "lies" if you wanna go the "lies" route. I noticed this "no doubt" phrase before - Cheney is not the only one who used it, and it occurs often enough to appear, to me, to be a conscious Clintonian way of hedging their statements.

[thoreau]

Let's all say (for the sake of argument) that at the time Cheney made that statement there were in fact no WMD or significantly advanced WMD development programs in Iraq. I know this is a controversial supposition, but let's suppose it for the sake of argument.

Cheney said "there is no doubt..." Whether his statement is truthful would then depend on the meaning of the word "is".

Does "there is no doubt" refer to the mental states of experts, or is it a figure of speech meaning that a statement is true?

If my original supposition is true, then I'm glad we have an administration that doesn't engage in all the double-talk and hair-splitting of the Clinton administration....um, oops, never mind.

[Sam I Was]

Ugh. I can't stand it anymore. Useless speculation about "weapons of mass destruction," obese with details about lack-of-documentation and UN inspectors and what Saddam-did-when and what Bush-said-when and all of it.

Good Lord. Who cares? "Weapons of mass destruction" was not the reason we invaded Iraq. We invaded Iraq because we are engaged in a war on terrorism. Taking down Saddam Hussein, and converting Iraq, is part of that war.

In fact, what began last March and continues today was not "The War With Iraq." What began last March and continues today is the Battle of Iraq, which is part of the War on Terror -- or, to be less euphemistic, the War Against Islamic Idiocy And The Terrorism It Breeds.

The fact that people are more interested in debating this weapons-of-mass-destruction crap just shows how little anybody understands what's actually going on. I guess it's easier -- maybe even more fun -- to sit around talking politics and speculating about trivialities than to focus on the bigger picture.

I thought Sept. 11 was going to change everything. Apparently it didn't.

A perfect example of Americans' blindness on this issue is the continuous stream of media polls in which Americans are asked their opinions about current events. Inevitably, the questions will include stuff along the lines of:

"How do you think the war against terrorism is going?"

And then, among the same set of questions:

"How do you think the war in Iraq is going?"

The fact that these are posed as two separate issues, as if they had nothing to do with each other, is blatant evidence of the confusion among Americans -- including the media pollsters themselves -- about the nature of what's happening right now. The action in Iraq is the war on terrorism. But people are so fundamentally confused about all this, so incapable of grasping the big picture, that this stuff gets positioned as two separate things.

People need to quit obsessing about minutiae like "weapons of mass destruction" and get back to realizing we are in a much bigger fight -- a fight against Islamic fundamentalism and the terrorism in which it is manifested. A fight that is ultimately about preserving the Enlightenment and not letting it get annihilated by a bunch of people who still haven't caught up to the 18th century yet.

[Les]

Facts are all we have to create an objective view of reality. It's a fact that the intelligence community told the administration that they THOUGHT it was POSSIBLE that MAYBE Iraq had WMD's and working ties to Al Qaeda. The administration told America and the world that they KNEW Iraq had WMD's and working ties to Al Qaeda. That was a lie. Even if they find WMD's and working ties to Al Qaeda, it was still a lie.

It's no different from the inarguable fact that Clinton was a womanizer of the worst kind and committed perjury to protect himself from the legal consequences of his behavior.

And the reaction from liberals regarding Clinton's lying is exactly the same as reaction from conservatives regarding this administration's lies.

[Andrew]

One thing that no one was saying at the time: that there was "no doubt" that Saddam DIDN'T have weapons-- everyone wanted more inspections, including Blix and the French. The Coalition has already found stuff successfully hidden from Blix, and I believe there is more to come.

Saddam was a two-time convicted arsonist (with a history of lyng) who was stacking incinderaries in his garage (his lawers say "a little", and others say "a lot"). He was a pedarist hanging around school-yards, Pete Rose hanging out with gamblers. Since he was already due to do the time, even the most trivial infraction was sufficient to revoke his parole.

[Mike]

Sam,

It isn't obvious to me that invading Iraq is the best way to wage the war on terror. Hussein was a monster, but he wasn't an Islamic fundamentalist one. In fact, he supressed the clerics, and it's only now that Iraq has been liberated that they're able to flex their collective muscles again. The countries rife was Islamic fundamentalism are places like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran.

If the U.S. is not able to establish a liberal democracy in Iraq, and it becomes an Islamic fundamentalist country again, then that certainly won't be *good* for the war on terror! And that has always been a risk in this whole operation.

[Blixa]

thoreau:

Cheney said "there is no doubt..." Whether his statement is truthful would then depend on the meaning of the word "is".

Actually it depends not on the meaning of "is" per se but rather on the unstated answer to the question "where is there no doubt??" Doubt is an internal state existing in this person or that. To say "there is no doubt" therefore either means that NOBODY ANYWHERE has any doubt in their heads (and it's doubtful this is what Cheney meant), or it means that the speaker has in mind some subset of people who have no doubt in their heads. Cheney didn't specify the exact subset of people who had "no doubt" about Hussein's WMDs so therefore it seems to me that the most conservative interpretation is that he was speaking primarily about himself.

It's like if I say "anchovies are tasty", it's unstated but nevertheless perfectly obvious that I'm referring only to my *own* opinion. Plenty of people hate anchovies. I just left off the "...to me" part. Am I "lying" if I say "anchovies are tasty" because you can produce people who don't, in fact, think anchovies are tasty? Or are you being too literal and not cutting me enough slack?

Les:

It's a fact that the intelligence community told the administration that they THOUGHT it was POSSIBLE that MAYBE Iraq had WMD's and working ties to Al Qaeda. The administration told America and the world that they KNEW Iraq had WMD's and working ties to Al Qaeda. That was a lie.

Sentences 1 and 2 do not necessarily contradict and so sentence 3 does not necessarily follow. Both of the following things can be true:

1. intelligence community is equivocal about WMD in their reports (which by the way will vary depending on source, and time) to administration members

2. this or that administration member "has no doubt" that Iraq has WMD

Neither President Bush nor anyone else in the administration is under any sort of legal or Constitutional obligation to privately, internally accept lock stock and barrel, 100%, the results of CIA or whatever-else intelligence reports to them. (And by the way how do you know exactly what-all "the intelligence community" said to Bush et al?)

The CIA can place a report on the President's desk, the President can look at that report and say for whatever reason of his own "I believe what's in this report is a big crock of bullshit", and then go on TV and say "I have no doubt that [the opposite of what was in that CIA report] is true". He is not legally obligated to "believe" or "not-doubt" the content of CIA reports. And if he doesn't, it is not necessarily the case that any sort of lying or contradiction has taken place.

P.S. Oh, just so it's clear, I highly doubt that "they THOUGHT it was POSSIBLE that MAYBE Iraq had WMD's" is at all fair summary of what our intelligence on Iraq was saying to the President.

[Gadfly]

This nation erradicated its natives, built its wealth on the backs of slaves, killed over half a million in its civil war and unnecessarily nuked almost that many japs in one day. Unlike Saddam, we get to write history.

[thoreau]

Blixa-

OK, so it depends on the question "where is the doubt?" not "what is the meaning of the word 'is'?" In any case, I thought this administration promised to give us straight talk, so that this syntactical parsing wouldn't be necessary to determine the truthfulness of their statements.

[dj of raleigh]

Iraq itself listed to the UN after the first part of the Persian Gulf War that it had massive amounts of bio/chemical weapons, and later couldn't prove it got rid of them and obstructed the search for them.

The lesson learned here and with the old USSR, I believe, is that intelligence is weak, too weak to base questions of armament on. Inspections are not reliable either, if a government decides to obstruct.

Iran is a current issue regarding nuclear materials.

Libya's recent revelation is another proof of the poor level of security provided by 'long distance' intelligence.

Still, the core of the issues of "Bush lied" and over emphasis on WMD is political based in that it wouldn't be the same people complaining if this was Clinton.

Wouldn't it be better if the United States, at least, could be united after the election in foreign policy? Have the losers in an election ever accepted the loss and then gone along.

[Les]

"Oh, just so it's clear, I highly doubt that "they THOUGHT it was POSSIBLE that MAYBE Iraq had WMD's" is at all fair summary of what our intelligence on Iraq was saying to the President."

Damn it, Blixa, it's true. That's far too simplified as I was rushing to get to the "LIED!" part. I hate it when I get caught simplifying, but there you have it.

I think I was rushing because I feel very strongly that being dishonest is the same as lying, even if you're technically not saying something false. And I think it's pretty obvious that the administration was not being honest.

For instance, they were told that the aluminum tubes they claimed were for nuclear reactors couldn't be but that didn't stop them from saying over and over in public that they were for nuclear reactors. This is simply dishonest.

Perhaps there are members of the intelligence community who have steadfastly defended the conclusions of the administration in regards to WMD's. If so, I'd appreciate some info on that. But I do know that there are LOTS of intelligence officers who have condemned the way the administration has dealt with the information given to them. For example (and I'm repeating myself here, I think, so forgive me), Greg Thielmann, a former director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the State Department's Intelligence Bureau, accuses the White House of "systematic, across-the-board exaggeration" of intelligence as it made its case that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the U.S. He also contends that much of the intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was entirely politicized. "Senior officials made statements which I can only describe as dishonest," he says. "They were distorting some of the information that we provided to make it seem more alarmist and more dangerous."

I disagree that the President and his staff have no obligation to share with the public the conclusions of the experts hired to advise them (especially a President as intellectually unimpressive as G.W.). For instance, just as a wild hypothetical, if the President is informed by his science advisors that there is no evidence for the belief that the world was created in six days and he goes on to fight for science textbooks to include just that information because, as he puts it, "there is no doubt that the world was created in six days" or "our scientists agree that there is evidence to show that the world was created in six days," then, you're right, he's not doing anything illegal. But I think he's doing something dishonest and, ultimately, immoral. And this pales in comparison to the implications of war.

A poster above suggested that lying isn't important during wartime. I believe that wartime is when honesty with the public is at its highest importance. It has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative or being a Republican or Democrat. We can objectively determine whether or not the administration was being honest with the public in its reasoning for going to war. There is a lot of evidence to demonstrate that they were not.

[Jim Henley]

Libya's recent revelation is another proof of the poor level of security provided by 'long distance' intelligence

Libya's recent revelation seems to be that it had an embryonic nuclear program. Cashing in something that may never have amounted to much for real diplomatic and economic relief may be one of the few smart things Ghadafi has ever done.

Still, the core of the issues of "Bush lied" and over emphasis on WMD is political based in that it wouldn't be the same people complaining if this was Clinton.

I would be. I'm a libertarian. So would, I daresay, all of this magazine's antiwar writers, which is most of them.

Wouldn't it be better if the United States, at least, could be united after the election in foreign policy?

Not necessarily, no.

[Sam I Was]

Mike:

Even if we disagree on the core principle, thank you for the response. Especially since everyone else seems intent to continue arguing about such inconsequential stuff as "Bush-did-or-didn't-lie" and the "intelligence community-knew-or-didn't-know-this-or-that."

That kind of talk is so utterly, completely useless, and frankly, it's really boring. It's just people speculating. Hypothesizing. Inventing conjecture. Drawing conclusions based on some arbitrary body of information they happened to have read somewhere else.

Seriously, those sorts of conversations are a waste of everybody's time, since it's just people essentially guessing about stuff. The posts by Blixa are a perfect example of that. It's a heap of blah-blah-blah couched as analysis that is in fact merely a bunch of speculation about "facts" that ultimately don't matter.

We invaded Iraq because we are fighting a war on terror, and Iraq is in the middle of the Islamic Idiocy hotbed, and we already had a good excuse to go in, and now we're there, positioned to bring that whole backwards region into the 21st century -- and show a whole lot of folks that freedom is better than fear.

Everybody in the world deserves freedom. I'll whip out quick line that at this point is a cliche but whose core truth is always relevant: America is not a country. America is an idea. And it's an idea worth spreading. In the biggest picture of all, we are fighting the war on terror not because the World Trade Center fell, but because every individual in the world deserves access to America, a word we can seamlessly translate as "freedom."

[Sam I Was]

Freedom is a natural state of being. When we tumble out of the womb, we are free individuals. Things that take away that freedom -- whether it's a Saddam Hussein or an Islamic mindset -- deserve to be eradicated.

It's not about using the military to "change regional cultures." It's about remembering that all people, not just the ones in America, deserve to exist as the free human beings they started out life as.

Somebody who takes away another's freedom for the sake of his own power is a threat. An ideology that takes away others' freedom is a threat. An ideology that not only takes away others' freedom -- but threatens to destroy everything and everybody else that is free, as Islam does -- is a threat.

Threats to freedom suck. People who are smart enough to have remained free, as Americans have, should work to eliminate these threats. And that's what we're doing right now. Getting caught up in some minutiae about "weapons of mass destruction" is missing the whole frikkin point. That's not what any of this is about. Quit staring at the trees and have a look at the whole forest, eh.

[Les]

Andrew, can't argue with that. But then you'd agree that we can't hold up U.N resolutions as reasons for military action, yes?

Besides the U.N. issue, doesn't it bother you in the least that Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al in interviews and speeches to the U.S. public made statements described as "dishonest" (whether it was aluminum tubes or working connections with Al Qaeda) by the very intelligence officers who were charged with providing objective information?

If one believes that the government should act as an extension of the will of the people, shouldn't the people receive the same objective information being provided to the government?

[Jean Bart]

Sam I Was,

When you tumble out the womb you are the least free that you will ever be (well, besides the period while you were in the womb).

[Jean Bart]

BTW, if "freedom" is the natural state, then why has human history been replete with far more cases of "un-freedom" than "freedom?"

[thoreau]

I'm not denying that freedom is the natural state of being. But, Sam-I-Was, you implied that we invaded Iraq for reasons that extend beyond the borders of Iraq. You didn't just say that we overthrew one tyrant who threatened the freedom of his people and menaced the West with WMD and/or sponsorship of terrorism. You said in a previous post:

We invaded Iraq because we are fighting a war on terror, and Iraq is in the middle of the Islamic Idiocy hotbed, and we already had a good excuse to go in, and now we're there, positioned to bring that whole backwards region into the 21st century -- and show a whole lot of folks that freedom is better than fear.

You implied that we overthrew Hussein to turn around an entire backwards region, not just one country in that region. You're suggesting an objective that goes above and beyond the military objective of removing Hussein, which we have accomplished.

And then, in your most recent post, you say:
An ideology that not only takes away others' freedom -- but threatens to destroy everything and everybody else that is free, as Islam does -- is a threat.

I am tempted to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you meant "fundamentalist Islam" instead of just "Islam" without the adjective prepended. I sure hope that's the case, because if you're suggesting that this is a religious war, well, count me out of it. The US government shouldn't be in the business of trying to destroy a religion.

Now, assuming you're only referring to fundamentalist Islam, Iraq would not seem like the logical target. Sure, there was already a fundamentalist Islam influence there, but compared to his neighbors Hussein was actually pretty aggressive in keeping Islamic fundamentalists down. Saudi Arabia would seem like a more important target if you want to go after fundamentalist Islam. Or Iran.

Then again, maybe Iraq, despite the comparatively weak influence of Islamic fundamentalism, was nonetheless an important target for other reasons. Maybe Iraq was a particularly ardent sponsor of terrorism against the US, or maybe Iraqi WMD posed a threat.

Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to worry about Iraqi WMD because I'll be missing the forest for the trees.

So, what made Iraq the prime target? And which country, if any, is next on the list?

[HH]

We were assured by the same sources as those in this story that the missiles were just on paper too... in 1991.

[trainwreck]

Les I admire your idealism. But I guess I've concluded that government is an extention of the will of the campaign contributors, not the people. The people are to be governed, managed, kept quiet, thrown a bone here and there.

[Whit]

I have always been very conservative, but in the months leading up to this war I really began questioning what the Republicans were saying when beating the war drum. Was Saddam a horrible person? Yes. Did he have WMD or did he destroy them? Well, we know at some point he had them b/c we gave him Anthrax in the 1980's. His he harboring or funding terrorists? Probably, since it's safe to say yes since half the middle east does as well. So it led me to the most importnant question: Do we have a right to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam? Together with a coalition, yes; but not unilateraly. Why? We as a country have always felt countries should work together and be able to come together to work out world issuesl; i.e. the UN. I'm not a big fan of the UN, with their whining and reluctance to handle international problems. But dammit, it's better than nobody working together. So when did we decide we know better than the rest of the world? When did we decide we're going to spread democracy and American culture come hell or high water? Finally, what gives us the right? So what if we are the last "super power" or if we "won" the cold war. Telling other countries what is good for them and other leaders how to run their countries isn't Democracy; it's Imperialism. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying Ametrica is imperialistic, but at times it comes across that way.

I truly believe we really didn't have any right to go into Iraq by ourselves. We agreed to UN charters and treaties that said we would work with other countries before going to war, not doing whatever we damn well please. If Iraq posed an imminent threat and the UN wouldn't back us up, then to hell with the UN. But when it boils down to it, they didn't pose an imminent threat. We decided to use somewhat shaky intel and the fact that he was a brutal dictator to go to war. What does that tell the rest of the world? We'll work together as peaceful nations, but when you don't agree with us completely, you get the finger.

[Jean Bart]

thoreau,

My point is that there is no "natural" state of human existance.

[Jean Bart]

thoreau,

And I suppose even if there were, the variations in human culture, etc., make that state difficult if not impossible to quantify.

[Andrew]

Les

Does it bother me? A little-- not very much.

Maybe it could have been handled differently, and I think the Bush administration isn't very good at this kind of thing. AND I don't think they were getting much help from the CIA or the State dept.-- which had anti-war agendas. I believe the grad school thesis, and other travesties, were mischief that emanated from within the CIA and associated policy circles.

Like I say-- we are past a turning point...we won't be there again.

[Jean Bart]

BTW, I think much of the discussion by the hawks is much like the "its for the children!" rhetoric seen amongst anti-drug warriors, etc.

[thoreau]

I just thought of a good analogy for the theory that liberating Iraq will lead to a region-wide improvement: The Domino Theory

It was believed that if the Communists seized South Vietnam then other countries would fall to an oppressive ideology. The Soviets were the ones trying to topple dominoes, and we were the ones trying to stop the dominoes from falling.

This time around, we are the ones who are trying to topple dominoes (at least according to many posters here). I am not suggesting any moral equivalence with communism. I AM suggesting strategic equivalence, that we find ourselves in the position of trying to effect larger changes by starting with a single country. It certainly seems ironic.

[Jean Bart]

thoreau,

A certain amount of arrogance, hubris and bigotry informs both tasks.

[Les]

Andrew, I'm sorry that it doesn't bother you a lot when our leaders lie to us. But I'm sure they appreciate your cooperation.

trainwreck, I'm sad to agree with your description of what government currently is.

I need a drink.

[Jon H]

Andrew writes: " AND I don't think they were getting much help from the CIA or the State dept.-- which had anti-war agendas."

You say "they had anti-war agendas" I say "they had facts which didn't support the pre-existing desire to take out Iraq".

If the facts don't support the war, that's not an anti-war agenda. It's an "anti-false-premises-for-war agenda".

[Andrew]

Jon

Let's take the most notorious instance. The plagarised and unfounded grad school thesis. This was passed along to the White House because...

A) They thought it was legit.

B) They were trying too hard to please the White House.

C) They knew it was bogus and they were trying to de-rail the White House.

Some true skeptics may believe A.

The media absolutely sells B.

I am sure almost anyone in the Washington policy culture believes C. The CIA, like any executive branch agency that has been around for more than (say) two years, does NOT serve at the pleasure of the President...unless it suits them: this time it didn't.

I believe the State Department dropping the ball on Turkey was a similar case.

[Andrew]

Thoreau

I think it is safe to say that anyone in these threads who views himself as a Libertarian, or some version of a Libertarian/Conservative-- there are many interlopers from other ideological persuasions-- believes that the United States (and mankind) would be better off in a world of commercial republics.

The question is whether the US can actively promote such a world within a reasonable set of costs and risks. Frankly, I believe we can-- and that this is the wiser course, rather than laying back and being patient. I could accept that this is over-reaching...but I am not persuaded of it yet. All the signs look promising so far, and the alarmists have been confounded till now.

I could change my mind. I will, when I feel I need to.

The case of Iraq arose largely from the result of the '91 War. There were several reasons to act as we did. WMD concerns were one of them-- likely the least important, but still not trivial. It is NOT a bad thing to have several good reasons for choosing a course of action.

(BTW-- I think the Administration was unwise to frame the case so heavily on WMD concerns, but I think very little actual dishonesty was involved-- and, frankly, concerns me less-- and done is done.)

[Jon H]

The graduate thesis came from the UK, in the 'dossier' put out by Tony Blair, which turned out to have been mostly put together by his political staff.

[Rick Barton]

Andrew:
C) "They knew it was bogus and they were trying to de-rail the White House."

What is your evidence for this, or that the UN report even came from the CIA or State Dept? I know the administration claimed it came from British Intelligence. I would really be shocked if the State Dept. was behind the UN report.

BTW, a tragic irony of this war is that the UN is an infinitely greater threat to our sovereignty than Iraq ever was to our security.

[Andrew]

My bad. I picked the wrong example. I will stand by my assessment of the institutional role of State and the Agency, though. There were a lot of bum steers and mad cows relayed to the White House...some of it quite intentional.

Powell played a similar role during the first Gulf War, and boasted on it for some years afterward.

[R. C. Dean]

C'mon, people - the notion that Saddam was ever in compliance with his obligations is ludicrous. He was obliged to immediately account in full for his WMD back in '91. Beginning to move to a fuller (but still only partial) accounting in 2003 under intense military pressure is not compliance.

This part of the case for war ain't rocket science - there is no credible case whatsoever to be made in support of the proposition that Saddam was not in violation of the cease fire and subsequent UN resolutions. Not even the French tried to argue that case. The only argument was over what to do about his violations.

This is as pristine a piece of Chomskyan hogwash as anyone is likely to read in quite some time:

This nation erradicated its natives, built its wealth on the backs of slaves, killed over half a million in its civil war and unnecessarily nuked almost that many japs in one day.

Its practically self-fisking, but I'll give it a go anyway:

This nation erradicated its natives

Well, not quite - there are still quite a few Native Americans running around. I would bet, in fact, that we have more Native Americans left than Europe has Jews. Nonetheless, it is true that we treated them pretty badly. Of course, our treatment of Native Americans is comparable to the treatment of aborigines throughout history prior to the 19th century, so it is hard for me to come up with a specific indictment of America out of this.

built its wealth on the backs of slaves,

What a load of crap. The vast, vast majority of wealth in this country was created after slavery was abolished. Even when slavery was legal, most of the wealth creation was happening in the North, where there were no slaves. The dirty secret of slavery is that it is a terrible way to build wealth - slaves are simply not good workers.

killed over half a million in its civil war

True enough, I suppose, but you would think that a nation that would kill half a million of its own citizens to abolish slavery would get a little moral credit for that, wouldn't you?

Even as civil wars go, the US Civil War is far from the bloodiest. The Tai Ping Rebellion killed 20 - 30 million, the Russian Revolution another several million, etc. etc., and these were fought for causes considerably less noble than abolition.

unnecessarily nuked almost that many japs in one day

Unnecessary how? Japan wasn't about to surrender, and in fact refused to surrender after the first bomb was dropped (although it came close, the ruling military clique squelched it). The invasion of Japan would have killed enormous numbers of Americans, and probably killed even more Japanese than the bombs. Dropping the bomb was necessary to save American lives, and may well have had a net savings of Japanese lives.

[thoreau]

Andrew-

I fully agree that we'd all be better off in a world of liberal commercial republics. Now, I also believe that the invasion of Iraq might turn Iraq into such a country. But how will invading Iraq turn other countries into liberal commercial republics?

Remember, some of the claims being made here are that this is all part of a plan to transform the entire region.

Also, while I agree 100% that such a social transformation is desirable if it's feasible, I think a social transformation of large parts of America is also desirable. But most here would say that such a transformation is not a legitimate function of government. So I'm curious how they are so eager and confident about our ability to do in Baghdad something they would never want to do in Brooklyn?

[Andrew]

Thoreau

How can the liberation of Iraq change the region?
Three ways.

1) By example. Whether the society that results from the liberation will serve as a good example remains to be seen. Whether even a good example will be as potent as we hope also remains to be seen. But I am willing to bet on both propositions.

2) By removing the incentive to follow other models...for Arab leaders anyway. The fate of Saddam (to some extent) hangs over every Arab tyranny. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe changed because American persistence undermined the confidence of leadership elites in those societies-- they will tell you that themselves.

3) Exposure. This is already occurring. On al-Jazeera the Arab masses get to see the mass-graves and the palaces.
Do not under-estimate how important this is. It is one thing to kind of know or suspect these things-- quite another to have your nose put in it. It will soon become apparent that the much-vaunted "Arab Street" will be using new criteria for judging their own societies.

[trainwreck]

thoreau you are on a tear here.

You see what really happened is the Bush Admin used every single possible rationale (spreading freedom, Saddam the Evildoer and creator of mass graves, smoking guns and mushroom clouds, UN resolutions violated, Saddam and Osama in bed) to garner support for this war.

Wolfowitz said they settled on the WMD threat as the main point for bureaucratic reasons, but all of these cases were presented as good reasons in and of themselves.

Some people picked one, some another, and in the end support for the "Battle of Iraq" was popular. But even though there was overall popular support, it wasn't supported for the same reasons. Now some people are finding out that the basis for *their* support wasn't, in fact, a good basis for going to war.

You see the problem is not that we live in some post-modern age where America can no longer be united. No, the problem is that the way this war was sold, it allowed everyone to walk away with their own version and rationale. And I think you all can see the danger there.

[Rick Barton]

From the Barton Gellman piece:

But investigators have found no support for the two main fears expressed in London and Washington before the war: that Iraq had a hidden arsenal of old weapons and built advanced programs for new ones.

You've got to learn to walk before you start running," said a European government scientist who studied Iraq's biological programs last year. "The evidence we have about the virus program is they hadn't started to walk yet."

Read alongside subsequent discoveries made by U.N. inspectors, the document supports Iraq's claim that it destroyed all production stocks of lethal pathogens before inspectors knew they existed.

We know that the Bush administration lied about WMD. Among the lies which would have landed them in prison had they been corporate CEO's instead of government officials was the duplicity in the presentation as well as the content of the report that Powell presented at the UN and described as; "valuable intelligence" but turned out to be an altered, plagiarized and dated grad student thesis.

The only possible pretext for Bush, himself is that if he actually believed the wild neo-con fabrications:
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

This is indeed plausible but I'm not going sweat it as I can think of better uses for my time than coming to the defense of big spending, big regulating liberals such as Bush.

[Les]

Sam, why don't you think that honesty during wartime matters? Don't you think that the men and women who volunteered to fight and die for America deserve to be told the truth as to why they're fighting and dying? Could you look into the eyes of a mother or father of a soldier killed in Iraq and say it doesn't matter what they were told they were fighting for?

"We invaded Iraq because we are fighting a war on terror, and Iraq is in the middle of the Islamic Idiocy hotbed, and we already had a good excuse to go in, and now we're there, positioned to bring that whole backwards region into the 21st century -- and show a whole lot of folks that freedom is better than fear."

Iraq didn't attack us. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had a much larger number of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists than Iraq. When do you think we should attack them?

And do you honestly believe we have the power to make the entire Middle East like unto America? Don't you think that it's responsibility of the residents of the Middle East to change their way of life? Repeating simplistic truisms like "freedom is better than fear" is a lot easier than learning about the culture and history of the Middle East, but it's not as likely to be constructive (for anything but one's own ego, that is).

[Rick Barton]

You know of course, this whole sickening affair just makes clear the truth of what conservatives and libertarians have been telling us for years; You can't, and should not trust government!

[Les]

"America is an idea. And it's an idea worth spreading. In the biggest picture of all, we are fighting the war on terror not because the World Trade Center fell, but because every individual in the world deserves access to America, a word we can seamlessly translate as "freedom.""

That's hilarious. Not just because we have so much work to do to make America a truly free place for its own citizens, let alone the rest of the world. But because the philosophy that one county's ideals should be spread throughout the world, at gunpoint if necessary, was near and dear to the Soviet Union.

[Les]

I can understand arguments that invading Iraq will be good for the region, I really can. But I tell you, I'm flabbergasted, confounded, and confused as to how people who support our actions in Iraq can shrug their shoulders at the idea of our leaders lying to get support for the war. This attitude, it seems to me, is anti-democratic.

Andrew, you said you don't think there was any dishonesty by the administration. Like I said above, we know of many intelligence officers who do believe the administration was dishonest about the intelligence they received. Do you know of any who believe the administration dealt with the intelligence in a fair and honest manner?

[Andrew]

Les

Lets face it-- if they lied, it was they went to the UN. It was out of a perceived need to supply a lawerly case for invading Iraq.

And it won't happen again. Because we will never approach the UN again, for a sanction on any American foreign policy decision...you can take that from the American voter.

Before the war, majorities of the American and British publics felt it was important to get UN approval. Thanks to Chirac's buffoonery, at least in America, UN approval will never again seem important to a cross-section of American voters.

[thoreau]

We invaded Iraq because we are fighting a war on terror, and Iraq is in the middle of the Islamic Idiocy hotbed, and we already had a good excuse to go in, and now we're there, positioned to bring that whole backwards region into the 21st century -- and show a whole lot of folks that freedom is better than fear.

OK, there's something that has really bothered me about statements like this on this forum:

If you want to argue that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the US due to WMD, or sponsorship of terrorists, fine. That's a problem that the US military can solve. Or, if you want to argue that he threatened his neighbors and hence made a region unstable, fine, that's another problem the US military can solve. Or if you simply want to say that he was a tyrant who needed to be overthrown for humanitarian reasons, fine, that's yet another problem the military can solve.

But some people here go on to talk about transformations of an entire region. We'll transform a region's culture, end the hopelessness that is driving people to terrorism against the West, and generally make the place over.

Well, what if somebody suggested that the US gov't should transform an inner city? What if they suggested that, in addition to arresting thieves and murderers and whatnot, the government should change the culture of gangs, rebuild families, create jobs, promote home ownership (owners generally take better care of property), provide high-quality education, etc. etc.?

I think most people here would say "The government is incapable of doing that, and even if it were capable it's not a proper function of government. The proper function is to protect people from coercion, not to re-engineer society." And that would be applauded as a sound libertarian/conservative statement.

But now some people imply that this isn't just about the military objective of removing a hostile and dangerous regime, it's about transforming a region culturally, politically, and economically. We can't even transform inner-city America culturally, politically, and economically.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that military objectives are not proper functions of government. I'm suggesting that military objectives pertain to hostile regimes and militaries, not regional cultures.

So, go ahead and call me a leftist. Call me a traitor. Call me whatever bad name you like. But when I hear grand designs that go far beyond a normal military objective, forgive me if I question whether the government can accomplish it.