I think we may be talking past each other, but with the same outcome, oddly.
I think that the evidence for the war was indeed sufficient to justify it. Some of it was flimsy, but the keey question of justification, for me, had to do with Saddam’s willingness to cooperate with the inspection regime. 12 years of experience taught us that we could only expect him to cooperate with an invasion force standing by on his doorstep. The farther away from that large force we got the more evasions and tricks we could expect.
I think you are still evaluating the evidence on the grounds that an absence of active useable WMD dispells the justification for the war. To some degree this is true. It surely degrades the case for war. But it does not reduce said justification to 0 IMHO.
Yea, they had to examine a lot of classified stuff for that report. I’m willing to keep an open mind. I did not, but should have noted that the committee was Republican dominated and they at least had a vested interest in supporting this portion of the report. But all in all, I think the report is a pretty frank examination of the facts.
Ok, but at the time, the allegations were backed up by evidence. It turns out that much of that evidence was inaccurate. But it is not nearly like Bush made up allegations against some random country and went to war because of them.
And yet, the inspections were working. The inspectors didn’t throw up their hands in defeat - they were making progress, and they wanted to stay and complete their task.
What were the main justifications? WMD and an al Qaeda link, right? Both of those fall apart under scrutiny. While you may be able to cite additional reasons from the authorization bill, I think it’s a mistake to rely on a bunch of “whereas” clauses instead of the reasons presented in public to the American people and the international community.
A careful examination would’ve shown it to be inaccurate at the time. IIRC, the Niger forgeries could’ve been debunked with a simple Google search, since they had the wrong guy’s signature. Allowing the inspections to finish would’ve been the ultimate examination: it doesn’t matter how much evidence says Saddam might have weapons, if we can actually go into Iraq and see that there are none.
At least one person in the Bush inner circle knew what a disaster the Iraqi occupation would be- none other than Dick Cheney! The New York Times articles themselves are not available from 1991 online, but several sources such as this one from slate.msn.com give this interesting Cheney quote:
So when Cheney worked for George HW Bush, it was well known what a quagmire Iraq would be. How in heaven’s name did they think all of these issues about which Cheney was correct 12 years earlier were not still valid?
Indeed. I will read the coming report with anticipation. Unless you are advocating a preemptive (preventative) strike of some sort?
[QUOTE]
They were making progress, but the essential question of whether or not we could allow imspections to be our only means of protection was being answered in the negative. Saddam was not cooperating to the extent he needed to in order to allow the inspectors to say with certainty that he had not designs on the creation or use of WMD.
Look, this is the essential difference of opinion. You feel that we should not have invaded without definitive proof Saddam had or would use WMD. I feel that we should have invaded without definitive proof he would not develop or use WMD.
No, not really. I came into this debate in another thread looking at public statements made by the president and his administration. It was only later that I read the Congressional Authorization for war. I realize that whatever source you are using has cherry picked quotes showing that the administration dismissed disent and insisted that no evidence against Saddam’s WMD programs or links to terror (Not necessarily links to AQ BTW) existed. But it has been my experience that going back and looking at the original statements invariably includes such caveats. Perhaps you would like to prove me wrong? I’ll admit that the last time I looked into this sort of thing the topic was more focused on statements about the difficulty of the war and not evidence of WMD.
Right. The question is how do we get the freedom of access we need to search a country the size of Iraq sufficiently to ellinimate the possibility that WMD might be under the next dune. If Saddam had cooperated more fully as most of the international community wanted him to we could have accepted inspections for some time. But he did not. He did not for years. After repeated use of force he did not. Even after a massive threat of invasion he continued to insist on caveats and provisos.
As I said, clearly you think that you could have trusted Saddam Hussein not to be a danger to the region or the United States. Others felt differently.
“*Well, Iraq is a related, but obviously somewhat different proposition, and the situation in Iraq is the culmination of many years of effort. Saddam Hussein signed up at the end of the Gulf War to certain UN Security Council Resolutions to get rid of all of his weapons of mass destruction and to allow inspectors to come in and verify that. He has complied with virtually none of the resolutions that have been applied to him. *”
Perhaps, I am just spitballing here, the risks associated with said quagmire became more acceptable? Just as the risks of allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power became less acceptable. I don’t know, could just be me.
Well, seeing as we had an invasion force standing on the doorstep, why didn’t we use that opportunity to the fullest? After all, the inspectors were having pretty good success in dismantling the illegal missiles - you may remember them being bulldozed. (I hope someone videoed that, becuase it will never happen again. This war killed off any chance of a tyrant willingly giving up weapons, ever. Thanks for nothing, Mr. Bush…)
The entire idea of SH giving WMD to terrorists was frankly ridiculous (and yes, I said so before the war.) It was based on the assumption that he hated the US more than he loved being dicatator of Iraq. Afghanistan was a fresh lesson in what happens to those who’d support terrorists against the US, and we were supposed to assume that Saddam Hussein was itching to join the Taliban ? To say nothing of the fact that WMD would have been strategic assets of high importance, and even if SH had been supporting terrorists attacking the US (which, as some may recall, he wasn’t), it would have made no sense to hand over control over something so valuable and hard to obtain to people whose actions he couldn’t control and whose objectives (the Arabic Caliphate) he didn’t share. It’s sloppy thinking.
The inspectors apparently felt he was cooperating enough that they could do their job. What makes you a better judge of Saddam’s cooperation than the inspectors themselves?
IMO that’s just part of the administration’s strategy of calculated misstatements. They toss out a caveat, then follow it up with a sound bite that lacks any disclaimer. Which part gets played on the news? The sound bite. I don’t think that’s unintentional.
I’d say leave that up to the inspectors. They felt they had enough access to do their job.
And yet, when it mattered most during the leadup to war, he was accepting the inspections. They were proceeding, and the inspectors felt they were able to make progress. It doesn’t matter whether Saddam cooperated 10 years ago if he’s cooperating today.
IIRC, he even accepted the previous inspection team, until they turned out to by spying for the US.
What you said is this: “Saddam was not cooperating to the extent he needed to in order to allow the inspectors to say with certainty that he had not designs on the creation or use of WMD.” That’s not what the inspectors said themselves, and I think they’re a better judge of it.
Keeping the world safe was not the inspectors’ job. Their job was to provide information that the international community could use to judge whether Saddam actually presented a threat to anyone outside Iraq. If he did not present a threat–which is information the inspectors could’ve provided–then there was nothing to “keep the world safe” from.
Anyone who has ever watched the news knows they love a sound bite.
Because it’s when we were considering an invasion! Do you disagree that the highest standard of evidence is necessary when starting a “preemptive” war?
Weapons inspections are for finding out specific facts about the status of a weapons program. Spying is when we put agents in the inspection teams in order to collect intelligence for other purposes. See http://www.fair.org/activism/unscom-history.html:
Well, I disagree with this. Can you give me a quote from one of the inspectors where they said they were able to determine with certainty that Saddam had no designs on the creation of use of WMD? My recollection from the earlier inspector cites was taht Blix was saying that Saddam was increasing his cooperation, but had not yet begun to fully cooperate.
Well, you are right in the first part. That’s why I did not claim the inspectors could not do their jobs. My position is that the inspectors jobs were no longer sufficient. You are, however, incorrect in the second part. The inspectors did not have the means to gather enough information to say that Saddam did not present a threat. They could have determined that he did present a threat, or not. Proving that he definately did not pose a threat would have been beyond their means.
Yes, and anyone who has ever tried knows that you cannot tell for sure what the media will use as a soundbite before hand. At least not for very long. If they were so good at controling the media, how has the “they lied” meme gained such widespread acceptance?
But this is my point exactly. They were only making progress because we were seriously considering invasion. And the truth was that even while seriously considering invasion, Saddam continued to try and squeeze consessions from the inspection regime.
FWIW I’m not sure that the highest standards of evidence is necessary when starting a preemptive war. The highest standard would mean that some sort of agreed upon adversarial process is adopted where one party presents evidence, the evidence is examined by the other party, which then presents its evidence again allowing for the first party to examine it. I’m not sure such a process is necessary.
Ok, but if the inspectors are to get evidence from secret military installations and then present it to the governments of member nations, how do you tell the difference?
Of course not. The inspectors were forced to leave before they were finished, and they were there to look for weapons, not thoughts inside Saddam’s head about someday creating weapons. Surely this isn’t what you meant to ask…?
Indeed. He wasn’t as forthcoming as one might’ve hoped, but the inspectors were working around that.
Depends on what you mean by “prove”. I can’t prove there’s no invisible monster living in my closet, but I can sure inspect the closet and get enough evidence to convince a reasonable person that worrying about an invisible closet monster is foolish.
You’re drifting pretty far away from what I said, which had nothing to do with controlling the media in that sense. Why would you think the use of calculated misstatements would allow anyone to put a stop to that meme?
But they weren’t giving in; they were making progress. I agree that the threat of an invasion helped the inspectors, but that only made it more bizarre to ignore the inspections and invade without knowing the status of these alleged weapons.
I’m really not sure what you’re asking. I already pointed out a major difference, and the FAIR page I linked (which jshore also linked for you in this thread) has examples like this:
Well, actually it was. Remember, we are talking about the justification for war. Said justification was that Saddam presented a threat to the world. Specifically in that he persisted in attempting to produce weapons of mass destruction. The problem with the inspection regime was that there were things Saddam was hiding.
Well, you can characterize it that way I suppose. I thought it was more like they were working with what they could squeeze out of him and hoping he would be more forthcoming in the future. Given that we got what we did out of him only with the imminent threat of invasion, I’m not really sure what more could have been done to encourage him further. But we can agree to disagree on this.
Yes, worring about an invisible monster in a random closet is foolish. But worrying about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction is not nearly so foolish. What if the closet in question had indeed had an invisible monster in it a few years ago. What if that monster had actually killed some people. What if even with a massive effort from building inspectors, there was no way to be sure that the monster was completely gone. Would you still want your children sleeping in that room?
I did not mean to drift too far from what you said. You said the administration made only positive claims about Iraq’s WMD. I pointed out that this is not true. You then said that they indeed mentioned doubts, but that they knew the media would only print the alarmist verbage. I asked how far this control of the media extended. My appologies if I took your point too far.
I disagree. You seem to feel that the inspectors could have accomplished enough to keep us safe even without Saddam’s full cooperation. They did not feel this way, why do you? I will admit that they tended to see Saddam as increasing his cooperation.
Yes, I’ve seen those examples before. What I’m asking is what difference does this make? Let’s say that UNSCOM activities somehow fell into the hands of American military personal. Let’s say in some conflict, that information was used to target Iraqi positions. Are you saying that UNSCOM should not have gathered that information based on this? Are you agreeing with Saddam that this invalidates the inspectors work? That they should have been barred from Iraq in 97 because if it? What limitations on the inspectors would you have instituted in order to see that such a thing did not occur?
I guess I’m asking this, if we take for granted that the US was collecting information through it participation in the UNSCOM inspections, so what?
I can’t understand the point of view that justifies the Iraq adventure on the grounds that the UN inspectors (Blix et al) were ineffective. Their negative findings were confirmed by our own inspectors who had plenty of time and eager cooperation on the part of our army which was in charge at that time.
As far as what Saddam intended, if we use preemptive war based on mind reading, we are in worse condition that I thought.
Some of their findings were confirmed. Some of the post war inspectors found things the pre war inspectors were not aware of.
I’m not sure what this complaint is directed at. Are you saying that Saddam’s lack of cooperation, his hiding of WMD activities over the years, his past possesion and even use of WMD over the years mean nothing? We’re not talking about Jimmy Carter protesting UN inspections of American military facilities. We’re talking about Saddam Hussien. I know it makes the logical analysis of the situation easier to think that they are equivilant, but it does not accurately reflect the reality.
You really see no difference between officials appointed by the appropriate world body to ensure compliance with an international agreement and spies from an idealogically hostile nation gathering information to be used in a future conflict?
