Note-PLEASE don’t start a political debate here.
I seem to recall, although maybe I’m remembering this wrong, Bush stating that he saw Saddam Hussein as a big threat. I THINK he may even have mentioned this a few times before 9-11, and even hinted possible action against Saddam.
Did he, or am I confusing it with stuff that happened after September 11?
There are certainly a few people who should know who, if they are to be believed, say that. Notably Bill Clinton (based on his briefings of Bush immediately before the latter’s inauguration), Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke, who served as antiterrorism coordinator for 10 years under four presidents.
http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000712.php
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1105198/posts
I know the pro-Bush crowd tend to discredit Clinton, O’Neill and Clarke for one reason or another, and I doubt Bush and his insiders are going to admit anything any time soon even assuming there is anything to admit, so I don’t know you’re going to get a GQ type answer to your question.
Guin, my lovely-- I know you’re gonna be pissed that I moved this from GQ, but you’ll get just as much factual info in GD, and it will be where it needs to be when all the fit hits the shan.
(regretfully) moved from GQ to GD by
samclem GQ moderator
If nothing else, you can certainly prove that high-ranking members of the Bush Administration wanted to go smack Iraq (“smack Iraq” – nice one there) before 9/11/2001.
Letter to President Clinton on Iraq, January 26, 1998
It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. … The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
*Sincerely,
Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick*
I thought at the time that one reason Bush the First lost his bid for re-election was because he failed to finish the job in Iraq.
When GWB announced that he’d be a candidate for the Presidency I felt like his main motivation was to accomplish what Daddy couldn’t do, namely get rid of Saddam.
He got elected, he got rid of Saddam. “Mission Accomplished.”
Of course, that’s my opinion only. I’ve no proof of any sort.
Yes. See below, from here:
January 26, 1998
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.
The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.
Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.
Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration’s attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.
We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
Sincerely,
Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick
Oops, sorry rjung, in my eagerness to share one of the few pieces of factual information I have on this issue, I’m afraid I only barely skimmed the other posts.
Ah, that’s okay. Okay, forget the first line about no political debates then!
I also remember reading something – can’t find any cite right now – that, pre-9/11, a PNAC policy paper noted that it might take a “Pearl Harbor type” attack on America to galvanize the body politic to pursue PNAC’s military goals, starting with regime change in Iraq.
Now, I see no reason to accept any of the various conspiracy theories that the Bush Admin somehow was behind the 9/11 attacks, or deliberately stood down our defenses to let them happen, simply because I’ve never seen any hard evidence to support such theories. But, as the Church Lady on SNL used to say, “How conveeeenient!”
You can find that paper right here (PDF):
No smoking gun, sorry, but it does show that the PNAC crowd were already aware that a “Pearl Harbor”-type event would make it that much easier for them to accelerate their plans and bring things to fruition.
Yes, clearly the Administration saw 9/11 as a golden opportunity to do something that they had wanted to do anyway. Just as they saw the recession as a golden opportunity to do what they wanted to do anyway in terms of tax cuts, the California “energy crisis” (read “market manipulation”) as a golden opportunity to do what they wanted to do anyway in terms of energy policy and rollbacks of environmental regs on the power companies, and just as they saw the forest fires as a golden opportunity to do what they wanted to do anyway in regards to the timber industry.
That’s what you get when you have an administration that decides what it wants to do almost solely on the basis of ideology (and payback to its friends) and then uses the facts (selectively and deceptively) only for marketing purposes.
What troubles me even more is the prospect that if Bush wins this election, he’ll be emboldened enough by a fresh mandate to go into Iran – which, like Iraq and Syria, has always been on the neocons’ hit-list, and the Iranians are perilously close to giving us a plausible excuse.
Someone slap me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t tomndebb’s link above prove what Guin asked about in the OP???
Did Bush want to go after Iraq before September 11?
Like everyone else here, my answer or opinion is, YES.
It’s a good start. After Bush became president, he tried to tigthen sanctions on Iraq, and got nowhere:
(Sorry, no link. The story is too old to show up on the internets)
On the NMD front, the administration was saying things like this in August 2001
-Just a bit on the philosophical approach to Iraq:
From Rumsfeld’s Rules (Jan 29. 2001)
Iraq was a problem, and that’s exactly how we handled it.