The cost of maintaining an invasion force for more than a year is prohibitive.
In the end we had to keep a large force there anyway, but that was not known at the time.
Because the first places the inspectors checked, months before Blix wrote that report, were the sites that the CIA had identified as WMD facilities or stockpiles. And in many cases, they found that not only were there no WMDs there, they were clearly unsuitable for anything resembling WMD production. One site that the CIA had identified as a chemical weapons factory didn’t even have running water. Many had clearly been abandoned for years.
For the nth time, OF COURSE WE COULDN’T KNOW THERE WERE NO WMDS IN IRAQ. We still don’t know, and we will never know, that there is not a vial of anthrax buried somewhere in the desert. But it was clear, very early on, that the satellite photos were being misinterpreted, and that the sites identified by Curveball and his pals were not what they claimed.
So no, neither Bush nor Blix nor I could be sure that there were no WMDs. But yes, Bush and Blix and I knew that the intelligence that Bush continued to spout as gospel had been discredited in November of 2002, let alone by late March of 2003.
Yes, it was. The chief of staff of the army testified before the invasion that it would take several hundred thousand soldiers to occupy post-war Iraq. Rumsfeld had to either be an idiot or a liar to deny it. I don’t think he’s an idiot.
Did you actually read the Blix quote I provided? I will repeat: “Personally, I tended to think that Iraq still concealed weapons of mass destruction, but I needed evidence.” He wrote that in 2004 about what he thought on February 20, 2003. He wasn’t making some Rumsfeldian point about known unknowns or unknown unknowns, he literally said that even though he hadn’t found anything, he said he was inclined to think that something substantive hadn’t yet been discovered. And, as you note, that Blix thought that after having been to many of the sites that were suspected stockpiles of WMD… and he still thought something meaningful was probably hidden in Iraq!
Why are you trying to misread the plain language of what Blix said he was in his head? Are you so expert on his thought process that you are certain he was lying about his own thoughts when he wrote that? What does it get you to disbelieve what he said was in his own head?
Frankly, you’re committing the same intellectual error that Bush et al did, in that you’ve already determine what Blix thought and no amount of facts to the contrary will shake your conclusion.
Where in the fuck did I ever say Blix thought there were no WMDs? Why is it so hard for you to distinguish between me saying that Blix proved that Bush’s intelligence claims about specific sites were wrong, which is what I said, and that Blix proved that there were no WMDs in Iraq, which I have said repeatedly that nobody could do, even now? One is easy to do, the other is impossible. It is not a subtle distinction.
You write well. Before this, your posts seemed intelligent. But that last post is idiotic. Seriously. It’s not that hard.
Are you arguing that Bush should have drawn a larger conclusion on Iraq’s WMD programs due to the fact that several sites were visited by UNSCOM and nothing incriminating was found?
There should be unanimous agreement that any US President would decide to launch a massive ground invasion under cover of a massive bombing campaign where innocent people will die and suffer injury only and only if a certain threat to our security was at stake.
It is impossible to make the judgment that Iraq was a greater threat in March 2003 with inspecters inside Iraq than it was in September 2002 when there were no inspecters inside Iraq.
Adaher has expressed his view if I understand it correctly that Bush’s mistake was deciding too soon to confront Iraq on its WMD violations.
So I believe that would be saying that Iraq was not even enough of a threat when no inspecters were in Iraq - so it would be interesting to get an explanation how Iraq became a bigger threat in 2003 with US troop buildup on its border and UN inspecters already beginning to set up a permanent monitoring regime since the inspections were going so well.
I’d like to hear Adaher explain that conundrum that seems to exist with any notion that Bush had to attack because the buildup was there.
The operative phrase being “…Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude…” postulating a condition that he cannot say will be in existence. So, not it’s not clear at all that your paraphrase is accurate.
The issue here and what should is not what Blix’ suspected on February 20th or on March 16th, it was if in his professional opinion whether the diplomatic means were effecting and leading to a oeaceful resolution toward Iraq being disarmed of WMD with full certainty that he could sign a document that Iraq was in compliance.
Blix was of the view that the inspections would lead to compliance.
If Bush didn’t believe that he could have tested Saddam’s offer and sent in the CIA.
Bush chose not to take Saddam up on his offer by saying let the UN handle it.
Blix worked for the UN and all indications are that he could have handled it.
Until the Decider on his own decided to handle it with the lives of our troops and the treasure of our nation
Bush knew about that offer to let the CIA go in.
Any suspicions he may have kept after turning down that offer should be regarded as hogwash.
But the world’s most respected weapons inspector* continued to believe the hogwash was plausible for months afterwards. How do you explain that?
*I’m not being sarcastic. Blix had a very distinguished career, including uncovering a hidden North Korean plutonium program in the early 1990s.
I am arguing that if Bush wishes to claim at present that “>> my first choice was to use diplomacy rather than putting american troops into harm’s way” then he would have sent the CIA during such effective diplomacy that took place in front of his eyes. Any excuse that Blix was not capable in Bush’s keen WMD eye, was eliminated when he turned down an offer for a direct and peaceful search.
How’s come no one wishes to respond to this argument?
It is because our President decided to put an end to the progress that Blix and Iraq were making toward peaceful resolution that required only a few more months accirding to Blix.
Bush made the wrong decision. It was a terrible decision. He didn’t care much about the inspections. We agree on that.
But not everything bad you can say about Bush is necessarily true. That is all.
And that is all I have to say. I can’t believe I got roped into debating this stupid subject again.
Personnally, I think at that point Blix had far more credibility than the CIA.
Put ourselves back into early 2003, and we have no knowledge of what inspections will find. If the CIA is sent in and they find something, Bush will say that war is then justified because the smoking gun was found; and yet people might think the CIA planted the evidence. If they find nothing, the CIA is incompetent and their intel assessments are laughed at.
If the UN is in charge of the inspections, from Bush’s point of view, there’s no way to lose. If UNSCOM finds something, then he has the UNSC in a box and leverage to get them to vote for a war resolution, all diplomatic-like. If he finds nothing, it’s proof that inspections and diplomacy have failed.
So, from Bush’s perspective, sending in the CIA is lose-lose. Keeping Blix in is win-win.
It is pretty simple if you think about it.
And I can’t understand anyone who thinks that once we had gone to the expense and massive effort to get those troops and other assets in place, that anything short of Saddam and his merry men abdicating and leaving the country, probably in chains, was a likely outcome. I literally can’t understand how you could think differently. The die was cast when we started putting troops into the area…one way or another, at that point, we were going to war. Especially with Bush at the helm. It’s pretty freaking obvious that he was just dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s wrt going through the motions of giving diplomacy a chance at that point…probably long before that point.
No, Bush wasn’t totally insane…but he wanted that war. And once he had poured so much political capital into it, AND had poured so much expense and military effort into it, there was nothing short of surrender that was going to prevent him pulling the trigger.
Just to clarify something: when you said that Bush was full of hogwash when he did not send the CIA into Iraq in December 2002, are you saying that his alleged commitment to diplomacy was hogwash, or his claims of WMD in Iraq were hogwash?
Therefore it must be your view, please verify if it is or isnt and explain, that seeking a UN Resolution to get inspections resumed was entirely a scam to get war and there was never in Bush’s mind any desire whatsover “to use diplomacy rather than putting american troops into harm’s way”.
With that you are also making an argument against Ravenman’s shared bkame case for Republicans and Democrats who voted to authorize force because Bush began publicly and privately leaning in September 2002 toward the diplomatic solution through the UN as did I.
Bush parted publically with his VP and went with Powell’s vision to at least try diplomacy first. Now that committment to keeping the peace must have been among other things, lying to Congress if what you claim is true.
I have also made the point that prior to September Bush was with Cheney and the neocons pushing rather hard on the notion that Iraq could be invaded as part of the war on terror and that going through the UN to try and get inspections resumed was an idea for weak-kneed wussy liberal Saddam lovers who do not understand the war on terror.
It is entirely dismissed here that many less hawkish Congress Members took Bush’s public stance to seek UN approval if Saddam refused to resume inspections as a way to stop what was a sheer drive for war with no chance of being stopped by a no vote for war in Congress.
Those Congress members were expected to take the extreme partisan position and accuse the President of lying to them and vote against a president to this day declares that his first choice was diplomacy.
My point and I am quite certain that Bush’s first choice in September was diplomacy but diplomacy did not work the way he might have presumed so his final excuse and sole decision on Iraq was to scuttle diplomacy and start a war.
And that final decision is therefore entirely his and he should take full responsibilty for making it.
He should not blame Congress for giving him the authority to decide and he should not blame the CIA for 2002 intel being wrong.
He should admit as XT points out that he never really sought diplomacy and always wanted war.
So what is wrong with asking the truth be told loudly that Bush apparently did not give a rats ass about diplomacy at the beginning or at the end of the ramp up for the US ground invasion of Iraq.
I accept XT’s explanation in the now we know framework that Bush’s public moves toward seeking a diplomatic resolution were hogwash.
The refusal to send the CIA into Iraq is another public confirmation that it is.
On the CIA aspect I am primarily saying that his reason for refusal was to let the UN handle it.
Then he did not let the UN handle it.
And it is problematic to blame the CIA for bad or lack of accurate current intel that should be needed to justify war.
The UN inspectors had shot down all the 2002 intel that Powell presented to the General Assembly prior to the invasion.
The claim in Bush’s eve of war speech declared that he had intel that at that moment in time left no doubt, left no doubt that, Iraq was currently hiding the most lethal weapons ever devised from UN inspectors.
That should have been current intel with some solid basis of evidence and the whereabouts of the existence of those lethal weapons. We now know there was nothing solid there either.
What I’m saying that Bush had a real opportunity to avoid war and spend time gathering real intel alongside the UN inspectors.
To declare himself a victim of bad intel is hogwash in light if what Iraq was willing to do.
I concur.
So what you’re saying is that Bush was wrong and the war was a mistake?
Well, golly, why didn’t you just say that?
Mark the time, people. This thread is dead.