Not about reins per-se, but rather backing/acquiescence to his, and obviously the infamous Project for the New American Century, who I honestly think was above his mental capacity. Mind you, not an excuse, just a fact.
Lastly, no queries with all you legality blaming it all on Bush. But the fact that those that voted for giving him a “green-light” to go ahead with his fore-planned invasion – mind you, I agree it didn’t matter according to POTUS powers – only facilitated his getting the war on.
Can’t you see that even if he chose to do what he did, legally, if he didn’t have an overwhelming favorable vote from both Parties, the war itself wouldn’t have been marketed so easily? Again, all facts pointed against his claims…and there weren’t hard to find.
Again, a bunch of nobodies such as myself presented them with just a bit of research. It is simply beyond my credence that Congressmen & Senators with all their staff couldn’t do the same. Had they voted against, would the invasion have taken place? But of course. That was long in the planning and legally so as you well put it. But at least it would have shown a run-away POTUS. Which is what Congress is supposed to contain.
Re, "Again, all facts pointed against his claims…and there weren’t hard to find. "
It didn’t matter so much as to the specific facts, as it did that Saddam Hussein had a reputation as a possessor of WMD and he was in violation of international law and for that REASON FAIR GAME.
To me, the facts, that the public could know and ascertain had they had the time and desire to do so, were best served by the UN inspection process which really began feeding public information about the truth of Iraq WMD capabilities in mid January 2003 and after that.
Inspections were working. Justification for war was gone no matter how proponents for war, the bloodthirsty types and proponents for verified disarmament without war if possible tried to spin it (former) or explain it (latter).
The Fact that Curveball’s false claims about mobile chem/bio production facilities would be one of the false charges against the Bush regime was not a ‘google away’ in October 2002.
The necessary point that was predominately considered was not a casus belli in the form of some certifiable threat of plans of a threat from Iraq in October 2002. It was that Iraq was at that time in Material Breach of its Disarmament Agreement and the Bush tied that to his BUSH DOCTRINE which called for PREEMPTIVE WAR against those that posed a threat in the future. No right or wrong here, just explaining what was going on.
Then Bush Asked for and got the remedy that would bring Iraq into compliance with international law and that was UN RES 1441.
After that Resolution was passed and agreed to by Bush, Iraq remained in Material Breach of its disarmament obligations, however was given a final opportunity to comply.
This made the UN inspections so important in that they were clearly working.
Bush lost his casus belli for ‘preemptive action’… so starting a war when international law was dealing with the threat peacefully .. should not have been the case.
And it clearly should be presumed that any Senator listening to Bush in September 2002 ralking peace through the UN, should Not be faulted for taking a chance that peace would prevail.
They erred by passing a resolution containing this verbiage:
You’ve depicted Bush as a liar for exercising his authority under the resolution and certifying his determination in writing. That’s one possible interpretation. Bush may have been certain that Hussein would resist inspections more than he in fact did, thus justifying the war Bush desired. When this didn’t materialize, Bush realized that by lying in writing to Congress, he could start the war anyway.
But, what if Bush was just sincerely mistaken? What if he had his own sources, thought to be reliable, who were prevailing upon him that Hussein was lying, that the UN teams were being deceived, that Iraq was an imminent threat, and so on. Bush likely thought he was acting in the best interests of the United States and the world. He needn’t be evil to make the decision that he did, just wrong.
You see, this is why we have separation of powers; checks and balances. Because one man can always be malicious, or simply wrong.
Perhaps he knew that the inspections were working and attacked anyway; perhaps he was convinced that they were not working.
One party was trying to win more seats than the other in the next election???
The Democratic Party has labored under the stereotype of being soft on defense for many decades.
“My” method being the Constitution? What’s your method?
House Republicans share blame too, this isn’t a Democratic thing. Both parties share blame, the Republicans much more so.
Yeah, no shit.
It worked until it didn’t, in rather spectacular fashion. Hard to then conclude that it “worked”.
This version of my argument, where I hold the Republicans blameless, does not exist.
Then pass the Levin Amendment. Problem solved. (a) is unchanged, and as for (b), without a Security Council resolution or another vote by Congress, Bush’s marketing campaign is for naught.
Except he DIDN’T get the language he wanted. See post 398.
Bush wanted an authorization in hand before going to the UN. The correct response from Congress would have been either a “no”, or the Levin Amendment. Your argument here makes no sense: if Congress hadn’t given Bush authorization to go to war, he’d have bypassed the UN and…gone to war. So, Congress had no choice but to authorize war. So Bush wouldn’t go to war. What?
Sounds great! Except only one person was empowered to decide if war was justified or not. Guess who? And guess who gave him that unchecked power?
Except for the part where they could have passed a resolution that tied use of force to a UN resolution. THAT’S actually working through the UN, not just lip-service.
Are we not supposed to be looking at all conditions and facts and realities in order establish something to be learned for generations to come. Why must we leave out the reality that the Levin Amendment was politically dead in the water because Bush wanted the AUMF worded the way he wanted it and, if he didn’t get it, a Senator was voting against peace accirding to Bush.
HRC also explained that she would not put US national security to be submissive to a UNSC vote with the potential for a veto.
If you wish to assert the Levin Amendment as a viable alternative you have to show that the House would pass it and the White House would agree to to.
Gephardt and Daschle negotiated the House Res and ceremoniously came out on October 2 with the results that ended up passing. You need to show that there credibly was room for further negotiating beyond that October 2 Date.
Indications were that votes were already in the bag to pass Bush’s negotiated House version more than a week before the vote.
You don’t get to declare the Levin Amendment a viable alternative unless you can show it could have actually passed. I don’t think the House would go that way after Cheney lied to Dick Armey about positive intel on Nukes in a private show and tell to get Armey on board.
Thats in the book “Hubris”. Very interesting encounter that Armey reflected upon later.
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
Do you believe Bush really intended when hectare that, that if inspections resumed he Would be able to keep the peace?
[/QUOTE]
I think he assumed, based on past actions, that Iraq and Saddam would never fully open things up to inspectors and be fully transparent, and that he assumed that, again, based on past actions, that Saddam et al were hiding something…else, why go through all the antics they had gone through with the inspectors pretty much since the First Gulf War? Obviously Bush was wrong in his assumptions (about them having the WMD anyway…not sure if Saddam et al would EVER have opened things up to a level of transparency that was acceptable to Bush by that time), but you are assuming that Bush KNEW that Saddam didn’t have the things and that he was lying about everything to force a war. That certainly could be the case, but it’s not the slam dunk you seem to think it is, since it’s also based on several assumptions and a certain world view.
It’s interesting, to me anyway, to see people who basically agree that the war was a bad idea being busted on by you because they aren’t fervent enough or don’t agree with the assumptions you seem to take for granted.
Bush DIDN’T get the authorization worded the way he wanted it, again, see post 398. Bush could say whatever he wanted about anyone, that’s politics, it’s not somehow unique to this situation.
Instead, she voted to place all power to use force in Bush’s hands. Brilliant! And had the UNSC been uncooperative in the event of an actual threat to US national security, THEN Congress could have passed a resolution authorizing Bush to use force.
Not if my point is that Congress (or rather 297 Representatives and 77 Senators) exercised poor judgment. If the Levin Amendment wasn’t viable, it’s because Congressmen were fools. I criticize them on that basis. I’m not focused purely on Democrats, as you seem to be.
Again, SHOULD have passed, because Congressmen of all parties should have forseen the consequences of the resolution they passed. If a majority in both houses did forsee the outcome and voted yes in order to secure a war, I condemn them on that basis.
It’s certainly possible. Bush may have had a standard for certainty in mind that simply could not be reached by the UN inspections. Hussein’s initial resistance to the 2002 inspections (and previous ones) may have fed into a confirmation bias: Bush may have interpreted all the information at his disposal so as to confirm his deep-seated belief that Hussein was hiding something incriminating, and was a danger to the U.S.
NotfooledbyW seems to hold that there is one and only one acceptable narrative for the Iraq War. Conveniently, it’s the one where Bush is a liar and all Democrats are blameless.
And it’s also one where we should have trusted Bush 100% in Oct 2002. As you have noted, if we could do that, we wouldn’t need Congress for anything. The whole point of separation of powers is to prevent things like, uhm, going to war recklessly.
Right, trust should never be part of the process, the more so when war is on the line. Human fallibility forbids it, it’s not just a matter of electing an evil person; people make honest mistakes as well, and they pursue agendas that are of personal interest to them but not in the best interests of the nation (ie, the principal-agent problem).
Perhaps Congress could pass a law that trusted the President to choose the national flower, but that’s about it. Trust and faith is for religion and dictators, I’ll take enumerated, separate powers that check and balance each other.
Further, NotfooledbyW’s narrative is the one that means the public doesn’t have to ask themselves any hard questions or try and learn from what happened: why is supporting military adventurism manly and proud, and opposing it weak and shameful? Why are we able to be manipulated by fear? Why do we think we can change other peoples and make them like we are? Why are the lives of foreigners worth less than the lives of Americans? Why is the UN only semi-functional?
If the sole conclusion is that Bush lied in March 2003, and everything before that was necessary and proper, than the lesson is just: don’t elect George W. Bush. Not very instructive to future generations.
You certainly bend a lot for Bush but have little flexibilty for someone such as HRC voting in a way that you disagree with also.
You can accept that Bush said in September 2002 that the threat to our national security from Iraq’s stockpiles of WMD are not sufficient to require war at this time, so peace is yet possible, at that ctitical point in time when NO Inspectors ARE in Iraq and had NOT been for four years - and you can accept five months later when 250 UN inspectors have been scouring Iraq for for months, finding cooperation the best it had ever been, that Bush decides the threat to America was higher by all that.
Please clarify if that is not how you see it. I am very interested in finding out how Bush could determine an increase in threat by having inspectors in when there were none before.
No, I gave them both the same consideration: either badly mistaken, or derelict of duty. You’ve called Bush a liar, a cowboy, and said that he’ll burn in hell. I’ve made no such remarks about Bush or Clinton. Both deserve blame for a needless war, Bush much more so than Clinton.
Are you asking me if it’s possible for Bush to reasonably have come to that conclusion, or asking me what led him to reach that conclusion?
It is beyond doubt that Bush, Blair et al knew they were lying. For whatever reason, good or bad, they were going to have this war and they would say whatever it took to get it. Hell, anyone who did any cursory reading around the subject knew they were lying yet those of us who spoke out were howled down. Anyone who knew anything about Iraq also knew what the aftermath would be if not planned for. But no - we’d be welcomed by Kurd, Sunni and Shia throwing giant petal throwing parties we were told.
Democracy cannot exist where the Executive lies, the Representatives fail to exercise due diligence and the Third Estate rolls over like a puppy. Bush et al are to blame for lying. Congress for either believing the lies or being too gutless to challenge them and the corporate media from the NYT to Fox for being unquestioning cheer-leaders.
If it’s the latter, I have no idea. But, here’s a possibility that can be entertained as a hypothetical:
The informant known as “Curveball” had reported, among other things, mobile biological weapons labs being operated by the Hussein regime. After several months of inspections, such mobile labs had not been discovered by UNMOVIC.
A reasonable person might then begin to doubt the veracity of Curveball’s claims: the mobile labs might never have existed. However, confirmation bias might have led Bush to conclude that:
a) since UNMOVIC had not found the mobile labs, either UNMOVIC was unreliable or Hussein was so skilled at hiding his operations that UNMOVIC alone would never discover them.
b) Only a complete occupation of Iraq would allow all its WMD operations to be discovered.
c) the fact that Hussein was continuing to conceal these mobile labs indicated an active hostility to the inspection process and to the U.S., indicated a clear and present danger.
d) Iraq needed to be invaded for various other reasons anyway.
Make no mistake, I have no idea if that sort of thinking was done by Bush. But it’s an example of being badly mistaken, rather than lying.
I know you think it was an error, but why taking into account the variable conditions that I and others have presented? Is it an error because you disagree with it or do you have an explanation as to what conditions at the time makes it an error in your opinion?
It was an error on two levels, one general, the other specific.
To the general, it’s a mistake to concentrate that degree of power in the hands of the President, or any other individual. Such concentration increases the likelihood of a disastrous outcome.
To the specific, if a peaceful disarmament of Iraq was the goal, it was an error to hand the power to make war in Iraq to a man who:
a) Clearly desired regime change in Iraq, indicating ulterior motives beyond the WMD issue.
b) Was clearly relying on worthless intelligence, indicating either poor judgment or a willingness to lie.
I appreciate your response. And I wish to be clear.
Would you accept that ‘peaceful disarmament of Iraq’ ‘as a goal’ was a valid and reasoned motive for Clinton and Kerry in October 2002, for granting authorization to use force to a president that they clearly recognized as having all the flaws and dastardly ways that you defined, but their choice was between voting no and getting no restraints or movement from that radical war-mongering deluded president toward renewed UN inspections or and I repeat or;
You go with the best language that can be negotiated with that war crazed president and expect that the recent hints from him as preferring a peaceful solution are sincere, giving the world the best shot at 'keeping the peace.
Can you tell me that you, in Senator Clinton’s shoes, would be able to, trust the president you described as one that ‘desired regime change, indicating ulterior motives beyond the WMD issue, and was clearly relying on worthless intelligence, indicating either poor judgment or a willingness to lie’.
Would you, in that position, trust that if Bush were denied the AUMF he wanted in October, in the way he wanted it, just take that “NO” for an answer and give up doing all you said he was doing, or start working on another way?
Bush did get the Senate about one month later - which was an unknown for HRC when she voted.
So one choice was potentially the last chance for a Democrat Senate to put any kind of limited restraint on the war cowboy you described or,
Or just say NO and turn the war crazed Cowboy loose to try again in one month - and possibly send a signal to the UN and Iraq that Bush can’t get his war and the UN and Iraq lose the pressure so they do not act?
I think the UN acted when they saw the US Congress united and seriously backing the President for war, If Iraq refused to be disarmed.