I disagree. I think any person who voted for the Iraq war resolution ought to have known that they were casting their lot for war. The problem was the vote. To take some kind of solace that they helped get inspections by voting for war is delusional: they voted for war, that’s what they got; and any claim that the March 19th invasion wasn’t exactly what they approved is simply not credible.
And I’m speaking as someone who does not believe that Bush and others lied. Lying to me means that they knew the truth and chose to say something else. I think that they really, truly, honestly believed that the WMD were well-hidden and Blix was simply being played for a fool. But in my book, I don’t think that they are redeemed in any way by being wrong as opposed to being liars.
Although I strongly disagree on this point, you are entitled to your opinion that Bush’s team thought Blix was a fool.
But I don’t see any possible way that you can believe they never lied at all. They lied when they used phrases like “no doubt” and “absolutely certain” about things that their experts explicitly told them were doubtful or uncertain. They lied when they said that the NYT was independently confirming the stories that they had leaked to the NYT. Almost every speech Bush gave was extremely disingenuous, and calculated to create an impression of imminent danger, while being only technically true at best. For example, they liked to say “We know that Saddam has had contacts with al Qaeda going back ten years,” which any listener would construe as an active relationship, when what actually happened was that there had been one meeting between underlings ten years earlier, that came to nothing, or their constant claims of an al Qaeda presence in Iraq, when the only part of Iraq with any Al Qaeda presence was the Kurdish territory that the US patrolled to keep Saddam out of.
By the time they invaded, they knew that the sites that the CIA had identified as active WMD factories or storage depots were not only not full of WMDs, but in many cases had obviously been abandoned for years, yet they continued to cite the same claims, and even doubled down on the discredited reports of aluminum tubes and African uranium.
They certainly knew by March 2003 that Iraq was no threat to the US. And yet, Bush signed a letter to Congress dated March 18, 2003 — when it was known beyond doubt that the CIA guesses had been wrong, and that Curveball and his pals were liars — certifying that nothing short of war could make the US safe from Iraq. How can you say he wasn’t lying?
Exactly. A vote for war is a vote for war. It was at Bush’s discretion to decide when to invade. If Congress wanted to put a check on Bush’s actions, they could have made the actual invasion contingent on a later vote, but they gave all the authority to Bush. In fact, I think the Bush Administration wrote the wording of the AUMF and Congress essentially rubber stamped it.
This is the war crimes defence; no matter how absurd the evidence or the assessment of the evidence, if you can show you held an honest belief that your country was under direct threat you cannot be found guilty.
As I said before, we made up the rules in the first place. The idea is to maintain the world powers.
There were Iraqi generals who did not know that there were no CW in Iraq. Even Hans Blix has said that Saddam’s wanted the rest of the world to think that he had CW, and Bush and Co. took that at face value. Blix also believes that Bush and Blair were not lying, and that they were wrong. They simply could not give up the Rumsfeld maxim that absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.
I had similar dissappointment with the Documentary although it was never expected to be what it should be. I have reached a conclusion that coming from a liberal perspective there is difficulty understand what you have written very well above.
Every commentator in “Hubris” last night when mentioning the authorization use the phrase that Senators and Congressment “VOTED FOR WAR”.
That is not true at all. It does not tak but a split second to add the proper “if necessary” to that phrase.
Bush defenders always come back against any criticism of Bush’s final decision to kick inspectors out and start war with the manic cliche’… “BUT DEMOCRATS VOTED FOR WAR”.
I feel this powerful myth contributes heavily to why Bush and Cheney have not paid a price other than the demise of any kind of respected legacy for the depraved acts they committed ten years ago to put Americans in a kill and be killed situation when UN inspectors were disarming Iraq just fine and better than they ever had doen before.
Powell is another one living higher on the many myths that have emerged regarding Bush’s invasion of Iraq in march 2003.
I am sick of hearing about his ‘reluctant warrior’ status… as if we are to feel sorry for him that he was a good soldier and was duped by Tenet or mistaken with Tenet and the all the rest.
Powell will have no explanation for his blow up at his counterpart from France, DeVillipain who enraged Powell because he said France would not authorize war at the UNSC because in February 2003, France and most non-bribable nations saw very clearly that inspections were working and a few more months would resolve all issues.
Powell was not blind or fooled by what the rest of the world outside the Fox News and Bush circle could see. Inspections were working.
It was that day thay Powell who claims he wanted the UN to back any war for legitimacy, could probably stopped the war, not by resigning but by telling truth to power…
Look Mr President, there is no need to rush into war. There are unfettered inspections taking place on the ground in Iraq and that is what our position has been. To get that.
DeVillipain is correct. The inspection process is working.
That would of done it for Bush and Cheney.
I am certain of that.
Funny thing is, that if Bush had backed off and Iraq became disarmed peacefully, Bush would have accomplished a great deal and made the world really safer.
Its too bad for the scores and tens of scores killed and injured for the farce of an attack on innocent people the Iraq invasion was.
They did vote for war. Read section (b) of the resolution: It says the President may attack Iraq “as HE determines to be necessary.” Not as a impartial person or body thinks, it invests the decision for war in the President alone. That’s a vote for war.
Senator Levin offered an amendment which authorized war if the UNSC also authorized war, but if the US were to go it alone, there would have to be another vote in Congress. Biden, Clinton, and most Democrats voted against it. Of course they knew they were voting for war!
Well, at that point they’d be lumped in with ‘old Europe’ and the cheese-eating surrender monkey’s.
The NYT apologised later for its uncritical, unquestioning posture. In truth US media didn’t criticise for fear of being cut out the loop and being made irrelevant.
This NYT Sunday Magazine article is worth the read. I’ve linked to it before in this forum, and it’s several pages long, but it does a good job of outlining the process by which the vote was achieved, with special emphasis on HRC’s role.
I know that everybody in the world is supposedly in love with Hillary Clinton right now - and don’t get me wrong, I’d still probably vote for her if she runs in 2016 - but the main reason why I would like to see another Democrat succeed Obama (other than HRC) is that Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq War, and that is just a major, MAJOR strike against her IMO.
Hell, the person who I’d really like to see run in four years is Brian Schweitzer, and I’m not even fucking from Montana.
What about the analog situation (today) with Iran? We keep getting told that Iran is ready to have a nuclear bomb-Bibi Netanyahu keeps talking it up-and yet there is no credible evidence whatsoever of an Iranian bomb. Since the Iraq war was such a disaster, one would think that world leaders would exercise more caution, in dealing with Iran.