I’m not sure that Woodward didn’t take a few too many sips of the neocon Kool-Aid after 9/11. But if you are referencing some of Woodward’s writing about the early stages of planning for an attack on Iraq to depose Saddam, I’ll have to see if Woodward shuts down like most journalists have on the period of UN inspections and that significance of the passage of 1441 and the change of attitude by Bush prior to the AUMF vote in October 2002 and what Iraq’s cooperation should have done to all Bush’s planning for war.
As the famed investigative journalist that Woodward used to be, you’d think he’d been screaming for ‘evidence’ on the WMD claims in the paper where he sits on the editorial board, plus been able to see that Iraq was cooperating as never before and scream that on the front page of the Washington Post with blazing headlines. Many polls showed that at least six of ten Americans wanted Bush to let the inspections continue with no need for war.
Woodward could have figured out that 1441 and the subsequent inspections changed the dynamics of that period quite a bit and favorable to a peaceful resolution. But the major change it should have forced was that the focus should have moved away from the potential threat of Iraq possessing WMD… to a focus on whether or not the inspections were working and how much that meant to reducing the threat to the US and our allies in the region.
I suspect there was fear of proclaiming the truth of Iraq’s cooperation by the US mainstream media because reporting anything positive about Saddam Hussein put n journalists and news organizations in the unfair category of working in the interests of an evil dictator who might someday give his WMD to terrorists. The rightwing media, led by Fox News set the standard and the narrative of how journalists were supposed to conduct themselves during Bush’s handling of the war on terror.
A dedicated watchdog journalist would have noticed that in October 2002 there was an argument that Iraq could be a potential threat and its violations of international law on WMD and disarmament matters needed to be confronted and ended. There was an argument that Iraq was a threat and most officials down to Joe Sixpack considered Iraq to be some kind of a threat. Like XT… a threat to the oil in the region.
But it doesn’t take much expertise in military or foreign policy affairs to realize that a couple hundred inspectors scouring Iraq for a few months and not finding evidence of WMD in Iraq in March 2003 provided a tremendous reduction in the potential threat from Iraq to I’d say non-existent.
That huge reduction in threat has been little discussed anywhere. That is absurd.
The comparative level of threat between October 2002 to March 2003 allows anyone to shoot down and reject Bush’s final days decision to end inspections when they only had four months to go to probable conclusion. And long term monitoring would be fully set in place.
No one discusses that. Perhaps Woodward does, I have not read everything he has written on Iraq, but I doubt it.
To me it is fundamental in any discussion about Iraq. That is because Bush was publically stating that regime change WAS NOT necessary if the UN acted to disarm Iraq and Iraq acted properly to be disarmed. Bush put no real deadline on that condition at the time either. So if regime change WAS NOT NECESSARY in October 2002 if disarmament of WMD could take place, then only the most ignorant and unsophisticated buffoon could ever state and be believed that Iraq was more of a threat in March 2003 and that regime change was necessary.
Bush is the buffoon who stated it and no one questions that aspect of his decision.
I ran across these when I tried to figure out what Bob Woodward has to do with the conversation at this point.
Bush locked in to inspections with no completion date set when he told Congress he wanted an AUMF so he could keep the peace but force Iraq to disarm, and when he sought and received UNSC Resolution 1441.
The threat from Iraq compared to October 2002 was reduced at the point where you begin to cite Blix’s uncertainty. The threat is not relative to Blix doing his job in a professional way. The threat is reduced because Blix is and has been inside Iraq with a couple hundred inspectors and infrared planes and ground penetrating radar and more monitoring stuff on the way and most important that you all pretend didn’t happen… is Blix had proactive cooperation from Iraq before an invasion was decided.
The THREAT WAS REDUCED and if it was ok not to have regime change in October 2002 when no inspectors were inside Iraq… it is absurd to accept the need for regime change in March where the inspection conditions were extremely improved and were working.
That is true and it means the threat from Iraq was reduced, not increased from October 2002 to March 2003.
More ammo for my point that Bush came no where’s near to ‘enforcing all UNSC Resolutions regarding Iraq’ when he decided to invade Iraq and piss all over 1441 and the AUMF and the American people, our troops, our Congress and the entire world.
So are you and Bob sympathetic to this rationale for war? I’m not.
Even if inspections went on forever any simpleton could figure out that it was a reduction in threat from five months before, and a cheaper less risky means to further contain Iraq.
So we should not have expected Bush to figure these simple facts out.
If these were Bush’s concerns Woodward should have ripped them to shreds.
Does He?