Now, Bush says he never said Iraq was an imminent threat

Great Debates
41

Well frankly, the term “imminent” is exploited in US foreign policy as a justification for self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. I was under the impression that this justification was the official line from Washington; since the Iraqi threat was “imminent,” Article 51 grants the US to act in its own self-defense.

If the administration is now back-tracking from that position – if it is, in effect, now admitting that it never really considered Iraq to be a “imminent threat” to begin with – wouldn’t that imply that it can no longer justify its actions under Article 51? And would that fact, in its turn, not clearly imply that the invasion was a violation of the UN Charter?

42

Still waiting for you to explain why it’s not OK for Bush to exaggerate his claims, but it is OK for you.

No. I’d applaud you for actually saying what you mean, rather than trumping up “approximations” to make things sound worse than they really are.

What do you lose by sticking with the truth? If it’s just as bad to say “grave and growing,” then why say “imminent”? If it’s just as bad to say “repeatedly fed the nation falsehoods,” then why say “lied”?

43

Can I ask what the debate is here, other than the semantic difference between “imminent” and “grave and present”?

Whatever Bush or Cheney or Ari or Condi may or may not have said, Bush took us to war against Iraq because he thought Iraq could be a threat to the US sometime in the near future. Meaning: in the next few years, not 2 decades from now.

Can we at least all agree on that and just let this thing go? Maybe he didn’t mean tomorrow, and maybe he didn’t mean next month. But he surely wasn’t thinking the threat was a decade away.

Iraq was seen as a near term and long term threat-- not solely a long term threat. And that’w what really matters. Judge Bush and the war against that standard.

44

They used “grave and gathering” to make the case that the inspections were not working and that indeed Iraq was continuing their WMD program. That was clearly a justification for the war. Now it’s clear their “intelligence” was false.

Was the Bush administration incompetent or lying? You be the judge.

Either way it’s worth a pink slip (if not a trial) in my book.

45

Well, unless we have a cite of Bush using the phrase “imminent threat” as regards Iraq, than I guess that we will all have to concede that Scotty is right.

The semantic difference between “gathering” and “imminent” appears to be a crucial distinction in Scotty’s mind, and perhaps there is some kind of small point as “gathering” appears to be some kind of precursor state to “imminent.”

Or perhaps “gathering” is not a precursor state but a different order. You know, a kind of vaguer “imminent”.

I think the best way to nail this down is with a Jello analogy:

You mix the hot water with the sugar mix and you stir and put it in the fridge. At this point before the Jello has… um, jelled it is a “gathering” state. Once the Jello has jelled it is now “imminent” that we will be having Jello.

I trust you all see the crucial difference.

What Scott McClellan was saying was the Saddam Hussein was like lukewarm Jello “gathering” in the fridge. Clearly the threat of jello was implied but it was not yet “imminent.”

46

Scylla, not only was that an apt analogy, but now I’m hungry for Jello.

Speaking of which, 45 minutes after I give the initial order, Jello can be on its way to my table. :eek:

47

On the other hand “gathering” could just mean we are going to the store to buy Jello. Presumably at some time will be heating water and finding a mold, which I guess would qualify a a Jello “program.”
Any action which could possibly conceivably lead to Jello would qualify as a “gathering” Jello threat. If you get the keys to your car it’s possible it could mean you are seeking to buy Jello, heating water or getting a pot also implies a “gathering” jello threat. It’s pretty much wide open to interpretation.

It’s not “imminent” though until it’s jelled in the fridge and ready to serve.

Perhaps this distinction is not as meaningless as it first seems and this is why Scott is stressing it.

I sure as hell got the impression that Bush et al meant imminent, for what that’s worth.

Anybody want some Jello? Perhaps some Yellow Cake?

I haven’t actually made any yellow cake. But the possibility is gathering that I will. I have eggs, flour, an oven.

48

on the one hand, i want to ask you for an example of an instance where i exaggerated, but on the other, i can’t help but noting that thousands of lives are not in my hands.

perhaps this will someday be put to the test. at the moment, i suppose we can only speculate.

if it’s just as bad to say “grave and gathering”, then why quibble over the use of the word “imminent” in the place of those words?

49

if i had an open invitation to come over your house and eat jello, when the serving of jello was imminent, would you feel i was justified in coming over when you went to the store to buy it?

i wonder, why aren’t all debates broken down in terms of jello?

50

I guess that would depend on how badly you wanted Jello. I guess for purposes of this analogy we can consider the US as adopting a Bill Cosby docrine, with the coalition being like those Jello-pops kids.

51

You ask a damn good question. In my book, “imminent threat” has a very clear meaning: that a country is on the verge of attacking another country. It is a description of a situation between countries, and there’s a clear body of international law relating to that term.

To be perfectly honest, as much as it is in popular use, I have not come across a clear definition of “clear and present danger” as it relations to international relations. I’d say it’s a pretty ambiguous phrase, in contrast to “imminent threat.”

If pressed, I would say that “clear and present danger” would describe the character of a state, and its predisposition towards hostility – not necessarily a description of specific acts that a country may be taking toward another country.

To illustrate, I would say that the Soviet Union was a “clear and present danger” to the United States during the Cold War, but perhaps only during the Cuban Missile Crisis did they pose an imminent threat.

soup, quix: I just don’t buy that Fleischer’s response of “absolutely” to that question posed to him by a reporter constitutes the establishment of a national policy that Iraq was considered by the President as an imminent threat. If, indeed, that one comment established a national policy, I daresay that others within the Administration would have actually used the term “imminent threat” with some frequency, but that clearly did not happen.
I’m willing to put Ari’s remark in the same category as Dick Cheney’s comment that Iraq has “reconstituted nuclear weapons” (vice “reconstituted nuclear weapons programs”) – an understandable verbal miscommunication that was not ever again repeated, but that raised a such a huffy furor in some parts. (But is it not ironic that, on either count, Cheney was wrong? Ha!)

Mr. Svinlesha - The Administration has concocted a lousy legal justification for why its invasion of Iraq was legal under international law, but that house of cards depends entirely on one not reading the UN Charter too closely. I wish the White House would put enough thought into its legal justification to make an argument that the threat from Iraq was of such-and-such nature, and Article so-and-so of the charter allows a country to defend itself from threats of such-and-such nature. At least that would be some sophisticated thinking.

No, the Administration instead trots out arguments that are of a seventh-grade reading level: “The UN Charter allows a country to act in self-defense” and some fantasty that the threat of “serious consequences” in 1441 was a spelling error, and is actually pronounced “the UN Security Council authorizes the use of unprovoked military force.” Ijits.

52

Let’s not forget the cheesemakers:

53

Sorry, quite right. You were merely justifying the exaggerations made by others.

Certainly the consequences of one may have been greater than the other. Does that make the lesser exaggeration a fair debating technique?

Forget that.

I hereby applaud you for not exaggerating your claims. And I apologize for falsely accusing you of exaggerating your claims.

Because it’s inaccurate.

If it’s just as bad, why not be accurate?

Mr. Svinlesha, here is the text of Article 51:

I don’t see where that says the threat must be imminent. I realize this has probably been hashed over many, many, many times, but could you (or someone else) give me a link showing why the fuss over “imminent,” it would probably help dispel my ignorance.

Scylla and Sour du jour, thank you both for a great laugh.

54

i guess i just don’t believe it is inaccurate to paraphrase using a synonym.

if we as a people got the impression from the administration that the threat was imminent, and we say so, should we not feel as though they are quibbling over semantics when they say “we never used that word.”?

i don’t think i’m letting the offence i took from them misleading me to believe the threat was imminent shape the affront i feel for the sudden game of words they’re playing, now that it has become time to revise history.

i applaud their careful wording in speeches and press briefings, but the game itself is shameful. they mean to imply that they never meant the threat was imminent when they point out that they never used the word. as i said previously, it seemed to me that that was clearly the impression they were trying to make. that they are now backing up, and that they made provisions ahead of time so that they could back up in the event that it became necessary, seems to me more than a bit dishonest.

55

I agree that right now I am very suspect about the information that the CIA, the NSA and others supplied before we went into Iraq. However, that is because I’m not sure they were capable of giving good info. That goes back to when the Cold War ended and we thought we didn’t need spies anymore. That may even be optimistic since I don’t think our spies have ever been considered the “best”.

Having said that do you really think that our foreign policy should be conducted entirely based on what the other party tells us and that we shouldn’t have our own people check it out in secret?

56

I believe you are making an assumption that is not correct. Many people believed as you do, but do not use the term “people” as if everyone felt that they were mislead or that everyone believed that “imminent threat” was used. I personally understood that we did not want to wait until it was “imminent”. If you think about it, back before Desert Storm; it was imminently sure that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia. If they had not held off until we got our troops in position, it could have been a different story. So why wait for that kind of situation?

57

Technically. the President never said that Iraq presented a threat “serious enough to go to war over”, so his spokesmen can say “The President never said that Iraq presented a threat serious enough to go to war over”.

58

It’s one thing to disbelieve what someone like Saddam tells you. It’s another thing altogether to disbelieve what the weapons inspectors tell you. They were actually there, on the ground, and had no incentive to lie about what they were finding, i.e. nothing.

The “secret” evidence that Bush and Co claimed to have came from known liars who had an obvious interest in the outcome, i.e. Chalabi’s crowd. It was quite stupid for the DoD to put as much faith as they did in what they were being fed.

59

Splendid cite, Age. Clearly you know where to find Article 51. Now all you need do is demonstrate that Iraq committed an “armed attack” against the US.

Kniz: was going to say what Demo said, but he got there first. Again.

(Damned Aussies, I hate it when they’re sober enough to type…)

60

Is Chalabi a CIA agent? IMHO this is grabbing for straws. :rolleyes: