Here’s a question I’ve asked several times in previous threads about the case for war. Can anyone give an estimate of how the case for war would have looked without the WMD justification? Once that’s done, can we get some analysis as to how this case would have fared had it been on a resolution to authorize force? Because from what I see and have seen since the pre-war days, no one was willing to start a war over humanitarian violations by Hussein or to spread democracy.
A couple of excerpts from previous posts by me in previous threads sum up my assessment.
Unconstitutional - I think it is.
Should be struck down - I think it should be.
Relevant to Saddam or anything else (other than amassing more power for the Gov’t) - It is irrelevant and not much use.
Really Bad Shit - I agree.
But then, jumping off to war, based on preconceptions, cherry picked info, ignoring contradicting advice and warnings and independent reports, and then blaming some anonymous low level Dilbert schmucks for your decision is Really Bad Shit too. It smacks of nonaccountability.
For those with short attention spans, WMD and the “terror link” was used to “sell” the war. We were all told that Saddam had WMD - nukes, gas, germs, whatever. We were told he was all cozy with Osama. We were told they were “comin’ ta git us”. It was told to the U.S.and it was recited by Powel to the U.N.
It was not enough to say “Saddam is mean so we wanna whack him”. The president, vice president, and their people wanted the war. They needed an excuse. When 9/11 happened, the excuse was handed to them on a silver platter, but the “villain” was not who they wanted. So, they manufactured a “link” between Osama and Saddam.
So, once again we keep going in a damn circle. Where the hell is Osama? I for one am not satisfied with the debate drivel about him being marginalized and no longer important.
You know what? I have to appologize for those two posts. I did have a point in there somewhere, but my ire got in the way. Old habits rearing there ugly head again, I guess. Let me take a day or two and try and make those points again in a more rational way. I appologize if anything I said gave offence.
It is obvious to me that the best information was ignored. The best information was that from Hans Blix and the UN inspectors who were actually on scene and making the rounds of inspection. And weren’t they saying “No WMD.” which was finally admitted by GW’s WMD guy David Kay?
They were not only ignored, their work was essentially sabotaged and cut short by the rush to war.
Hussein was a likely target for any kind of action. I’d be willing to bet that in 50 years the history books will follow along this path.
Saddam was already an established enemy of the US thanks to Gulf I.
He was found to be a factor in the assassination attempt of a former US President.
He openly sent large cash gifts to families of those that died in efforts to kill Jews.
He used barbaric means to make sure the majority kept quiet and fearful.
He made sure that in his defiance, he left the impression that he still had considerable weaponry.
He had no qualms about using his weapons against the citizens in his own country.
Now, take all that, add in the long-standing problems the ME has had with the West and top it off with 9/11.
Diplomacy and protests are all well and good, and have their place in the world of politics, especially in the ME. However, in that region there seems to be a small but sizeable portion that just doesn’t understand anything but brute force.
The elections in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to show that a majority want free elections and a voice in government, while the few that held power are fighting tooth and nail to supress that basic right.
Of course, all we have to do is look to the US to debunk the previous statement. Over here, the will of the majority is stated in elections, then assailed by the minority and likened to a dictatorship.
It looks like there may be a fight brewing, and some people are not happy. The CIA and some congresscritters want to know how a presidential commission unearthed details on intel failure that were missed by All previous investigations. This commission apparently had details that did not emerge at any previous time in any previous investigation.
CIA tried to tell top bosses that “Curveball” was a suspected fabricator. There suposedly was a warning about it given directly to George Tenet to not trust him - Tenet has very conveniently stated he doesn’t remember. Selective memory at its best?
*Comment - if I started a war, I would damn well remember how and why I did it. *
Tenet has written a SEVEN PAGE statement, just to say “he doesn’t remember”. He somehow remebers enough of the “convenient” things to fill SEVEN PAGES.
I firmly believe that this latest “presidential report” has only one purpose - to shift blame and absolve the big boys of any possible repercussions from the decisions they made. I use the term “report” very loosely.
Here’s where you take the great leap of faith- connecting the invasion of Iraq w/ 9/11.
There’s no reason to believe or to have believed that Hussein was a threat to the US either directly or via third party terrorists.
As far as the GWoT, Iraq has lowered the standing of the US worldwide, esp so among inhabitants of majority Muslim countires. It has provided the motivation and means for many more people to tranform themselves into proficient terrorists. It was recognized before the invasion by members of the NIC that the invasion of Iraq would increase the number of anti-American terrorists, and since the invasion it has been noted that it has in fact aided the cause of anti-American terrorist recruitment worldwide.
Since the invasion of Iraq has worsened (and was anticipated to worsen) the US’s security picture vis a vis terrorist who wish to strike the US what’s 9-11 got to do with it? Unless one is making the case that the invasion of Iraq was to generate more 9-11 type events.
Oddly enough some surveys show that in several MEcountries democratic ideals are more highly regarded than here in the US.
I don’t believe that anybody before the war said that Saddam had no WMD. At least, nobody suggested that it had been proven. I recall Blix, and his supporters, asking that he be given more time to inspect. Why would you need more time to inspect if you know Saddam has no WMD?
Blix didn’t find evidence of WMD, but that is a far different thing than proving there aren’t any. Especially since Saddam had been very resistant to giving the inspectors the full access they wanted. Until the US army was stationed on his border, he still threw up roadblocks to the inspectors.
Personally, I think Bush relied on bad intel. Giving it far too much weight. Clinton had made similar conclusions on Saddam’s WMD capability, but didn’t deem them strong enough (or important enough) to go to war on. A great many people in the government, on both sides, believed that Saddam had WMD, but only Bush and his supporters wanted to go to war over it.
Not exactly the Evil Bush some would make him out to be, but more incompetant, and still not acceptable for a leader.
More nit-picking excuses to absolve an incompetent President and a bunch of war hawk ideologues. The UN inspectors were saying they had found no evidence but that was ignored in favor of false information from a shady source that supported what GW et al wanted to do all along.
Once again, there was no iminent threat to US national security from Iraq so grave as to justify a war.
Call a guy incompetant and unacceptable for a leader and I’m absolving him? I’m not trying to absolve anyone, Bush screwed the pooch big time.
However, this does not mean that Blix, prior to the war, stated that Iraq had no WMD. That is what you claimed they were saying “No WMD.” He said, IIRC, that he hadn’t found anything and wanted more time to conduct his inspections.
None of this should absolve Bush, since he claimed to have positive evidence of WMD, which he obviously didn’t.
Are you referring to the intel that was known to be inaccurate and/or unreliable that Team Bush purposely assembeled via the Office of Special Plans and the Policy Terrorism Evaluation Group to help them pitch the invasion?
In part, this is an example of what I posted in the OP- the idea of a threat to the US from Hussein. There was an apparent consensus that Hussein wasn’t likely to initate an attack on the US either directly or by proxy via third party terrorists. This is one of the more blatant examples of Team Bush relying on “bad intel” despite the widespread availability of better intel.
It depends on how one assigns the quality of ‘evil’. Perhaps, if motives are the key factor, Team Bush was acting “for our own good” and thus not evil.
However, someone(s) made deliberate decisions to ignore good intel and hype poor quality intel re several key elements of the case to go to war. At the least, this is willful negligence.
I’m not sure how inaccurate it was known to be, but I am talking in general about the information he used to back up the WMD/threat claim.
Some posters in the past have ascribed motives to Bush that can only be described as evil. Starting a war to earn money for Halliburton, or his oil buddies, or to take revenge on Saddam. Willful negligence, while it may have the same end result, is a different thing.
OK. I’ve had a couple days to think. Please allow me to appologize again for those first 2 posts in this thread.
If you don’t mind (and I understand if you do, I may be asking you to cover things you have already done) could you help me understand the terms we are using? I seem to detect some vagueness regarding the idea of “the best intelligence” especially when compared to the idea of using intellignce in the best way.
Specifically, do we have a good cite which shows one of the intelligence agencies of the time saying unequivically that Sadam did not have any WMD? I don’t expect that we do, and I am not saying that without this the war is justified. I just want to be sure. Short of that, do we have any agency saying that their conclusion was that Sadam likely had no WMD? And short of that, do we have any agency saying that they don’t know, but they guess the he does not have any WMD.
It seems to me that this is the essential sticking point of this particular debate. Whether or not it was reasonable for Bush to conclude that Iraq posed or did not pose a threat via WMD. What you seem to be suggesting (please correct me if I am wrong) is that there were serious reasons to doubt the conclusion of some agencies that Iraq had WMD. I agree with this assessment. However, can you find any cites which suggest that the agencies in question agreed on this at the time? That is, did the conclusions of any of the briefing documents say in effect we have a little evidence of Iraqi WMD but we think it is pretty sketchy?
I provided the examples of Dr. Rice’s analysis, the effectiveness of James Baker’s veiled threat before GW1 and and even a link to the US intel community’s testimony before Congress, all showing that Hussein was considered, as Powell put it, “contained,” unlikely to initiate an attack on the US in the “foreseeable future”.
What would make you sure of the deterrability of Hussein?
Actualy what I’m trying to do is address something different than this - the issue of “if Hussein did have banned weapons, why would one think he’d attack the US either directly or by proxy via third party terrorist organizations?”
FTSOA, let’s start from the supposition that there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever anywhere in the entire known universe that Hussein had some chemical and biological weapons of some sort.
Even when Hussein had these weapons, as he assuredly did during GW1, he did not use them against the US. James Baker advised Mr. Aziz that to do so would result in a “resounding silence” in the Iraqi desert. The implication being that if Hussein wanted to play the WMD game then the US was willing to play and we have the Real & Actual WMDs to play with.
So, why did Hussein suddenly stop being deterred by what Dr. Rice described as “national obliteration”?
Why, when our intel agencies were telling us that Hussein was unlikely to attack the US in the forseeable future, would an attack from Hussein be portrayed as an issue that had to be dealt with posthaste?
Ok, but this seems the easiest portion of your OP to answer. That’s one reason I did not address it. Perhaps I am missing something. Did our intelligence agencies have some information which would lead you to trust Sadam Hussein in a post 9-11 world?
Because unlikely was no longer good enough.
I think it is really just that simple. But that, of course, moves farther into the realm of how intelligence was used, and away from whether or not the intelligence used was the best available at the time.