I think that the reason the Bush administration led us into Iraq was in part due a long-standing grudge against Saddam Hussein, but was mainly because they wanted to experiment with democracy in the Middle East. We all suspected that Saddam was up to something in the WMD department in the years since UN weapons inspectors had been withdrawn, but the idea that Iraq was going to attack the US with nuclear weapons within the next few years was ridiculous.
What was urgent–enough to leave the Afghanistan operation unfinished–was the need to act while the political climate was intensely pro-war in the wake of 9/11.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of October 2002 was passed to put teeth in the effort to eliminate any WMD programs in Iraq. In November 2002 Saddam caved in and allowed the UN weapons inspectors back in. This was a major triumph for President Bush’s get-tough foreign policy, and the senators who voted for the resolution, like Kerry and Clinton, are entitled to their own small slice of the credit.
Although suspicions remained that Iraq’s WMDs had been hidden, all previous assumptions about them were out the window, and it’s pretty far-fetched to suggest the Iraq might have launched a WMD attack on the US in the midst of that process. But Bush had planned to invade Iraq and topple Saddam regardless, and didn’t anticipate him calling his bluff like that. So in we went.
But I must be misunderstanding something, because I don’t hear people saying, “It wasn’t a vote ‘for the war’, dummy! It was a vote to force Saddam to let the inspectors back in and it was successful”.
I think the ideological background was the group of people who favor an activist foreign policy. They figure America is the world’s only superpower so we could and should remake the world how we want it to be.
But I suspect that that’s just the justification for the war. The neocons would have just been a fringe element if their plans hadn’t matched the ambition of another much more powerful group - the corporate world. Big business leaders knew that a major war would shake loose a lot of government money and they’d be able to grab some of it. For corporations like Haliburton the war in Iraq has been a huge success.
I disagree. The resolution was offered by the White House to provide political cover by having Congress sign up to the war that Bush intended to prosecute. Though there were some who argued that the resolution was necessary to allow inspections and prevent war – Senator John Warner comes to mind – this was an excursion of an argument and not the central thrust of the resolution at all.
I don’t believe the resolution was responsible for allowing weapons inspectors in. Inspections only resumed after the UN Security Council agreed on a resolution placing the onus on Iraq to comply – that was mid November 2002. Iraq agreed to inspections shortly thereafter. The authorization passed by Congress happened in October, more than a month before, and there’s no coherent reason to explain why it took six weeks for Saddam to see the resolution had passed and then feel threatened enough to allow inspections. Besides which, the book Cobra II takes accounts from interrogations with Saddam and other senior Iraqi leaders who were interned at Camp Cropper in Iraq: the thrust is that Saddam thought Bush might drop a few bombs here and there, but did not believe that an invasion was on the game plan.
Because only a dolt of an elected official wouldn’t have realized that he was actually authorizing war. A number of those voting for the war, I believe, knew that they were making a mistake, but they were concerned about the political consequences of going against a popular president on an issue of national security.
Oh, and Bob Woodward’s books make clear that Bush did not buy that arms inspections would solve his manufactured Iraq problem. Powell only convinced Bush to allow him to go to the UN so that other countries could see that Iraq was still deceiving arms inspectors and thereby build more international support for the inevitable war.
Thanks, Ravenman, just the kind of disagreement I was looking for.
Well, “Saddam must disarm” was the catchphrase during that time. We know that Bush was bait-and-switching, but were all the senators determined not to take yes for an answer? I suppose any statements by Clinton, Kerry, et.al. to the effect of “give the inspectors time to work” would help settle it.
I don’t see why that’s an unreasonable time frame. The senate authorization coupled with the UN resolution meant that Saddam had run out of wiggle room and had to give in or face what was at last a credible threat of an attack.
I agree with that last part, but I’m still not convinced that Clinton and Kerry were determined to take us to war no ifs ands, or buts, and would not have accepted the return of the inspectors as a satisfactory result.
Of course, that fact that they haven’t put it that way pretty much nails it. You’d think they could spin it that way, but again, not if there’s some previous quote that prevents them from getting away with that.
I don’t think a grudge against Saddam had anything to do with it. American leaders have shown no sense of long term loyalty or hatred to any despots, befriending them when it’s convenient, and invading them when they feel like it. If Bush had decided to focus on Iran in 2003, he would have befriended Saddam again like we did in the 80s, and American would have gotten another bullshit story about how he was a good guy and had turned things around. It’s all just means to an end.
I think the real reason Bush put a target on Iraq is that it was a black hole of a country, insofar as our intelligence went. Despite the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers came from our “allies” in Saudi and Egypt, those countries are relatively open to us… their governments work with us to put terrorists in jail, like ought to be done. I think the administration felt like the “war on terror” really shouldn’t be anything more than a global police effort coordinate by US agencies. And for the most part, it was. But trying to coordinate that global effort with Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq all not cooperating is sort of futile. If terrorists felt the heat from Saudi police, they’d just pick up and move next door, and we were left standing at the border stomping our feet. They felt, rightly or wrongly, that their only option was to escalate the conflict from a police action to a military action by forcefully opening up those countries. Afghanistan was relatively simple, despite it’s problems, and I think they all felt that Iraq would be just as easy. I’m sure they planned on rolling into Iran sometime in December 2003, and then we’d have the full cooperation of middle eastern governments and police forces in helping us to track down and jail terrorists.
So I agree that there was a sense of “strike while the iron’s hot,” I don’t think WMDs or a long term grudge had anything to do with it. I think there was a genuine, albeit misguided, desire on the part of the Bush administration to combat terrorism the best way they knew how.
Ed Levin offered an amendment to the AUMF that would have required Bush to come Back to Congress for a final authorization if the inspections were unsuccessful. Clinton voted against that amendment (not sure about Kerry, but I think he did, too). The AUMF, as it was passed by Congress, left Bush as the sole arbiter of whether or not to use force against Iraq. Everyone in Congress knew that.
Keep in mind that at the time of the AUMF, the Democrats controlled the Senate, not the Republicans. It wasn’t until after the Nov elections that the Republicans won the Senate back (the AUMF vote was in Oct).
The neocons wanted to attack Iraq before Bush got into office, much less the 9-11 attacks. And we knew beforehand that Saddam and Osama hated each other. There was no reason to believe that Iraq was a terrorist danger to America, or that attacking it would reduce terrorism; quite the opposite.
And I see no reason to believe that the Bush Administration actually cares about stopping terrorism.
The main problem with your narrative is that it assumes the United States establishment cares very much about terrorism. It also ignores the fact that there were no terrorist cells in Iraq or Iran which threatened the security of the United States. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that if the U.S. really did care about terrorism it would have taken a more tactful approach because in this area the governments of both Iran and Iraq were sympathetic to our cause.
The four reasons we conquered Iraq:
The immediate goal was the acquisition of additional domestic political power (from the GOP’s perspective) in the elections of 2002 (and, to a lesser extent, 2004).
The entire operation effectively transfers enormous amounts of wealth from the taxpayers to private interests. That is to say, the war has been an absolute boon for the U.S. defense industry. This isn’t a new idea in U.S. history by any means, especially since it’s been happening for at least sixty years (but any war of this magnitude necessarily increases the siphoning even further). This explains why the business class was so gung-ho about it and why they continue to support it.
As per usual, the U.S. has constructed massive, strategically placed, permanent combination military bases/airfields which will allow us to more easily project power in the region in the future.
The final number of bases is unknown, but currently there are four operating (Balad AKA Camp Anaconda, Al Asad, Camp Victory, and Ali Air Base, formerly known as Tallil – it’s by Nasiriyah, in the South). Chalmers Johnson claims we are starting construction of another one near Arbil, the capital of Kurdistan.
With the exception of Camp Victory and the Embassy, these are outside major population centers and are easily defended. All told, they will be able to house tens of thousands of U.S. troops for the indefinite future. A major weakness is a reliance on long supply lines from Kuwait, which could be vulnerable if the Iraqis get smart (AFAIK, supplying these bases by air dropping is not possible because there are simply too many men).
The most important geostrategic fruit borne of this adventure is, of course, the control of the oil. Long after Saudi Arabia and Iran’s reserves run low, Iraqis will live on a sea of bubbling crude and we will be there to safeguard it. This will be an effective check on the EU, China, and India, giving us considerable international power. As a side bonus, American companies will reap the profits (see: the recent “illegal” Kurdish deal with Mr. Hunt, a Texan oil magnate who is a huge contributor to the Bush administration and currently serves on his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Also see: the hydrocarbon law, which no Iraqi politican who values his life will ever sign).
Thanks for the responses so far. See, I don’t so much mean to defend a set of positions in a debate as to absorb criticism in order to clear up any misconceptions. Of course, stimulating the debate helps to truth to emerge.
Ooooh kaaaay…
Well, I certainly agree that that’s true and I ought to give it more emphasis.
I wouldn’t portray the global threat of terrorism as “our” cause, nor that sympathy for the US is what should motivate governments to cooperate in opposing it. Iraq was a de facto bulwark and didn’t require any persuading in that department. Iran could have been the writing on the wall and with a bit of triangulation could at very least have been kept neutral. Instead we provoked them and provided their hard-liner, contaminated their pro-democracy movement, and handed them an opportunity to greatly expand their influence in the region.