I just looked at the text of the resolution again. Here’s the devil that gives the President as much leeway as he wants:
That’s the killer, and the line they should have left out. Proving that peaceful means will not defend us from Saddam’s continuing threat is pretty hard to show. But it’s reeeeaaal easy to say that peaceful means are “not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions”.
“That peace thing? Yeah, I decided that didn’t look like it was going to work.”
I think the resolution was approved because it was politically expedient to vote for it. But, without offering some sort of cover, Bush would never have mustered enough votes for the thing to pass.
It’s my opinion that those who voted in favor of the resolution knew it was virtually a vote for war. They knew Bush and his feelings about Saddam. They should have been able to anticipate, with a high degree of probability, what action he would take.
So, what you are in essence saying is that you think they should have known that Bush was a liar who did not mean at all what he said about exhausting diplomatic means and keeping the peace and all that bullshit? Well, I tend to agree with you on that. Bush had clearly shown himself over and over again to be a liar at that point.
On the other hand, saying that you are voting against the resolution because you don’t trust our President is a rather difficult position to take, is it not? And, it leaves you open to the charge that you trust Saddam Hussein more than you trust our president. (Of course, in retrospect, you’d be right but almost noone, not even most of us who were against the resolution, believed that Saddam was necessarily telling what was closer to the truth than Bush…We just thought the truth was somewhere in between.)
So, I guess Bush should go around saying “Kerry effectively voted for the war because he should have known that I was a liar.” That would be an interesting argument for him to make. And, unlike his current arguments, at least an honest one.
You are not going to pursuade anyone with the “liar” accusation. Bush simply had a different interpretation of what he thought the end of the diplomatic road was. And, of course, it doesn’t help Kerry that he said just a few months ago that he’d vote for the resolution even if he knew everything he knew now (ie, a few months ago). Why do you suppose he said that?
Well, it may have been very clear to you. I am not so sure how clear it was to the rest of us. What is clear is that these countries would, at the very least, really hold Bush’s feet to the fire on exhausting all diplomatic options and letting the inspections run their course. In this respect, they were, in hindsight, 100% on the right side.
Well, I don’t see how this follows. It was a very different situation. And, 9/11 did change people’s views on dangers. Look at former Senator Hatfield who apparently went from strong dove to supporting GW.
Well, the protest had to do with how it was being funded…Or not being funded…And, how the President was or was not trying to get more help from other nations.
So, I guess you have appointed yourself head of the committee to decide what constitutes a consistent vote? Apparently, people have to vote all one way or the other. It is inconsistent if one supports some authorizations to use force and not others, etc?
Oh boy was it ever a different interpretation!! Can you explain to me what that interpretation must have been, in reference to what was actually going on in Iraq with the inspections and all, so that I can understand it?
Well, to be honest, that is the one statement of Kerry’s that I don’t understand. On the other hand, I don’t understand the question that he was answering either. It was an ill-posed question since it was unclear what was meant by this. (If we really knew what we knew, what arguments would Bush have used in asking for the resolution?)
He should have said it was an ill-posed question and asked for clarification. I assume that he didn’t do that because he was worried that this would give Bush another chance to make him appear as flip-flopping or whatever. And, that was a mistake on his part.
He was wrong. Simply put, he thought it was important, on principle, that a President in a situation such as existed, or at least he was led to believe existed, should have all the cards in his hand. He has a point: for good or ill, GW was the President. A sorry excuse for one, but the only one we had.
Pretty simple, really: you trust the President because he is the President. If it turns out that he is unworthy of that trust, you chuck him out.
Now, on this point I strongly disagree with Kerry. I wouldn’t have trusted GW any further than I could throw him. But if he had done what he said he was going to do…exhaust all peaceful means, etc…this all might have gone very well indeed. We might have been assured of Iraq’s weakness, and we would stand before the world as a sober and reasoning people, firm and determined but amenable to council and negotiation.
Instead of, well, what we got now. Which bites it.
I disagree. I think the Desert Storm situation was much more cut and dry. Yes, 9/11 did chance people’s views. That is the whole point that Bush makes. I’m not saying I agree with him, but I’m saying I see where he’s coming from. A lot of people feel the same way.
Fine. But you seem to be saying that that is the ONLY reason a Senator can register a protest vote. How about the fact that no UNSC apporval was required? That’s a perfectly valid reason to register a protest vote.
I won’t respond to that strawman argument.
That SH was playing games with the UN and had no intention of cooperating. That was, I think, a very reasonable conclusion to come to.
And he contintues to justify that statement even today. If it’s pure politics, fine-- I can understand that. But it just leaves him open to charges that other statements and actions of his were pure politics, too, including his vote for the original authorization in '02.
At it’s heart, the statement is political shorthand designed to appeal to the fabulously uninformed in a language they can understand. Both sides do it…it’s just annoying to hear from the side you happen to disagree with.
Well, I gave you the links to Hans Blix’s presentation before the U.N. and from there you can get to the presentation of the head of the IAEA and Colin Powell’s response. Go ahead…Knock yourself out. Show us on the basis of that evidence how it was such a reasonable conclusion to come to!
From your cite. SH was supposed to come completely clean. He had 12 years to do so, and Blix is saying that he thinks they have not. Bush decided that was the end of the road. I suppose you can argue that more than 12 years is needed, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that it’s not.
John Mace, with regards to France, Germany, and Russia, please note that the administration, immediately after gaining the US resolution, were able to get unanimous UNSC approval for 1441. The record is quite clear that they were prepared to hold Saddam’s feet to the fire.
The Blix comments you quote suggest that even Hans suspected that Saddam had not come completely clean. But Blix also was clear that he could not find any conclusive evidence that Saddam was in violation of 1441 (or previous UNSC resolutions). Bush came to the conclusion that Saddam was not in compliance. Chirac et al were not comfortable that the burden of proof had been met.
Reasonable people questioned why Bush was hellbent in going to war immediately, and recommended that the UNSC inspections continue. Bush then began to push the case that Iraq represented “a grave and growing” threat, that demanded immediate action. That was his determination, and I can’t see why you don’t feel it was reasonable for anyone, especially John Kerry, to disagree with that assessment.
One can be supportive of the US resolution, it’s authorizations, and it’s limits, while still disagreeing with Bush’s decision to invoke it.
Thanks for this thread, jshore, because I’ve been wondering the exact same thing for a while now. What I don’t understand is why Kerry didn’t pound that out quickly and concisely in the last debate.
This isn’t quite correct. The objection of the three countries you cite was to passing a UNSC resolution making possible an automatic war. Here’s a link to a useful thread from a year and a half or so discussing such issues, and an excellent summary of the argument by AZCowboy:
France was especially demonized by the US and UK in this matter. Here for the record are the actual words of de Villepin at the Security Council as quoted by me in a thread from early 2003:
These two threads contain analyses of the resolutions involved and the evidence available (or, not available) in the Iraq affair, among other things. Your argument about Saddam coming clean in 12 years is also addressed in both; basically the point was that the US caused UN inspections to be cut short just at the time they were gathering valuable momentum and cooperation. The inspections did not proceed continuously for 12 years, they were dogged by interruptions and problems, including US espionage allegations and Saddam’s somewhat understandably indignant reactions.
So, you have cherry-picked the one most damning quote in the entire presentation that Blix gave in which he generally said that the Iraqis were being cooperative and that the inspectors were able to go where they wanted. For exampl, here is what Bush said at the beginning of his presentation:
And, of course, we know almost for sure now that the weapons really were destroyed. And, as far as I know, there is no documentary materials that have come to light on this that were withheld from us. It could simply be that Blix was wrong in his hypothesis that more documentary evidence should exist.
So, yes, if you are willing to cherrypick one quote from Blix, then perhaps you can find a justification to go to war. But, that is just the point. The President’s job is not to cherry-pick the evidence but to consider the totality of the evidence. Bush clearly didn’t do that and we now know that, as a result, he was wrong…very wrong…on what he suspected.
One other point: I think it is entirely reasonable to criticize John Kerry’s (and all other consenting Congressmen’s) vote to support the use of force resolution, effectively “handing over the keys to Bush”. But it seems to me that one can only be critical of that decision if you also conclude that Bush was unworthy of having that responsibility. Kerry’s failure was to place trust in the judgement of George W. Bush.
With regards to Kerry’s statement that he still supports that decision, I understood he was saying that on issues of national security, it is important for Congress to trust the judgement of the President to exercise his authority wisely, understanding that the ultimate arbiter of that judgement is the American people. And Kerry now hopes the American people will exercise their better judgement on election day.
I have little to no doubt that Kerry hopes, should he find himself in a similar position within the next eight years, that Congress will trust him with the same power. If he now takes the position that Congress should never trust the President with that power, he may find himself hamstrung in the coming years.
That’s… harsh. The president should have such authority. Kerry believes that. Hell, I believe that. That’s part of heading the executive branch of government. If the use of force is outlined like it was, it seems to me that it was reasonable to vote for the resolution. Well, reasonable people could disagree, at any rate.
Exactly. I think this is critical. At some level, we have to trust that elected officials are going to be acting accordingly. Congress set certain terms, and I think it is fair to say that the president failed to give a good faith effort to meet those terms.
Respectfully, I don’t think we can cut our congressho’s that much slack. It was pretty clear to me what was cooking, and I’ve been told I’m not that smart. Now if me and Paul Wellstone were both this smart, how come the others didn’t catch on?
'Cause they’re whores. They knew if they opposed such authorization with the mid-term election coming, they were vulnerable. They caved. They tried to include some face-saving verbage, but they caved.
Its not all GeeDubya, there’s a whole bunch of folks got some 'splaining to do.
Well, one, it wasn’t a unanimous vote, and two, you and Paul aren’t the only two. But I feel that it was a point reasonable people could have disagreed on, so personally I will cut congress much more slack than I cut Bush.
Hush. All politicians in a democracy are fine, upstanding individuals who only say what they mean, regardless of whether they’ll be reelected or not.
I agree. It was rather clear from the beginning of Bush’s term that he had his sights on Iraq. When Blix & co. kept coming up empty while BushCo. ratcheted up the threat and urgency level, it was pretty clear to me and just about everyone I work with that war was inevitable. I know very few people who are surprised that no WMD’s were found, nor do I know many who thoughts they were likely to be found before we went to war. Enough was know about the neocon. agenda at that point to guess that a war in Iraq fit into a large geopolitical plan, and that the only connection to 9/11 was as a great facilitator.
And we’re just a bunch of silly lab monkeys, without any security clearance, and not a seasoned politician among us. We read the papers and news magazines, maybe a few books here and there.
So, how come I and everyone at my office around the water cooler could accurately predict the outcome of the Iraq WMD debacle, and declare confidently that the Joint Resolution was a Very Bad Thing, and yet a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committe can’t? How is it that said member can assert he would do it all the same again, yet care that “Bush misled us”?
Bush lied, no question; but so did Kerry. The only plausible explanation for his bizarre behavior is that he voted with his political rather than moral instincts (if he has any of the latter), figuring, perhaps rightly, that having presiential ambitions yet appearing unpatriotic in the aftermath of 9/11 would be mutually exclusive. I’m guessing another esteemed Senator, Hillary Clinton, made much the same decision, though she obviously is thinking way ahead. It strains credibility, in my mind, that they could have been so easily misled. Hence, I can only conclude they practiced craven pandery. Bush and Cheney harp on Kerry’s vote because he most certainly did vote for the War. There’s no other practical interpretation of events, and I rather suspect, given Kerry’s evolving “consistency”, that his earliest statements entering the campaign is that he most definitely did try to “have it both” ways when popular support for the war began to wane. Now that popular support has further eroded, he feels safer taking Bush to task for a War he is complicit in, to some degree. Certainly he is not as culpable as Bush, but he is far from innocent. Either that, or he’s stupid. Take your pick.
