Bush Feared 'Looking Weak' on Iraq

[rodeodance]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/101405.html
Bush Feared 'Looking Weak' on Iraq

By Robert Parry
October 15, 2005

Less than two months before invading Iraq, George W. Bush fretted that his war plans could be disrupted if United Nations weapons inspectors succeeded in gaining Saddam Hussein’s full cooperation, possibly leaving Bush “looking weak,” according to notes written by a secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The notes, taken by Blair’s personal secretary Matthew Rycroft, were included in a new edition of Lawless World, a book by University College professor Philippe Sands. The notes on the Jan. 30, 2003, phone call between Bush and Blair were reviewed by the New York Times, which said they were marked secret and personal.

At the time, Blair wanted Bush to seek a second resolution from the U.N. Security Council that would have judged Iraq to be in violation of U.N. disarmament demands and would have authorized military action. According to the notes, Bush agreed that “it made sense to try for a second resolution, which he would love to have.”

But Bush’s deeper worry was that chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix would conclude that Hussein’s government was cooperating in the search for weapons of mass destruction, thus delaying or blocking U.S.-led military action. Bush’s “biggest concern was looking weak,” the British document said

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. If he feared looking weak, he could have just worn his

prosthetically enhanced flight suit from his mission unknown drama.

[tularetom]

2. That's his reaction to everything

Look at all the shit the world has had to put up with just to make this guy feel like he actually posseses male genitalia.

[zoeb]

3. he doesn't have to "fear" any longer....

His presidency was weak from day one.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Hmmmm. An ego trip for Idiot Son. What a price we paid.

[IndianaGreen]

7. I will prove my balls are bigger than yours by making someone else die

That's the sort of sick statement one can expect from a man that is insecure about his own sexuality.

Perhaps we will do better having an openly gay man as President. He would be secure in his own sexuality and wouldn't be trying to prove anything to anyone. Better still, have an openly lesbian as President. She will provide perfect harmony!

[Martin Eden]

5. There are worse things to fear than looking weak.

Such as actually weakening America by draining our treasury, getting our militay stuck in a quagmire, and turning most of the world against us.

Bush should have feared, or at least stopped to consider, what it would mean to be occupiers in the "bitterly hostile land" that his father cited as a sound reason for halting his march to Baghdad.

The son who never hesitated to play the fear card in manipulating the public should have feared playing directly into bin Laden's hands by helping tp recruit and train the next generation of professional terrorists in Iraq.

Up until recently this president has been very successful in avoiding looking weak, but the fact is that he has been weak all along. A strong president would not have used 9/11 as a partisan political weapon to divide his country and start a costly, unnecessary war. A true leader would have accepted counsel outside the small neoconservative clique that surrounds him and honestly presented the facts to the American people, rather than waging a marketing campaign to stoke fears about WMD and ties to al Qaeda that didn't exist.

When Tony Blair understood that this president's decisions were driven at least in part by a fear of looking weak he should have realized how weak Bush really was, and gotten off his lap before it was too late.

[jbfam4]

6. You are absolutly right

Your points are excellent. Bush went to war because war time presidents are always re elected.

[Martin Eden]

8. Electoral politics were definitely a factor.

Rove saw the advantage of an incumbemt wartime president in the 2004 election, but also took full advantage of 9/11 in the 2002 midterms. The NIE on Iraqi WMD was hurriedly put together in October 2002 in order to compel the Democrats to vote yes on the Iraqi War Resolution or be tarred with the "weak on national security" label. Rove ended up getting his war AND a midterm triumph.

And in the end, everyone loses except the corporate hogs feeding at the trough of the militray industrial complex and the cronies benefitting from no-bid contracts in Iraq.

[cassiepriam]

9. Bush's mental illness has placed us in great danger.