Was war the only response?

[tomfodw]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/politics/05weapons.html

Inspector's Report to Detail Iraqi Plans to Undermine Sanctions and Produce Illicit Arms

By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 - A report to be made public on Wednesday by the top American weapons inspector in Iraq will outline new details of attempts by Saddam Hussein's government to undermine United Nations sanctions as part of a plan to produce illicit weapons if those sanctions were lifted, Bush administration officials said Monday.

The report by the arms inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, will make clear that Iraq did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the American invasion in 2003, and that it had not begun any large-scale program for weapons production by the time of the invasion, the officials said. Those findings had previously been reported, based on an early draft of the document.

Mr. Duelfer's conclusion that Iraq clearly intended to produce illicit weapons if the sanctions were lifted had also been previously reported. But the final version of the document, in making that case, describes new evidence of concerted Iraqi efforts to bypass the sanctions while they were still in place and to undermine international support for them, the administration officials said.

That evidence is expected to be figure prominently in efforts by the administration to cast the report in a favorable light. With Election Day less than a month away, the White House has been seeking to persuade voters that the war in Iraq was justified even though the weapons stockpiles it cited as the main rationale for the invasion now do not appear to have existed.

In an appearance in Atlanta on Friday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell provided what other officials described Monday as a preview of how the White House and other agencies would depict the new report. Mr. Powell said the report by Mr. Duelfer would make "very, very clear" that "what Saddam Hussein was trying to do was to break out of the sanctions" imposed by the United Nations. "He was trying to break the sanctions, not for the purpose of applying to be Soldier of the Month, but for the purpose of going back and developing these kinds of weapons," Mr. Powell said.



None of this is a surprise. Of course Saddam Hussein was trying to break the sanctions. I don't know of anyone who opposed the invasion of Iraq who thought Saddam Hussein was a peace-loving, benevolent, democratic ruler of his country. He was a monstrously evil mass murderer who deserves almost any punishment the twisted mind of Man can devise.

But did we have to invade to stop him from succeeding in acquiring WMD? Did we have to invade to stop him? At such a horrific cost: hundreds of billions of dollars, over a thousand coalition fatalities, tens of thousands of dreadfully wounded, injured and maimed, countless thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, destruction on a scale not seen since World War II, a growth in terrorism, and the blackening of America's reputation in most of the rest of the world. Was it truly worth it?

What was the alternative, do I hear you ask? Well, um, Mr. Powell, with all due respect, did you try diplomacy? Did you try making the case for better sanctions rather than a war? No, you did not. You went to the UN and said Saddam was close to getting WMD; that was a lie, and you knew it. I know the French had been saying, no use of force under any circumstances, and that was a challenge it would have been difficult to overcome. But that's the true burden of leadership. This Administration came into office determined to go it alone in almost every case. No to the Kyoto Protocol, no to the International Criminal Court, no to this and no to that. Why would the world then be on our side when it came to a war we wanted and they didn't? If the Bush Administration had been more respectful of world opinion (the way Bush promised he would be during the 2000 campaign, until getting into office and preferring to throw red meat to his insular base rather than expand his appeal to the more open-minded majority of Americans), maybe the world would have been more open to a broad-based diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis.

In any case, the justification for the war was not that Saddam might get WMD in the future; it was that he had them now or was on the very verge of getting them. That was unquestionably a lie or at least a grossly irresponsible exaggeration. The New York Times article this weekend (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03tube.html) demonstrates that senior officials in the Bush Administration either knew or had absolutely no excuse for not knowing that Saddam was not close to achieving his goal of acquiring WMD. Under such circumstances, to launch a war was close to being a crime against humanity, especially as President Bush has issued multiple and in some cases contradictory justifications for his war (http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/0510war.html). Recently, the President even went so far as to say that had he known Saddam was not close to getting WMD, he would have invaded anyway! How more blatantly can he admit that he lied about the reason to invade in the first place?

Diplomacy is not easy or fun; you don't get headlines, you can't pretend to be the great liberator. But who said being president and de facto leader of the free world is supposed to be easy or fun? President Bush launched an unnecessary war for reasons that many people pointed out at the time were false and misleading. He has not paid any price, personally or politically, for this "colossal error in judgment," as John Kerry was kind enough to call it in the first debate.

Diplomacy might not have worked. Saddam had been busting sanctions for some time, often with the assistance or at least the connivance of some of the very countries whose help we would have needed for a diplomatic solution. The world was seemingly becoming bored with the issue. But go to war? With no plan for the aftermath? While insisting on keeping the tax cuts for the rich? Without sufficient forces? That's not just reckless, that's not just an error in judgment. That's beyond mere ineptitude and incompetence. That's malfeasance on such a scale that it comes close to warranting impeachment. Okay, I know that will never happen; it's not as if Bush porked an intern and then lied about it, or something else of equally grave and unforgiveable sinfulness. All Bush did was invade a country that had never threatened us and thereby get over 1000 brave young Americans killed and thousands more horribly injured; no biggie.

We will never know if Saddam could have been stopped by diplomacy. But thanks to George W. Bush's rush to war, along with the sickening assistance of Colin Powell, a man who really should have known better, we have a pretty good idea that was was not the answer. If you could have asked the Iraqis in 2002 what their preference was - Saddam in power versus Saddam out of power but with the US occupying an increasingly unstable and violent Iraq - I think they'd probably, reluctantly, have chosen the former. Bush never asked. He didn't care. This was never about Iraq; it wasn't even about Saddam Hussein (after all, Donald Rumsfeld, in a photo he probably wishes was never taken, was photographed shaking hands with Saddam in 1983; http://www.redrat.net/BUSH_WAR/fas.htm). We backed Saddam in his war against Iraq in the 1980s, we encouraged him to invade Kuwait in 1990. This was and is all about George W. Bush and his need to be the great liberator. He can't admit he made a mistake; it will be up to all of us to do that for him on Nov. 2.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. I think the simplest answer is that Saddam was unable to

realize his plans in the 10 years prior to the invasion, obviously the world was doing something effective already.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. He can't admit he made a mistake<<

I heard a caller on CSPAN this morning... he said... it is interesting how we had the savings and loan scandal 14 years ago...

and then impressed upon Iraq that we held no policy on the invasion of Kuwait... heh, heh, heh.....

and then had a war that distracted people from the economic mess of the SNL scandal...

12 or so years later... we had corporate corruption including the close friends of the resident (Enron) and their dealings... and we had another war that is distracting people from the economic mess they created.

Interesting thoughts.... intersting pattern.

[leesa]

3. So Powell's going to lie to us again? Big news!

Saddam was compliant...get over it.

[PATRICK]

4. the trap of tyranny

is to burn all bridges that might lead to loss of power no matter what the risk. Hussein was at the point of being exposed as WMD-less but being stubbornly cagey. At the same time his country was already being invaded. War in effect was already well under way with key strategies(namely holding the leaky oil fields hostage) already averted by special ops. The blackmail of tyranny is the insane dare of the cornered dog. Foregoing the dare and chaining up his money and power would have avoided the bites and loss of innocent life.

At THAT point, in the unreal world, the US could have stood down, yet it is very much a question if the obstinate weasel would have been removed in the process. A permanent team of inspectors occupying Iraq would have been shot at a lot less than our full scale occupation. The next stop would have been Iran, but in order to gain anything from mere repression real progress would have to be made in the Israel/Palestinian situation and eventual Israeli WMD disarmament and on to Pakistan and Korea.

The first one to call our bluff loses and not having to suck up the oil the focus on the job would have been a lot easier and less costly. All would have been done with UN support but the pressure on them building on success and to avoid war would have them in the peace/disarmament pocket.

Securing Russian nukes and shutting down other dreams, getting Pakistan and India to the disarmament table, keeping NK and SK talking together.

Instead we had a childish perversion of policy for the sake of obsolescent dreams of paternalistic imperialists, profiteers and loons. Everyone manages to lose big time despite temporary nefarious gains. Both sides well matched in their troublesome minorities rolling in foul money and stolen power and violence. It is clear except to many Americans that a handful of people in all nations, once stood up against the wall and their fortunes liquidated, their organizations discredited would have ushered in the era of peace and democracy


...that we need to simply survive real adult crises in the coming century.

It was never a question of WE going to war anyway. Our occupying pretenders usurped foreign policy to their own ends and abused every power and avenue of covenant and trust to use America like a whore. Neither the soldiers, nor the hawks nor the peace opposition had any choice once we surrendered democracy to five bought judges a mass of fraud and a smothering wall of incompetent media deceit. Hussein was dealing with people like himself with bigger guns and a thirst for his oil and fought to the last drop of his people's blood- before getting trapped like a rat.

The tyrannical juggernaut thrown into operation long before shock and awe commenced the grand finale had an obvious and irreversible momentum. By what miracle men imagined or claimed otherwise that the fist would be withdrawn an inch before the chin seems like an idealist's dream. And none of those urging that it be possible in the leadership among other nations were idealists. Mankind wanted that miracle. Instead it was same old same old horror. For that sin the same old Nuremberg punishment should be again wearily invoked.