In a recent interview, Katie Couric asked Condoleezza Rice what were the reasons for removing Saddam Hussein if one were to take fear of weapons of mass destruction out of the argument. Rice reviewed the general pathologies of the Saddam regime, but did not cite the October 2002 joint congressional resolutions that listed over 20 writs justifying regime change, including Saddam’s bounties to terrorist bombers on the West Bank, genocide against the Kurds, attempts to kill George H. W. Bush, harboring of terrorists, and violation of the 1991 accords, the no-fly zones, and U.N. sanctions. So there were plenty of reasons, not counting fear of WMD, for Congress to have wanted to remove Saddam — and indeed a majority of Democratic senators, including Harry Reid, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton, and sizable numbers of House Democrats voted for the resolutions. The administration erred in hyping one or two writs concerning WMD, and today the result is that we have completely forgotten the congressional authorizations in late 2002 and their rather long litany of Saddam’s transgressions — which had earlier led Bill Clinton to push through a regime-change authorization of his own (the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998).
The fact is that Bush II utterly and completely bungled the selling of the Iraq war. Actually, he didn't even try. Communicating the justification for sending thousands to their deaths was beneath him and he really didn't want to lower himself in vulgar debate. He assumed that because there were no bounds to his love of democrats they would reciprocate and he would be treated just like a democrat president would be in a similar situation. I do believe he erred in that. He gave away the keys to the store and then wandered about for years wondering why he had been robbed. Profanity is too weak to describe that man.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is noble of Mr. Hanson to continue to remind those, who need reminding, of the facts. It is a wasted effort, though, because those who most need reminding are those to whom facts are irrelevant.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAt the time I remember thinking that the PR problem with Saddam is that there are so many reasons for removing him from power that it starts to sound like there is no reason for removing him from power.
Ask a woman why she left her husband. If she says "he slept with another woman" then okay, end of story. But if she says "he slept with another woman, he yells at me every night, he embarrasses me in front of friends, he neglects the children, he doesn't help around the house, and he doesn't put the toilet seat down" then the original charge suddenly seems a lot smaller.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@ Rocket J Squirrel:
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis sounds as if it might be precisely the rationale that led the Bush administration to stick to the justification of "he has WMD and has proved in the past a willingness to use them." That would seem to be the deal-breaker, the one reason equivalent in your analogy to infidelity. VDH's point (or at least part of it) was that such excessive winnowing of the message is vulnerable -- if, say, the husband is able to cast reasonable doubt on the suspected dalliance. Bottom line: we futzed around so long that Saddam was able to smuggle out the WMD to Syria, or perhaps they only existed in his imagination, fed with disinformation from his own generals. The fact remains he yelled every night, was embarrassing, neglectful, lazy, forgetful of watercloset etiquette, etc.....
Rice, of course, is a completely sincere, honorable and trustworthy source.
Read her comments on September 12th, 2001, and try to avoid the obvious: why would anyone ever speak to this person again, except to answer "yes" when she asks if her resignation has been accepted.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI thought Rice was pretty good intellectually, even if she was not highly persuasive in her delivery.
I especially liked that she made the logical point that is too seldom made, i.e., that the opponents of the war never address what the potential consequencies would have been if Sadaam was left in power. They just debate the weeds of what was known and should have been known at the time and how we were wrong on finding weapons of mass destruction. They get to ignore the havor and destruction that Sadaam and his sons would have inflicted on Iraq and the world if left in power.
I also though Couric looked very small in the discussion, although Rice was too nice to take her on, as she read her liberal questions. I would have loved Rice to have asked Couric what memos she was talking about suggesting officials knew there was a small chance of finding WMD.
I realize the politics have moved on past Iraq, but it was nice to see Rice holding her ground and winning against Couric.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe reasons Dr. Hanson cites for removal of Saddam apart from the WMD issue were actually in fairly wide circulation up until the time of the UN debate. The WMD issue eclipsed the others because it was the sole issue with the potential for forcing a UN resolution. UN authorization of military action against Iraq was a critical goal for the Bush administration to pick up political and material support. But the UN could have shrugged off the other reasons as either "old news" (the genocide of the Kurds) or as insufficiently threatening or subject to "containment" through further sanctions ("no-fly" zone violations, etc.). Irag's retention or development of WMD's, however, would have both violated prior UN resolutions and provided a destabilizing threat. WMD's thereby became the "make-or-break" legal and political basis for abandoning sanctions and proceeding to more direct means, not because the other reasons were negligible, but because WMD's were central to the UN's interests. By the time the UN balked, the non-WMD bases had been so fully overshadowed by the intensity of the UN debate, WMD's had come to be regarded as the only significant issue rather than as the only issue significant to the UN.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor those interested in re-fighting the debate leading to the invasion of Iraq, it must be remembered that the Bush Administration hyped WMD as a reason for going to war because, really, it was *the* necessary and sufficent condition to get the American people's backing for the invasion. Even after 9/11, were Americans ready to start a land war in the Middle East over the no-fly zone? Over violations of UN sanctions? I'll wager not. The Bush Administration was able to go to war because it persuaded the American people *that their safety was endangered* by not acting before Saddam surely would. The Bush Administration was wrong. The war was, and continues to be, an unjustifiable disaster.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Hanson is right to point out that there were a litany of issues with the Saddam regime, but the specific issues listed overshadow the real point. The issue of the Iraq War was whether, in a post 9/11 world, we should allow a rogue nation that actively supports terrorism to seek/possess WMD. The same question now applies to Iran and North Korea. I used to say that opponents of the Iraq War never answered this fundamental question, but in the last 2 years, President Obama has answered clearly: he has no problem with such a convergence of threats. I fear we will regret his judgment. I am glad President Bush disagreed and took brave action to dismantle one such regime.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think the Bush team would have done well to focus on this fundamental question rather than trying to sell a freedom agenda or repeat the specific sins of Saddam. Liberals are ill-prepared to answer the question, and despite the failure to find nukes in Iraq, the case for war holds when boiled down to this threat convergence formula.
Dr. Hanson understands, better than most, how important it is to, always and everywhere possible, correct the historical record.
Far from useless, such efforts are vital in the battle for our common futures.
And it seems all the more fitting at this moment to quote John Philpot Curran in full (rather than the partial [mis]quotations usually associated with gentleman) from his "Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin" in 1790 when he said:
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWasnt the WMD hype the diplomatic price we had to pay to bring the Brits on board? Powell made his UN presentation at the behest of Tony Blair, so in order to get cover from the balance of the labor party, who detested the idea of invasion. Is my memory correct on this?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"For those interested in re-fighting the debate leading to the invasion of Iraq, it must be remembered that the Bush Administration hyped WMD as a reason for going to war because, really, it was *the* necessary and sufficent condition to get the American people's backing for the invasion."
Incorrect.
The person responsible for hyping and inserting the threat of WMD, and Iraq's usage thereof was Dick Durbin, and he brought to the Senate floor S.AMDT.4865 which I shall faithfully copy from the Library of Congress for your own re-education:
S.AMDT.4865
Amends: S.J.RES.45 , S.AMDT.4856
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] (submitted 10/9/2002) (proposed 10/10/2002)
AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To amend the authorization for the use of the Armed Forces to cover an imminent threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction rather than the continuing threat posed by Iraq.
I suggest you do a lot more research, Joel Mathis, by reading the debate on this resolution, which failed miserably in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and for good reason.
Then, you can research Carl Levin's shenannigans with S.AMDT.4862, and hopefully you will re-think the position you find yourself.
I'd rather be flat wrong about a fact than I would be a willing participant in a lie.
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