Comments on: The Zarqawi scandal

By: james

james — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 10:39:44 +0000

JQ, So you agree then, that this is not a “scandal” such as might warrant an impeachment, unless the (as you would have it) strategic blunder of the war itself is itself that scandal? That is to say, this is just one more item to be loaded onto the cost side of the war’s cost-benefit ratio?

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 21:16:30 +0000

Or alternatively, back when the US still thought the UN would act in Iraq which would make it easy for Turkey to help, we thought we could do both by delaying on Zarqwai for (we thought) a very few months. Your formulation only works if you assume that the UN would never act. It looks like a good assumption NOW….

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 20:26:06 +0000

Sebastian, there’s no need for perfect hindsight. As the post indicates, people inside and outside the government were calling for an attack on Zarqawi at the time. As regards the UN, doubts about Zarqawi etc, this only makes the Administration look worse. Powell denounced the doubters of claims about WMDs in categorical terms, only to be proved comprehensively wrong. Meanwhile, the Administration had the real goods on Zarqawi (maybe not on the ricin story, but at least as regards terrrorism) and chose to do nothing. They could, as Daniel Drezner urged at the time, have gone to the UN with their case against Zarqawi and urged action. The problem, as repeatedly indicated in your post and that of other defenders of the Administration is that this would have got in the way of the Iraq war. In other words, however, you turn it around, the Iraq war was an obstacle to attempts to kill or capture the terrorists who are trying to kill all of us.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 18:29:27 +0000

I think the “Zarqawi scandal” hasn’t gone very far because it isn’t much of a scandal. At the time in question: This ‘camp’ (the size of a large town or small city) couldn’t just be bombed it would need to be secured with troops. Democrats in the US were complaining about being rushed into war against Iraq, making aninvasion of Iraq, just for Zarqawi, politically ridiculous. It would be seen as pretextual. We were involved in negotiations with Turkey for an invasion of Iraq which would have gotten rid of Saddam and Zarqawi. We were about to go to the UN. An invasion at that point wouldn’t have helped the diplomatic situation a whole lot. Also there was some doubt at the time (at least as expressed in the international newspapers) regarding whether or not Zarqaqi was actually involved in Al Qaeda. Since decision are made with the information you have at the time, and not the information you gain later, there isn’t much of a scandal.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 14:24:53 +0000

Antoni Jaume wrote: “It had nothing to do against terrorism, but only to advance the policy of The Rogue State” Remind me which American policies unrelated to security the war against Saddam’s Baathist regime was intended to advance.

By: Antoni Jaume

Antoni Jaume — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 07:33:20 +0000

Dipnut, “Nevertheless, I’ll be voting for Bush in November, barring a scandal one hell of a lot more scandalous than this Zarqawi thing. I far prefer Massacre In Spain to President Kerry.” And then people wonder that Spaniards did not want to go to Iraq. It had nothing to do against terrorism, but only to advance the policy of The Rogue State, of which dipnut is a typical member. I remember the Maine. DSW

By: dipnut

dipnut — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 01:53:51 +0000

John, I do object to the phrase “struggle against terrorism”, the way you use it. It presumes a definition of “terrorism” which I do not agree with. To me, a terrorist is defined not by his actions, but by his ideology. It is not what he does that makes him a terrorist, but why he does it. The same actions which we call “fighting” when done in self-defense, are terrorism when the object is enslavement or genocide. There is no other way to make the distinction without getting into hair-splitting quandaries. Our enemies are tyrants or would-be tyrants, bent on conquest; most have genocidal ambitions. That they employ terrorists is a truism, and rather misses the point. You might as well talk about a “struggle against bombs”. Do not be distracted by “terrorism”. Our enemies will use any weapons which come to hand.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:57:46 +0000

dipnut, I searched my post and comments and can’t find any mention of “War on Terror”. Although I may occasionally slip up, I try to refer to the “struggle against terrorism” – I don’t think you can reasonably object to this phrase. On your substantive comment, I take you to be saying that war with Iraq is more important than the struggle against terrorism and that this has always been the real, as opposed to rhetorical, position of the Bush Administration. I agree with you on the second point but not on the first.

By: dipnut

dipnut — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:25:39 +0000

John, If you want to talk to warbloggers, please drop this "War On Terror" crap. We do not agree that there is any such thing, regardless of the rhetorical bumbling of the Bush Administration. Call it the "War On Whatever", if that's what it takes to de-compartmentalize your thinking. Saddam Hussein was obviously, conspicuously, flamboyantly our enemy, and he kept us in that wobbly little stalemate for 12 years too long. If Bill Clinton had ever said, "oh, by the way, we're going to invade Iraq and kill Saddam Hussein, because I'm tired of seeing him on TV," I and a lot of other Americans would have called it a good day. But he didn't, so George W. Bush had to. The Administration must have thought, rightly or wrongly, that taking out Zarqawi would break the political bank for the invasion of Iraq. If they were right about this, then they were right to let Zarqawi go for the time being. Zarqawi in his wildest dreams was never as important as Saddam Hussein, and Iraq is of inestimable strategic value, for so many reasons. I can't work out the political equation, myself. And frankly, if political bank-breaking was of concern, I tend to blame Bush for his poor communication skills. Nevertheless, I'll be voting for Bush in November, barring a scandal one hell of a lot more scandalous than this Zarqawi thing. I far prefer Massacre In Spain to President Kerry.

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:11:05 +0000

As Josh Marshall has written, and you add above, much of what Clarke has said has been widely known by people paying serious attention. That’s one reason it’s getting traction now, the other being his boilerplate credibility. Now the al-Zarqawi story is out there, and people who are paying serious attention (e.g., yourself, DeLong) are getting wound up about it. If you stay wound up about it, more stories appear, and details accrete, it may also eventually turn into a big deal. In, say, July. If a story has legs, people will add details, fit it into a master narrative, while simultaneously modifying the narrative to accommodate the story. Then it hits a tipping point and it’s everywhere. People paying serious attention, of course, say we’ve known this for a long time, and indeed they have, but it’s just taking time for a story to sink in in a democracy.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:07:34 +0000

nat, we can’t be sure that everything in the report is true, but that doesn’t seem to constitute grounds for ignoring it. If a fraction of the effort that has been allocated to the Clarke debate had gone into exploring this issue, we’d be a lot better informed. As I point out in the post, the facts that are on the public record are bad enough in themselves to justify a detailed investigation.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:45:40 +0000

John Guiggin wrote: “I have seen no response to the MSNBC article from anyone in the Bush Administration, on or off the record, so if there has been one I would glad if someone would point it out.” Scanning through the list of headlines for Nexis hits for “al-Zarqawi”, I can’t even see any other news organization that thought MSNBC’s report was worth passing on (or at least putting it in the headline). How sure are we that MSNBC’s sources are more reliable than the statement that was signed by the “Leadership of the Allahu Akbar Mujahedeen” that claimed that al-Zarqawi was killed in the American bombing of Northern Iraq? Or that they are more reliable than the March 17 allegation by Al-Sharq al-Awsat that al-Zarqawi is in Iranian custody and has been there since April 2003?

By: james

james — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:15:59 +0000

re Yassin of course there are various differences (not least that he can’t have been as active a terrorist as Zarqawi), my reference was designed to refer to the general moral and legal issues of such actions. (Incidentally I find it hard to accept that the IDF could have just strolled through and picked up Yassin without a fight, and I don’t know if the PA would have done so, even if he was under some form of house arrest.)

By: james

james — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:10:45 +0000

JQ, “The defences that have been posted on this thread, for example, by James, are based on the implicit presumption that the war on Iraq was more important than the struggle terrorism. This is the only presumption on which Bush?s decisions make sense.” I had a feeling this might be where you were coming from – that this was a specific example of how the Iraq war set back the “war on terror”. Fair point then, although you might say the presumption is not necessarily that the Iraq war was more important than the WoT, but part of it, directly or indirectly. But then equally your point rests on the assumption that this wasn’t the case, no? So it’s really a debate about the war in Iraq, not about some other improper acttion, or rather non-action. Which brings us to what my initial point was getting at – once the war was decided upon, a northern front was of crucial and legitimate interest, and delaying any attempt at assasinating a particular terrorist was surely a price worth paying if it would advance that goal. That you disagree with the prior decision to go to war is really the issue here – am I wrong? And thus if there is reason to impeach Bush it isn’t this. It might well be something else, or various other things, relating to the Iraq war, but not this.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 20:40:14 +0000

On Mandarin’s insistent quibble, my parenthetical aside on this point was meant to refer to the CT comments thread on this topic, rather than to the public debate as a whole, and, now I reread it, did not make that clear – since I linked to at least one rightwing defence of the Administration, I was obviously not claiming that no-one in the world would defend the Administration on this. But now that Mandarin mentions it, I have seen no response to the MSNBC article from anyone in the Bush Administration, on or off the record, so if there has been one I would glad if someone would point it out. More importantly, Mandarin doesn’t seem to have responded to my invitation to focus on the substantive issues being debated here. S/he hasn’t even come clean on whether s/he thinks leaving Zarqawi alone was a good thing to do. i suggest to Mandarin that it’s time to put up or shut up.