Why we fought

Congratulations on wading through this stuff. The bottom line is that the White House was lying then or it’s lying now. Either it was democracy promotion all along, in which case the WMD process was a charade — invasion was coming even with compliance. Or it really was WMD, in which case they were severely incompetent then, and are lying now. And of course, note that the entire UK debate running into election has been predicated on the notion that regime change, per se is not a valid basis for invasion.

To make the quote non-misleading I do not think we need to read “after” as “only after”.

Instead, we simply need to stress the phrased “seized upon as a rationale”.

Bush may have mentioned democratization as an ancillary benefit before the the discovery that there were no WMD.

But he never seized upon it as a rationale, i.e. he never built his case for war around it, nor even made it the second or third most important rationale.

I think the quote is perfectly accurate as it stands.

It’s a real shame that Bernie Ebbers didn’t think of this defence; after all, the WorldCom accounts were by this standard substantially accurate, and he certainly mentioned at every stage that they weren’t cash-positive.

Actually it’s very easy to square this circle.

It was obvious enough that Saddam was not going to disarm, and even if he did, Bush still would have invaded. US troops were amassed all along the Gulf. Saddam even tried at the last minute to prevent invasion. But it didn’t matter then, as it wouldn’t have ever mattered. WMD was a good reason to SELL to the public; just because Bush SOLD it that way doesn’t mean that’s the reason we went to war.

Mario, UN inspectors were roaming Iraq pretty freely. IIRC, Hans Blix said that they had run into no obstruction of practical importance.

Which wasn’t good enough for Bush.

Barry, I understand your point, but that wasn’t what I was getting at. What I’m saying is that even if Saddam had disarmed, Bush still would have invaded. Bush’s quotes above were empty sound bites, employed because WMD makes for a much better pitch for war than any other reason.

Anyway, why are people being so instrumental about this? The reasons for war are always many and varied. Henry’s point makes no sense. Here’s an analogy. Suppose I want to clean my room because having it messy gives me a headache, but I’m not getting around to it. And I have a pet dog who continually relieves himself on the carpet of said room. I can claim that if my dog fails to quit this behavior, I will clean my room. Then, if my dog continues to relieve himself on the carpet, and I clean my room, it is not the case that my headache had NOTHING to do with my cleaning my room (as Henry is implying). Reasons come in packages; sometimes it takes one to catalyze the rest.

I can put myself into a contract, for example, whereby I will do A only if B

I made this comment at the end of a thread posted a few days ago on Blair so it didn’t get much discussion- I’d like to make this point again:

This is not the first administration to mislead the american public in the runup to war. Wilson did it by allowing arms shipment on passenger ships to England while the US was still officially neutral. FDR did it by enacting an oil embargo against the Japanese that could not but lead to war. Both presidents created a public rationale for war after they had already made the decision.

As for this administration, its hard to say what its ‘true rationale’ was as the decision to go to war was influenced by different actors, all w/ different motivations. I believe that, in essence, the administration lied or at least misled the public about their motivation to go to war in Iraq. The issue was patently not simply WMDs. But I think WMDs did form the heart of the administration’s legal justification for the war, which is why there are so many quotes about how if SH would only disarm, we wouldn’t invade. I don’t feel misled b/c I’d already read some of the documents at newamericancentury.com. But the administration certainly misled the general public. However, I don’t think it is an open and shut case that the president should never do that- it would require a severe re-evaluation of FDR’s entire presidency. I’d like to see some discussion of the issue of when deception is or isn’t justified, b/c I’m pretty curious myself.

I have come to believe that the real reason for invading Iraq was discussed by Cheney’s Energy Task Force.

Operation Iraqi Liberation ( OIL )

Saddam’s complicity in 9/11 would have gotten the US public to support the war (again, IMHO), but Bush could never make the case.

Nevertheless, he (with a lot of help from Cheney) did manage to make that point to a substantial fraction of the US public, and I think that did help a lot with selling the war.

A critical point in all this is that the justification for the war determined the nature of the war.

The war that was fought made sense on the assumption that Saddam had large stocks of missiles and chemical weapons, a 45-minute launch capability and a nuclear program on the verge of success. On those assumptions, the crucial requirement was to occupy Iraq as quickly as possible and destroy Saddam’s military machine.

If the object was to get a democratic government, it would have been sensible to spend a lot of time beforehand establishing an alternative provisional government, ensuring it would get at least some international recognition, and so on. It would also have been sensible to spend a lot more time planning the reconstruction effort, early elections and a clear stance on things like war crimes trials. As it is, these things were made up as the occupation went along.

There was good evidence at the time that Saddam was sitting on WMD and that was reason enough to have the guy overthrown.

Not quite.

First, while there was a smattering “good” evidence, there were also veritable mountains of half-baked bullshit from unreliable sources (e.g., the Niger yellowcake). The administration made no distinction, pushing all of the evidence as solid and irrefutable.

Second, you fail to mention that the UN inspectors were in the process of verifying that there were, in fact, no WMD. For whatever reasons, Bush chose not to allow them to finish their job.

“. . .when the US provided no assistance, they were masacred . . . ”

And what’s happening now that the U.S. is providing assistance?

Neil, after the first Gulf War, the US encouraged a rebellion and then failed to help. In the current war, there was no rebellion, and the US had no more reason to invade than it has to invade a dozen other countries suffering under dictatorships. Despite their new-found concern for human rights and democracy, I haven’t heard any Bush supporters stating that the US should now invade every dictatorship on the planet, so I’m a little confused about what the new rules are.

Maybe we fought the war because Bush was looking for some way to spend another $300 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars (rather than wasting the money on something dumb like bolstering the Social Security trust fund, for instance)?

Analyses of “reasons for the war” which fail to take into account or even acknowledge that the political drive for war was a two stage process are inherently shallow and fatuous.

Let us stipulate the oh so sinister accusation that Bush et al decided upon war long earlier than they found wise to publicly admit. Here is what came next: They pitched war to (1) the US Congress and then, having succeeded there, to (2) the UN Security Council (unsuccessfully, note).

If the focus of the arguments were different in stages (1) and (2) this would neither be surprising nor particularly noteworthy, seeing as how these (the US Congress, and the UN Security Council) are, technically speaking, two different venues with two different sets of interests and jurisdictions. Failing to understand this, or insisting on ignoring it, is just stupid.

All of the above quotes that “prove Bush focused on WMDs” (except for the War Powers text, which proves the opposite of course) are from stage (2). Do you honestly not understand, even now, what it is Bush was attempting to accomplish during stage (2)? The pretense here seems to be that when he made these quotes he was still “arguing for war”. This is false as there was no need. Bush already had approval for war (by the US Congress) all that time. He was arguing for the UN Security Council to endorse the war with a resolution. Thus, he had to couch the argument in terms that would put his request in the most favorable light in said venue.

The UN Security Council by construction is not particularly disposed to care about Saddam Hussein being a bad man, or the need to democratize, or the wisdom of creating a “terrorist flytrap”, or the “face”/geostrategic/power-struggle need for the US to Finally Win the Gulf War, even if some or all of those things may indeed have played a role to some extent in why the Administration wanted to invade. But the UNSC does, at least in theory, care about “WMD proliferation”, or that’s the polite fiction anyway. Therefore that was the “charge” against Saddam Hussein before the UNSC.

It was not “the reason for the war”, however. The only solid, tangible list of official “reasons for the war”is to be found in the text of the War Powers resolution.

Among other things, it specifically cites Public Law 105-338.

Why is this so hard to understand? Two venues, two pitches. Second pitch failed anyway. Why is the second pitch extrapolated so as to pretend that it was the entire pitch?

The best analogy was, and remains, Capone. Tax evasion was the charge against Capone. It was not, however, “the reason” that the FBI wanted Capone to be incarcerated. They tailored their charge against him for the venue and based on what they thought would have the best chance of success.

And there is nothing wrong with that in the slightest.

Blixa,

One your second note, did Saddam somehow become worse in 2002-03? If so, it wasn’t very clear. But if he didn’t become worse, but the US people would have supported the war “becuase Saddam was a ver bad man, who oppressed his people”, why didn’t they suppport such as war in, say, ’98? Or 2000? They didn’t, of course. Now, you can say that Sept. 11th changed, this, but it didn’t make Saddam any worse, or more of a threat, so there must have been something else going on, like obviously false claims that Saddam has something to do with Sept. 11th, or that he had WMD. Now, those things were claimed, weren’t they? And were they not untrue? And given the results so far (see the Lancet study, for example) is it so clear that our ham-fisted approach was such a good thing for the Iraqi people, as opposed to some other approach?

As for your first approach, at least Al Capone was in fact guitly of tax evasion, and there was pretty good evidence that this was the case, which puts something of a strain on your analogy.

@blixa
doesn’t your distinction among others rely on interpreting speeches given to the American public as being “really” directed at the UNSC? If so, how is one supposed to tell them apart?
Concerning the “humantarian grounds are not enough” is, among other things based on Wolfowitz say so in the Vanity Fair interview (who ought to have access to the best polling data on the subject) and past Republican arguments along these very lines against interventions e.g. in Kosovo.

Neil, after the first Gulf War, the US encouraged a rebellion and then failed to help. In the current war, there was no rebellion

Well, there is now, or an insurgency at least, and the US has in fact been helpful by, oh, say, leaving Al Qaqaa and other depots unguarded. Man, can’t win for losing.

In fact, Blixa, the Capone analogy works much better for anti-war folks than pro-war ones. Suppose Capone had, in fact, been innocent of tax evasion, but guilty of a bunch of other stuff. Suppose further that the Feds, unable to prove the other charges, had hauled him in on a trumped-up tax evasion charge, subjected him to an obviously rigged show trial with no proper standards of evidence, and brought in a conviction despite greviously failing to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

This would have been unjust, no matter what other stuff he was guilty of. Right?

matt,

Correct me if I’m wrong but no one in an executive position proposed such a war in 1998. You know, because it goes with saying that “the American people would never support it on those grounds alone”. This is precisely what I mean by self-fulfilling; leaders and legislators buy into the “humanitarian not enough” assumption and act on that assumption and so therefore the assumption becomes true by default. As for Al Capone being guilty – correct, he was convicted (the charge succeeded), whereas the UNSC did not pass a resolution (the charge failed). But it is unclear why you think that means the analogy breaks down. I was merely noting that they are both cases of specific charges tailored to venue that need not necessarily represent the entirety of the “real reason” for the effort. All you’ve pointed out is that in one case the charge succeeded whereas in the other it failed, but this was never in dispute.

markus,

I don’t pretend to know who Bush’s speeches are “really aimed at”. I merely note that it is nonsensical to imagine that in early 2003, the President was engaged in some sort of spurious time-travelling political effort to get a War Powers Resolution passed, seeing as how this resolution had already passed in October 2002. So, the political effort – the PR campaign he was waging – however you want to phrase it – must have been directed toward some other aim. What aim might that have been? As for Wolfy, I do not dispute that Paul Wolfowitz holds the sincere belief that “humanitarian arguments are never enough”. That does not, however, make it true unless I missed something and Wolfowitz is now suddenly considered infallible. If Wolfy believes it then add him to the list of what I lament. As for Kosovo, the (R) opposition on the basis that it goes without saying that humanitarian arguments aren’t enough is, indeed, yet another example of what I was lamenting. Thanks.

nicholas weininger,

Whether you realize it or not you’ve set up a hypothetical that would be analogous to the US (for reasons of their own) erroneously “charging” Saddam with having such and such proscribed materials before the UNSC, and the UNSC finding him “guilty”. But that is not what happened. Or did you forget that the UN effort failed and no such resolution was passed? So, therefore, the “charges” were withdrawn, and the US made war without UN cover, on the basis of the Congressional War Powers resolution alone.

Which mentions a lot of stuff (not just WMD), including democratizing Iraq.

Blixa,

You’ve got a strangly instrumentalist idea charges going on in the Capone analogy, it seems. The difference is not that in one case the charges stuck while in the other case they didn’t- the difference is that it seems pretty clear that Capone _was guilty_ of tax evasion, not in some instrumentalist sense, but in the sense that he actually violated the tax laws. But, Saddam _Did not have_ WMD. And, there were quite good reasons, even before the war, to think that he did not have them.

And, I don’t see you point about “self-fulfilling proficies”. I’m claiming that _there was no support_ for an invasion of Iraq in ’98, and there would have been none if Clinton had proposed one on the grounds that Saddam was very bad and should be done in. That might be wrong, but I see no reason (and you’ve certainly given none) to think so. It seems pretty clear to me that there also would have been very little support for invading Iraq in ’02-03 w/o the phony stories about WMD and ties to Sept. 11th. Again, it’s a factual claim that might be wrong, but I see no evidence at all to support your view, and the fact that there was no popular call to invade Iraq before these phoney stories were put forward despite Saddam being just as bad seems to indicate that the support for invading Iraq came from the phoney stories, not a general support for removing dictators.

The time is better spent studying the situation as it currently exists and proffering policy suggestions and discussion on what should be done now.

Thanks for the dispassionate advice. If someone knocks down your house, make sure you remember it.

CT is not a forum which encourages ad hominem unfortunately. My comment will go to the character of people like blixa.

They tailored their charge against him for the venue and based on what they thought would have the best chance of success. And there is nothing wrong with that in the slightest

The preening vanity of authors of such comments, the world-weary wise able to understand the matters cooly and rationally, blinds them to their moral error.

Pleased to think that only they can see the facts under the welter of emotion, they confuse explanation for justification. When the act they excuse is large-scale military invasion of a country that leads to untold death, then such self-regard is a serious fault.

KCinDC wrote

“Neil, after the first Gulf War, the US encouraged a rebellion and then failed to help.”

If we had helped and the rebellion had succeded, they would have forever been tarred as puppets.

Had we helped and the rebellion failed, we would be seen as failures.

Had we stood aside and let the rebellion be crushed, we would (and were) seen as cynical bastards.

Had we stood aside and let the Iraquis retake their own country, we would have been seen as judicious and wise.

This was the only “win” scenario possible for us, but it did not pan out. Cest le vie.

Bush 1 and his administration probably thought (and with good reason at the time) that Saddam would go the way of General Leopoldo Galtieri (Argentina) – lose a war, lose face, lose power. A reasonable expectation, but one that unfortunately did not come to pass.

“In the current war, there was no rebellion, and the US had no more reason to invade than it has to invade a dozen other countries suffering under dictatorships.”

Violating a cease-fire agreement has been a legitimate casus belli since the treaty of Westphalia, if I recall correctly. The only other country that might fall into that category would be North Korea (for numerous border and naval violations) – but strategic considerations (Seoul in range of massive artillery concentrations, etc.) keep the invasion option off the table at the moment.

“Despite their new-found concern for human rights and democracy, I haven’t heard any Bush supporters stating that the US should now invade every dictatorship on the planet, so I’m a little confused about what the new rules are.”

In any chess game, you take one piece at a time, based upon tactical necessity. The Neocons have long recognized that the Middle East must be democratized if the threat of Islamo-facism is to be defused. Saddam was the logical target for the opening move, and 9-11 jarred us into the realization that we have been at war for at least a decade.

Question: If Winston Churchill and F.D.R. had conspired to declare war on Germany when they re-occupied the Rhineland (on false or trumped-up charges) and therefore averted WW II with the cost of ten thousand allied lives, would they have been wrong? How would history have remembered them?

Scott

When they make the miniseries of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” I wonder what they will use for the rational for why we fought. Toward the end of the miniseries “Band of Brothers” after the men of Easy Company have been shot, stabbed and shelled relentlessly by the Nazis, after countless numbers of their friends and comrades have been killed and maimed, the soldiers are asking themselves why the hell am I still here fighting Germans and wondering was the war worth it. The episode that answers this question is entitled ‘Why we fight.’ In this episode the men liberate a Nazi concentration camp. All the men of Easy Company then realize they had to fight to stop the evil that was Hitler and the Nazis regardless of the duration or the cost in lives. When they make that climatic episode fot the Iraq War miniseries what will they show for the ‘why we fight’? There were no WMDs and no ties to Al Q which was supposedly why we had to go to war when we did.
While some of the posters here seem to think it is okay that the new rationale for war was a mere nice side effect back in 2002, the men of Easy Company wouldn’t have bought that line. I wonder in ten or twenty years from now when the men of today’s 101st look back on the war will they think it was all worth it.

rsl, not billions, but *hundreds* of billions of tax dollars.

That we know of – considering this administration, I imagine that they’re sweeping a few hundred billion more under the rug.

If the direct cost of this war (to the US alone) exceeds $1 trillion, it wouldn’t surprise me.

matt,

Sigh. Ok, so let’s stipulate that Saddam “was not guilty” of having WMDs. Rightly, then, the UNSC did not pass such a resolution. Meanwhile, he was guilty of some of the other stuff listed in the (earlier, different) War Powers text, which did pass (in a different deliberating body, with differenet interests, concerns, and jurisdiction). As well as Resolution 1441, of which he was undeniably in violation (WMD or no WMD). So, not sure what the problem is.

I can see that you are claiming there was no support for ousting Hussein in 1998 to be had. Claim away. It’s based on nothing. For the record I’m not asserting it’s “wrong” – indeed it might be right – just that there’s no solid objective basis for thinking it right. To be clear here, I’m not saying that polls on “should we invade Iraq?” would necessarily have come back or did come back Yes. I’m not talking about polls, period, or “public opinion” as some kind of static unchangeable monolith. I’m talking about if a leader had proposed it and spent political capital pushing it (you know, with “leadership”?), would he have been able to garner the needed support? I don’t know, and you don’t either, but an awful lot of people assume without basis the answer is uniformly, perpetually, No. Based perhaps on polls taken absent said leadership. That’s what I mean by self fulfilling. They take a poll, it seems to say “no”, so they’re not willing to expend political capital exercising leadership, so it doesn’t happen.

Same thing, now, in Darfur, presumably. Is that not lamentable, at least in some cases?

joe,

You’re absolutely right that this discussion changes nothing and impacts nothing.

wbb,

Your comment contains so much substance that I am unable to respond. It would take literally an entire thesis to respond to all of the myriad substantive points that you made. So, touche!

nicholas,

Our representatives in Congress authorized the text of the War Powers resolution. What is in that text is, by definition, the case for war. All of it. In the face of that I don’t know on what basis you pick out this or that part of the text and assert that it was not a “popular case for war”. Says who?

You simply intone the “it would never have satisfied Congress or public opinion” theorem as if it is self-evident. It is not.

Your point about such and such making the US “look worse” is irrelevant and does not interest me in the slightest.

As well as Resolution 1441, of which he was undeniably in violation (WMD or no WMD).

Your comment contains so much substance that I am unable to respond.

Please let me know if it amounts in the end to something else that “So you’d prefer saddam in power? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

Mr. Weininger:

“If the case for war had been pressed based only on what Saddam was actually guilty of, it would never have satisfied the UN, Congress, or public opinion; nor should it have done so.”

So that I am clear, what specifically do you believe that the Iraqi regime was guilty of, and why would this have fallen short?

Mr. Barlow:

Is your interest in this discussion really as wbb suggested, that the President should be convicted of war crimes?

RSL:

I would agree with your assessment that there was very poor pre-war planning about what to do once the regime was deposed. Personally, I think Rumsfield should have fired. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

That aside, I think the cost of not succeeding is incalculable it would be so high. For that reason, I believe the focus should be on how to move forward in a way that befefits the Iraqi population, the U.S., the Middle East, and the world at large.

Barry, you remember incorrectly.

As we know, the twin operation ‘declare and verify’, which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of ‘hide and seek’. Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations.

…

Paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be “active”. It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of “catch as catch can”. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

…

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponised. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

…

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate. During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of investigation. Since then it has reported that it has found a further 4 chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.

…

Iraq also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

…

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring home papers from their work places. On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.

…

In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by Iraqi officials. This was the background of resolution 1441’s provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews “in the mode or location” of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.

To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraq’s monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in the presence of an Iraqi official. This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews “in private”, that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed.

ghostfrfk wrote:

“When they make the miniseries of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” I wonder what they will use for the rational for why we fought. Toward the end of the miniseries “Band of Brothers” after the men of Easy Company have been shot, stabbed and shelled relentlessly by the Nazis, after countless numbers of their friends and comrades have been killed and maimed, the soldiers are asking themselves why the hell am I still here fighting Germans and wondering was the war worth it. The episode that answers this question is entitled ‘Why we fight.’ In this episode the men liberate a Nazi concentration camp. All the men of Easy Company then realize they had to fight to stop the evil that was Hitler and the Nazis regardless of the duration or the cost in lives. When they make that climatic episode fot the Iraq War miniseries what will they show for the ‘why we fight’?”

How about this, from Iraq the Model:

“Our friend Al-Witwity has a 1st hand report about the mass grave that was discovered two days ago near Diwaniyah.

He met a Kurdish woman who miraculously survived the execution process.
The woman who’s originally from the “Seeti” suburb near Erbil said that she was brought along with 9 other members of her family and larger numbers of other Kurds in buses and were all executed later in this area.

Eye witnesses from the area said that back in the middle of 1980s, buses and bulldozers used to come to this valley twice a week but no one dared to question what was happening.

This woman after she someway managed to escape got lost in the desert for 5 days until some shepherd found her and kept her safe away from the eyes of the security services that kept searching for her for years until they knew that she had officially lost her mind.
The woman expressed her gratitude for the locals who were kind to her and allowed her to live in a room attached to a mosque for the past 21 years after she lost all her family and had nowhere else to go.

Al-Witwity had also talked to the chief of the “Humanitarian association for defending the rights of the mass graves’ martyrs” who confirmed that there are 19 other mass graves to be revealed soon, each one is supposed to contain the remains of approximately 2000 Iraqis.”

Blixa . . .

I can’t do the complete accounting, but as a resident of Massachusetts, Senator Kerry’s office did tell me at the time that it was the WMD argument that swayed him . . .

Of course, as you know and I know, his real motivation was what vote was safer for his Presidential campaign. Guess he guessed wrong!

nicholas writes that violations of UN resolutions + human rights violations…

“fall short on both legitimacy and popularity grounds because they don’t add up to any sort of serious threat to the US.”

…which begs the question. He assumes that anything short of a “serious threat to the US” falls short, in order to reach the conclusion that those arguments would fall short.

I hasten to add that by these criteria, the US action regarding Serbia/Kosovo would also have to be said to “fall short”. At least if one is consistent. There wasn’t even a scaremongery, fabricated case that Milosevic “add[ed] up to any sort of serious threat to the US”.

He then asks:

“Do the pro-warriors really think that the public could have been persuaded to support such a costly undertaking on humanitarian and legalistic grounds alone”

We’ll never know, will we?

Anyway, the public was (more or less) convinced on Kosovo. I gather you think what would be the deal-breaker on Iraq is that it’s “more costly”. I’m not so sure that the public perceives such a strict bifurcation between “costly” wars and “not very costly” wars to the extent that they’ll reject war 2 on grounds by which they accepted war 1 simply because war 2 is “more costly”. Where is the crossover point? How costly does a war have to be before humanitarian arguments fail to be sufficient? I ask you Nicholas… because you seem to think that you know.

By the way, I don’t “insist” the contrary. I am just saying we don’t know. Only one of us is pretending to know these unknowable things.

Scott Free, so what’s your point with that quote you posted? Do ‘we’ fight because the Iraqi government under Saddam has been slacking off since the middle of 1980s when all those mass graves got filled up and ‘we’ really liked the guy? Not nearly enough mass graves since the 80s, huh? You’re right, nowdays if you want something done you just have to do it yourself.

abb1

And your point? If a previous administration coddled an evil bastard, all subsequent administrations must do the same?

Given the choice, I would much rather do the right thing and live with the label of “hypocrite” than be known as a consistent and reliable friend of evil bastards.

yabonn,

So in effect your charge is indeed that since by your reading (note: article 12 does not actually say what you seem to think it says) resolution 1441 was “not at all”, Bush was therefore not authorized by the War Powers “thingie” to use the military force that he did. That is an interesting charge, but few that I have ever seen seem to be getting behind that POV, and anyway it’s something of a non-starter given that he did, in the event, successfully use military force and (as far as I can tell) this seemed to have passed all muster under the US legal/governmental system. (I suppose if Ds regain the Congress in 2006 they could try to initiate impeachment over it… we’ll see.)

As for it being for “US consumption only”, I don’t know about that, but so what if it was for “US consumption only”? That doesn’t affect anything I’m saying.

Indeed, I suppose it could be argued that the main effect of 1441 seems to have been to kick in Bush’s War Powers authorization, to use military force, under US law only. If you are looking at 1441 and trying to discover in it the Global Justification For The War, then I certainly don’t blame you for not seeing it there. Because 1441 alone certainly *wasn’t* a “justification”. However, it remains true that (for better or worse) 1441 – combined with the US War Powers resolution – gave Bush all the authority he would need to use the US military to invade Iraq. Which is all I was saying. Best,

Nice one, Blixa.
As somebody who did support the Kosovo War, I have to say that morally, removing a mass murder like Saddam has been emmiently justified by the continuing discovery of mass graves in Iraq. Questions of whether the US invasion of Iraq was justified politically are extremely iffy, to put it mildly.

Yes “people” were being attacked, but not “We”, or “one of our allies”. So, you are (rightly!) backing away from your earlier stated principle.

e scaroni in post #21 puts up an airball.
No threat to anyone? YOu sure? Then why were the Iranians still planning against Iraqi actions, and worrying about Iraq doing the same?
Kuwait had no worries about Iraq? Neither did Saudi? Why has everyone from the BBC to the Washington Times noted that Iran is tickled pink at the US taking out a major threat to Iran?

Please. They most nations that bordered Iraq had serious concerns and viewed Iraq as a threat. That’s why they cheered the US/UK enforced no fly zones and airstrikes.
Iraq as direct threat to the US? No. A problem for the region? Yes. So don’t say that Iraq posed no problem to anyone outside of Iraq. ONce the will to enforce the no-fly zones and sanctions withered there was a very serious problem about to erupt in that part of the world.

I agree with ry, and also brackdurf at #37, that the actual conduct of the invasion indicated that WMDs were little more than a pretext by the time the war was launched. By the time of Bush’s SOTU speech, it was already clear that any military threat posed by Saddam’s hypothetical weapons was very modest. There was a reasonable attempt to find weapons, and thereby justify the invasion, as indicated by the numerous ‘discoveries’ reported by Judith Miller, but very little effort to secure likely sites or guard against shipments overseas.

But in broader terms the rush to go to war, and the absence of planning for the postwar aftermath were consistent with a WMD rationale and inconsistent with a democratization rationalisation

(note: article 12 does not actually say what you seem to think it says)

I may have misread, then. Here goes :

12. Decides to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security;

I’m basing my understanding of this on the french official version, don’t worry. I understand it like “if the informations are false (art 4) , or if the inspectors activity is hindered (art 11), then we, the u.n., meet. The consequences may then be “serious” for irak (that’s in paragraph 13).

I don’t see what here support
resolution 1441 was “not at all”,

There was a resolution 1441, but with nothing in it to support bush’ grand adventure. As a fig leaf, 1441 doesn’t even work.

but few that I have ever seen seem to be getting behind that POV, […] this seemed to have passed all muster under the US legal/governmental system. […] As for it being for “US consumption only”, I don’t know about that,

I do. “The u.s. enforced the u.n. resolution against the will of the u.n.”. One simply can’t say that with a straight face, apart some u.s. war apologists.

but so what if it was for “US consumption only”? That doesn’t affect anything I’m saying.

If we are talking about the u.s. law it doesn’t, i suppose. But if we’re talking about international law, the u.s.-rescuing-resolution-1441 simply doesn’t fly. Not enough kool aid in the world.

Because 1441 alone certainly wasn’t a “justification”.

Happy we agree at last. I nevertheless left above in this posts my answer to some you points. Probably i misread, but some of them looked like you were arguing the case of 1441 being relevant, legally, somehow.

However, it remains true that (for better or worse) 1441 – combined with the US War Powers resolution – gave Bush all the authority he would need to use the US military to invade Iraq.

If by authority you mean “legal authority”, we disagree again.

1441 “gave” nothing to Bush : it’s mentionned in the “use of force against iraq resolution”, and that’s it. It’s not even a legal veneer, just a war apologist’ empty talking point.

Bush may have had authority, according to the u.s. law, but for other reasons than the 1441, and not deriving from the u.n.

Besides, as there was no clear danger, the fact that the “use of force against iraq resolution” expressly places itself under the “war powers resolution” should be a problem for the national law too. The lying part, once again.

SOrry John Q. It seems I’m a bit unclear in my writting.
If you look at what was carried by the assualt echelons of American forces you’ll see that they carried gear for MOP-4 and MOP-2(MOP-4 beaing the ‘space suit gear’ for NBC environs, and MOP-2 being standard gear you see every day). Look at, if you can tolerate it, John Keegan’s book on the IRaq war–who cares about his politics it’s the facts of what was carried that’s key here.

I was largely trying to make the point that your understanding of operational level warfare seems to be be a bit lacking(tactical, operational, and strategic being the three levels of military operations. Tactical being for battalion sized units and smaller. Operatinal level being for battalion through army group(collection of divisions). And strategic being largely the political/economic goals of the conflict.) and because of that you can’t really say what the operational plan for the invasion of Iraq indicated. Neither can I for that matter for that matter.
One of the problems noted by Tom Barnett is that the US military fights wars out of context of everything else. AMerican mil doctrine posits that you win a war by destroying the enemy and his means to make war(his troops, his logistics, his means to control communicate). You’re looking at what could very well be a problem of ‘corporate culture’ for something far bigger.

Your larger point(we were promised WMD but none showed up; ergo war was based on false premise) is a fair one and honestly made. I just don’t think you’ve shown sufficient knowledge of the subject(operational level of combat) to be making some of the statements you’re making. If I’m wrong, and you’ve got something to show, other than just a sharp mind, then I’ll appoligize. Military affairs is actually a serious subject, and like other serious subjects(like philosophy for instance) it requires study to understand it or speak knowledgeably about it.

Pardon me, but I think you don’t know the meaning of the word “cynical.” My reasoning was not “cynical” in any way. YOU are the one who is “cynical.” My reasoning may make you feel cynical, but that doesn’t mean that my reasoning is itself cynical. (E.g,. the weather might make you feel depressed, but that doesn’t mean that the weather itself is “depressed.”)

yabonn, if still reading,

“The u.s. enforced the u.n. resolution against the will of the u.n.”. One simply can’t say that with a straight face, apart some u.s. war apologists.

Au contraire it is perfectly logical and possible for entity 1 to issue a “resolution” but then not enforce it, and then for entity 2 to enforce it in its stead. There is no contradiction here.

I understand that the UN thought they had written the resolution in such a way that authorized them to declare, for themselves, that “only WE get to decide” whether 1441 had been obeyed or not and thus, whether military force may be used to enforce it.

Evidently, the government of the United States (as well as that of Britain, Australia, etc) disagreed with that.

If we are talking about the u.s. law it doesn’t, i suppose. But if we’re talking about international law,…

I was, indeed, talking about US law. I don’t believe the notion of “international law” has any tenable, coherent meaning to speak of, at least at present. So if that’s what your focus was you’ve been talking to the wrong person because I care not one whit about “international law” per se.

Probably i misread, but some of them looked like you were arguing the case of 1441 being relevant, legally, somehow.

And it was, under US law, which is what is relevant. You’ve implicitly revealed that US law not what you were talking or care about, so we simply had crossed signals. Sorry about that.

1441 “gave” nothing to Bush : it’s mentionned in the “use of force against iraq resolution”, and that’s it. It’s not even a legal veneer, just a war apologist’ empty talking point.

Why can’t it be both? The two are not mutually exclusive ;-)

Bush may have had authority, according to the u.s. law, but for other reasons than the 1441, and not deriving from the u.n.

Correction: He had authority under US law (proof? uh well, the invasion occurred didn’t it?), and (you can’t seriously be denying that) 1441 was part of (but not entirely) the basis for that authority. Which is all I was saying.

Besides, as there was no clear danger, the fact that the “use of force against iraq resolution” expressly places itself under the “war powers resolution” should be a problem for the national law too. The lying part, once again.

Come again? I’m not following you. Since when does Congressional authorizations of force under the War Powers act require “clear danger”, whatever that might mean?

Has this standard ever actually been met when using the War Powers act?

best,

Au contraire it is perfectly logical and possible for entity 1 to issue a “resolution” but then not enforce it, and then for entity 2 to enforce it in its stead. There is no contradiction here.

Past “iraq was enforcing the un”, past the explanation on art 12, i see we have reached the point of absurdity. I let you there on that matter : the irak war deserves, after all, this kind of tortured (ha, ha, no pun intended, ha, ha) liturgy.

1441 was part of (but not entirely) the basis for that authority. Which is all I was saying.

If your point is that Dear Leader took pretext, to declare war on irak, of u.n. resolutions that said “no war”, fine by me. For the next one, i propose bush declares iran not respecting the european directives on the size and curvature of bananas, do the rubberstamp congress thing, and proceed.

As someone above noted : it’s all a matter of lubricant anyways. So why not add bananas?

Lastly, a few rectifications for the sake of the poor reader who digged till here, and i’ll let you go “u.s. to the rescue of the u.n.” all you want.

– war powers 73, reference for iraq resolution 02, does not epxressly require clear and imminent danger. For some reason, i’m pretty sure the lying to the people and the congress thing is not a-ok, though.

– Too, it’s more about the 67* and 68* u.n. resolutions (“the un expresses concern about the situation etc” type of things, except for the 678, about kuwait). 1441 was kept out of iraq resolution 02 itself, though it served for the rah-rah around it. “Iraq was enforcing u.n.” is still useless without lubricants.

If your point is that Dear Leader took pretext, to declare war on irak, of u.n. resolutions that said “no war”,

Hmm, show me where 1441 said “no war”.

Meanwhile, the US War Powers resolution (which is what matters, remember?) gave Bush broad powers to “war”. Which he did.

Your implicit position in this type of complaint, if it means anything, still amounts to an assertion that Bush’s action was in fact illegal under US law, which is an interesting charge but a non-starter in reality. It’s also a charge made by no serious observer that I have seen. Why didn’t John Kerry complain that the way Bush used the War Powers resolution Kerry voted for, was illegal?

Alternatively, if you’re not asserting that Bush’s action was illegal under US law, then your complaint is meaningless. You can call 1441 “lubricant” all you want but if it meets the War Powers resolution’s requirements then that’s all that matters. And, evidently, it did.

(But again, I don’t know about “international law”, if that’s what you’re thinking of. I don’t know what “international law” is, exactly.)

For the next one, i propose bush declares iran not respecting the european directives on the size and curvature of bananas, do the rubberstamp congress thing, and proceed. As someone above noted : it’s all a matter of lubricant anyways. So why not add bananas?

Look, let me explain why I don’t care about your analogy, however humorous.

Suppose (for whatever reason) I were in favor of a US invasion of Iran. If Bush were too (for whatever reason – not nec. the same as mine), and if he asked the US Congress to give him authorization to do so, I’d want the US Congress to authorize a US invasion of Iran. (This should neither surprise nor shock you. People generally want the policies they favor, to be implemented.)

Now, if US Congress were to choose to do so by the extremely stupid method of drafting a War Powers resolution stating that Bush is authorized to attack Iran “if Iran doesn’t comply with Euro-banana-curvature”, well heck, that would be better than nothing. So at that point if Iran had the wrong kind of bananas, and Bush were to say “attack”, guess what? Fine by me.

Yes, I would prefer if the US Congress would declare its wars in a more straightforward, less stupid manner, mind you. And, the same was true in the case of Iraq! As I said, I dislike the way Congress kinda-sorta passed the buck to the UN. I think it was a lousy, cowardly way to declare war. But that’s how they chose to do it, like it or not. The fact remains that they gave Bush the authority – or loopholes, if you prefer to think of it that way – he needed to make war. And so, he did.

If you dislike the way that the War Powers resolution combined with 1441 to empower Bush’s War Powers, blame the US Congress for their irresponsibility, like I do! Blame them for not having faced the issue more head-on and declared (or not declared) war in a more straightforward manner.

1441 was kept out of iraq resolution 02 itself,

That can be chalked up to arrow of time and the impossibility of time travel. Resolution 1441 (November 8, 2002) was adopted after the War Powers resolution was passed (October 10-11, 2002), so it would have been a neat trick indeed for the latter to have mentioned the former explicitly.

(You start to lose me after this point with your unparseable English and talk of “lubricants”, so… bye)

[Yabonn’s] implicit position in this type of complaint, if it means anything, still amounts to an assertion that Bush’s action was in fact illegal under US law, which is an interesting charge but a non-starter in reality. It’s also a charge made by no serious observer that I have seen.

Blixa,

IANAL, but if misleading Congress in order to win support for war isn’t illegal then US law is even more of an ass than I had supposed. Of course that’s entirely possible and in any case the only remedy is impeachment, which isn’t going to happen. I don’t know if John Dean counts as a serious observer in your eyes, but I believe he knows a bit about what’s legal. He believes Bush committed an impeachable offence or two while selling the war.

But as his former boss memorably remarked, “legal schmegal.”

kevin donoghue,

Heh. Well, to be perfectly frank I rather doubt that “misleading” the US Congress prior to a War Powers vote (or any other kind of vote) is “illegal under US law”. Congressmen “mislead” each other virtually every time they take the floor to bloviate about the necessity or evilness of some bill; politicians in general “mislead” people with virtually every speech. Why/how would it be “illegal” for the President to do it? (Unless he were under oath or something.)

Now, certainly if they believe they were “misled” by a President, on anything, Congress could get *mad* about it and, as Dean says, decide to impeach the President over it. But that’s not saying very much. If they believe the President has an ugly tie and were mad enough about it they could decide to impeach him over it. An “impeachable” offense is whatever Congress decides it is. But like you said, it isn’t going to happen, probably not even if Dems were to have an amazing 2006 election-wise.

I also have very little sympathy for Congressmen/Senators who claim they were “misled” in the first place. Members of the general public feeling misled? Sure, I don’t blame them at all.

But don’t tell me that John Kerry or Hillary Clinton voted for War Powers “because” they Believed The Things That George Bush Was Saying (and thus were “misled” into voting how they did). I don’t believe that for a millisecond. They voted War Powers because (regardless of the truth of whatever Bush said at any given time, or whether they “believed” it) they believed the vote necessary to their political survival/ambitions.

I doubt that very many pro-war powers Dem senators at all “believed” a single thing Bush was saying in the first place. Do you know otherwise?

RY: No, it is entirely self-serving, and hence cynical, Functional.

This is quibbling over a grammatical point, I know, but you are just wrong. You think my reasoning is “self-serving.” Yes. Fine. But YOU are the one who is “cynical” [i.e., distrustful, suspicious, etc] about my reasoning. I am NOT the one who is “cynical” [i.e., distrustful, suspicious] here.

Use the word correctly, is all I’m saying.

John Q,
I think I got that you were making a larger point. That’s what I meant by ‘your larger point is fair and honestly made.’ I do think it very big of you to make the admission you did.

YOur larger issue is ‘why’. I don’t know if I agree with it 100%, because like Functional my reasons for support had nothing to do with WMD, but that’s beside the point.
But, this is why I think you made a mistake in post 20 and continue to do so: when, with what, and how long to take doing it are all operational issues. Destroying the enemy is a tactical and operational concern–just good, common sense in a war zone– in that you have to worry about blue force security(good guys are blue, bad guys are red). That’s a concern no matter what the political objectives are. Becuase of that concern all assault forces seek to destroy/incapitate opponents quickly. It’s totally divorced from political goals.
Having the ‘second half team’, the public affairs/reconstruction units is, and that’s what you’re really talking about(though you might wish to be a bit more careful when talking about this). It’s really the second paragraph of post #20 that’s giving me fits. I’m having trouble juxtaposing it with what is written in post #95.

Even the post conflict part isn’t that cut and dry. Look at the way NATO is structured. Stealing from TOm Barnett, since he’s written about it in a very accesable manner, the US was the LEviathan first half team with the rest of NATO being geared toward post conflict matters and specific specialites(like the Brits having the speciality of anti-sub/ant-mine warfare, Norway being really good at public affairs). The US military is built to fight and win wars. The Euros were the ones to wage and win peace. This fact is why you’re simultaneously right and wrong John. Right in that the decision to go forward garaunteed that those forces really good at post conflict work weren’t available, but wrong that any real planning at any level would’ve altered the case, except if it was forestalle for 20 years to allow the US mil to reorganize itself entirely.

Kevin, um yeah, and they were (oh what’s the phrase) “under oath” right?

Irrelevant. From John Dean’s article on the subject:

“Later, one of McFarlane’s lawyers, Peter W. Morgan, wrote a law journal article about using the false statements statute to prosecute executive officials appearing before Congress. Morgan was troubled by the breadth of the law. It does not require a specific intent to deceive the Congress. It does not require that statements be written, or that they be sworn. Congress is aware of the law’s breadth and has chosen not to change it.

“Maybe presciently, Morgan noted that the false statements statute even reaches ‘misrepresentations in a president’s state of the union address.’”

Short of that, this has been a rather pointless discussion .

Perhaps if you had a better point to make it wouldn’t have been?