Lilac Rose has a pretty good roundup of various perspectives on the "Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction?" issue. As one who has, for weeks, not really given a rat's ass about the issue, I've tried to stay removed from the "controversy." Especially because I'm not at all convinced that the people who are making an issue out of this would be satisfied if we found them anyway.
The fact is that I never believed WMDs were our primary reason for war against Saddam Hussein. After more than a year of regularly arguing in favor of taking out the monster in Baghdad, I'm bemused by people who now think that was our main reason for going. I suppose that's not entirely fair, because the whole world doesn't read my weblog, but I know I'm not the only one who said the things I said.
Oil was never our main reason for going. Neither were WMDs. So what were our reasons?
#1) In order to go forward with the War On Terror, we had to put the Fear of God and the United States into the brutal, murdering, "look-the-other-way-at-terrorists" thugs who rule most of the Middle East. Especially in places like Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
#2) We needed a strategically strong and practical place to base military operations to assist in the War on Terror. Afghanistan wasn't good enough.
#3) We needed to demonstrate to the Arabist-Islamist world that we were not weak and easily cowed.
#4) We needed to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we would not, ever, subvert our security intersts to the so-called "will of the international community."
#5) We had to demonstrate that when we gave terms to a vile monster, we would hold him to those terms--and punish him severely for failing to live up to them.
#6) Saddam was giving money to terrorists--no one disputes that, even to this day. If you support terrorists, you're no better than a terrorist, and you need to pay a price for that.
#7) Since the non-democratic thug-regimes of the Middle East helped to create the conditions that made a group like Al Qaeda possible, we needed to find a way to start reforming the Arabist/Islamist world. Iraq was as good a place to start as any.
Special bonus reason: Saddam and his boys were such hideous monsters that all "humanitarian" arguments against the war were null and void from day one.
Somewhere around reason number 8 or 9 would fall "weapons of mass destruction." Which Saddam would need only small quantities of to be a threat to the US.
But the administration would have to--have to--use WMDs as its primary reason before the United Nations. That effort, whatever its limitations, indisputably helped gain us credibility and valuable allies in the war effort internationally. Before you scoff at that, consider that we had dozens of allies when we went in, and many of them didn't sign on until after we started making an effort at the UN.
Furthermore, at the UN, WMDs had to be our primary argument, because the UN would never have accepted any other reason. Still further, it was only necessary to demonstrate for that audience that Saddam might have them and, just as important, was still refusing to cooperate with the surrender terms that ended the Gulf War.
Given all that, I couldn't possibly care less if the entirety of the "WMDs" discovered in Iraq amount to a squirt gun and a bottle of Chlorox. It's like breaking into John Wayne Gacy's house and finding out that there's only one kid's shinbone in his crawlspace, and not dozens of children's corpses. Who the hell cares?
It wouldn't surprise me if Saddam only had small weapons programs and very limited quantities of chem/bio weapons. It also wouldn't surprise me if he shipped some of his weapons off to Syria--since we now know that, despite disagreements with the Syrians, he had clandestine relationships with them to sell his oil for him, in violation of international sanctions.
I thus remain rather irritated with people who act as if our arguments before the UN about WMDs--which were the only arguments that would hold weight with the UN and were thus specifically tailored for that body--are the be-all, end-all arguments that were "sold to the American people." I never, ever, not even for a minute, thought those were our main reasons for going, and I said that over and over again here. So often that I actually get irritated when I have to repeat it again. I know, I probably shouldn't get irritated, because everyone on the planet doesn't read Dean's World religiously--but I am also far from the only person who pointed all these other reasons out.
The fact is, Saddam didn't need to have WMDs to justify what we did. He needed to be showing that he might, and was refusing to cooperate with investigations. Which no sane person disputes was exactly the case. If it turns out that he didn't have many, will that upset me? No, not in the least.
Not one. Tiny. Little. Bit.
I honestly think that if you ever believed that the arguments the US used at the Security Council were truly our primary reasons for going to war, then you were not very thoughtful--and failed to listen to the perspectives of countless other people who said all the same things I did.
So let's be clear:
On humanitarian grounds, there was no justification for opposing this war effort.
On strategic grounds, I suppose you may well have disagreed with our reasons. I think you were wrong, but am content to let history be the judge. We'll see what the next year or two brings. But WMDs? Yeah whatever gang. I guess obsessively anti-Bush people need something to carp about.
Much nodding of the head over here.
It is funny that, despite the attempts of very many people to explain the diversity of the reasons for going into Iraq, some still try to portray the average American as some sheep that was lead into this war blind. Not a single person I knew gave much of a hoot (relatively speaking) about the state of WMD development before the war in Iraq. There were a variety of reasons to end Saddam's reign, and if you asked people, they all gave different opinions as to which one was (or is) most important.
Some would think this is a sign of a confused public. I'd say the opposite. It is the sign of a people who know well the reasons for the action that we took. There was no singular overriding reason that was turned into a sacred cow. The people were not conviced into this by a self serving government, and therefore did not need to flock to some superficial excuse. When the government made motions in this direction, the response was not "Uh.. ok. If you say so..". About as uniformly as you will ever see, the response was "About damned time!". This was no blind rush into a conflict fueled by emotions and jingoism. It was a decision powered by 12 years of observation and calculation.
Great piece Dean. The Gacy analogy sums up, and slaps down, the WMD argument pretty well. The rest of the argument is much too logical for folks suffering from blood starvation to their brains because their 'I hate Bush' blinders are strapped so tightly to their heads.
Dean:
I know how you feel about this. I felt the same way. While others were busy trying to prove/disprove Iraq's links to al-Qaeda, I was more concerned with Iraq's links to Arafat. So I'm not sorry we went and I'm not sorry he's gone.
But that doesn't mean that I can shrug off POTUS' disingenuous lies about why we had to go.
Why not invoke the Bush Doctrine instead, i.e., "Those who support terror are the same as terrorists." Iraq's support of the murderous thug Arafat is all the proof I needed.
The American people are smart and we usually get it right. In the absence of any other proof, we would have accepted that alone as reason to topple Saddam (and Arafat too).
But don't take my word for it...Listen to Mark Bowden, the celebrated author of "Black Hawk Down" and a sincere supporter of the war:
"When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country.
"We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained."
P.S. For the record, I said the entire UN thing was a bad idea right from the start.
You didn't mention #2A: we had to get out of Saudi Arabia so we could start to finally put some pressure on the mother of all terrorist states.
Dean:
Another thing -- you say you don't give a rat's ass about WMD, giving instead a host of reasons why the war was justified (which I agree with, see above.)
But here's another point, made by Fred Kaplan at MSNBC:
"Like most public events, wars, even premeditated wars, rarely have a single rationale.
"But a powerful rejoinder comes from Tony Blair, the British prime minister.
'I have absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction,' Blair told reporters on Thursday.
"Asked if it matters whether they exist, Blair replied, 'It matters immensely because the basis on which the war was sold to the British House of Commons, to the British people, was that Saddam represented a serious threat.'
"It was, of course, sold on that basis to the Congress and to the American people, too."
Make no mistake: I am one who supported the war 100%. I supported the goals, the objectives, the strategies, the tactics, even the logistical decisions.
But when POTUS lies about the why of the war, then I'm with Mark Bowden:
"When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country."
But Dubya *didn't* lie when he made his arguments for the Battle of Iraq. He said it flat-out on national TV: "We will not tolerate nations who support terrorists, and who pose a threat the the United States."
Again, people are being too "nuanced". Over and over again, Bush says plain as day what he intends to do---but some people are too busy parsing his words and looking for penumbras and eminations and so miss the message.
The people spinning the "Bush lied" line aren't interested in reality; they have their Pravda and will stick to it.
First off, while Saddam may or may not have had WMD, he had the capability of it and the intention to develop them. Since the inspections would have ended at some point, he'd have then made them if he was being patient now. The only way to disarm Hussein was to destroy him. If the man was doing his best to convince us that he had WMD when he only meant to have them, what of it? This brings me to my next point.
I think that most Americans know, on a basic level, why we got rid of Hussein. He was a bad guy.
Simplistic? Yes. The world is sometimes simple.
Saddam Hussein was one of those men who is a threat so long as he lives. That's what a bad guy is. And he was it. So we killed him. That's what you do to bad guys.
I think, in truth, that the rest was just details about how pressing the matter was.
Also, I don't recall the POTUS ever claiming that Iraq had massive stores of WMD (other than perhaps the known stores that Iraq wouldn't verify were destroyed). He said that the important thing is disarmament. We have disarmed Hussein.
What some people are missing is the meaning of disarmed. If a man doesn't have a gun on him, but has a gun on the table, and means to pick it up as soon as you stop looking, shooting him before you turn around is disarming him. Hussein had the capability to make WMD at any time, and clearly had the intention of doing so at some point, not too far from now.
And all this is discounting the stuff that the inspectors did find, such as the long-range missiles and the long-range chemical attack drone. All of that was a violation of their declaration that they had nothing, and both in themselves a trigger for war. I find it odd that people forget that the world community found WMD in Iraq before we ever fired a shot. We knew that Bush was telling the truth before we went in.
But why should people let that stop them from raising the bar after the fact? After all, Bush has big ears. That alone should justify bashing him with anything, be it true or a lie. I mean, BIG EARS!
Dean, while I agree with you on all this, my argument remains that the chief public case for the war was WMD. Once President Bush let Colin Powell talk him into playing the silly UN game, the entire case shifted to WMD and inspections. Was that really why we went? Of course not. But that's why we said we went. I find that troubling.
Tom Friedman:
"...there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.
"The 'real reason' for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world.
"The 'right reason' for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime.
"The 'moral reason' for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass destruction and genocide that had killed thousands of his own people, and neighbors, and needed to be stopped.
"...the 'stated reason': the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America.
"...my ultimate point is this: Finding Iraq's W.M.D.'s is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the C.I.A.
"But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war.
"I won't feel one whit more secure if we find Saddam's W.M.D.'s, because I never felt he would use them on us. But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive path.
"Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and bad things will follow.
"Mr. Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not forget that."
James
I think WMDs were one of the main reasons we went, but not the only main reason. Bush was pretty clear,(at least it was clear to me) that another reason was the flouting of the Cease Fire agreement and UN resolutions, the continued evasion and fabrications etc. One of the reasons we went to the UN was to give us time to position the 3 ID and Marines into the area. What I find troubling is the fact that the CIA seems inept (along with the FBI and DOJ). And quite frankly I think Dean's reeasoning was the reasoning used by the realists, but try selling that to the World. We are going to pick a country and kick its ass, then we are going to park the 4ID and 3ID (each of whom have more firepower than some countries) in said country for a while, just in case, they are needed. So we went for the weakest argument, WMDs played it up and hoped for the best. If it wasn't 100% accurate oh well. Now that the Mullahs and othe crazies see what a determined US can do, maybe some of the fantasy worlds they live in will fade away. If not, then they will meet Allah in person, courtesy of the USA.
I quite agree: "Bush lied" is a statement made by people who automatically put a negative spin on anything he says or does.
Because it was not, and never was, a lie.
Furthermore, his "credibility" will not be hurt by his "lies" with anyone he ever had any credibility with in the first place. It will only be "hurt" by people who automatically assume he's a liar on any matter where he disagrees with them.
Because they weren't lies, and they weren't spin. They were entirely honest reasons for going to war, and entirely valid. They just weren't the main ones, or the most important ones, for the United States. For the UN, yes, but not for the US.
As for the choice to go to the UN: it allowed us time for a military buildup, and it brought us allies and support we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It was the right thing to do.
The WMDs do not need to be found--only the capability for manufacturing them, and the proof that Saddam was hiding same.
Which, of course, we already have.
"Bush lied" is just partisan nonsense, and not something I'll ever be able to take seriously. Nor do I think most people will ever think so. I think of this as something Bush critics have seized on because they have no other issue with any credibility. If it weren't this, they'd be latching on to something even more flimsy--although this is awfully flimsy already, if you ask me.
Dean:
You know what's funny? I'm not the typical "Bush critic" you seem to be describing. Holy cow, what do you want? I supported the war (and still do). I defended the Bush Doctrine (apparently more than many "pro-Bush" defenders, and perhaps POTUS himself).
I had no problem with POTUS sending in the troops.
But lying about WHY we were going....? Why on earth would he do that?
THAT's what bothers me. Because it is so unlike him.
Or so I thought.
I believe that well never be able to justify and there'll be carps and errors to every statement we make about this war as not many of our statements can be justified. but one thing i do know is that in this capitalist oriented world the US has made a good deal of financial benefit by exercising the oil for food program: not only can surplus agriculture production be easily disposed off but a precious working asset of this era can be attained almost for free.
But lying about WHY we were going....? Why on earth would he do that?
THAT's what bothers me. Because it is so unlike him.
Or so I thought.
If you are willing to accept that the president was lying based on little or no evidence, why can't you accept the already existing evidence of WMD, some already discussed in posts here, as being real?
IF the president were to be caught in a big lie, which I don't think will be the case, there will be plenty of time later, to say I told you so.
To try to build a bandwagon from nothing, as you are jumping on it, is more the style of the Maureen Dowds and Michael Moores of the world.
I do think that more evidence is forthcoming on the WMD issue and I do think it will have an impact on the Presidents credibility if not enough evidence is revealed. Some of the impact real and some manufactured no doubt as elections roll around. I don't think the evidence will amount to as much as some were lead to believe or some have chosen to believe.
The question for me isn’t that Bush lied about the weapons, we know that there were weapons because we (along with everyone else in the world, it seems) gave them to Saddam. We know about the weapons because of a great heaping zillion page report Saddam gave to the UN. We know that there _were_ weapons in Iraq...
What we don’t know is what happened to them. The absolute best case scenario is that they remain buried in the desert forever. Next best is that we find them. Second to worst is the thought that Saddam gave them to terrorists before Saddam died. Worst is the thought that Terrorists might stumble over them some day and we won’t know until they are used. It’s the last two that keep me up at night...
To sum up: the pressing question is not "where were they", but rather "where are they?"
(I had more on this a bit ago)
Correct, Casey.
I also recall very clearly that, leading up to the VOTE IN CONGRESS LAST SEPTEMBER, the Bush administration using FAR more arguments about going after Saddam than just WMDs. Human rights, terrorist ties, and long-term strategic intersts were all discussed. Only after the President had gotten his authorization from Congress, and decided to go to the UN, did WMDs become the primary focus.
Now it's "lies! lies!" and "we were sold this war on WMDs!" Yeah, whatever. By the way, here are some more "lies" for ya:
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." - the President
"There has never been an embargo against food and medicine. It's just that Hussein has just not chosen to spend his money on that. Instead, he has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - the Secretary of State
"The United Nations has determined that Saddam should not possess chemical or biological or nuclear weapons, and what we have is the obligation to carry out the U.N. declaration." - the Secretary of Defense
"It is ineffectual; it is not able to do its job by its own judgment. It doesn't provide much deterrence against WMD activity." - the president's National Security Adviser, speaking about the U.N. inspections regime.
"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." - a prominent senator of the president's party.
"For the United States and Britain, an Iraq equipped with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons under the leadership of Saddam Hussein is a threat that almost goes without description. France, on the other hand, has long established economic and political relationships within the Arab world, and has had a different approach." - another prominent senator of the president's party.
Who uttered these "lies?" These "lies" were said, respectively, by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Sen. Tom Daschle and Sen. John Kerry.
So I guess they must have been lies--Democrats said them, right?
(The above stolen shamelessly from Bill Hobbs.
Don't change the subject, my good friend.
Just admit it. POTUS corked his bat.
He got caught. He ought to fess up.
All I want to know is...why? He can hit it out of the park without the cork, so...why?
Your server appears to be down again, so I couldn't see your article.
Barring anything that hasn't already been discussed here, though, I stand by my statements. This "Bush lied" stuff is fatuous.
Nah. Server's fine. POTUS crashed. Heh.
Sad, but predictable. The desperation inherent in this foolishness about "he lied" is what's most striking to me.
Wanting to believe it just won't make it so, though.
Damn. I wish I knew where my other post went! Ah, well...
Ara, you haven't produced one single fact to support your claim that Bush lied. Not one. You can quote MSNBC or Tom Friedman opinions all day long, as they contain no factual data either.
So, to reiterate: you say Bush lied. Prove it. That's not hard, is it?
On Dean's World you have not yet cited ONE fact indicating that the president lied. Not one. The best you've come up with is quoting two editorials that contain no facts as well, and a link to a baseball story.
I checked the arguments you presented at your blog:
"I think he lied.
There's too much at stake to believe that this was an "oopsy-daisy" moment, that the intelligence was bad.
And I don't believe that Rumsfeld and Tenet are running the Oval Office, i.e., that the intelligence was cooked and spoonfed to POTUS.
Me? I think George W. Bush lied. "
(emphasis added)
So. We have two "I think"s, an "I don't believe", and your personal inabilty to believe that the intel was bad.
Not good enough bunky.
To repeat: I can provide at least three scenarios that explain how the president could, in good faith and honesty, claim that Iraq had WMD's, and why. I guarentee you won't be able to come up with any facts to counter them (sorry, personal prejudice and incomprehension don't count).
I asked before: where's your PROOF? I'm still waiting...
Whoopsie. I see I should have put this in "Prediction for Iraqi WMDs." Please disregard here. :)
its not about facts. its about repeating the assertion. and Bush's critics know that and don't care cuz its about how he should not have left himself open. They dont like him and will assume the worst about him and are happy because now they can. its not about facts at all.