Going to War in Iraq
Finally, Iraq. Why was Iraq an enemy we would go to war
with while Iran and North Korea, the other two members of the so-called axis of
evil were not? The decision process must
be broken down into two sections. The first, the thought processes and personal
reasons of those that actually make the decision to go to war, the second, the
dynamics that allow the actual order to proceed. The second is fairly well
described in two Bob Woodward books,
“Bush at War” about Afghanistan and “Plan of Attack” about Iraq. I
am not happy using only one resource to draw conclusions and to fuel my own
speculations, but until the players start writing their memoirs these two books
represent the closest available depictions of the decision making process.
The evidence shows that the
president started preparing for war shortly after 9/11. It does not show how
long he had been thinking about it. There has been much speculation. Some have
said that he was trying to complete unfinished business of his father. Others
have said it was to increase his own wealth and the wealth of his friends in
the oil business. Perhaps it was
revenge because his father was personally attacked by Saddam Hussein. It could have something to do with his
personal religious intensity or even the megalomania of seeing himself as the
servant of God striking down evil.
These venal motivations have to play at least a small part, because the
president is human. We will never know.
Even when he writes his memoirs, he will minimize his personal motivations and
concentrate on his job, as president, to provide security for the American
people. Whatever it was, there is no
doubt that long before the war planning, long before world events conspired to
make the war possible, George W. Bush decided, he could go to war. American policy and world events gave him
the public permission to do so.
To understand the public policy, we
must go back to the 80’s and remember that we armed and supported Saddam in his
war against Iran. This was balance of power politics. We were angry and afraid
of Iran. It was cynical and as so many other times in the past a cynical policy
came back to haunt us. We had created a major player. When he invaded Kuwait, we reacted with Desert Storm.
Why? Oil plays a part, because it is the lifeblood of western industrial
civilization. Big enough oil shocks would cause a destabilization that would
lead to violence and chaos on an
unimagined scale. But the
president of that time, George H.W. Bush, said “This aggression shall not
stand”. I chose to believe that the
most important concept was that one country could no longer aspire to take
territory from another by military force. I believe this a principle worth
fighting for and long overdue. It establishes the precedent that the U.S. can
intervene for reasons other than its own immediate national security. It was
fortunate, that a broad coalition was put together to approve and
help execute our response, because, though it is well established that an
individual nation can act to defend itself,
to act for other reasons, no matter how well intentioned, can appear as
naked aggression.
We won the gulf war and found that
Saddam was well on his way to building a nuclear weapons capability and already
had, at his disposal, chemical and biological weapons. We encouraged Iraqis to revolt. Sadly, because we didn’t help,
Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south became victims of mass murder. Now
we faced a rogue dictator, armed with WMD, out of control, and at war with his
own people. In response we created no-fly zones in the north and south, a
regime of economic sanctions and mandatory weapons inspections. This was the
policy of containment and it was necessary.
With some considerable interference
from Saddam, the weapons inspections continued until 1998. It should be noted
also that President Clinton, in response to a new buildup of Iraqi forces on
the Kuwaiti border, had to send troops to the region twice in this period. In
both cases, the American action prompted Saddam to stand down, but there was
every indication, including the firing upon U.S. and British planes, that
Saddam’s aggression could boil over at any time. In 1998, Saddam ejected the weapons inspectors. After much saber
rattling, the Clinton administration decided to do nothing. Now we had no way
of knowing whether he was reconstituting his WMD. At the time, I thought it was the height of irresponsibility to
allow the situation to fester, but we
did. Our only reaction was to pass a
law calling for and funding regime change in Iraq. There were some attempts by
the CIA which failed. Not much else was done.
France, Germany and Russia were all
doing business with Iraq and wanted to do more. They started an international
campaign to end economic sanctions. Indeed,
the oil for food program was started. We now had the possibility of facing a
newly financed Saddam Hussein, without sanctions, with support from our allies.
We could look forward to the loss of support for the entire containment process
including the no-fly zones.
It was and is my belief that Saddam
Hussein, no longer contained, showing no sign of having calmed his personal
ambitions, with no external interference would have, reconstituted his chemical
and biological weapons and proceeded with his nuclear program. It was and still
is my belief that he would have used them aggressively against America.
Next, we act preemptively
2:42:08 PM 
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