We go to war preemptively on Iraq
Fourth in a series analyzing the reasons we go to war
with some groups and not others and the manner in which we stumbled into Iraq.
To read in order:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0137954/2004/06/24.html
http://radio.weblogs.com/0137954/2004/07/01.html
http://radio.weblogs.com/0137954/2004/07/08.html
In the last piece I stated belief
that Saddam was extremely dangerous to America and American interests, volatile
and threatening to boil over. This danger has been discounted by critics particularly in light of the failure to find any WMD. At the
time, I supported the war. My
justification,
however, was, because of the potential danger and though I went along,
I had no sense of the imperative immediacy of the Bush administration.
I thought the real problems
were a year away and depended on Saddam’s support from France, Germany
and
Russia. I thought we would go to war
soon enough and we would do it with a coalition much like that of 1991, the
first gulf war. I was wrong. From the Bob Woodward book, “Plan of
Attack”, we learn, the Bush administration, at the urging of Colin Powell,
decided to go to the U.N. It was not
the first instinct of his advisers. They, particularly Vice President Cheney,
believed the U.N. was weak and incapable of effective action They thought it
was possible the U.N. could succeed in reestablishing a containment regime.
This was unacceptable. They wanted war and were afraid of being boxed in. This was their particular moral failure.
They preferred war to a solution that might have worked. War was their choice
in the face of other possibilities. Yet, the president had been convinced,
by Powell, of the dangers of going it alone. They decided to put the burden upon
the U.N. by insisting that if the U.N. allowed Saddam to flaunt its resolutions
it would become irrelevant like the pre WWII League of Nations.
On September 12, 2003 the president
made his speech to the U.N. general assembly.
Having put the U.N. on notice, he urged the U.S. Congress to pass a
resolution authorizing the use of force. The republicans supported their
president. Most democrats went along, some for purposes of politics, some out
of true belief. Many from both parties
now profess that they didn’t mean to give the president a blank check and they
expected the U.N. to be a major part of any operation. When we started building up our
forces in the region, I thought we were leaders of the eventual U.N.coalition that would complete the
job of ousting Saddam Hussein. As it became more and more clear that we were
not going to get support from the security council, I went along with those who
were questioning the validity of the U.N. in such matters. I believed that the
historic European tendency toward appeasement was dominating the security
council and that the U.S. by acting alone would shame them into getting on
board. I was wrong.
The three Amigos of Europe, France Germany and Russia hardened their
positions. (We have since learned of corruption in the oil for food program
on a scale that could certainly have influenced the policy of these countries,
but that is speculation on my part) We were isolated and our troops were hanging out the in Kuwait, on
alert. Their presence became one of the forces driving us to war. The U.N. agreed only to demand
another regime of weapons inspectors and Saddam gave in. Hans Blix, the chief
U.N. inspector found, no WMD, but repeatedly accused Saddam of failing to
cooperate. The U.S. went back to the
U.N. Colin Powell gave his now discredited speech about WMD intelligence, still
the security council failed to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force.
Using previous U.N. resolutions far weaker than they wished, the Bush
administration, along with the British and a bevy of small nations, “the
coalition of the willing”, went to war. We all know the results.
The personal instincts
of the president and his advisors to go to war proceeded because world
events, which they largely manipulated, had given them the
tiniest margin of cover, the smallest permission. That small sliver of
permission consisted of the of the lack of a security council
resolution condemning the U.S. for its actions. Next, the fallout
6:21:16 AM 
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