Sunday 18 January 2004
Of the many issues competing for attention in this
new and defining year, one is of a unique order of magnitude: President
Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq. The facts demonstrate how dishonest
that decision was. As former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill recently
confirmed, the debate over military action began as soon as President Bush
took office. Some felt Saddam Hussein could be contained without war. A
month after the inauguration, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said: "We
have kept him contained, kept him in his box." The next day, he said
tellingly that Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with
respect to weapons of mass destruction."
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, gave advocates of war
the opening they needed. They tried immediately to tie Hussein to al Qaeda
and the terrorist attacks. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld created
an Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon to analyze the intelligence for
war and bypass the traditional screening process. Vice President Cheney
relied on intelligence from Iraqi exiles and put pressure on intelligence
agencies to produce the desired result.
The war in Afghanistan began in October with
overwhelming support in Congress and the country. But the focus on Iraq
continued behind the scenes, and President Bush went along. In the Rose
Garden on Nov. 26, he said: "Afghanistan is still just the beginning."
Three days later, Cheney publicly began to send
signals about attacking Iraq. On Nov. 29 he said: "I don't think it takes a
genius to figure out that this guy [Hussein] is clearly . . . a significant
potential problem for the region, for the United States, for everybody with
interests in the area." On Dec. 12 he raised the temperature: "If I were
Saddam Hussein, I'd be thinking very carefully about the future, and I'd be
looking very closely to see what happened to the Taliban in Afghanistan."
Next, Karl Rove, in a rare public stumble, made his
own role clear, telling the Republican National Committee on Jan. 19, 2002,
that the war on terrorism could be used politically. Republicans could "go
to the country on this issue," he said.
Ten days later, in his State of the Union address,
President Bush invoked the "axis of evil" -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea --
and we lost our clear focus on al Qaeda. The address contained 12 paragraphs
on Afghanistan and 29 on the war on terrorism, but only one fleeting mention
of al Qaeda. It said nothing about the Taliban or Osama bin Laden.
In the following months, although bin Laden was
still at large, the drumbeat on Iraq gradually drowned out those who felt
Hussein was no imminent threat. On Sept. 12 the president told the United
Nations: "Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical
agents and has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes
used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon." He said Iraq could build a
nuclear weapon "within a year" if Hussein obtained such material.
War on Iraq was clearly coming, but why make this
statement in September? As White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.
said, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in
August." The 2002 election campaigns were then entering the home stretch.
Election politics prevailed over foreign policy and national security. The
administration insisted on a vote in Congress to authorize the war before
Congress adjourned for the elections. Why? Because the debate would distract
attention from the troubled economy and the failed effort to capture bin
Laden. The shift in focus to Iraq could help Republicans and divide
Democrats.
The tactic worked. Republicans voted almost
unanimously for war and kept control of the House in the elections.
Democrats were deeply divided and lost their majority in the Senate. The
White House could use its control of Congress to get its way on key domestic
priorities.
The final step in the march to war was a feint to
the United Nations. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
D. Wolfowitz had convinced the president that war would be a cakewalk, with
or without the United Nations, and that our forces would be welcomed as
liberators. In March the war began.
Hussein's brutal regime was not an adequate
justification for war, and the administration did not seriously try to make
it one until long after the war began and all the false justifications began
to fall apart. There was no imminent threat. Hussein had no nuclear weapons,
no arsenals of chemical or biological weapons, no connection to Sept. 11 and
no plausible link to al Qaeda. We never should have gone to war for
ideological reasons driven by politics and based on manipulated
intelligence.
Vast resources have been spent on the war that
should have been spent on priorities at home. Our forces are stretched thin.
Precious lives have been lost. The war has made America more hated in the
world and made the war on terrorism harder to win. As Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge said in announcing the latest higher alert: "Al Qaeda's
continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland is perhaps
greater now than at any point since September 11th."
The most fundamental decision a president ever makes
is the decision to go to war. President Bush violated the trust that must
exist between government and the people. If Congress and the American people
had known the truth, America would never have gone to war in Iraq. No
president who does that to our country deserves to be reelected.
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