Choice - the Bush way....
Only on Planet Bush could these two statements be made in practically the same sentence.I obviously thought he had weapons, he didn't have weapons; the world thought he had weapons.
And then, seconds later:As you might remember back then, we tried the diplomatic route: 1441 was a unanimous vote in the Security Council that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. So the choice was his to make. And he made -- he made a choice that has subsequently left -- subsequently caused him to lose his life.
Saddam did disclose. He said he didn't have them. The problem was that Bush refused to believe that Saddam didn't have them.
And, given the fact that he didn't have the weapons, we can assume it was impossible for him to disarm a second time, so what was Saddam's choice again?
7 comments:
Saddam did disclose. He said he didn't have them. The problem was that Bush refused to believe that Saddam didn't have them.
You are mistaken. There was a UN process in place for verification of disarmament. He did not use it. His regime was meticulous about keeping records and while he verified the destruction of some weapons according to the process that was in place, he did not disclose them all and in fact continued to play games with the inspectors.
Every major intelligence agency in the world thought he had the weapons. Hussein apparently wanted everyone to think he had the weapons, probably as a deterrent for the Iranians. In interviews after the war, many of his own generals thought they had weapons.
Hussein did have a choice to make. He could have let the inspectors carry out their mandate per UN resolutions, and he could have verified the destruction of his weapons and programs according to the UN processes that were in place. He chose to do neither.
You are mistaken. There was a UN process in place for verification of disarmament. He did not use it.
Oh, he did use it. He supplied the UN with thousands of pages of facts.
He didn't turn over records of the destruction of WMD because didn't keep records of the destruction of his chemical and biological weapons for the reasons you rightly stated. Fear of Iran. Although the US knew he had destroyed them because Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son in law, told them they had been destroyed when he defected to Jordan.
Indeed, he went on CNN and told the world that Saddam had destroyed them:
“Can you state here and now - does Iraq still to this day hold weapons of mass destruction?”
He replied: “No. Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. I am being completely honest about this.”
Hussein Kamel said the same thing to a UNSCOM/IAEA team, led by the then head of UNSCOM, Rolf Ekeus, which interviewed him in Amman on 22 August 1995. This was first reported by Newsweek a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 (see, for example, [5]). Shortly afterwards, a 15-page “note for the file” on the interview (headed UNSCOM/IAEA SENSITIVE) came into the public domain [6]. In it, Hussein Kamel is quoted as saying:
“All weapons – biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.” (p13).
On chemical weapons, he said:
“All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons.” (p13)
Earlier (p7), he described anthrax as the “main focus” of Iraq’s biological weapons programme and when asked “were weapons and agents destroyed?”, he replied: “nothing remained”.
Asked about the 819 Soviet-made missiles Iraq was known to have purchased in the 1980s, he replied:
“Not a single missile left, but they had blueprints and molds [sic] for production. All missiles were destroyed.” (p8)
And, of course, we know that Saddam was under sanctions and had no way of reconstructing them.
Every major intelligence agency in the world thought he had the weapons.
An utterly irrelevant fact that war supporters bandy about. Not another single country believed he was a significant enough threat to warrant an invasion.
Hussein did have a choice to make. He could have let the inspectors carry out their mandate per UN resolutions
He did this. Blix reported that he was co-operating.
and he could have verified the destruction of his weapons and programs according to the UN processes that were in place
That was impossible as he didn't keep any records for the reasons you have stated. And the truth is, no matter what Saddam did or didn't do, Bush was always going in.
You are simply talking pro-Bush nonsense and ignoring screeds of evidence to the contrary if you accept Bush's notion that "Saddam had a choice".
The Downing Street Memo revealed that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The memo shows that "the UN weapons inspection process was manipulated to provide a legal pretext for the war, and that pre-war air strikes were deliberately ramped up in order to soften Iraqi infrastructure in preparation for war, prior to the October congressional vote permitting the invasion."
In fact, Bush is on record as asking Tony Blair to support removing Saddam nine days after 9-11. Indeed, Paul O'Neill reported in his book that Bush wanted to remove Saddam from the very beginning of his administration.
“It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, ‘Go find me a way to do this.’”
Indeed, he was so keen to invade in 2003 that shortly before the war Bush was wanting to send US planes into Iraq painted in UN colours in the hope of provoking Saddam to shoot them down and give him a pretence for war. The idea that Bush was passive and simply giving Saddam "a choice" doesn't stand up to a moment's examination of the facts. I think this hackneyed defence you are spouting for Bush would have been more effective in 2002/3. Four years later, there have simply been too many leaks for that story to hold water.
You really must be living in a bubble if you seriously think that "Saddam had a choice".
He didn't turn over records of the destruction of WMD because didn't keep records of the destruction of his chemical and biological weapons for the reasons you rightly stated. Fear of Iran.
Exactly. His claims were not verified although he was given a vehicle that according to the UN was the acceptable means of verification. He could have done this, but he chose not to and instead displayed a continuing pattern of obstruction.
And, of course, we know that Saddam was under sanctions and had no way of reconstructing them.
Yeah, those sanctions were doing a wonderful job. There was absolutely no sanctions busting going on. Those were some nice new palaces and "mosques" built though, weren't they.
Every major intelligence agency in the world thought he had the weapons.
An utterly irrelevant fact that war supporters bandy about.
Well, when national intelligence shapes policy, it's anything but irrelevant. Some guy interviewed on CNN... that's irrelevant.
Not another single country believed he was a significant enough threat to warrant an invasion.
Well, most nations viewed Iraq as a threat to peace in general, and in particular believed that they maintained both WMD arsenals and active programs (having used them in the past), and I'm pretty sure that neither you nor I are privy to knowledge for every country in the world to make a determination as to what level they viewed that threat. What we do know is that the US and several other countries did in fact invade. Aside from that though, I thought we'd long since established that what other countries think is particularly important as far as our national interests go.
You really must be living in a bubble if you seriously think that "Saddam had a choice".
Well, I don't see any bubbles around. Saddam had many choices. He could have chosen not to gas his own people. He could have chosen not to murder hundreds of thousands and bury many of them in mass graves. He could have chosen not to have attacked Kuwait. He could have chosen to follow all the UN resolutions made against him since 1991. He could have chosen not to support international terrorism, including the PLF, Abu Nidal Organization, and your Palestinian heroes' martyrdom operations to name a few. He could have chosen not to drain the marshes. He could hav chosen not to commit ethnic cleansing in places like Kirkuk and others. Saddam had many choices, but never missed an opportunity to make the wrong ones.
Ah, the Jason debating technique. Ignore anything that is awkward and simply repeat GOP talking points.
We are talking about whether or not Saddam had a choice. Meaning whether there is anything that Saddam could have done to prevent the invasion.
I contend that there is nothing and that Bush was always intent on removing him. I notice that you skipped past all of those points.
I'll repost and give you a further opportunity to tell me how, given this level of determination in the Bush camp, you feel that Saddam seriously had a choice:
The Downing Street Memo revealed that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The memo shows that "the UN weapons inspection process was manipulated to provide a legal pretext for the war, and that pre-war air strikes were deliberately ramped up in order to soften Iraqi infrastructure in preparation for war, prior to the October congressional vote permitting the invasion."
In fact, Bush is on record as asking Tony Blair to support removing Saddam nine days after 9-11. Indeed, Paul O'Neill reported in his book that Bush wanted to remove Saddam from the very beginning of his administration.
“It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, ‘Go find me a way to do this.’”
Indeed, he was so keen to invade in 2003 that shortly before the war Bush was wanting to send US planes into Iraq painted in UN colours in the hope of provoking Saddam to shoot them down and give him a pretence for war.
If all of the above doesn't convince you that Bush was going to invade no matter what, if you seriously believe Bush when he states that he had not made a decision to invade, then you obviously put blind faith in Bush before facts.
The choice had been made by Bush, and the choice was regime change. There is not a single thing Saddam could have done to prevent that. And I actually don't think you are dumb enough to believe what you are saying. I know you like to defend the GOP line, but seriously, Jason... stop it. We BOTH know the neo-cons were always going to take Saddam out. It's simply fantastical to pretend otherwise.
Speaking of debating techniques, it is clear that you are quite familiar with the Straw Man and most certainly the ad hominem.
I know for a fact that regime change in Iraq was US policy. I didn't think that was even a point worth debating. Regime change was actually official US policy since the Clinton administration.
However, I disagree invasion was inevitable. For example, I'm pretty certain that had the UN shown a united front and had France (among others) not been duplicitous, invasion may have been avoided. But that's something we'll never know.
Personally I'd been for his removal since 1990 and wish we were able to accomplish it in 1991. I volunteered for two tours in the theater to back that belief up. So unlike you, my position on the topic has never had anything to do with who is President.
I know for a fact that regime change in Iraq was US policy.
Yes, it was but Clinton always understood that to be encouraging reform from within. The difference when Bush came to power - and I gave you many examples of this - is that Bush almost immediately set out to find a reason to invade. And you do realise that making something official US policy does not automatically make any action taken to achieve that policy legal under international law?
However, I disagree invasion was inevitable. For example, I'm pretty certain that had the UN shown a united front and had France (among others) not been duplicitous, invasion may have been avoided.
That's the Blair argument that if they got the second resolution Saddam might have complied. I regard that as a nonsense. If you gave those people legitimacy to invade it is proposterous to think that they would not have done so, especially as they invaded without legitimacy anyway. And that theory is based on Saddam handing over weapons that he didn't have or documentation that we both know he didn't keep. So I fail to grasp how you can even consider that the second resolution could have prevented war.
For instance we know that Bush and Cheney didn't even want to go to the UN and only did so to appease Blair. So, if they had had their way the invasion would have gone ahead with no UN resolution.
And surely the fact he was going to send US planes painted in US colours in the hope that Saddam would attack them tells you that this man was looking for a reason to invade?
Why else would he even propose such a thing?
Sorry I should have picked you up on this in my last comment:
So unlike you, my position on the topic has never had anything to do with who is President.
You are being remarkably presumptuous here. I would not have supported Clinton had he attempted to invade Iraq.
And I voted for Blair and campaigned for him and donated to his party and then found myself marching through London with two million other people because I opposed his policy.
I promise you my support for or against wars is not dependent on who is in power at the time. It's dependent on whether I regard the cause as just.
You might find this hard to believe but Blair almost split the Labour Party with that war. I think it was something like 122 of his own members who voted against the war, the largest backbench rebellion in British parliamentary history. So Labour supporters don't back something just because it's their lot that are in power, which you were certainly implying as regard to myself. That's simply untrue.
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