2. 2002 On Oct 07, Bush gives a speech on national TV introducing and promoting his legislation to authorize his invasion. It did emphasize threat from Hussein weapons and violations involving those weapons. But it also relegated such concerns to equality with other requirements:
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In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. And it must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot, whose fate is still unknown...
America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights -- to the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. Iraq is a land rich in culture, resources, and talent. Freed from the weight of oppression, Iraq's people will be able to share in the progress and prosperity of our time.
If military action is necessary, the United States and our allies will help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy, and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq at peace with its neighbors.
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3. 2002 Bush gets passed his act, the "Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq" (also documented here and here). This provides the official justification for his invasion. It lists many planks other than WMD violations, including human rights violations, Hussein's govt's support for non-Al Qaida terrorist groups, implementing the 1991 UN cease fire resolution and other resolutions, and also the Iraq Liberation Act, which clearly establishes democracy as a US foreign policy objective in Iraq. Wikipedia summarizes it accurately: "The resolution cited many factors to justify action", and then lists 11 planks, including "the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement."
Bush's "Signing Statement" announced: "to Iraq's tyrannical regime a powerful and important message: the days of Iraq flouting the will of the world, brutalizing its own people, and terrorizing its neighbors must -- and will -- end." It did not mention WMD or "imminent threat."
How is it, then, that Tom, Nadir, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins all developed the impression that WMD stood as Bush's single reason for invading Iraq? That "establishing a democracy" concerns about human rights got tagged on only after the invasion proved that WMDs did not exist? Where in Bush's UN speech or in his US legislation does WMD possession by Hussein stand alone? Where does it stand without equal weight given to human rights abuses?
I recall in debating to give my support for this war, before the invasion, one absolute requirement that I had: that Bush's forces of Hussein overthrow would explicitly act to facilitate the establishment of a democracy as one stated requirement of victory. I understood that to be the case prior to making my decision, and a key element in my conferring support.
How did Tom, Nadir, and the others miss this point? I can understand them accusing Bush of "lying" in 2002 about promising to erect a democracy in Iraq -- because they say he is lying about this now -- but on what basis do they claim that before the invasion that he ever omitted such a factor from his stated objectives?
15 comments:
No one denies that Bush produced new justifications for inavding Iraq nearly on a daily basis. The problem, though, is that if human rights is the problem, why not invade Nigeria, which systematically oppresses the people whose ancestral land contains oil; and if support for terrorism is the thing, then why not go after Saudi Arabia? (And what's this "non-al Queda" business? Bush and Cheney both repeatedly publicly indulged the fantasy that Hussien supported Al Queda--a falsehood they used as a lever to prop up public support for the war.)
The onlu justification that specifically applied to Iraq--and the one, as I'm sure you will acknowledge, they flogged the most loudly and persistently--was the one about how Iraq posed an imminent threat to US security. And while the UN was in the process of rendering this fantasy baseless, Bush launched his war. A trillion bucks, several thousand U.S. lives, and god knows how many Iraqi lives later, most people now see this as an unmitigated disaster at best -- and a criminal sham at worst.
But if the US does manage to install a permanent U.S. base there, Bush may well get the last laugh, the scoundrel.
To what level must this profoundly small man sink before he loses the respect and esteem of reformed leftists? Are you impressed by his U.S. attorney purge?
And I will underscore, it was this IMMINENT THREAT that was the justification for an invasion immediatly. There was no time for the UN inspectors to finish their work. Indeed, Tony Blair said Iraq could launch an attack in 45 minutes.
Everyone agreed that Hussein was an evil tyrant. The world had tolerated him for years as it has other evil regimes. Why was it so urgent? Perhaps because if the inspectors found no evidence of WMDs there would be no justification for an immediate invasion.
Why do you continue to defend Bush? If you were duped by his lies, then you are "covered" as you say. Do you feel guilty that you didn't see through him like the majority of the world did?
Tom writes: =================
No one denies that Bush produced new justifications for invading Iraq nearly on a daily basis.
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And yet that's not what I'm claiming. I claim that Bush ***ALWAYS*** included WMD along side other planks, such as human rights and UN violations. When did he ever *NOT*? When he went before the UN and the US Congress he listed a variety of justifications; WMD was just one. In both of his formal pre-war statements he presented WMD existing in Iraq as one factor, and not even as a lychpin factor. He said in each case that Iraq would have to meet all the requirements in order to avoid invasion.
Tom writes:========================
is that if human rights is the problem, why not invade Nigeria?
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Because Nigeria has not openly supported terrorist groups that have attacked the US; the UN does not have outstanding cease-fire agreements violated by Nigeria that would otherwise have effected a UN-sanctioned invasion of Nigeria 10 years ago; Nigeria does not possess what everybody considers to be the best military in the region from which the 911 attacks sprang.
Tom wrote: ====================
why not go after Saudi Arabia?
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Because SA's support for terrorists is unofficial; it's govt has not invaded other countries in recent history; no violated UN sanctions that would otherwise enable a UN-approved invasion are outstanding; it does not possess a military considered substantial in that region.
Tom wrote: ==============
And what's this "non-al Queda" business?
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Because although the Bushies claimed a Hussein-Qaida link, that was not the only terrorist link that they cited in their list of justifications. You guys pick the one or two justifications that you are certain are incorrect (WMD possession and Al Qaida link) and inexplicably behave as if that renders meaningless the other justifications. Yet only in your own minds, and those of your fellow travelers, was that list all-or-nothing. Bush never said that of his list; why did you guys interpret it this way? Find one plank, or even two, that is incorrect, and then that falsifies the entire list.
Tom wrote: =====================
The onlu justification that specifically applied to Iraq--and the one, as I'm sure you will acknowledge, they flogged the most loudly and persistently--was the one about how Iraq posed an imminent threat to US security
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That is far from the only justification that "specifically applied to Iraq". Iraq wasn't the only govt that openly supported some of the islamic terrorists. But it was the only one such state that had pending violations of a cease-fire agreement that otherwise permitted an invasion; and it was the only such state to have invaded any of its neighbors, in this case, two.
I do not recall, and now cannot find, any justification for your characterization here that "imminent danger" was something that the Bushies treated as a singular justification. I never believed these claims by the Bushies, by the way, so my support bore not dependency on that claim. And I do wish that they had not made this claim.
Tom wrote: =====================
But if the US does manage to install a permanent U.S. base there, Bush may well get the last laugh, the scoundrel.
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Only if you believe that is his real aim, which I do not. Bush only wins if that nation comes as a whole to resemble its Kurdish third: a moderate, peaceful, democratic, free market. A US base may or may not help such a victory to occur, but in no way figures into what we supporters of invasion regard as our standard of victory; and historians surely will not either.
Tom wrote: =======================
To what level must this profoundly small man sink before he loses the respect and esteem of reformed leftists?
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He already has, my friend. The torturing, the failure to populate the martial govt with Iraqi nationals rather than US honkies, having one of those honkey's kid relatives design the Iraqi flag, etc., etc.
Nadir wrote: =====================
it was this IMMINENT THREAT that was the justification for an invasion immediatly.
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Based on what? Not in his UN speach or his speech to congress or the resulting US law. Only you guys make this claim; no Bushie nor Bush supporter ever did.
Nadir wrote: ================
There was no time for the UN inspectors to finish their work.
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The UN had, what, 13 years to complete this work. After 911, Bush declared, finally: time up.
Nadir & Tom: On Bush's list of justifications and objectives which he consistently used pre-invasion, and demonstrably so in the two official important steps of addressing the UN and congress, perhaps his critics latched hold of the singe issue of WMD and "imminent threat", and thus created a debate on that. I do not deny that. But that is far different than saying that Bush in his official and rhetorical pitch inherently made such a focus.
Paul says, "But that is far different than saying that Bush in his official and rhetorical pitch inherently made such a focus."
You must have been in another galaxy when all this was going on.
And if you deny that Bush wanted to invade because of an imminent threat, then you supported an invasion based on an eventual threat.
In this case, do you support an invasion of North Korea? How about Venezeula? Or Cuba? Or Canada? Or Detroit? Each region includes elements that could eventually become a threat to the US, but aren't right now.
I was not in another galaxy. I was right here listening to and reading Bush's speech to the UN and his national TV speech promoting the congressional legislation, and reading that legislation. I have reproduced all of that here, and I conclude one of the following:
1. You, Tom, and the other never read these documents.
2. You guys read these documents but have some sort of reading comprehension problem, perhaps an intellectual block assisting in preserving conclusions to which have married yourselves.
3. You guys read only portions of these documents.
I never thought that Iraq posed an imminent threat. That language appears, by the way, in neither the UN speech or the US legislation. And while it also doesn't appear in Bush's speech promoting the legislation, Bush does devote most of his language to potential threat.
All of the other nations, and even Detroit, pose potential threats, I suppose. However:
1. None have officially harbored terrorists that attacked the US.
2. None have invaded neighboring nations.
3. None have outstanding, constantly violated cease-fire agreements otherwise preventing an invasion.
4. None have what everybody considers to be the mightiest military in the region that produced the 911 terrorists.
I don't deny that among the reasons on Bush's unchanging, documented official list of justifications, he included a "threat" and that at some point he or his employees described this as "imminent" or potentially so.
I merely deny that this ever stood as a single reason used by him to justify his invasion, or a reason that if taken off the table would have eliminated Bush's justification, which he clearly documented as multi-planked and all-inclusive.
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