I am looking for instances where Bush actually said “Iraq is an imminent danger to America and its allies.” Some argue that pre-emptive war does not assume that the object of pre-emptive aggression is an imminent threat. I’m surprised at this, because I can’t think of an acceptable time-frame before attack unless the threat is imminent. Perhaps the term “imminent” is vague and needs clarification.
To that end, I go back to Bush’s speech in Cincinnatti, Ohio on 7 October 2002. In that speech, Bush made the case for pre-emptive attack on Iraq. Among other things, our President said:
“Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons and to stop all support for terrorist groups.
The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people.”
OK. Iraq has WMD and supports terrorism. Let’s see what David Kay, former U.S. weapons inspector said:
“In an interview Monday night with NBC, Kay said that prewar intelligence regarding Iraq was “clearly” wrong — that his inspectors found no sign of weapons of mass destruction or a “real connection” between Iraq and terrorists.”
Kay, the man on the ground for all those months in Iraq, belatedly disagrees with Bush’s October 2002 assertions.
Let’s see what else Bush said in Ohio:
“Many Americans have raised legitimate questions: About the nature of the threat. About the urgency of action — and why be concerned now? About the link between Iraq developing weapons of terror, and the wider war on terror.”
Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?”
He answers a question with a question. OK. Let’s continue.
“Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles — far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations — in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work. ”
Ah! THAT might be considered an imminent threat! Bush doesn’t SAY imminent threat, but this seems to imply it. It’s the implication of “imminent” that seems important to establish. Although… Bush was wrong about Saddam’s long range capabilities, too.
And what about the links to terrorism?
“Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than ninety terrorist attacks in twenty countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans. ”
But Kay said there are no “real” links. What’s going on?
Worst of all, Iraq had the makings of a nuclear program…
“Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. ”
In the past? How does this translate into 2003? Let’s leave this for now with Bush’s most famous passage from this Ohio speech:
“Some citizens wonder: After 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now?
There is a reason. We have experienced the horror of September 11. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing — in fact they would be eager — to use a biological, or chemical, or a nuclear weapon.
Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. “
I’m honestly confused here. The stated point is, apparently, to define the term imminent as it relates to an attack on the west, with special emphasis on how Bush implied an imminent threat.
Is it your contention that that’s what the President did? Implied imminence? If so, is there a purpose to it other than playing a rhetorical game of “Gotcha?”
I’m not sure what you’re confused about. Some contend that Bush never mentioned the word “imminent” in reference to the danger Iraq posed to America and its allies. This seems to be true. What I contend is that Bush implied the word “imminent” by telling us that Iraq had WMD, direct ties to terrorists, and had long range weapons capable of killing Americans living abroad (and our allies near Iraq). I believe the President acted on information that was far less than accurate. I believe the President used that inaccurate information to cojole the American people, telling the masses that Hussein needs to be disposed of immediately. I also contend that even in a doctrine of pre-emptive war, there has to be some realistic assessment of immediate threat; this was not the case in the war on Iraq.
Now, what are the implications? The sophomoric “gotcha?” This is serious business. The President is responsible for misleading the country into believing that Iraq is an immediate threat, and that we could not wait for U.N. approval. If this doesn’t pose a serious challenge to the President’s capabilities as a leader of the free world, to leading the intelligence community in a time of war, then I don’t know what would be a serious challenge. This is no “gotcha!” Bush is responsible for some of the most serious offenses a President can be held accountable for; misleading the public based on poor information into a pre-emptive war, subverting the purpose of the U.N. as a mediator of conflict, and jeopardizing our diplomatic relations with many of our closest allies. This is no “gotcha!” This is time for new leadership.
Seems to me that in the end the war ended up being “justified” in that a brutal dictator was removed from office and hopefully life for Iraqis will slowly start to improve. Ok, I can maybe buy that. What’s still not clear, however, is whether the initial “justification” for the war ever existed. Perhaps in hindsight the spin doctors in Washington should have simply presented their proposal for war as something more straightforward and definitely more provable in the end: Look, Saddam’s an ass and we need to get him out of there for the good of the Iraqi people and for the overall good of the world moving forward. Instead, having chose to go with implied threats about WMD is causing the current administration a lot more headache than they bargained for.
Well, seeing that we’re starting off with the subjective term “implied,” combined with the baseline opinion that there’s already ill intent (to deceive the American public), then of course there’s a conclusion of “Bush lied, people died.”
The fact that Hussein was an enemy of the U.S., that he sponsored Palestinian terrorists by giving the families of homicide bombers money, and that he used chemical weapons on the Kurds are incontrovertible. If these facts aren’t enough to convince that he had ill intent toward this country, there’s not much else that can be said. Is it all enough to go to war over? I say so, and so do most of the other idiots who still believe in the Bush doctrine.
It’s also a fact that President Bush never used the WMD issue as the only reason for the war, but that’s often forgotten in the “Bush lied” rhetoric, also. He acted on intelligence that was, in part, faulty. But he had no good reason to disbelieve the intelligence that Hussein had and was seeking more WMD’s, and when the consequences of that disbelief include a potential “mushroom cloud,” I’d much rather be safe than sorry. Hey, guess what: most of the rest of the world believed the same dumb shit that Bush believed, too. And places like Australia, Poland, and England sent over good men and women to act on it with us. All misled by the same intelligence.
As for the concept of “realistic assessment of threat,” that’s an extremely easy claim to make on Monday morning. I may not know football, but believe it or not, I know violence. I work in the violence industry. And every single time violence has to be produced, there’s a measure of uncertainty as to when it should have started. We should’ve attacked the Japanese before Pearl Harbor. We should’ve whacked Usama bin Laden before 9/11. “Should I have shot the guy? He had a baseball bat and told me he was gonna kill me, but I shot first.” The only good defense is being proactive about protecting oneself.
UN approval is bullshit, because there was never going to be any. Too many resolutions broken, too many people in bed with Hussein, and too many anti-American countries making important decisions. Which countries, by the way, have we jeapordized relations with? What’s the UN’s track record on mediating conflict? We went in unilaterally to deal with Kosovo during the Clinton years, and I supported that, too. They were no threat to us AT ALL, and we’re still there.
If Bush lied/misled, then I suppose he did so because he somehow knew that no one would find any WMD in Iraq, and it would boost his approval rating. He sent all those people to die willfully, Americans and Iraqis. The mass graves, etc. are meaningless, because the UN would’ve put a stop to it without war, despite that it had years and years to do it before. It’s about oil. It’s about Halliburton contracts. It’s about regime change in America. It’s about time travel to kill Hitler. Why did Bush lie?
Bottom line: I’m not convinced that this isn’t a game of “Gotcha!” I noticed that the argument went from “There’s no WMD’s!” to “Bush implied imminence!” which tells me that it’s not about a particular politican lying, but about getting President Bush out of the Oval Office. That’s fine, lots of people feel that way. The lie I (and millions of other idiots like me across the world) believe led to the end of a murderous tyrant who used torture and child rape as tools of state. That’s serious business. That’s quite serious. And I’ll be damned before I get on the other side of that argument in order to score political points.
Iraq was one of over 150 countries in the world accused of human rights abuses including Saudi Arabia, Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the U.S.
North Korea has openly admitted to developing and possessing the same types of weapons whose presence Tony Blair mistakenly relied upon. No invasion of North Korea is planned.
Even though general principles of internetional law dictate that no country is bound by the laws of any other, the U.S. asked for the approval of the UN, shunned it, and then returned to seek it again for payment of its actions.
All public servants are held to a higher standard of finduciary duty because of their position of public trust. Misleading 250 million people is worthy of notice, whoever the leader or whichever the party.
Did Hussein have WMD? Of course, he did. He didn’t off that village with Chanel #5. He had a chemical weapon and used it on his own people. That should be enough to remove him from power.
Was Hussein working towards getting a nuke? Absolutely. Isreal has warned many times of this eventual threat. They even sent their Mossad to destroy one of his labs. Even if this was eventually proved as false, Iraq has successfully fooled dozens of countries into believing this as well.
Everyone loves to leap all over Bush about this one, but everyone forgets who else is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Kerry and Edwards both has the same intelligence access as the President and voted to go with him. Did they mislead us as well?
One more comment, and I’m through with this particular subject, because I’ve pretty much said all I’m going to say on it.
The argument that “We didn’t invade X and X has a bad leader/bad weapons/bad people” makes no sense to me at all. It says that one has to end all suffering everywhere if one is going to do it anywhere. Bullshit.
Correct: one need not end all suffering everywhere if one is going to do it anywhere.
One just has to keep a straight face when one says one is setting out to end suffering, something I don’t remember hearing ever being held out as a reason for American blood to be shed in Iraq and not Liberia.
The difficulty in understanding the “we didn’t invade X and X has a bad leader/bad weapons/bad people” point is at the heart of this whole issue: Why Iraq? Why now?
To answer those questions, to understand the inconsistency of the administration’s answers to them is to understand American foreign policy, something every country in the world is struggling to do.
More simply, to hold out “bad leader/bad weapons/bad people” as a reason for invading Iraq leaves the U.S. in the stupifying position of holding North Korea’s “bad leader/bad weapons/bad people” hand. It’s a policy of inherant contradiction, inconsistency, and, therefore, egocentric unpredictability. Not too handy in the international community.
I will admit that the above argument does rely on core tennants of logic and reason which make it highly suciptible to the irrfutible, closeminded, purile refrain of “Bullshit”.
Fire away.
PS
I think I found the answer to my querry; just noticed the bold in the original post (how could I’ve missed it):
“Knowing these realities [September 11th], America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
I see now that it’s the “gathering threat” that drives American policy. I’ve always glossed over the “gathering” part and obsessed about the “threat” portion.
Wherever there is a gathering threat anywhere–not suffering mind you– the U.S. will stamp it out.
Unless it’s North Korea.
Or China.
Or Iran…
Well, seeing as I pay for this site, I don’t owe you anything, Amous. I don’t even owe you the deserved term “bullshit,” but I gave it to you anyway out of the kindness of my heart. I didn’t invite you here and I didn’t ask you to comment.
If you were looking for a discussion, you blew it by insulting me. You’re excused. Sound unfair? Write me a check.
Oh, and at least I can spell irrefutable, stupefying, tenets, inherent, and susceptible. If you’re going to use big words, young man, look ‘em up in a dictionary first.
Sorry about the spelling. I made quite a few mistakes there. I’ll pay more attention to syntax.
Also sorry if you were personally offended by my replies. My comments were directed at the posts and not you.
And, finally, it is your space, you do pay for it and have every right to run it how you wish. I’ve been impressed with the openness to debate thus far and would be disappointed to see it go, but you are right: it’s yours.
Hey, we’ve insulted many folks from time to time. I know I have (insulted folks). THis website is about inclusion. Being one of the only “liberals,” I get plenty red in the face (sorry Toothpaste Island for my remark) and probably say things in an insulting manner. I’ve been accused of being “asinine” on probably more than one occasion. I say, let’s part with the idea of whose site this is and enjoy it for all its worth. No need to exclude anyone who gets a little passionate about what we’re talking about here. We only ask that we respect each other’s views and do not include ad hominem attacks. Sometimes the definition of “ad hominem attack” is slippery. When one of my remarks was referred to as “asinine” a while back, I sort of took it personally, but knew that the “asinine” comment referred to a something I said, and was not a comment on my worth as a human being. Ok, we’ll keep things in perspective.
This has been a very nice thread of ideas. Welcome all newcomers!