Алистер Смит - The Spoils of War - Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents

I asked for this session today for two purposes: First, to support the core assessments made by [weapon inspectors] Dr. Blix and Dr. El-Baradei. As Dr. Blix reported to this council on January 27th, “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it.”

My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information. . . .

I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling.28

Powell was highly respected within diplomatic circles and his testimony enhanced the administration’s credibility, especially as he was believed to be reluctant to invade Iraq. With international support tilting in his favor, Bush met with key allies in the Azores. After returning to the United States, he gave a televised address to the nation in which he gave Saddam Hussein and his sons forty-eight hours to leave Iraq.29

Bush clearly believed that Iraq possessed WMD, but it is evident that he exaggerated the extent and conclusiveness of the evidence the United States possessed. Once he had secured sufficient support for his position, he proceeded with the invasion. In hindsight, many commentators and politicians who initially supported that invasion now see it as a mistake. What we know today, while critically relevant to our assessment of the war, is, however, not pertinent to evaluating what people believed at the time or the choices they made without the benefit of hindsight. On that front—identifying what the casus belli was—the Bush administration left itself lots of maneuvering room. The alleged threat of WMD was but one basis for justifying a war that seems, in any event, to have been much more about deposing Saddam Hussein than it was about the danger he represented to the United States—which was virtually nil.

The Terrorism Claim

EIGHT MONTHS INTO PRESIDENT BUSH’S TERM, ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial passenger aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Thanks to the bravery of the passengers on board, an additional commercial airliner was crashed into a field near Stonycreek Township in Pennsylvania rather than into the White House or some other high-profile target in the Washington, DC, area. Nearly three thousand people died in these attacks. Intelligence linked the terrorist groups responsible for 9/11 to the Taliban government of Afghanistan. President Bush demanded that Afghanistan hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and that it expel the terror group. When Afghanistan was not forthcoming, Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom, in which US and UK forces and insurgent groups known as the Northern Alliance invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban.

More than a year later, on March 20, 2003, the president ordered the invasion of Iraq. As we have noted, one justification for the war was to destroy Iraq’s WMD. Another justification, following on his 2002 State of the Union Address, was to end Iraq’s support for terrorist groups. To date, as at the time, however, there is virtually no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime supported terrorist organizations. Indeed, despite President Bush’s effort to link Saddam Hussein’s government to the 9/11 attacks, neither logic nor evidence supported the notion. The case against the effort to tie Hussein to terrorism was made forcefully by a most convincing source, a person who was expected to be sympathetic to Bush’s cause, or at least to remain silent on the subject out of loyalty to Bush: Brent Scowcroft. In an August 2002 article in the Wall Street Journal , Scowcroft, who had been President George H. W. Bush’s national security adviser, argued against the linkage that W drew between Saddam Hussein and the threat of terrorism:

[W]e need to think through this issue very carefully. We need to analyze the relationship between Iraq and our other pressing priorities—notably the war on terrorism—as well as the best strategy and tactics available were we to move to change the regime in Baghdad. [T]here is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them. . . . He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address. . . . Saddam’s problem with the U.S. appears to be that we stand in the way of his ambitions. He seeks weapons of mass destruction not to arm terrorists, but to deter us from intervening to block his aggressive designs. . . . Our pre-eminent security priority—underscored repeatedly by the president—is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken. The United States could certainly defeat the Iraqi military and destroy Saddam’s regime. But it would not be a cakewalk. On the contrary, it undoubtedly would be very expensive—with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy—and could as well be bloody. In fact, Saddam would be likely to conclude he had nothing left to lose, leading him to unleash whatever weapons of mass destruction he possesses.

But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. . . . Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region.30

Scowcroft had made a powerful and, as it turns out, prescient argument against war in Iraq and against the notion that Saddam Hussein was backing terrorism. The case for the latter was too thin to be taken seriously as a justification for war. Rather, the terrorism claim seemed to point to a president who wanted, or needed, a war and simply sought to find a reason, whatever it might be, to garner the political support he needed. Whether WMD, the danger Saddam posed, terrorism, the promotion of democracy, or something else was the justification for war did not seem critical. What mattered for President George W. Bush was getting the support he needed for the policy he chose to pursue.

The Iraq Foreplay and Aftermath

BAGHDAD FELL ON APRIL 9, 2003. ON MAY 1, PRESIDENT BUSH declared victory from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln under a giant banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.” The invasion killed 9,200 Iraqi troops and 3,750 civilians plus 139 US troops. Saddam Hussein fled but was eventually captured in December 2003. A military court sentenced him to death and he was hanged in 2006.

We are still left with the puzzle of why this war was fought, as well as why it did not lead to Bush’s defeat in the 2004 election. We come to the latter issue shortly, but now we want to review in a bit more detail the evidence that George W. Bush wanted the Iraq War, was uninterested in settling matters with Saddam Hussein peacefully, and that he planned the war almost from the beginning of his presidency. Then we will be in a position to understand how he used what seems almost to have been a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein to his own political advantage, while Lyndon Johnson failed to see how to use his war for his own electoral benefit.

In what follows regarding the decision to go to war, we rely extensively on Bob Woodward’s 2004 account since he had unprecedented access to the principal administration personnel. Accord to Woodward, in November 2001 President Bush asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to start making plans for the invasion of Iraq, but to keep it secret.31 At an executive meeting at Camp David on September 15, 2001, none of the president’s advisers recommended an attack against Iraq as a first response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. However, the following day Bush told his national security adviser, and future secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, “We won’t do Iraq now. We’re putting Iraq off. But eventually we’ll have to return to that question.”32 It seems that 9/11 forced Bush to postpone, but not cancel, plans to take down Saddam Hussein’s regime. By charging Rumsfeld to prepare war plans in November, Bush indicated that Iraq’s turn had come.