Iraq Invaded
3 pieces here. 1 - My response to Bush's official letter to Congress informing them of his plans to attack Iraq; 2 - a statement from the Cato institute on the start of the war; and 3 - my response to Bush's 48 hour ultimatum speech. Scroll down to read them all.
Click here if you want to read Bush's letter to Congress (dated March 18) justifying our attack. Essentially Bush is saying in his letter that a) Iraq is a threat and b) we have the right to go after terrorists. The letter's second paragraph is annoyingly and typically deceptive, as I pointed out to Dan Perkins in an email he kindly posted to his blog This Modern World. Here's the full email:
Dear Dan,
Here's the real scummy part about the Bushies, while they sometimes lie, more insidiously they often tell a truth which comes across as a lie. Case in point is the letter to Congress that you just linked up to. The key para is, again...
-- (2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. --
Note the textual trickery? He doesn't actually say that Iraq had anything to do with Sept 11; what he says is the US has the right to attack terrorists and terrorist organizations, INCLUDING those nations...[that were part of Sept 11]. In other words, we can go after Iraq because they are a terrorist organization, which is basically true as Hussein does provide minor aid to anti-Israel terrorist groups. To the casual reader, the word "including" implies a connection between Iraq and Sept 11, but in reality the word draws a lawyerly line between the two. Basically Bush is saying that we can go after any terrorists anywhere, and a sub-set of the general family of terrorists are those terrorists who attacked us on Sept 11. He isn't actually saying that Iraq is part of that sub-set.
This is what is so sleazy about the Orwellian way these boys use words. On the surface the paragraph is actually accurate, so the media and Congress can't call Bush on the carpet for lying. But the purpose of the paragraph--like all those speeches Bush makes where he mentions Sept 11 and Iraq repeatedly together--is to reinforce in most readers the false belief that Sept 11 was the Iraqis fault. And, even more Machiavellianly, the Bushies know that this lie will be reinforced in peoples' minds because nobody is contradicting it, and they're not contradicting it because technically it's not a lie. Talk about DoubleSpeak.
Not all conservatives favor this war...
Charles Pena (Cato Institute) on President Bush's Ultimatum to Saddam Hussein
March 18, 2003
"President Bush says the United States is about to embark on a course of war because the United Nations and diplomacy failed. But the truth is that the United States does not need U.N. approval to act in America's own self-defenseŅand diplomacy never had much chance of success. The administration had Iraq in its sights long before September 11. Ultimately, the path Bush has led the United States down is not about weapons of mass destruction, Security Council Resolution 1441, weapons inspections, or disarmament. It has always been about regime change and using America's military power to enforce a world order deemed favorable to U.S. interests. Further, the United States is setting a potentially dangerous precedent by engaging in preventative war - not a pre-emptive strike against an imminent threat - based on the uncertainty of not knowing whether a threat might materialize at some point in the future. Now that the administration is where it wanted to be all along and war seems certain, we must hope for a swift and decisive war with a minimum of casualties on both sides. And we must avoid at all costs an endless occupation of Iraq in a fool's errand of nation building."
Now here's the March 17 speech and my response...
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 17, 2003
Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation
The Cross Hall
8:01 P.M. EST
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WastedIrony's comments will be in this second column.
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THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.
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So far so good. A little pompous, but it's a presidential speech--they're supposed to be pompous.
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The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
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Iraq has resisted weapons inspections, true. But despite Iraqi resistance, inspections continued to be carried out for most of the 1990s. Furthermore, the inspectors--along with many outside observers--believe that they achieved a reasonable degree of success eliminating Iraqi weapons.
The real fun line in this para is the one about inspectors being "electronically bugged." A recent article in the London Observer, considered very credible by many world papers, claims that American intelligence services, particularly the NSA, have been busy bugging the hell out of UN delegates homes and offices as part of our efforts to strong-arm the UN into approving our coming war with Iraq. If bugging makes you bad, we'll have to join Iraq in the bad guys corner. However Bush knows that the quiescent American media haven't picked up on this story and so are unlikely to call him to task for this bit of hypocrisy.
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Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.
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Except that many other governments, and the UN weapons inspectors, have expressed doubts that Iraq has any significant quantities of weapons of mass destruction.
And back in the 1980s, when Hussein was using poison gas against the Iranians and Kurds, we knew about it yet still supported him with equipment and satellite intelligence. It is hypocrisy to attack Hussein for acts we essentially supported. (And we have used WMD: nuclear weapons in Japan and chemical weapons (Agent Orange) in Vietnam.)
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The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
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We, of course, supported Iraq's reckless aggression against Iran in the 1980s. (Back then we were friends.) As for the terrorist line, this one is a bald-faced lie. There has been no serious evidence provided by us or anyone else that Iraq supports Al Qaeda terrorists. Secular Iraq has nothing in common with the religious fanatics of Al Qaeda, in fact, Osama bin Laden has called Hussein a heretic. This is all part of the Bush administration's deceptive attempt to get Americans to connect Sept 11 with Iraq.
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The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
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The bait and switch is clear: Iraq does not support terrorists who target the United States. It has supported terrorists hostile to Israel, but that is not at all the same thing. (Everyone supports some terrorists somewhere. For years we supported terrorists in places ranging from Angola to Nicaragua.)
Futhermore all the evidence suggests that a) Iraq has never given chemical or biological weapons to any militant group, and b) Iraq does not have and is not likely to acquire nuclear weapons. Yet Bush ignores these facts and leaves us with visions of mushroom clouds dancing in our heads. If you want to be afraid of a nuclear holocaust, look over at unstable Pakistan or rabidly insane North Korea; the former has nukes, the latter either has them or is on the verge of building them. And by alienating the globe with this war, Bush is going to make it harder for the United States to deal with really threatening madmen like Kim Jung Il.
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The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.
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There is no threat. Iraq is a broken military midget.
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The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.
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But Iraq does not threaten our national security. It lacks the capability to hurt us.
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Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations. One reason the U.N. was founded after the second world war was to confront aggressive dictators, actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.
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Congress actually voted to give Bush a blank check; this is not the same as advocating the use of force. As to whether the Bush administration actually wanted to resolve the issue peacefully, I'm sceptical. Read the published writings of Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc., and you'll find that they've been advocating regime change in Iraq for a long time.
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In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act, in the early 1990s. Under Resolutions 678 and 687 -- both still in effect -- the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will.
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But the UN has made it clear that it does not interpret these resolutions as giving the United States the right to re initiate hostilities. Bush knows this.
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Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.
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Resolution 1441 also specifically says that any breach must be reported back to the Security Council for further decision making. In other words, despite the Administration's attempts to fudge this one, 1441 is not permission for the US to invade. Go to the UN's web site and read the damn thing for yourself if you don't believe me. Of course, Bush knows that the media is not going to quibble on this issue and call him on this deception. It's clear that Bush wants to invade and he mentions Resolution 1441 as a way of claiming UN authorization where no UN authorization exists.
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Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power. For the last four-and-a-half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that Council's long-standing demands. Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world. The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.
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No, Iraq has not disarmed. But it also may actually have destroyed most or all of it's chemical and biological weapons. And even if those weapons exist, they are not a serious threat to peace. Poison gas and germs are nasty things but they're very hard to use against targets and historically have been far less dangerous than conventional weapons.
Bush's "some permanent members" is also disingenuous; he knows that a majority of the Security Council would have voted against war in Iraq, which is why he withdrew the US/British resolution from consideration. It's not just the French (and note how Bush happily fans the flames of the anti-French fervor that has become chic in some circles), it's most of the world that opposes this war.
Finally, that "broad coalition" line is a joke. We had a broad coalition in 1991; today we have Britain (whose government is wobbling because of its unpopular support of Bush), Spain and Portugal (who have no real military), and some Eastern European countries (who have even less of a military and who are simply eager to curry favor with America). Unlike 1991, not a single Arab country, with the exception of Kuwait, is providing military support. Saudi Arabia--our supposed ALLY--won't even let us attack from their country. Broad coalition my ass.
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In recent days, some governments in the Middle East have been doing their part. They have delivered public and private messages urging the dictator to leave Iraq, so that disarmament can proceed peacefully. He has thus far refused. All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals -- including journalists and inspectors -- should leave Iraq immediately.
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For world peace, I hope Hussein does leave, but I doubt that he will.
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Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.
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Because we've managed to build democracy so successfully in Iran, Indonesia, Vietnam, Honduras, Chile, and the Philippines, just to mention a few of the places where we backed vicious tyrants. Luckily for Bush, most Americans don't know the history of their own country's foreign policy, so they may swallow this line. However, much of the rest of the world is better informed, and so is probably quite skeptical of this promise. (Don't get me wrong. I think getting rid of Hussein is a great idea, if we could do it without a destabalizing war. I'm just not holding my breath about the free and prosperous Iraq of the future.)
I do believe that Bush is sincere when he says the war is not directed against the Iraqi people, but that doesn't mean a lot of them aren't going to get killed in the cross fire.
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It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed. I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.
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I hope this one works; I may not like this war, but if it has to happen I'd like it to be as quick and painless as possible.
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And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."
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Please don't destroy our, er, I mean your oil.
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Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it. Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice.
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And why should our young men be sacrificed for Bush's war? I dislike talk of sacrifice from a man who skipped out of the Vietnam War. (As did Cheney.)
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Yet, the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so. If Saddam Hussein attempts to cling to power, he will remain a deadly foe until the end. In desperation, he and terrorists groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible. And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail. The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.
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Or not. There have been articles in recent days suggesting that Al Qaeda is using the coming war on Iraq as a recruiting poster to bring more young Muslim men into its ranks, playing on their anger and resentment towards perceived US bullying. Many analysts believe (and I agree) that Bin Laden is thrilled by our plans to attack Iraq exactly because it will make it easier for him to recruit angry followers.
Furthermore, since Iraq never supported any anti-US terrorists, how is disarming Iraq going to reduce the terrorist threat?
Basically we're planning to piss off the Muslim/Arab world by an invasion that will look like one more example of Western imperialism, and so lay the groundwork for years of resentment and consequent terrorist activity.
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Our government is on heightened watch against these dangers. Just as we are preparing to ensure victory in Iraq, we are taking further actions to protect our homeland. In recent days, American authorities have expelled from the country certain individuals with ties to Iraqi intelligence services. Among other measures, I have directed additional security of our airports, and increased Coast Guard patrols of major seaports. The Department of Homeland Security is working closely with the nation's governors to increase armed security at critical facilities across America.
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I don't know what individuals "with ties to Iraqi intelligence" were expelled, but I do wonder that if they were really dangerous men with terrorist inclinations why didn't we intern them, not expell them? I suspect this is just the standard 'expell their cultural attache when war starts' procedure and Bush is trying to make it seem like part of his effective plan of national defence.
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Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear. In this, they would fail. No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country. We are a peaceful people -- yet we're not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers. If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them, will face fearful consequences.
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Except that all the talk of Orange Alert and duct taping your windows seems almost designed to keep us panic stricken and paranoid, and therefore ready for war.
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We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.
The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war. In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.
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It is pretty universally agreed that Iraq is far weaker now than it was ten years ago; what evidence does Bush have that it is suddenly going to get stronger in a year or five? North Korea scares me; Iraq does not.
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Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations -- and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.
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So because Iraq might attack us--even though they have no realistic way of doing so--we need to attack Iraq? Our security is not threatened by a two-bit dictator with a disabled military.
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As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country. Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty. And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.
The United States, with other countries, will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land. And the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace.
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The world is not demanding this war, Bush and the hawks in his adminstration are pushing it on the world. (And the world has responded with massive and unprecidented protests on every continent, including Antarctica.)
I also wonder if Bush plans to give liberty to the people of Saudi Arabia or Jordan, both of which are allies of ours and both of whose people live under dictatorial monarchies.
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That is the future we choose. Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.
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Aside from Britain, Spain, and Australia, we don't really have any allies in this fight.
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Good night, and may God continue to bless America.
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Don't you think they're saying the same thing in Iraq? Who is God supposed to listen to? I don't trust people who always seem to think God is on their side.
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