The reasons to go into Iraq never changed

Don't let revisionists cloud why we needed to take out Saddam.

Published on April 30, 2004 By Draginol In Politics

The problem I have with the anti-war crowd, particularly those who are on-line, is that I find them intellectually dishonest. When someone tries to say "Bush lied about WMD" or that the invasion of Iraq was largely because we believed Saddam had stockpiles of WMD they are really being dishonest. But dishonesty in debate is, sadly, a regular occurrence. But when it comes to blogging, blogs can be re-read from the time frame. And those who favored going into Iraq have been consistent in the reasons why we needed to go after Iraq.

Let's recap why Americans favored going to war in Iraq:

After the first Gulf War (1991) Saddam had continually violated the terms of the cease fire. This culminated in 1998 when the inspectors were thrown out. At that point, Americans would have supported the use of massive military support to remove Saddam. But Clinton was mired in the impeachment and the issue just didn't seem imminent enough.

Then came 9/11.

After 9/11, Americans came to the realization that the United States could no longer afford a powerful open enemy in that part of the world. Saddam had a history of invading its neighbors. It had a history of trying to acquire WMD and occasionally using them on his own people. Saddam, in short, was a ticking time bomb. He had to go.

So the US went to the UN one last time and essentially said "We need to put this guy on notice that we're not fooling around anymore. He's gotta comply with the previous dozen and a half UN resolutions or we're going to take him out." The UN passed resolution 1441.

Most Americans, myself included, believed Saddam had stockpiles of WMD in the form of chemical weapons. We'd been told that for 10 years. But that really wasn't the issue. But few were sweating whether Saddam had mustard gas or Sarin or whatever in his inventory. The issue was what would Saddam do after the sanctions got lifted and the inspectors were gone. But 1441 would at least let us see if he had any genuine interest in cooperating with the UN.

It turned out he didn't. He screwed around with the inspectors once again. No fly-overs allowed, no talking to scientists without Iraqi officials present to intimidate them, no paperwork on where the missing WMD stockpiles had gone. And in the midst of this, Iraq continued to shoot at US and British planes patrolling the no-fly zone.

Again, Americans were faced with a choice. We could just throw up our hands and let this guy keep doing this until one day he managed to develop and smuggle a nuke or something to Al Qaeda or some other terrorist organization, or we could go and remove this guy. After all, this guy was actively paying terrorists in Israel for their efforts, it isn't a stretch to imagine Saddam providing help to those who wanted to kill Americans.

So the United States went to war with a primary and secondary goal.

The primary goal was to remove Saddam Hussein. Doing so would eliminate any stockpiles of WMD but more importantly, it would eliminate any programs he may have had to produce WMD in the future that could be provided to terrorists. Like I said, it wasn't mustard gas that Americans were worried about, it was a future nuclear bomb or something worse that Saddam might produce in the future and turn over. In short, we would be removing a serious threat to the United States in the post 9/11 world.

The secondary goal was to establish a stable, prosperous democratic Iraq that would serve as an example to nearby countries as part of the effort to "drain the swamp" that creates the terrorists in the first place. An open, free society in Iraq might make the people of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Syria more inclined to move away from radical Islam and be more moderate. As an added benefit, such a state would be friendly to the United States and allow it to exert pressure on the aforementioned 3 countries that produce a disproportionate amount of terrorists.

Since the war, the Kay report came out. And the report actually backed up much of what those of us who were in favor of the war believed -- Saddam was actively trying to obtain WMD and had every intention to build WMD on a large scale once sanctions were lifted. His strategy was to not have stockpiles of WMD but instead gear up towards the post-sanction production of WMD.

But many who have opposed the war, have demonstrated a dishonesty on this issue that I find staggering. They have focused on the stockpiles of WMD discussion in the Kay report and totally ignored the real issue - Saddam wanted to get WMD and was actively putting together such a program to be fully implemented once sanctions were lifted. The people who believe we should have done more to stop 9/11 suddenly turn around and believe that it was wrong to stop what could have been a far worse catastrophe 5, 10 years in the future. In other words, the fear those of us who wanted Saddam removed was totally justified. As I wrote before the war, my concern wasn't whether Saddam had chemical weapons, my fear was that it would be my son fighting on a nuclear battle field in Iraq because we failed to act now.

Here are some of my articles I wrote on the war back at the time:

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/InanidealworldBushcouldte.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/TheCaseforandagainstwar.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/AmericaattheCross-Roads.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/PrincipledPositions.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/TheLefthaslostitsvoice.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/TheDebate.html

BTW, one thing you'll get from reading those old blogs (i.e. BEFORE the war) is that I didn't even believe Iraq had any WMD at the time (I don't usually consider chemical weapons to be WMD). So as you read the articles, not only are stockpiles of WMD not an issue, I didn't even think he had WMD at the time. My concern was that after 9/11, we couldn't mess around with this guy anymore. He had shown he wanted to obtain WMD if he could and with Al Qaeda he had a delivery vehicle.

My articles are no way unique either. They mirror articles written by others at the time who supported the war. No where can I find any articles that argued that the primary or even major reason for invading Iraq was to eliminate Saddam's stockpile of WMD. The reason we removed Saddam was because we believed he was a threat that we could no longer live with in a post-9/11 world. End of story.

Those who cling to the lack of stockpiles of WMD are overstating their case and being dishonest. Sure, I thought Iraq had chemical weapons in barrels somewhere. And they might. But it wasn't something keeping me up at night. What I knew and still know is that quite a number of people over in that area of the world are trying to murder as many innocent Americans as possible. And I knew that Saddam, being an open enemy of the United States was interested in acquiring WMD destruction. Time has shown that Saddam was trying to acquire WMDs. He just didn't keep stockpiles of them, he was building the programs to produce them once sanctions were lifted. As an American, I expect my government to protect me and my family. The federal government does precious little for me given the taxes it extracts. But I expect it to do this one thing damn well. And 9/11 was the wake up call so that I could avoid having my son fighting on a nuclear battle ground in Iraq 10 years hence.

Once Saddam was toppled, the mission was accomplished. The primary goal of the invasion was completed a year ago. Now we wrestle with the secondary goal of trying to establish a stable, peaceful democracy. How that will turn out is anyone's guess. As a hawk, I'm not going to lose sleep whether Iraq ends up a democracy or not as long as it doesn't support or harbor terrorists or try to develop a WMD program. Ironically, it should be the doves hoping that the US is successful from here on out. As far as I'm concerned, our main job is done. The point of staying now is to help the Iraqi's that we have a moral responsibility to do. But that should be the argument the left is making because I'm not going to make it for them.

Comments (Page 2)

messybuu

on May 01, 2004

But they still had to hide the related documents and evidence. Also, scientists lied to the government, exaggerating their success, because no one wanted to tell Hussein, "that can't be done," and Western intelligence intercepted those false reports and believed them.

If it was Hussein's people that lied, then why are people blaming Bush? It's funny... Bush is at fault for not taking the threat of 9/11 seriously even though he had documents saying that he should, but Bush is at fault for taking the threat of Hussein seriously even though he had documents saying that he should.

kingbee

on May 01, 2004

intellectual dishonesty manifests itself in a number of ways; formulating results to prove a failed thesis being chief among them

saddam's iraq was such a threat it required two full weeks to unseat him. khaddafi and his nuclear program were potentially much more dangerous; libya had, after all, already downed an american-flagged passenger plane.

the iranians were and are more dangerous. north korea is dangerous to much higher exponent than iran. osama bin laden loose in the world and able to join forces with either is far more dangerous than saddam.

the most pernicious consequence of our invasion of iraq is the extent to which it diverted our efforts away from capturing bin laden and putting a stop to north koreas reckless acquistion of nuclear weapons.

theres no getting around the fact that cheney (check the signatures on the 1998 new american century position paper) came into office with an agenda that included regime building in iraq; the two new woodward books make it very clear that bush was far too easily persuaded to run with the plan.

Draginol

on May 01, 2004

Before the war the left was predicting a "quagmire". Hundreds of thousands of dead.

And now you write (after the fact) as if everyone knew it woudl be "Easy" to take out Iraq. I mean, "just 2 weeks". Everyone knew that right? Sheesh.

vincible

on May 01, 2004

The left's dishonesty on this issue is ignoring how much evidence of WMD programs he had going

The point being that his weapons programs had fallen apart. What the Kay report shows is that Hussein was trying, and FAILING, to build WMD. Hussein was no threat. WMD were necessary to clinch the case that war was urgent.

When Bush said that Hussein had "biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people," "more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death," and so on, this paints the picture of a very high priority threat that must be dealt with immediately. Since all these were false, there was no reason to worry about Hussein, at least not for the next few years.

France and Russia were pushing very hard before 9/11 for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq

So what? We have a veto on the UNSC too.

North Korea has been "contained" for decades and it apparently has nuclear weapons now -- and it's on a freaking peninsula!

What are you talking about? NK wasn't "contained." There was no worldwide trade embargo. North Korea had communist (and other) allies for decades who gave it weapons and enormous amounts of technical assistance. Iraq had no such luck.

the left was predicting a "quagmire".

More precisely, a small minority on the left. This goes for many of your uses of that phrase.

If it was Hussein's people that lied, then why are people blaming Bush

Because of the perception that the administration exaggerated the threat it did see.

kingbee

on May 01, 2004

Before the war the left was predicting a "quagmire".

if id been betting on the outcome of the invasion last year, i would have put money on anything over 10 days--in light of earlier gulf war.

you write (after the fact) as if everyone knew it woudl be "Easy" to take out Iraq

do you truly believe that the president or the war cabinet had any doubt operation iraqi freedom would be anything but the slamdunk tenet promised?

Frogboy

on May 01, 2004

Yes and that's precisely the point -- once sanctions were lifted, that wouldn't have been an issue. He was STILL trying to get WMD. His ability at the time to move forward on it is completely irrelevant.

Please re-read my article as you clearly missed the whole point.

vincible

on May 02, 2004

Who said we'd lift sanctions? Not I...

I've said multiple times that the choice was war or containment. Containment includes some form of sanctions. Your points about what Hussein might have done if sanctions were lifted are totally irrelevant to my comments, as far as I can tell.

Draginol

on May 02, 2004

Vincible: Again, let me remind you that prior to Bush ramping up the rhetoric France and Russia wanted to LIFT all sanctions. Sanctions being lifted weren't a matter of IF it was a matter of WHEN.

vincible

on May 02, 2004

Again, let me remind you that we have a security council veto, just like them. Sanctions could not be lifted unless the US agreed to it.

Frogboy

on May 02, 2004

There is nothing forcing any nation to adhere to sanctions. At some point, countries would have simply refused to abide by sanctions. A third Clinton term would have probably seen the sanctions lifted, for example.

vincible

on May 02, 2004

I admit I am not well-versed in exactly how enforcement does take place, but sanctions did work for a decade in spite of substantial opposition, so there couldn't be "nothing" enforcing compliance.

Whatever flaws in enforcement you may think might have developed (and I'd be interested if you could expand on this), it seems plausible to me that an investment of a couple billion dollars from the US would have fixed them. It would certainly not have cost anything close to the $100 billion we've spent on Iraq already (not to mention the lives lost). In 2001 we almost passed a UNSC resolution reforming the sanctions, with only Russia's threatened veto stopping us. Russia's vote and compliance could have been bought with a small fraction of that $100 billion. And so on...

In short, if the administration had been willing to push half as hard for containment as hard as it was willing to push for war, it could have been done. So why were we not willing to push for continued containment rather than in war? Because we believed sanctions were not working--because we believed in those nonexistant WMD stockpiles.

Draginol

on May 03, 2004

I have no doubt the Bush administration could have kept the sanctions going. But it only required one US administration to bow into pressure to lift or soften sanctions. Have you not forgotten terms like "Smart sanctions" and "Sanctions Lite" being thrown around at the end of the Clinton administration as a way of backing away from sanctions?

It also cost the US billions per year to "Contain" Iraq. The actual cost of the military action is said to have cost around $40 billion (less than the first gulf war). Most of the money spent has been for humanitarian and rebuilding reasons.

But more tot he point on this article -- people like me were arguing against containment before we went to war. I addressed those issues countless times in those links. Feel free to READ them rather than trying to get me to rehash what I've written counltess times in the past.

Anthony R

on May 03, 2004

The least they could do is peruse some literature before they mindlessly spout the ideology of some inane drone like Al Franken or Trotskyite Moore.

Draginol

on May 03, 2004

I agree. And I'm not saying someone needs to be some historian or something. They could, for example, re-read Bush's speech at the outset of hostilities or look at the actual official document given to Congress to justify the war.

None of it had to do with capturing containers of mustard gas or whatever fantasy the extreme left has cooked up this week. It was about one thing: Getting rid of the regime of Saddam Hussein because after 9/11 we couldn't mess around with him anymore like we had for the previous 12 years.

vincible

on May 03, 2004

people like me were arguing against containment before we went to war. I addressed those issues countless times in those links. Feel free to READ them rather than trying to get me to rehash what I've written counltess times in the past.

I fail to see what I'm asking you to rehash. Let me try one more time to clarify things. Your argument now is that Hussein would have been a threat once sanctions were lifted. Your argument before the war was that Hussein was a threat, period. Reread your own blogs--you never once discuss the sanctions. The debate you linked to has a couple passing references but no serious analysis.

So now, in this current post, you are arguing that there is essentially no difference between your prewar line of "Hussein is a threat" and your current line of "Hussein would have become a threat if we had lifted sanctions." Not true. It's a small difference, but it's an important one. It means that we had an alternative to war which you (and others, including myself as a former hawk) had dismissed as ineffective. It means the doves can argue that we should have continued with containment (as many argued before), and the hawks need a better response than the old one, that "containment is ineffective"--which was pretty much how you dealt with that issue in your blogs. If Hussein really was a threat as you said, it implies that what we had been doing was not containing the threat. This is why we're hearing "I told you so" from some people--because our old argument no longer works.

You can answer this in two ways: containment would have stopped being effective in the future, or containment was worse in some other way than war. Which brings us to the debate in this thread. Would containment be sustainable? Would containment be better than the alternative? As far as I can tell this is the main disagreement between us--and it's not addressed in your old blogs, so your irritation about "rehashing" seems out of place to me.

You have of course rehashed your usual point about how Hussein was trying to get weapons. Of course, I made that point myself--twice--so it's not like it's under dispute. If you're tired of doing it feel free to stop.

Now, to continue the discussion:

It also cost the US billions per year to "Contain" Iraq

What's your source here? A quick google came up with a smaller figure (from 2000) of well under a billion:

"Though it is impossible to separate out our Iraq-related deployments from our broader presence in the region, our deployments in the Gulf cost about $1 billion/year. However, significant portions of these costs are defrayed by host nation support and assistance in kind from Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia."

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/2000_h/000323-Romanow.htm

Now there may be non-military containment costs too but I have a hard time imagining they're bigger than the military ones. These costs seem pretty negligible compared to the cost of war, occupation, and reconstruction.

I have no doubt the Bush administration could have kept the sanctions going. But it only required one US administration to bow into pressure to lift or soften sanctions.

Okay, that's the crux of the matter. Would the political will still have been there in another ten years? This depends on a lot of variables. What else could have been done with the sanctions today? Would "smart sanctions" have been effective? How would the global fight against terror have gone if we hadn't invaded Iraq? What other non-military actions might have been tried? What else might have happened in the region? What might have happened in Israel? et cetera ad nausuem... This would be a huge and extremely speculative topic, and you can point to precedents on both sides. We're still embargoing Cuba after all, for much less reason than our embargo of Iraq. This is a huge, unanswerable topic and I can respect opinion on both sides... but I, personally, think the argument that the US ought to have had higher priorities in 2002 and 2003 has merit.

Don't get me wrong. There does exist intellectual dishonestly on the left. And the right, for that matter. But what we have found out about WMD and related programs in Iraq is most definitely an important thing to think about when considering whether the war was a mistake.

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