Why are we in Iraq?
Reader David Shein is unimpressed with the Washington Post's critique of Paul O'Neill's claims regarding our military intervention in Iraq. He writes:
"With respect to former cabinet member O’Neil’s statements that Bush was going to war no matter what, since the beginning of his administration, the administration and its supporters have argued that before Bush took office, the official policy of the United States was for regime change in Iraq. True. However, Bill Clinton did not take the country to war on false and misleading grounds. A policy of regime change may be administered by sanctions, assassination, etc, it does not require all out war.
"Suskind, the author of the book that quotes O’Neil on the administration, is a former employee of the Washington Post. In a January 14 editorial, the Post rebuffed Suskind and O’Neil arguing that in the months before the war Colin Powell was having meetings with administration officials urging against a war, and that these meetings somehow indicate that the administration was not completely set on going to war. Please. First, no one knows the true substance of the meetings, and secondly, the fact that Colin Powell was arguing against war does not mean that the administration itself had not made up its mind to go to war. In fact, it seems to indicate that Powell was aware of the administrations had its mind made up and that he wanted to warn them of the perils."
I responded to Mr. Shein as follows:
"We need to distinguish between two claims; (1) that Bush was going to war no matter what, from the time his administration took office and (2) Bush always hoped to go to war, and after 9/11 figured he could rally the country behind war using WMD as a pretext. The first claim seems clearly false. Even if Bush wanted to go to war pre-9/11, I see no evidence that he would have done so had 9/11 not happened. The best evidence that he wouldn't have is that he didn't, nor was he trying to obtain support for doing so.
"The second claim is more plausible. But again we need to make some distinctions. There are three possibilities: (1) Bush didn't think that Iraq had WMD and lied, (2) Bush thought Iraq had them, but this wasn't his real reason for fighting, and (3) Bush thought Iraq had them and they played a major role in his decision. I don't see any evidence that Bush didn't think Iraq had WMD. Our intelligence (and everyone else's) was that Iraq had them. Bill Clinton was sure Iraq had them. Iraq could never explain what it did with weapons that it indisputably had at one time. So this leaves possibilities (2) and (3). We don't really know enough to decide between them. But I see no reason to assume that WMD didn't play a major role in Bush's thinking. Clinton threatened to go to war over them, and they were the reason that regime change was our policy in the first place. Sanctions weren't going to work in 1,000 years. Assassination was probably a pipe dream and it would not likely have caused real regime change or changed the situation with respect to WMD (if they existed)."
