Bush hasn't justified war (GREELEY ALERT)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | December 26, 2003 | ANDREW GREELEY

[Chi-townChief]

Was the capture of Saddam Hussein a major victory for the United States? It was certainly a victory in the extended Iraq war. It was a victory for President Bush over the man who plotted to kill his father. It was a victory for the U.S. military and its intelligence service -- especially for the lieutenant and the corporal who figured out how to find him. It was a victory for the Republican Party's plan to keep a stranglehold on American politics. But was it, as the president told us, a victory in the ''war on terrorism''?

Despite the media hoopla and the White House spin doctors, it was not. The administration legitimized the invasion of Iraq as part of the ''war on terrorism'' and deceived the American people into believing that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attack and that he had ''weapons of mass destruction.'' No one, except possibly Vice President Dick Cheney and the Wall Street Journal, believed that Saddam was involved in the attack on the World Trade Center. The weapons of mass destruction have disappeared. The president asks a TV interviewer what difference the mass destruction question makes, now that we have eliminated Saddam from power.

Note how slippery the administration line has been. The purpose of the war now is to get rid of an evil man who had done horrible things to his own people, even if he wasn't a real threat to us. Would those Americans who are willing to settle for that rationale have bought it at the beginning of the war? Such is the slipperiness of the administration's dishonesty that it can get away with a change in motives for the war. Do those who buy this shifting of the deck of cards want to send American troops into North Korea or Iran or a half-dozen African countries to rid the world of similar evil men?

The truth is that Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their ''neo-conservative'' intellectuals wanted a quick little war with Iraq to display America's strength as the world's only superpower even before the 2000 election. The attack on the World Trade Center provided an excellent excuse to unveil America's unilateral, preemptive foreign policy. Has the war made the United States any more secure from al-Qaida?

It would seem that it has not. Quite the contrary, it has stirred up a whole new phalanx of terrorists in Iraq with which we did not formerly have to contend.

It is reasonably well known that Osama bin Laden instructed his forces to have nothing to do with Saddam because he was a secularist and a socialist and not a good Muslim. A man who imagined himself as the holy Caliph of a new Islamic empire could hardly tolerate Saddam as one of his subjects.

The Iraq war, prolonged by unspeakably bad planning for the post-war period, has distracted the United States from the battle with terrorists. If the military force sent to Iraq and the immense efforts to capture Saddam had been diverted to pursuing bin Laden, Americans would be much safer today.

The ultimate failure of the Bush administration is that it permitted itself to be so consumed by its need to take on Iraq that it lost interest in hunting down bin Laden. Its ultimate dishonesty is the (effective) deception of the American people about Iraq.

So, brave and good American men and women continue to die in Iraq, as do good Iraqi men and women. The military tells us that the Army will have to remain for two more years. The war was not only unnecessary, it was unjust by any and all of the traditional canons of an unjust war.

Gen. Curtis LeMay, who led the firebomb raids on Japan (far more destructive than the atom bombs), once remarked that if the United States should lose the war, he would be tried as a war criminal. The United States won the war and no Americans were tried as war criminals. The victors are never tried.

The Bush administration is planning a trial for Saddam. The Europeans are insisting that it must be a ''fair'' trial, whatever that might be for such a man. No one in the Bush administration will be tried for the unjust and unnecessary Iraq war -- at least not by a court on Earth.

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[TomB]

The failure to find any weapons and any facilities to make any chemical weapons.

So the information we have now made the statements in 1998 inaccurate? Unless someone has a time machine I'm not aware of, I can't see how that works.

The chemicals have a short shelf life and need to be made fresh regularly.

That is a patently false statement. Mustard gas has a shelf life of many years, and many of the other chemical weapons are "binary munitions", which are mixed immediatly prior to use, using two precursor chemicals, making the shelf life problem a moot point.

I also noticed you conveniently left out biological agents from the discussion.

If follows that all the stories we were told, giving quantities of this and that chemical weapon were fairy tales, without any factual basis.

You were asked for proof of that statement earlier. I'd like to see it too.

The chem/bio stories were not obvious lies before the war, they were in the realm of possibility based on public information.

So how do you justify your original statement "We still need to know did the president lie to us or was he fooled by his advisors?" If the information was "in the realm of possibility", it seems your allegation is grossly unfair.

The nuclear stories were clearly false from public information.

So "public information" is better than intelligence developed by British and American agencies? What "public information" is so strong that Bush should have disregarded his own?

The post war facts tell us that the chem/bio stories were false as well.

Oh really? What "facts" are those? Less than a year after we invaded you are ready to state unequivocally that there are no WMDs? You must be privy to a lot more info than the rest of us.

But YES, he did have them, using the past tense. It just makes a really big difference when. It makes absolutely no difference who else was making the claims, unless you are claiming mass psychosis as an excuse.

Huh?

First you say they were lying, then you say the chem/bio weapons were a possibility, and now you claim it was "mass psychosis. What is it?

And you never did address the "illegal war" meme. Either defend it or retract it.

[Mike4Freedom]

And you never did address the "illegal war" meme. Either defend it or retract it.

OK, I will do this again. The UN charter includes a very useful provision that says that all member states promise not to attack any other member state except in two instances: self-defense or permission of the Security Council. Neither exception applied in the case of the US invasion of Iraq.

Would you like to go over the details again?
Iraq did not attack us on 9/11. It was someone else.
The Secutiry Council (SC) did not approve the use of force. When we asked for that approval, the debate did not go well and it appeared that it would be a vote of 4 of 15 for, so the US withdrew the request and "went it alone". That makes the invasion illegal.

All the previous resolutions were directed to Saddam and did not actually authorize force. When the force question came up independently, it failed.

Now let me help you with my other statements. Before the war, based on knowledge that the public had, Chem/bio weapons were in the realm of possibility. I assume that the govt had better info. Since after the fact, there were none, I am wondering how the better information could not have foretold that. There was enough public information on the nuclear issue to know that there was NONE. The few pieces of evidence presented were patent lies. (Uranium purchase from Niger, high stength aluminum tubes)

[TomB]

All the previous resolutions were directed to Saddam and did not actually authorize force. When the force question came up independently, it failed.

And, ONCE AGAIN, you completely ignore the point. We were ALREADY AT WAR WITH IRAQ! The signed a cease-fire agreement ending hostilities in the first Gulf War. They then violated the terms of that agreement, thus breaking the cease fire. We needed no other justification than that.

I assume that the govt had better info.

Oh, you "assume"? So you label the President or his advisors liars because you "assume" there "better info"?

Since after the fact, there were none, I am wondering how the better information could not have foretold that.

And now you "wonder"? You have been asked to support your allegation that "there were none", and so far all we've gotten is hand-waving. How can you explicitly say that no WMDs exist?

[Mike4Freedom]

How can you explicitly say that no WMDs exist?

You can never prove a negative to an absolute certainty but two facts point very strongly to there being none.
1. None have been found after many months of searching and several hundred million dollars spent looking.
2. None were used to repel the invasion.

[cardinal4]

Is that the same Greely who write novels about the Catholic Church?

[CWOJackson]

Saddam himself was only found just recently...but that really doesn't matter. If we had found sitting on top of a nuke you folks would be arguing that since a nuke is an area weapon is it really a WMD.

[TomB]

You can never prove a negative to an absolute certainty but two facts point very strongly to there being none.

Unbelievable.

You go from the definitive "there were none", to the wishy-washy "point very strongly to there being none" in one post.

I wish you'd make up your mind.

And ONCE AGAIN you completely ignore the war justification.

[lawdude]

"That being said, Bush has done a crappy job as to explaining why we went into Iraq."

It seems to me that President Bush has done a good job in explaining but the media has distorted his words, taken much out of context and purposely spun the issue.

D'ya think?

[Old Student]

You ever searched a place the size of Texas? It takes time. They only found what, 40% of the Columbia? They had thousands of people looking, who weren't also watching out for hostiles with RPG's.

As far as Andrew Greeley's veracity, he hasn't kept his oath as a priest, why would you expect him to be truthful about anything else.



This is evidence of use of WMD, in 1988, just before I got to Saudi Arabia for GWI. You, sirs and/or madams, are either ignorant, or intentionally ignoring history. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. People like you are the reason we were not allowed to finish the job the first time, and the reason all those hundreds of young Americans have died, and thousands have been wounded. There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT SEE!

Site about attack at Halabja, Iraq, March 1988

[Old Student]

Sure seems to be the same chump. Crappy writer, he is, too. I've read many a military technical manual without being in danger of snoozing, but I've never made it through one of his books.

[Mike4Freedom]

You go from the definitive "there were none", to the wishy-washy "point very strongly to there being none" in one post.

Yes, I am personally sure that there were none after this much search time, BUT, if you want to hold out hope that somewhere in the desert, there is a secret stash of those weapons, go ahead and hope. You can keep on hoping for the rest of your life, if you like. But most rational people have already given up or will in the next few months, certainly by November 2004.

Most rational people have also realized that the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is not too useful. There is great risk of erroneously attacking a harmless nation. On its first try, that is exactly what happened.

[Old Student]

Do you know how to handle a schoolyard bully? You kick his rear until he apologizes for getting in your way. Same thing works among nations. Preemptive war IS effective. It can be carried to extremes, but this has not been done, in this case and in the case of Afghanistan.

BTW, most rational people know you aren't. I think I smell troll.

[TomB]

Un-freaking-believable.

And ONCE AGAIN you completely ignore the justification for war!

[noexcuses]

There is great risk of erroneously attacking a harmless nation.

We didn't attack a nation - we attacked the Hussein regime.

[Old Student]

Hans Blix, former chief U.N. weapons inspector, said he imagined "Gadhafi could have been scared by what he saw happen in Iraq."

does this quote help you rethink your position?

[Mike4Freedom]

And ONCE AGAIN you completely ignore the justification for war!

And once again, there was none. That is the point I am trying to make.

If the only remaining reason is to free another nation from a local dictator who is no threat to us, it is not worth putting our boys at risk. If we let that be a good reason for a war, there will be no end to the wars we will be fighting.

[TomB]

If the only remaining reason is to free another nation from a local dictator who is no threat to us, it is not worth putting our boys at risk. If we let that be a good reason for a war, there will be no end to the wars we will be fighting.

Now you are running away from what you originally said. We were talking LEGAL justifications. Let me help....

In post 147 you made this comment:

It makes the US invasion of Iraq illegal.

I pointed out, and you continue to ignore, that Iraqi leaders signed a cease-fire agreement at the end of the first war, they then repeatedly violated the terms of that agreement, and that put us in a de facto state of war. We needed no other justification to make this war LEGAL.

[Mike4Freedom]

Now you are running away from what you originally said. We were talking LEGAL justifications. Let me help....

OK, one more time. The war was wrong on multiple counts.
It was illegal under our agreements within the UN charter.
It was not justified by a risk to us. Iraq was harmless to us.
If we allow the excuse that freeing others from a dictator (not a danger to us) is an excuse for a war, there will be many wars.
It has accomplished nothing positive in the war on terror. It has probably worsened our situation.
It has weakened us since it is tying up much of our military resource pool that we might need in the near future. (No I don't know where or if we might really be at risk in the future, but it was foolish to tie up so many soldiers on Iraq.)

No contradiction, just multiple reasons that the war should not have happened.

[TomB]

It was illegal under our agreements within the UN charter.

Just repeating your talking points won't change the facts. Are you even reading what I'm writing? Because you keep ignoring my point.

Now, PLEASE, address SPECIFICALLY why the violation of the cease-fire agreement wouldn't be a legal justification for war.

[Mike4Freedom]

Now, PLEASE, address SPECIFICALLY why the violation of the cease-fire agreement wouldn't be a legal justification for war.

It was to the UN that those cease fire promises were made and it was the UN that was dealing with Saddam. The Security Council had the responsibility to use force to enforce those provisions. They wisely decided against that course of action.