Iraq: Setting the Record Straight (Project for the New American Century) [BOOKMARK!]

Project for the New American Century ^ | April 2005

[RWR8189]

Iraq:

Setting the Record Straight

 

Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................i

I. Iraq: The Clinton Administration’s Case.……………………………...................1

II. Iraq: The Perspective from Washington on March 18, 2003.................................13

III. Iraq: A History of Deception, Obstruction & Failure to Meet

International Obligations.......................................................................................17

IV. Questions & Answers: Iraq’s Nuclear Weapons Program...................................32

V. Questions & Answers: Iraq’s Missile and UAV Programs..................................43

VI. Questions & Answers: Iraq’s Chemical/Biological Weapons Programs.............54

VII. Questions and Answers: Iraq’s Ties to Terrorism and al Qaeda..........................70

Appendix: “The Right War for the Right Reasons”.........................................................78

 

 

Preface

Two years after the invasion of Iraq, we still do not know with complete confidence what happened to all of the stockpiles of weapons and weapons precursors that Saddam’s government admitted to possessing in the early 1990s, as well as other undeclared material Iraq had not accounted for during the United Nations weapons’ inspection process. Although American inspection teams led by David Kay and Charles Duelfer have concluded that most have been destroyed, this is based principally on interviews with former officials of the Saddam regime involved in the programs.

Assuming for the moment that Duelfer and Kay are right, and that the stockpiles were destroyed before the war, does that mean the war was fought under false pretenses? The failure to discover weapons in Iraq has led to many charges against the Bush administration, but essentially these fall into two categories. First, it is alleged that the administration lied about the threat or, in the more sophisticated version, that it hyped the threat by manipulating the intelligence. Second, even if the administration did not lie about or hype the threat, nevertheless, the original rationale for the war has proved mistaken.

One way to begin to answer the first charge is to compare the Bush administration’s claims about the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with those made by the Clinton administration. The fact is that the current administration’s arguments about the threat we faced from Iraq was not substantially different from that put forward by the previous administration.

Read the rest of the report here.

 

[ConservativeMind]

Thanks!

[massgopguy]

They're going out of their minds at DU about a "pre-war" memo that Tony Blair supposedly got. They were saying it was the smoking gun to impeach Bush and wanted to know why FR wasn't touching it. Turns out it was fake.

[Remole]

PING