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Saying No to War
New York Times
March 9, 2003
Within days, barring a diplomatic breakthrough, President Bush will decide whether to send American troops into Iraq in the face of United Nations opposition. We believe there is a better option involving long-running, stepped-up weapons inspections. But like everyone else in America, we feel the window closing. If it comes down to a question of yes or no to invasion without broad international support, our answer is no.

'snip'

President Bush has switched his own rationale for the invasion several times. Right now, the underlying theory seems to be that the United States can transform the Middle East by toppling Saddam Hussein, turning Iraq into a showplace democracy and inspiring the rest of the region to follow suit. That's another fine goal that seems impossible to accomplish outside the context of broad international agreement. The idea that the resolution to all the longstanding, complicated problems of that area begins with a quick military action is both seductive and extremely dangerous. The Bush administration has not been willing to risk any political capital in attempting to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but now the president is theorizing that invading Iraq will do the trick.
Given the corner Mr. Bush has painted himself in, withdrawing troops — even if a considerable slice remains behind — would be an admission of failure. He obviously intends to go ahead, and bet on the very good chance that the Iraqi army will fall quickly. The fact that the United Nations might be irreparably weakened would not much bother his conservative political base at home, nor would the outcry abroad. But in the long run, this country needs a strong international body to keep the peace and defuse tension in a dozen different potential crisis points around the world. It needs the support of its allies, particularly embattled states like Pakistan, to fight the war on terror. And it needs to demonstrate by example that there are certain rules that everybody has to follow, one of the most important of which is that you do not invade another country for any but the most compelling of reasons. When the purpose is fuzzy, or based on questionable propositions, it's time to stop and look for other, less extreme means to achieve your goals.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/statement/2003/0309sayingno.htm

War in the Ruins of Diplomacy

March 18, 2003

America is on its way to war. President Bush has told
Saddam Hussein to depart or face attack. For Mr. Hussein,
getting rid of weapons of mass destruction is no longer an
option. Diplomacy has been dismissed. Arms inspectors,
journalists and other civilians have been advised to leave
Iraq.

The country now stands at a decisive turning point, not
just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to
define its role in the post-cold-war world. President
Bush's father and then Bill Clinton worked hard to infuse
that role with America's traditions of idealism,
internationalism and multilateralism. Under George W. Bush,
however, Washington has charted a very different course.
Allies have been devalued and military force overvalued.

Now that logic is playing out in a war waged without the
compulsion of necessity, the endorsement of the United
Nations or the company of traditional allies. This page has
never wavered in the belief that Mr. Hussein must be
disarmed. Our problem is with the wrongheaded way this
administration has gone about it.

'snip'

The result is a war for a legitimate international goal
against an execrable tyranny, but one fought almost alone.
At a time when America most needs the world to see its
actions in the best possible light, they will probably be
seen in the worst. This result was neither foreordained nor
inevitable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18TUE1.html?ex=1049002026&ei=1&en=b2f3cb3fd8858d49

FLASHBACK: On Verge of Iraq Invasion in 2003, Many Editorials Expressed Doubts

By E&P Staff

Published: March 18, 2006 5:00 PM ET
NEW YORK During the run up to the Iraq war in 2003, E&P carried out a number of surveys to chart editorial opinions around the country. Views grew more and less hawkish from week to week. Here was the final tally, published on March 19, 2003, just before the invasion began. It was written by Ari Berman and E&P Editor Greg Mitchell. It reveals that doubts about the mission--or whether it should at least be delayed--were surprisingly common.

***
For apparently the first time in modern history, the U.S. government seems poised to go to war not only lacking the support of many of its key allies abroad but also without the enthusiastic backing of the majority of major newspapers at home, according to E&P's fifth and (presumably) final prewar survey of the top 50 newspapers' editorial positions.

The doubts suggest that the editorial pages will be quick to attack President Bush if the invasion does not go smoothly.

Following Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, newspapers on Tuesday took their last opportunity to sound off before the war starts. Of the 44 papers publishing editorials about the war Tuesday, roughly one-third reiterated strong support for the White House, one-third repeated their abiding opposition to it, and the rest -- with further debate now useless -- took a more philosophical approach.

But, in the end, the majority agreed that the Bush administration had badly mishandled the crisis. Most papers sharply criticized Washington's diplomatic efforts, putting the nation on the eve of a pre-emptive war without U.N. Security Council support -- and expressed fears for the future despite an inevitable victory.

The Houston Chronicle said it remained "unconvinced" that attack was preferable to containment, and The Orange County Register of Santa Ana, Calif., declared it was "unpersuaded" that the threat posed by the "vile" Hussein justified military action now. The San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News wrote, "War might have been avoided, had the administration been sincere about averting it."

"The war will be conducted with less support than the cause should have commanded," The Washington Post, in backing the attack, wrote. "The Bush administration has raised the risks through its insistence on an accelerated timetable, its exaggerated rhetoric and its insensitive diplomacy; it has alienated allies and multiplied the number of protestors in foreign capitals."

There was always a group of roughly a dozen papers that strongly supported regime change as the only acceptable vehicle toward Iraq's disarmament. They included The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times, and Boston Herald. They continued their praise of the president this week and celebrated the fact that "the regime of Saddam Hussein is doomed," as The Kansas City (Mo.) Star put it.

The majority of papers, however, remain deeply troubled by the position the U.S. finds itself in. Even large papers such as the Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian in Portland, and Newsday of Melville, N.Y., which have long advocated (or at least accepted) using force to disarm Hussein, criticized their President as he prepared to send young men and women into battle.

"The road to imminent war has been a bumpy one, clumsily traveled by the Bush administration," The Buffalo (N.Y.) News wrote. "The global coalition against terror forged after the atrocities of 9/11 is virtually shattered. The explanation as to why Iraq presents an imminent threat requiring immediate action has not been clear and compelling."

Many papers expressed hopes that a better world could prevail. "So the United States apparently will go to war with few allies and in the face of great international opposition," the L.A. Times said. "This is an uncharted path ... to an uncertain destination. We desperately hope to be wrong in our trepidation about the consequences here and abroad."

Newsday agreed: "At this point, we can only hope that the U.S. military campaign in Iraq is better coordinated and implemented than the hamhanded diplomatic maneuvers that led to it."

The Philadelphia Inquirer detailed nine specific hopes, particularly wishing that America's new pre-emptive invasion against Saddam doesn't turn into "the first step toward an American empire that rules arrogantly and alone," further weakening the United Nations and inflaming global resentment.

Once equivocal editorial pages got straight to the point. "This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure," The New York Times argued, "Washington's worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American might. What it risks squandering is not Americans' power, but an essential part of our glory."

Other papers were even more blunt. The Sun of Baltimore, consistently one of the most passionate dissenters on the war, began their editorial with the sentence, "This war is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of principle, but, more importantly, it is wrong as a matter of practical policy."

USA Today asked Bush to finally disclose risks, costs, and democratic government estimates for Iraq while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wondered "what 'the peaceful entry' of 280,000 troops would look like." The Arizona Republic in Phoenix said that Bush and his "coalition of the willing," with prodding by the French, "have left the United Nations in tatters."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002199222