Posted on 05/26/2008 9:36:12 PM PDT by The_Republican
In the fall of 2003, a few months after Saddam Hussein's overthrow, U.S. officials began to despair of finding stockpiles of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The resulting embarrassment caused a radical shift in administration rhetoric about the war in Iraq.
President Bush no longer stressed Saddam's record or the threats from the Baathist regime as reasons for going to war. Rather, from that point forward, he focused almost exclusively on the larger aim of promoting democracy. This new focus compounded the damage to the president's credibility that had already been caused by the CIA's errors on Iraqi WMD. The president was seen as distancing himself from the actual case he had made for removing the Iraqi regime from power.
This change can be quantified: In the year beginning with his first major speech about Iraq – the Sept. 12, 2002 address to the U.N. General Assembly – Mr. Bush delivered nine major talks about Iraq. There were, on average, approximately 14 paragraphs per speech on Saddam's record as an enemy, aggressor, tyrant and danger, with only three paragraphs on promoting democracy. In the next year – from September 2003 to September 2004 – Mr. Bush delivered 15 major talks about Iraq. The average number of paragraphs devoted to the record of threats from Saddam was one, and the number devoted to democracy promotion was approximately 11.
The stunning change in rhetoric appeared to confirm his critics' argument that the security rationale for the war was at best an error, and at worst a lie. That's a shame, for Mr. Bush had solid grounds for worrying about the dangers of leaving Saddam in power.
In the spring of 2004, with the transfer of sovereign authority to the Iraqis imminent, the president was scheduled to give a major speech about Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
One would think democrats would’ve found good cause to war in Saddam’s setting the Kuwaiti oil fields alight. I did. He couldn’t have known that they wouldn’t destroy the atmosphere. Talk of Al Gore’s folly....
I wonder if somehow, some way the whole story will be revealed.
Its lucky for me that I don’t have to sell anything. I’ll leave that to the pols and PR folks.
I’ve been fully expecting war with Saddam since the late nineties, when Russia, France, and China all signed multi-billion dollar contracts with him. These were worthless unless sanctions were removed, and they were worthless if Saddam was removed.
This told me that the fix was in; the Security Council was bought and it was only a matter of time and choreography before Saddam was out of his box. With full UN seal of approval, and with French, Russian, and Chinese support.
This is before I knew the extent of “Oil for Food”, which was the biggest fraud in history, so big that it held up the end of sanctions, everyone was making too much money off of them to see them end.
But the PR drumbeat started as if on cue, that sanctions were killing millions of Iraqi babies, bla-bla-bla.
I knew from that, that we had a very narrow window to take him out.
When the World Trade Center came down, I knew that fighting a “war on terror” with him still in power would be hopeless. Its been tough enough with the nutballs in Tehran still in power, and half of Pakistan a no-go area. With Saddam feeding them money and intel, forget it.
Of course, for those paying attention, the first World Trade Center hit had Iraqi fingerprints. And, for those paying attention, Saddam’s men met with the second World Trade Center terror crew right before they attacked.
And for those paying attention, Bin Ladin’s inner circle was made up of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who were on Saddam’s payroll. Including his number two, who if Bin Ladin is dead, is now AQ’s number one.
You couldn’t be serious about responding to terrorism without taking down its number one sponsor in the world, from Africa to the Philippines.
Why does everyone ignore Bush’s oft repeated phrase “ally in the War on Terror?”
Why is it that Iran knows exactly why we are in Iraq & Afghanistan, but nobody in America can come to grips with it?
Excellent! Ping, ping ping.
Simple fact of the matter is that Hussein violated the 1991 cease fire - repeatedly. Why we never argued that point is beyond me.
It was one reason we (finally) stepped up attacks on Hussein in the late 90s. However, just like Carter, Clinton didn’t take care of business and Hussein and Al-Queerda both grew in power.
There were always multiple reasons for going into Iraq. I grow tired of hearing people say President Bush “changed” his reasons. In fact, I got so tired of it, I put a bunch of this info (from pre-war speeches by President Bush) on my profile page to have handy and for anyone else interested.
It’s all down the memory hole now.
The liberal press is forging a new reality and leftist historians are destroying the old.
You are, of course, 100% on the money.
Fixt'
It was a toss-up to me whether it was more Bush Senior’s fault or Schwarzkopf’s for not getting better terms.
Dougie, the war was called “Operation Iraqi Freedom”.
Does that ring a bell?
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