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Posted on 06/09/2003 12:42:54 PM PDT by hchutch
The United States has discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I know this because I read it on the front page of the very liberal New York Times. Of course, the Times was only trying to hurt the administration. In the rush to Baghdad during the war, our troops bypassed and failed to secure one of Saddam's key nuclear facilities. That facility was looted by local villagers, who ransacked vaults and warehouses looking for anything of value. Many of the villagers took home radioactive barrels, and are now suffering from radiation poisoning. According to the Times, the looted nuclear facility, "contained ample radioactive poisons that could be used to manufacture an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs."
So in the course of trying to embarrass the administration, the Times has inadvertently raised a very important point in the administration's defense. Saddam's nuclear-weapons program contained sufficient material to pose a serious threat to the United States. In the hands of terrorists, nuclear dirty bombs supplied by Saddam could have rendered landmarks and key sites in American cities uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
And why did Saddam have a nuclear facility in the first place? It was, of course, part of his effort to produce a nuclear bomb. In fact, the nuclear site reported on by the Times was connected to the facility bombed years before by the Israelis, who had become convinced that Saddam was attempting to build a nuclear weapon. Thank goodness the Israelis acted. Thank goodness we did too.
Now it's true that this was a site that the inspectors knew about. That, however, might not have prevented Saddam from transferring the small amount of nuclear material necessary for a dirty bomb to terrorists. And the Iraqis may well have been carrying out other critical tasks in pursuit of a nuclear bomb at secret facilities. And there was always the danger that, in the absence of regime change, the Europeans would have tired of sanctions and inspections — as they'd done before — and let Saddam complete his nuclear work. The Europeans' renewed interest in sanctions was only prompted by America's preparations to invade, and we could not have kept our troops at the ready forever.
Another serious danger was the possibility that, at a propitious moment some time down the road, Saddam might simply have kicked the inspectors out. After all, that's what the North Koreans did. They waited till we were tied down by our struggle with Iraq, booted the inspectors out, and powered up their nuclear program. Had we failed to invade, Saddam could have waited until a weaker president was in power, and/or until the U.S. was tied down in a war (perhaps with Korea), and simply thrown the inspectors out. After all, he'd done it before.
Prior to the war, it was impossible to tell how close Saddam was to building a nuclear bomb. We hoped and believed that he was still at least a year or two away from success, although the possibility that he might be even closer than that had to be reckoned with. After all, our intelligence had once before proven wrong. We had underestimated the progress of Saddam's nuclear program, as we eventually learned from defectors. But even if Saddam was a couple of years away from a bomb, the need to invade was urgent. The point was precisely to stop Saddam before he got close enough to a bomb to exploit our uncertainty about his capacity and blackmail us. That, after all, is exactly what the North Koreans have been doing for some time.
All of this was publicly discussed before the war. Opponents of invasion emphasized that Saddam was probably at least a couple of years away from building a bomb. And they argued that conventional deterrence could in any case keep a nuclear-armed Saddam under control. Proponents of the war argued that Saddam might be closer to a bomb than we realized, and that, in any case, it was necessary to strike him quickly, when he was (we hoped) too far from a bomb to blackmail us.
Drawing on Kenneth Pollack's powerful case for invasion, proponents of the war argued that, once in possession of a bomb, Saddam could not be deterred in the way the Soviets once were. Opponents of war asked why we were not invading North Korea, which was so obviously close to having a bomb. Proponents of the war countered that we were invading Iraq to prevent it from becoming a North Korea — which was, by all accounts, far too close to having a bomb to safely invade.
In two pieces published in the run-up to the war, "Brave New World" and "Why Invade," I explained that the administration had not been able to fully and frankly emphasize the connection between Saddam's nuclear ambitions and the war. Both the president and the vice president did, of course, talk about the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Saddam. But to emphasize that, and especially to spell out the danger scenarios outlined explicitly by Kenneth Pollack, would have been difficult and awkward. It would have harmed American power to note in too much detail just how vulnerable we were to nuclear blackmail. The same dynamic helps explain the administration's relative silence about the barrel over which the North Koreans now have us. We do our best to pretend that Kim Jong Il has not got us in as difficult a situation as he in fact does.
But, again, this dynamic was by no means a complete secret before the war. The administration did include the danger of nuclear blackmail from Iraq in its publicly stated reasons for the war. And pundits did argue about all this. In particular, the war's proponents made the point that, Saddam's being perhaps a year or two away from a nuclear weapon (if we were lucky) made this exactly the moment to strike.
So the failure of the administration to turn up any chemical or biological weapons in Iraq is, from my perspective, not the key point. As I said repeatedly at the time, we were going to war to prevent Saddam from eventually producing nuclear weapons. That fact was known and even announced by the administration, but for reasons inherent to the nuclear game, could not be fully emphasized and spelled out.
Did the Iraqis have chemical and biological weapons? No one doubts that they did. Did they destroy or move them out of the country prior to the inspectors' arrival to prevent their discovery from justifying an invasion? Quite possibly. If so, in an effort to preserve the deterrent effect of our belief that he still possessed chemical and biological weapons, Saddam evidently decided not to give us evidence of their destruction. That was a very dangerous game to play — a game Saddam lost.
But the New York Times report on Iraq's pillaged nuclear facility reminds us that Saddam did in fact possess weapons of mass destruction — nuclear materials that could easily have supplied terrorists with "an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs." And that very real danger was only the promise of a full-fledged nuclear bomb a few years down the road. We are all in debt to President Bush for acting, while there was still time, to prevent that disastrous outcome.
Can you put down the crack-pipe long enough to flesh this theory out a bit?
How does one go about nominating a Quote of the Day?
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What's yours, now? I know what you were saying several months ago, but haven't kept up since.
That would be the interpretation that falsely assumes the authors of The Constitution meant to shackle us to the conditions of America (as a minor power) that happened to prevail in the 18th Century. Truth be known there're probably a few who fantasize about a cultural revolution of some sort returning us to an agrarian nation of yoeman farmers.
2. We couldn't do anything about his WMD threat, so we invented "Person of Interest" Steve Hatfill and buried the authorship of 9/11.
3. Since we couldn't say he hit us out loud, we used vague doubletalk about WMD as a pretext for forcing Saddam out of power.
4. We couldn't fight Saddam to the death, so we cut him a backdoor deal and papered over it with bogus "decapitation strikes" and a staged hunt for a minnow trap at the bottom of a Fredericksburg pond.
Get the picture?
What particular entities do the double-headed eagle and the crest represent? I think they're Serbian symbols all, aren't they, or are they more particularly Bosian Serb? What is the joke? (I honestly don't get it.)
Give me a minute. I'm still trying to get those hot pink and electric blue paisleys to come into focus...
You mean like the Saudis? Oh, I keep forgetting they're our 'allies' in the War on Terror aren't they? Tell me, considering that we practically elect an entirely new government policy every four years by electing a President, and the fact that contrary to some belief around here that Republicans will be in the White House for the next 30 years, and the fact that even Fox News anchors and talking heads admit this 'war' will go on for at least a generation, who's going to be the next target in the WOT? Conservatives? Christians? I'm sure sooner or later there will be some group somewhere that's got a soft spot in your heart the new WOT will go after. Mind you, I'm not an Arabic supporter, I fully support the right of Israel to exist (an Israeli supporting paleo-con, imagine that), but these excuses to go to war seem to be ever growing
Or am I not supposed to ask questions like that and blindly support the Patriot Act, and the roving WOT which mysteriously keeps away from our 'allies' supporting same said terror of which the war is on?
WOT, I like that, kind of like the WOD (War on Drugs), WOP(War on Poverty, WOI (War on Illiteracy), the ever present WONSBW (War on Non Seat Belt Wearers thought up by Sen Elizabeth Dole (R) ), and any other 'War on' the national government can come up with. Heck, before long, maybe the 'conservatives' can spend some more money coming up with an entirely different branch like they did for 'Homeland Security'. This new branch's only purpose will be to come up with things to go to war on. Followed closely by the Ministry of Silly Walks I imagine.... Sorry I digress on the continuing growth of our national government coming from a party that used to support limited government
However, since you have used the "big oil" accusation, along with "corporate connections" and the accusation that the CIA works for the President personally, and topped it all off by telling me that when the weapons are found they will have been planted, I see no reason to further bother myself with you.
Foreign policy is decided by the President...Show me where [PNAC] foreign policy proposals are prohibited in the Constitution, if you can.
Show me where in the Constitution the president is given the authority to dictate foreign policy. The president's primary charge is to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," not use the military as his own personal tool for implementing foreign policy.
The U.S. military was originally intended for defending the nation against attack. That purpose has been twisted by groups like the PNAC to include pre-emptive strikes against nations that haven't taken hostile action against us. (And, in case you've forgotten, 9/11 was not an Iraqi attack.)
The problem with the PNAC is that it calls for military action without a constitutionally mandated declaration of war. Congressional resolutions authorizing a "use of force" are not declarations of war, no matter what you tell yourself to help you sleep better at night. It is the responsibility of Congress to declare a state of war between the U.S. and another foreign power, and to then have the president use his position as commander in chief to prosecute that war to its conclusion. It is unconstitutional for Congress to simply pass the buck and grant war-making powers to the president. That would be handing the president a blank check to cash whenever he wants, and the framers of the Constitution never intended for him to have that kind of power.
You may feel comfortable with one man having virtually complete autonomous control over the most powerful military in the world, but I'm not. Sure, your conscience may be eased having someone "moral" and "principled" like Bush in the White House, but what about someone like Hillary Clinton in charge? I'd be willing to bet that you'd be singing a different tune.
The problem with the PNAC is that it calls for military action without a constitutionally mandated declaration of war. Congressional resolutions authorizing a "use of force" are not declarations of war, no matter what you tell yourself to help you sleep better at night.
Your claims here are unencumbered by a knowledge of American history. Most of the wars that our Constitutional Republic fought in our early years were undeclared wars (e.g. the Quasi War with France, 1798-1800, a naval war fought for control of the West Indies) and many were never approved by Congress, or only approved, often ex post facto, by a "use of force" resolution (e.g. The Tripolitan/Barbary War 1801-1805 where, although Tripoli -- a pirate enclave with dubious sovereign legitimacy -- declared war on us, Jefferson never sought a congressional declaration of war on Tripoli or the any of the Barbary powers, and sent the initial naval forces without consulting congress at all).
These examples are only scratching the surface. As Max Boot has summarized here: "Between 1800 and 1934, U.S. Marines staged 180 landings abroad. And that’s not even counting the Indian wars the army was fighting every year until 1890." Boot notes that ALL the wars chronicled in his book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power were undeclared.
I guess there must have been draft copies of PNAC resolutions circulating as early as the late 18th Century?
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