Posted on 05/30/2003 1:11:24 PM PDT by fritter
Wolfowitz says Saudi troop withdrawal was 'huge' reason for war with Iraq
Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- European critics of the Iraq war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official playing down Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the conflict.
In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited "bureaucratic reasons" for focusing on Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal and said a "huge" reason for the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia.
"For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.
He said one reason for going to war against Iraq that was "almost unnoticed but huge" was the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power.
Those troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the desert kingdom against Saddam, whose forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, but their presence in the country that houses Islam's holiest sites enraged Islamic fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden.
Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, the United States announced it was removing most of its 5,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and would set up its main regional command center in Qatar.
However, those goals were not spelled out publicly as the United States sought to build international support for the war. Instead, the Bush administration focused on Saddam's failure to dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
The failure of U.S. forces to locate extensive weapons stocks has raised doubts in a skeptical Europe whether Iraq represented a global security threat.
Wolfowitz's comments followed a statement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who suggested this week that Saddam might have destroyed his banned weapons before the war began.
On Friday, the commander of U.S. Marines in Iraq said he was surprised that extensive searches have failed to discover any of the chemical weapons that U.S. intelligence had indicated were supplied to front line Iraqi forces at the outset of the war.
"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," Lt. Gen. James Conway told reporters. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."
The remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld revived the controversy over the war as President Bush left for a European tour in which he hopes to put aside the bitterness over the war, which threatened the trans-Atlantic partnership.
In Denmark, whose government supported the war, opposition parties demanded to know whether Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen misled the public about the extent of Saddam's weapons threat.
"It was not what the Danish prime minister said when he advocated support for the war," Jeppe Kofod, the Social Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said in response to Wolfowitz's comments. "Those who went to war now have a big problem explaining it."
Former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said he was shocked by Wolfowitz's claim. "It leaves the world with one question: What should we believe?" he told The Associated Press.
In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting newspaper said the comments about Iraqi weapons showed that America is losing the battle for credibility.
"The charge of deception is inescapable," the newspaper said Friday.
In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war, said he doubted Iraq had any such weapons.
"The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a pre-emptive strike, 'Hit Saddam before he hits us,' " Cook told British Broadcasting Corp. "It is now quite clear that Saddam did not have anything with which to hit us in the first place."
During a visit to Poland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday he has "absolutely no doubt" that concrete evidence will be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
"Have a little patience," Blair told reporters.
Wolfowitz was in Singapore, where he is due to speak Saturday at the Asia Security Conference of military chiefs and defense ministers from Asian and key Western powers.
He told reporters at the conference that the United States will reorganize its forces worldwide to confront the threat of terrorism.
"We are in the process of taking a fundamental look at our military posture worldwide, including in the United States," Wolfowitz said. "We're facing a very different threat than any one we've faced historically."
Dane OTOH believes anything that comes out of this administration even when the President of the United States himself stated in the SOTU address that if Hussein didn't disarm, he would be disarmed. He made no statements on what would be done to Hussein if
A) A democratic government was not established
B) Human rights violations continued.
The reason given by the administration was to find and destroy WMDs. Considering all they've found is two transfer trucks, then yes I have a problem with it. The terrorist link portrayed by this administration is not half the link provided by factual news organizations on Saudi ties with the terrorists. However, Saudi Arabia is our 'ally'? Right Dane?
I support a conservative agenda, yes, in returning to a more Constitutional form and level of government. Does that make me a big L instead of a small l? Perhaps, but I do not subscribe to many parts of the Libertarian platform. But it does make me willing however to question any politician of either party when evidenced continues to mount that said purpose for a war is being deviated from. Unless you're going to tell me President Bush didn't make that statement in the SOTU address
I dont know.
Why the reason for the change then? If that was the reason, why make such a declarative statement on WMDs four months later to the citizens of the respective states?
Why would you disbelieve the transcript from the DoD, the Washington Post AND Vanity Fairs reporter himself, who is already "clarifying" and backtracking? Answer: Because you are desperate to believe that this is your ONE ISSUE which will prove Bush is bad.
So you're telling me that if the government is controlled by a party that one follows, all the sudden I'm supposed to give up skepticism and follow blindly? No questions asked? Patriotism and all that jazz? I have voted straight Republican ticket for close to 20 years and how much change have I seen? How much smaller has the government gotten? Perhaps you need to check into the history of the good folks over at the New American Century, which included many people currently sitting in positions of power, advising President Bush? I truly believe in my heart President Bush is a good man, I do without a doubt. However I'm going to have to hold that same praise for the men around him. Whatever you want to call this philosophy that has arisen over the past two years is in no way tied to what the Founding Fathers envisioned. And they had just as many threats as we do today. Different threats, but I'd say even more to an extent
We have found all sorts of items...mobile biological labs, mustard gas in old warheads, barrels of nuclear material, poson in the Euphrates, etc. etc.
Well traces of mustard gas in old warheads just doesn't do it. As for the nuclear materials, the barrels had already been recognized and tagged by the UN. Unless that is, you're going to doubt
President Bush launched the war on March 20, in part, to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.Saddam Hussein's regime long insisted that Iraq had destroyed its unconventional weapons and programs years ago. U.N. weapons inspectors, who spent 3 months in Iraq just prior to the war, found no evidence to refute the Iraqi claims.
So far, U.S. weapons hunters have not uncovered any such weapons either, despite searches at more than 100 sites.
Barrels of processed uranium and several tons of natural uranium at Tuwaitha had been under IAEA monitoring before the war.
"This could be either some type of pesticide, because this was an agricultural compound," General Benjamin Freakly told the television network, adding: "On the other hand, it could be a chemical agent, not weaponised."Are we to doubt generals now and other news sources to make the story plausible?Later, as US troops defending the facility were seen shedding their protective gear, it became clear the chemicals were not what they were initially feared to be.
Apparently, you have some sort of vision in your mind of the Acme WMD plant with barrels stacked up labeled with a skull and crossbones and big "DANGER" signs. Sorry, that isn't how they were stored, and that isn't how they will be found.
Well, you give me a call when they are found. Never mind, I'd know. If they were, perhaps Fox would get off this Peterson trial and start covering the news again...
Name the factual news organization and name the Abdullah link to terrorism.
Insult them all, let God sort them out?
That excessively broad brush you're using is getting tar everywhere, but mostly on yourself.
I can agree that your statement seems to apply to you more aptly than to most. You may want to adopt higher standards for your posts.
Here are a few simple obvious reasons.
1) Past MAD strategies fail when nuclear weapon or WMD technology is proliferated by third world nations to third parties who focus on assymetric warfare.
The ability of a terrorist organization to build WMD is ultimately linked to a piece of ground somewhere, where the devices can be fabricated. An obvious center of gravity which all Western nations should seek is to insure any party who fabricates are displays tendancies and appearances of fabricating those devices are held accountable in the international community.
Saddam Hussein repeatedly exhibited behavior and Iraq displayed behavior and actions rebellious of all international law and a continuous desire to control and/or deploy WMD while picayrunishly remaning deceptive about their actions.
Iraq was an obvious target to be toppled to retain international peace and respect for law and order within a community of nations.
2) Iraq for over 12 years continued to violate the UN conditions for the cessation of the Gulf War in 1991. They continued to disregard the No-Fly Zone and continued to shoot missiles at US and coalition aircraft patrolling the No-Fly Zone created by the UN. If for no other reason, the UN should have endorsed an entry into Iraq by force to seize control of all armed forces involved in those violations. This was basically a moot point though, probably one of the most blatent not iterated in the Iraq War debates initially in the war.
3) WMD are small and intelligence generally associates high security with their storage and movement since days of the Cold War. Unfortunately, the same country that can hide $650 million in cash, inside milk cartons in a farm house in Iraq, is the same nation that might have a small cadre of dedicated fanatics who,..if given merely hours, could relocate and hide WMD, even possibly out of the country.
4) Considering after the fact, we still don't have a body for either Osama bin Laden or S. Hussein, does this lack of evidence warrant a belief that those two individuals never existed and/or never even posed a threat to vital interests of the US? Such innocuous vital interests as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of American citizens at the WTC were very well linked to terrorist associations in Iraq and Iraq's condoning of their training and behavior.
5) During the Iraq War, the level of terrorist activity within Israel dropped to an all time low sine 1964. Regardless if done for incorrect justification, we jerked some bad guy's chain somewhere and influenced and limited adverse responses to American interests and those of our allies. Those stats alone would have justified a Nobel peace prize in past Administrations.
6) Socialists around the globe need to understand that if they condone terrorist behavior, there will be irreversible risk for those positions and even if they control international bodies, such as the UN, they still won't control all risk.
7) If these reasons don't have import, then perhaps those who were willing to ignore the Baathist party atrocities, just need to have their butts kicked for G.P. (General Purpose). I.e. If they don't like it, TOUGH!
Out of 900.
Just to piss you off, asshole.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.