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."
An excellent reason and no doubt part of the truth. And generally overlooked. Maybe that's why they've gone public with it.
Yesterday on DC's radio news station WTOP, they spun the headline as something like "Low income workers will lose a tax credit", referring I suppose to the tightening of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides a rebate (e.g., a payout) to those who have no tax burden whatsoever.
WTOP also failed to mention that EITC is thought to generate $85 billion per year in tax fraud. I suppose this was too complex for WTOP to explain.
What side am I on? I am on the side of the decentralized American Republic of Adams and Jefferson which believed in the doctrines of the rule of law and national defense. You obviously subscribe to the imperial model of might makes right and conquest. I guess we just have a philosophical diagreement.
More seriously, I agree with you in one sense. National defense against attack of imminent attack should be the focus of American foreign policy. The Afghan war was such a war and thus was entirely justified. Iraq war was merely a ploy to create a "counterweight" to Saudi Arabia and take the pressure off Israeal. WMD appears to have been just a tactic (and an effective one) to scare hysterical conservatives, who were so sensible on Kosovo, into line.
Face it. The evidence is building that allegations of WMD was trumped up as an effecitve scare tactic to "scare" conservatives. Clinton did the same thing in 1998 when he used the scare tactic of alleged genocide in Kosovo.
Politicians will always pick the justification that sells. That is simple common sense whether with Clinton or Dubya. Unfortunately for Dubya, the "real" probable reason we went to war (creating a pro-U.S. counterweight to Saudi Arabia and taking the pressure off Israel) didn't play in Peoria.
Hey, I was perfectly willing to admit that there might have been WMD's before the war. Perhaps I was too believing of Rumsfeld's claims. I would readily admit that they existed....though not even Dubya claims to have found them yet. The burden is on him to present some evidence
Doesn't the fact that site after site has come up dry (despite Rumsfeld's confident claims about WMD) make you even a tad skeptical?
If he were here, Machievalli would, of course, have the more logical explanation. The real reason for the war (creating a counterweight to Saudi Arabia and taking the pressure of Israel) didn't play in Peoria ergo unproven and dubious allegations of WMD were used to "scare" conservatives and other potential oppenents into line.
If he were here, Machievalli would, of course, have the more logical explanation. The real reason for the war (creating a counterweight to Saudi Arabia and taking the pressure of Israel) didn't play in Peoria ergo unproven and dubious allegations of WMD were used to "scare" conservatives and other potential oppenents into line.
Oh, I see. That's one of the reasons I'm not a Libertarian.
I agree.
I'm a long time conservative and the claims of WMD in Saddam's hands made by US intelligence didn't scare me anymore then it scared most Americans. Some folks may have been upset by the talk of war and killing, but they weren't any conservatives I know. I'd say the liberals were the ones scared shitless. So what. Nothing new there.
If you want to raise the spector of Machiavelli, I won't disagree with you. As usual, politics play a big part in most aspects of human relations and have since civilized society first developed. Politics and human nature go hand in hand. This is far from over. And remember, most Americans don't trust the the Saudi's (The House of Saud), but they still support the Israeli people and want the US to continue being her ally.
Face it, you simply don't trust the Bush administration either.
Before the war started, PresBush and his people said time and again that WMD, fighting terrorism and freedom for the Iraqi people were the three reasons for removing Saddam Hussein from power. All SecWolfowitz did was repeat those reasons in an interview with the liberal magazine Vanity Fair and from that, all hell broke loose. The leftwing is desperate and will try anything to devalue the accomplishments of PresBush. Sorry you don't see it that way. Right now, most Americans don't care that actual WMD haven't turned up yet. That position may change at some future time, but for now the American people give PresBush high grades for his handling of the Operation Iraqi Freedom and the overall war on terrorism.
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