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."
LOL! He does it when he's not even trying!!
If you are trying to impress me with the accuracy of your generalization, it isn't working.
When you make broad, inclusive statements like that, you are slinging mud loosely, no matter how legalistic your intentions might be.
I imagine most freepers would agree with me on that. ;^)
You are right about one thing. I don't blindly trust politicians, regardless of what party they belong to.
Be well.
But remember, the issue of Saddam's WMD was always the primary reason for removing Saddam Hussein from power and no one I know is denying that. But there were many other reasons that you seem less willing to address. The links to terrorism, freeing the Iraqi people, improving Israel's security and relocating our military command center from Saudi Arabia, were also well known and well discussed reasons for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Of course, there were other reasons but WMD (as you state) was usually the lead argument to scare possible skeptics to go with the game plan. This should never be forgotten.
BTW, the main reason for the war as stated long ago by Wolfowitz (to create a counterweight to Saudi Arabia) was heavily deemphasized at the beginining of the war but now is moving to the forefront. Some of us saw this coming a long time ago. Truth eventually comes to the surface.
Its obvious you have an agenda that goes way beyond merely being skeptical of decisions made by the Bush administration. Also, most conservatives on FR aren't engaging in any "knee jerk partisanship". As for you being principled, I don't buy it. Especially not after reading the following remark you made earlier on this thread.
>>>BTW, I opposed the war but thought that he did have WMDs. Perhaps I was too gullible in believing Rumsfeld. Live and learn.
134 posted on 05/30/2003 5:23 PM MDT by Captain Kirk
This points to a lack of consistency and integrity in your argument.
>>>BTW, the main reason for the war as stated long ago by Wolfowitz (to create a counterweight to Saudi Arabia) ....
Now you're even contradicting yourself. LOL That was never the main reason.
I remind you, Paul Wolfowitz isn't the POTUS, the VPOTUS, or Defense Secretary. These attempts to undermine the truth, shows that you're as desperate as the liberal establishment is. So you fabricate falsehoods and create distortions about the historical record. A record by the way, which hasn't been completed. The main reason for the war was, the WMD. Followed by many other legitimate and valid reasons.
Once the remaining two-thirds of the WMD sites have been thoroughly examined and nothing is found... only after the US has ruled out the possibility that Saddam shipped WMD to his terrorist neighbors... and only after its been concluded that WMD were not destroyed by Saddam's henchmen prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom start-up... then and only then will you be able to reach the conclusions you've reached on this thread.
So far, PresBush is sitting pretty. The American people trust the President and he continues to receive overwhelming support for his remarkable leadership. If you are bothered by that, too bad.
Contradicting myself? Please read my threads *before* the war I alway said that IMHO my humble opinion the real reason for the war was to build a counterweight to Saudi Arabia. I have been entirely consistent on this point unlike many pro-warriors who once used WMD as their lead scare argument but now have shifted to "liberation" etc.
Now it is true that the *stated* reason given by policymakers before the war was primarily was WMD. I am arguing that they were making a largely a cynical ploy to misled Americans to bring about their own hidden agendas (e.g. building a counterweight to Saudi Arabia). Politicians often have hidden agendas. Why is this so difficult to understand?
You've presented absolutely no substantiated facts to backup the accusations you've presented and thereby, have severely damaged your integrity and credibility. Yet you want to continue spreading faslehoods and half truths about outcomes to events that haven't occured. In that regard, you've lost the argument.
You've chosen to fabricate failure on the part of Bush and his people. There have been no failures and there have been no scare tactics employed. There's been no "cynical ploy to misled Americans" and there's no "hidden agendas" either.
All politicians don't have a hidden agenda. All politicians don't engage in nefarious acts either. You're trying to link the Bush administration, Tony Blair's government, American intelligence and British intelligence in some elaborate hoax. There was no hoax.
However, what you've presented verges on the preposterous.
I've presented you with facts and yes, I've asserted those facts based on hard evidence, which I don't think needs repeating for most folks.
There's a big difference between asserting the truth, as I've done and making empty accusations, as you have.
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