Wolfowitz Rethinks Iraq’s WMDs and War
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in History, The War On Terrorism, War
Just ran across this story that came out last week.
Paul Wolfowitz suggested that US forces might not have invaded Iraq if Washington had known then that the regime of Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.“And I’m not sure based on the evidence we know now that we could have been absolutely convinced that there was no danger, absolutely no danger,” Wolfowitz said at National Press Club.
“If somebody could have given you a Lloyds of London guarantee that weapons of mass destruction would not possibly be used, one would have contemplated much more support for internal Iraqi opposition and not having the United States take the job on the way we did,” he said.
Wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary and one of the architects of the war, said the fear that Iraq would use weapons of mass destruction was a major preoccupation of General Tommy Franks, who planned and led the invasion.
“It was a sense that the greatest danger in taking this man on would be that he would use them,” Wolfowitz said, referring to Saddam Hussein, who is now on trial in Baghdad.
“If you could have given us a guarantee that they wouldn’t have been used, there would have been policy options available probably,” he said.
I know some liberals in this country changed positions when 9/11 happened and I also know that those same liberals were one issue voters, given Kerry’s seemingly questionable credibility in prosecuting the WOT. And a lot of those same liberal-hawks now don’t give a $#!+ about whether or not WMDs were found.
But like it or not liberal-hawks, Wolfowitz admission is just the type of hindsight 20/20 stuff that really gets the pro-War On Terror, anti-Iraq War liberals going. And yes, you can certainly count me in that group. The evidence was never very solid in my eyes, and my pre-war suspicions about its veracity has proven frighteningly accurate. But do I think people should be prosecuted? Nope. Not a chance. We have to forgive this stuff, but I’m certainly not going to forget.
And yes, Saddam was a bad guy. That isn’t in dispute. But was there a better way to prosecute the WOT and a better target to pay attention to? With Iran making so much noise about nuclear proliferation, that same gut felling is telling me yes…on both accounts.
Let’s hope we start getting serious about making sure the intelligence is accurate next time, if not for own credibility, but for the innocent people of the country we may decide to strike.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 and is filed under History, The War On Terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 13th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
AFP (consider what it’s an acronym for) writes a lede that’s not justified by the quotes it uses to support it.
A deliberately chosen phrase to describe an impossible condition. Wolfie’s saying, “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have had to rush in the way we did …” BUT. But obviously it’s not a perfect world and Lloyd’s never would do such a thing and the only way to be sure Saddam didn’t use WMD was to go in and get rid of Saddam.
Which is what Wolfie basically says in the convoluted sentence before that:
Disentangle the double negatives and you get “if we knew then what we knew now, in fact we WOULD have been concerned about the danger.” Presumably referring to the dozens of chemical warheads that have turned up.
All he’s acknowledging is an option to contemplate “much more support for internal Iraqi opposition and not having the United States take the job on the way we did.” In other words, deal with Saddam now, but have it done less catastrophically. Which was the neo-con plan all along: an invasion/uprising in the southern third of the country followed by a Shi’ite client state under American protection, where democratic reforms and infrastructure rebuilding could be done as an example to the rest of Iraq and the rest of the Muslim world.
So, then, for the anti-Iraq liberals, which gets you going more? Admitting we could have done differently, or not admitting mistakes? Because you’re insisting that both drive you up the wall. It’s not surprising in that case that both demands aren’t getting much response.