Oh, this is rich (emphasis mine):
Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as “a zealot” and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.
Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from “fanatic” leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a “security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region.”
Former president George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq six years ago on the grounds that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to international security. Administration officials at the time also strongly suggested Iraq had significant links to al-Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
I’m not for a moment suggesting that we should have entered into some security pact with Saddam Hussein, but it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to do that than invade his country and occupy it for ten years. I’m just saying.
The main point is that Saddam was no threat to the United States and the threat derived from our containment policy was manageable in other ways than invading under false pretenses.
If Hussein was no threat and had no connections to Bin Laden, then, why did we invade Iraq spending billions of dollars and thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives in the process? Are oil and power that important to the well being of the United States? That is a rhetorical question, of course.
It was always more than the oil.
It was about winning elections here deep into the new century.
It was about controlling the regulatory climate, making the court appointments, writing the tax law, running the whole thing, for a generation at least.
It was about turning the wartime powers of an executive onto your political enemies.
It was about reducing the Democrats to a Mulroneyesque rump.
The war was just how you got there — with the war came the power, and the propaganda, and the hate and the fear.
Remember 2002? the One-Party State was right there, you could practically touch it, you only had to grab it.
And they got very close.
Dumb luck, and not fate, or our virtue, kept us from losing the Republic outright.
We dodged a bullet.
There was a domestic component to it, and many of the actions taken in Iraq once the occupation started certainly appear to be at least as much about domestic politics as they were about (misguided, and usually downright stupid) attempts to bring that wildly bucking horse under control, but the big goal was to establish Iraq as a permanent base for military, political, and economic operations in the region. Controlling the oil, rather than obtaining it or garnering profits for U.S. oil companies, was part of it.
The idea was to dismantle the Iraqi state, the Iraqi economy, Iraqi civil institutions, and Iraqi society, and transform it into a politically, economically, and militarily dependent client. What they failed to take into consideration was that the Iraqi people might not go along with that idea.
This should lie to rest the old mouth bag cheney with all that he and condi have said let alone that cheerleader gwb, as well! This should be evidence one on the table for the indictment and prosecuting of all those involved ..of course too numerous to name here….not enough space to name them all….
Except, of course, that they would immediately counter that of course Hussein was going to lie his ass off because he knew that he was facing death and wanted to leave behind a statement that would “hurt America” if it ever got leaked. And by repeating this and lending it credibility you’re helping the terrorists. And why do you hate freedom. And so on, and so forth.
Meh. One of the primary motivators for invading was to install a puppet into power who the US could credibly ally with against Iran. There really was almost no way that any US President was going to be able to walk the political minefield to create a “security pact” with Hussein. Some other strongarm dictator, perhaps, but not Hussein.
Now, interestingly, Bush the Lesser is about the only President who might have been able to have the clout post-9/11 to get away with it. He would have had to have been somewhat smarter, but by being the son of the guy who was in charge during the time when Hussein went from “useful ally” to “regional menace” in US foreign policy, he probably could have had that “only Nixon could go to China” type of credibility that would have been needed to “redeem” Hussein as a possible US “ally” again. Of course Bush was more interested in using Hussein as a boogeyman for domestic purposes, but a smarter Bush scion might have been able to pull that off.
Of course, be careful what you wish for. With Afghanistan a mess and the Iraq question “settled”, Bush and his bloodthirsty cohort would have been able to move to their next checkbox in the “Axis of Evil” and we’d probably be in the midst of a war with Iran right now.
Forgot to mention – your link appears to be broken – it seems to link right back to itself.
thanks. try again.
PNAC.
The invasion and pacification of Iraq was to be a demonstration of US military might. As Madeleine Albright said, in response to the Powell doctrine, “What’s the point of having this great army you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”
But that would have required some finesse, a thing in serious short supply during the Bush years.
Gotta wonder if a sane and competent administration could have led an international negotiation to help secure Iran against aggression in return for improvements in human rights and other policy? Was this yet another opportunity missed during America’s Lost Years?
The USSR was happy to negotiate many “security arrangements” with the US, but saw any pressure on it to improve itself on the human rights front as “interference in its internal affairs”.
Which, of course, it was.
Not sure how that would have worked, since for quite some time the only real threats to Iran have come from the U.S. and Israel.
this certainly does not qualify as a stunning revelation. as more and more more damning evidence of the crimes that were committed by BushCo™ come to light, l have one question: when might we anticipate seeing an independent prosecutor empowered to pursue charges against the war criminals of the bush administration?
the more we learn, the more shameful it gets. the time for a national accounting for this fiasco is overdue.
Holding one’s breath until that happens is not recommended.
blue’s not my colour
Exactly.
dada,
I concur.
This is so “old news” I wonder why it`s brought up now.
There definitely was a domestic agenda politically to create a profitable war, which keeps those on the take to keep the fear machine well greased, allowing individual rights to be usurped. This in turn was also a way to gain a major base of operations in the middle of the geopolitical center for the next century, & a one party rule for just as long.
Not being intelligent enough to pull it off, was also exacerbated by people on blogs like this to band together to break down the plan somewhat. But still, it`s obviously not completely trashed, as it should be, & won`t be, until this administration refutes all these changes which it promised to enact, & brings the criminals who fostered this plan to justice.
I`m getting a little blue around the gills waiting, & think that I`ll just go see the latest on Michael Jackson.
Don’t overlook the non-cooperation of the Iraqi people. Had the Iraqi people simply laid down and accepted being invaded and occupied things would have gone very, very differently.
And it isn’t over yet. Sooner or later the Iraqis will show the U.S. and its erstwhile puppets the door in a clear and unequivocal way, just as they eventually did the British and their puppets. And in my view that is the only thing that will end Bush’s imperial project there.
It’s Obama’s imperial project now. The troops and bases are still there: the troops are just hunkered down in the bases.
That is correct, but the sands of time will grind down the machinery of imperialism no matter whose name adorns the desk.
It`s a sad thing that the Obama name is on it but I think the “desk” is more powerful than he who sits at it.
Remember the sand; it will grind down the desk.
People in the middle east don`t wear watches.
They have the time.
That`s also why they measure time with sand.
The grinding machine is also at work in Afghanistan, where empires go to die.
Who is not getting the futility of killing, while on the eve of destruction.
The most insane thing I`ve ever heard, is that we must keep bombing wedding parties so those who died before will not have done so in vain.
Victory is at hand.Hahahhahahahhhaa
Oppressors never win, & winners never oppress.
Yes, it’s Obama’s, and if he doesn’t end it, his successor will, or his successor’s successor. Sooner or later the Iraqis will force them out.
And the troops are not really just hunkered down in the bases. An undisclosed number of them will remain in the cities where they will continue to patrol, only now they will be call “trainers” and “advisors”, and there will be an attempt to foster the illusion that they are operating under the auspices of the Iraqi government. After all, don’t forget that the Americans have given the Iraqis the key to their own country (of course, to any thinking person that gesture symbolizes precisely the opposite of what it was intended to symbolize).
I have virtually zero confidence that Obama actually intends to end the imperial project in Iraq, but I do have confidence in the Iraqi people.
I don`t think I could have stated it any better.
So my question is, how come nobody gets it.
The whole project was labeled as bringing democracy to the Iraq people, so I `m all in favor of them asserting what was “brought” to them, albeit, at the burst of a bunch of bombs, the demolition of whatever infrastructure they had, the looting of their cultural treasures, their oil, & the displacement of millions internally, millions more externally, & the loss of millions of their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, their ancestral lands, crops, orchards animals etc, & should I bother to mention the poisoning of the whole country with depleted uranium,causing health problems for the future of Iraq`s people, for the half-life of the radioactive waste that is too hazardous to dispose of here, unless maybe on areas where Native American people have been pushed to.
I better stop, it just freaks me.
I should not have mentioned White Phosphorous, oops.
OT
Hi hurria, did you see my Scotch broom?
‘Tis strange indeed to think that had Bush opted for a tough inspection regime in the spring 2003 rather than invading outright he might be regarded today as a wizard in international affairs. Such a tough inspection would have exposed Saddam Hussein’s fraud and likely brought down his regime. We likely could have negotiated a security agreement with the successor regime coming out of the professional military corps of the old Iraqi Army. Bush would have looked like a miracle worker, having broken Saddam Hussein’s hold on Iraq and containing Iran all in one self-contained motion. Alas, his testosterone level was too high and he needed to prove his manhood, after surrendering it in the 1970s when it really counted. In the end, Bush winds up being regarded the total fool and idiot for his policies when just a little forbearance would have made him a global hero.
Some still think he is a wizard.
I do love the phrase “he needed to prove his manhood, after surrendering it in the 1970s when it really counted”. What a failure that was.
I think that those who arrogantly try to measure the size of their manhood, by the power of their missiles, rather than the superior power of diplomacy & patience, cultural sharing & a commitment to peace are doomed to historical castration.
The problem left, is for others to clean up the bloody mess.
“I know George Bush. I’ve met him and spoke to him a number of times. He told me he had stopped drinking. When I asked him how he did it he said he was born again. I said, you were born again? WHY WOULD YOU COME BACK AS GEORGE BUSH???” — Mort Sahl”
(From Maryscott O`Connor)
First, Saddam’s fraud was not the problem. The problem was the Bush regime’s fraud. That Saddam might have played into that was secondary at best. And in any case, Saddam’s regime cooperated with the inspectors, and produced honest reports regarding their weapons.
Second, I don’t know whether it would have brought down Saddam’s regime or not. Opposition had been badly weakened by 13 years of unbelievable deprivation caused directly by the United States’ (mainly Bill Clinton’s) insistence upon continuing a sanctions regime that several very reasonable officials of the U.N. and WHO had referred to as genocidal, and that ultimately only the U.S. and the UK wished to continue despite the sometimes active opposition of the rest of the world, including most Security Council members. When you isolate a population by cutting off contact with the outside world (including banning such things as medical journals), and deprive it of the most basic necessities for human existence you increase its dependence on the internal power structure while weakening its ability to resist that power structure even when it wants to (people who are worried about when they will have their next meal and whether their children are going to survive the latest bout of water-borne diarrhea tend to focus on that rather than politics).
Third, the notion that Iran needed to be contained seems to me a knee-jerk reaction to tall the propaganda out there. Iran has not shown any real inclination to expand its territory or attack another country for any reason for more than 200 years, and it has given no signs that it intends to do so in the foreseeable future. So, what’s to contain?