War on Iraq
Over the past year and a half, our
nation has been in a state of war. Many
questions have been raised questioning the validity of motives, and the
shifting position of the Bush administration.
It is possible to write endless amounts of analysis on this conflict so
focus will be kept on the administration’s justification.
With the war on terror crippling
the nation of Afghanistan,
and Osama Bin Laden hiding like a rodent, Bush’s attention turned to Iraq. Reports of Iraq
developing weapons of mass destruction became the headline and the implication
of their desire to use it against us.
Bush immediately stormed to the UN to demand weapons inspectors to
search and destroy Saddam’s WMD program.
Hans Blix was sent to the scene to evaluate the situation with his team
of UN specialist. Reports continued to
file in concerning Iraq’s
resistance to the inspectors.
Unfortunately, the inspectors own comments contradicted the media’s
interpretation.
Bush’s insistence that Iraq
was a threat to our nation motivated an appeal to congress seeking authority
to use force if Iraq
did not cooperate. CNN reports, “In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday
voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction
as required by U.N. resolutions.”(1) Unfortunately, Bush didn’t understand the second
part of the Senate resolution.
Five months after the resolution
was passed, The United States attacked Iraq. The president addressed the nation with these
words of support, “Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our
purpose is sure. The people of the United States
and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime
that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.”(2)
This statement has proven to be the exact opposite
of what has occurred. No WMD have been
found, friends and allies are non-existent (see “Coalition of the Willing”), and the purpose of the US
is less then sure…it has actually changed numerous times.
Since weapons inspectors entered Saddam’s régime,
interesting exchanges have taken place. Iraq
challenged Bush’s accusations, "If the American
administration is interested in inspecting these sites, then they're welcome
to come over and have a look for themselves." The White House immediately rejected the offer,
saying the matter is up to the United Nations, not Iraq.(3)
However, when the decision to go to war was being
debated by the White House, The United Nations was left out. Hans Blix also spoke out about the insistence
of going to war, “The invasion of Iraq was planned a long time in advance,
and the United States and Britain are not primarily concerned with finding
any banned weapons of mass destruction…you ask yourself a lot of questions
when you see the things they did to try and demonstrate that the Iraqis had
nuclear weapons, like the fake contract with Niger.” Blix continued, “[The war] is a very high price
to pay in terms of human lives and the destruction of a country when the threat
of weapons proliferation could have been contained by UN inspections.”(4)
The US government
was revolted by Blix comments and even went to the extent to tap his phones.
When Dr. Blix discovered his, “phone calls were tapped each time he
flew into Iraq
and his hotel in Baghdad,”(5)
he demanded transcripts of his bugged talks to verify that the
US would not
twist his words. Even, “a former US
intelligence officer who saw much of the Iraq
material told the ABC that the United States Government treated Dr Blix as
though he was in "league with Saddam Hussein".(6)
Who else has reported that there
are no weapons of mass destruction and have resigned due to intelligence breakdowns?
David Kay, who led the government's efforts to find evidence of Iraq's
illicit weapons programs until he resigned…said the C.I.A. and other agencies
failed to recognize that Iraq had all but abandoned its efforts to produce
large quantities of chemical or biological weapons after the first Persian
Gulf war, in 1991.(7) Kay also discussed the satellite images as,
“crack cocaine for the C.I.A…They could see something from a satellite or
other technical intelligence, and then direct the inspectors to go look at
it."(8)
When decisions were made to attack
Iraq, many
Americans relied on the voice of Colin Powell, a trusted United
States politician. However, the findings of the bipartisan senate
intelligence committee released last week paints an extraordinary picture.
Days before Powell was to address the UN, dozens of misleading and
speculative facts were challenged by the State Department.(9) Even after lengthy debates, Powell “ultimately
presented material that was in dispute among State Department experts.”
Powell’s February 5th speech to the UN was created by the
CIA at the request of the White House. This presentation to the UN was, “the Bush administration's
most compelling case by one of its most credible spokesmen that a confrontation
with Saddam Hussein was necessary…the speech has become a central moment in
the lead-up to war.”(10)
“It turned out that the sourcing was
inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading, and for that I
am disappointed and I regret it."
–
Colin Powell.(11)
It has become a widely accepted
fact that Iraq
has no weapons of mass destruction which has even been acknowledged by
Bush. So instead of admitting the many
deceptions involved with the preemptive strike, Bush changed the entire
justification for the war. Liberation
was the word of choice for our commanding leader. One has to ask themselves if Bush tried to
start this conflict with liberation in mind, if we would have lost 1000
American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.
If this war is truly about liberating individuals from wicked
governments, one has to ask if Cuba,
North Korea, or
another dictator-run nation will be next and the price involved.
Half way through the war in Iraq,
Bush realized that money was running short and went to the congress for another
87 billion. Many members in the Senate
rewrote the bill reversing tax cuts for the rich to pay for the unforeseen
costs. Bush, not wanting to reverse
the cuts, sent the bill back to the Senate.
The bill passed (Republican majority in the Senate) but not without
fierce debates from members of the congress.
Poor pre and post war planning was costing Americans the
lives of their soldiers and their hard earned income.
Bush was unwilling to pull money from those benefiting the most from
the conflict. Senator Kennedy reminded President Bush, “Many
of us have opposed the rush to war. But the Bush Administration cannot have
it both ways. It can't be wartime for middle America,
and peacetime for the rich.”(12)