- Reaction score
- 42
s.a.f said:
Why am I having to repeat what my sister said about the true purposes of the Iraq invasion?
GO BACK AND RE-READ WHAT SHE SAID IN MY PREVIOUS POST.By the way, regarding the issue of whether or not the WMDs were "invented", here's another email from my sister on whether or not Bush really believed them to exist:
--------------------------------------------
Re the WMD question and Bush's 'lying,' you know how much I loathe the man. However, I do not believe he was lying. I believe he truly believed that Saddam had WMD which could be a threat to US and Western security. I should also point out that other intelligence services in Europe also believed that Saddam had WMD. Apart from the British, however, they felt containment was the better course of action.
A few points: (a) It is important to understand that the collection of intelligence is a very difficult job, especially in a closed police state like Saddam's Iraq where reliable humint (human intelligence) is virtually impossible to obtain. (b) We now know from books/articles/research papers that there was significant doubt among some in the intelligence agencies about the existence of WMD....but others really believed WMD existed. The latter were ideologically inclined to support the Administration and some were politically inclined (George Tenet, for ex.) to want to support the Administration. The latter group was in control of the intelligence that went to the White House, thus.... (c) Many non-Administration supporters bought the argument of the existence of WMD in Iraq because Saddam refused to let the Internatl. Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in to carry out their inspections. Why would Saddam refuse to let them in if he had nothing to hide?
So, in my judgment, the combination of Bush's/Cheney's being ideologically hostile to Saddam (combined with Bush's lack of intellectual curiosity and his tendency not to questionquestionquestion the intelligence/policy options being presented to him), together with Tenet's assurances that WMD existed, convinced Bush that Iraq indeed had WMD.
In a way, whether Saddam had WMD or not may be irrelevant. Let's assume for the sake of argument that he had WMD. What then are the policy options for dealing with the problem? There are at least two: (1) containment via sanctions, as the West contained the Soviet Unions successfully for half a century; and (2) invasion. I favored the former; Bush favored the latter. My point is that the Administration never appeared to seriously consider any alternative policy initiatives to that of invasion.
