Pollack briefly interviewed on NPR this morning--nothing too much new than what he said at Slate, but it's nice to see him issuing sound bites. Pollack believes that the intelligence community did not adequately take into account the damage done to the fact-gathering process by the departure of the inspectors in 1998, relying instead on information from defectors that was wrong or dated. He says that the administration's public statements during the run-up to the war were fudged as Iraq was several years from being able to produce fissile material, though he admits a key point all the critics, including those here, have ignored, i.e., the possibility that he could have obtained fissile material elsewhere, giving his nuclear efforts a tremendous boost.
Despite the problems, Pollack sticks by his previous points, i.e., Saddam was a tremendous destabilizing force in the ME, threatening our economy, and a human rights disaster, though he waffles a bit on whether he would have gone to war on Bush's timing, a point in my opinion that doesn't take into account the possibility that Saddam could have obtained fissile material on the black market as well as the overriding political consideration I believe drove the timing, namely, that Bush recognized himself as a potential one term President who fears that the Dems for diplomatic or domestic political reasons would be unable to take the necessary risks when the timing for an operation became obvious.
For many reasons, I am glad that the risks were taken now instead of later, though I know it is unpopular to voice such a view. The reasons include the fact that Saddam might have taken more risks in the area than we could have stomached; serious support of terrorism; continued human rights abuses; and the utterly unpopular notion that after 9/11 we needed to show our strength in the region in a place other than Afghanistan--who better to target than a dangerous evil bastard like Saddam? Qaddafi's and the Iranians' recent malleability on WMD issues supports this the point.
No one has adequately explained to me why it wasn't a good idea to take out Saddam because of the possibility that he could have obtained fissile material on the black market, something he clearly would have done given the opportunity.
See following link for a guide to an extended interview, RealPlayer required.
npr.org |
