Part II:
The Imminence Myth
From the February 16, 2004 issue: What the Bush administration really said about the threat from Iraq.
by Stephen F. Hayes
02/16/2004, Volume 009, Issue 22
Page 2 of 2 < Back
In fact, the case for war was built largely on the opposite assumption: that waiting until Iraq presented an imminent threat was too risky. The president himself made this argument in his 2003 State of the Union address:
Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans--this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
It didn't take long for the media to get it wrong. One day after Bush said we must not wait until the threat is imminent, the Los Angeles Times reported on its front page that Bush had promised "new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime poses an imminent danger to the world." Also, "Bush argued that use of force is not only justified but necessary,
and that the threat is not only real but imminent." Exactly backwards.
Is this nitpicking? After all, there were occasions when, under badgering from the media about whether the threat was "imminent," administration spokesmen Ari Fleischer and Dan Bartlett responded affirmatively. And various administration officials described the threat as "grave" or "immediate" or "serious" or "unique" or "gathering." What's the difference? The administration clearly sought to communicate that Saddam Hussein posed a threat we could no longer tolerate.
In doing so, of course, Bush administration officials were considerably less melodramatic than their predecessors in the Clinton administration. Who can forget then-Defense Secretary Bill Cohen's appearance on ABC's "This Week" on November 16, 1997, when he hoisted a 5 lb. bag of sugar onto the interview table. "This amount of anthrax could be spread over a city--let's say the size of Washington. It would destroy at least half the population of that city," Cohen warned dramatically. He then produced a small vial of a substance he likened to VX. "VX is a nerve agent. One drop from this particular thimble as such--one single drop will kill you within a few minutes."
In their prepared speeches, in the National Security Strategy, in media appearances, Bush administration representatives mostly avoided such hype. They did consistently advocate preempting the Iraqi threat--that is, acting before it was imminent. That's precisely what was controversial about their policy.
Senator Ted Kennedy, for one, objected. The day after the 2003 State of the Union address, he introduced a short-lived bill that would have required the administration to show that Iraq posed an imminent threat. It was the administration's willingness to go to war even while conceding that the threat was not imminent that provoked opponents of the war. Inspections could continue, the critics urged, because there was no imminent danger.
But in the present politically charged season, positions have shifted. Many of the same people who criticized the Bush administration before the war for moving against a threat that was not imminent are today blaming the administration for supposedly having claimed that Iraq posed an imminent threat.
There are serious questions to be answered about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But, as Tenet noted last week, "you rarely hear a patient, careful or thoughtful discussion of intelligence these days."
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
URL:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/00... |
