That leaves me believing that Bush "hurried" to war because he thought, I think correctly, that if we waited the justifications the Bush Administration put forward to gather support for the war would begin to crumble under the weight of the facts.
No, he "hurried" if that was the word because his enemies were trying to drag him down in the UNSC quicksand, and time was on their side, not his.
You're making a simple thing too complex. First the decision was made that Saddam was too dangerous to leave alone while sanctions collapsed. That is, the upfront decision was made that the war was worth doing. Everything else follows.
Second, it became of question of how do you sell it? The WMD question was advanced as the sole reason, which turned out a big mistake. The WMD really in question was Saddam himself, what he had done before, what he was doing now, and what he was likely to do once sanctions were off.
Third, the question was, when do you do it? For political reasons, it couldn't be in an election year, so it had to be before. The question then became, with or without the UN, and Bush was convinced, 'with' which also turned out to be a big mistake, since Colin Powell (whom I remain very unimpressed with) failed him at the clinch. Note that, far from a "rush" to war, the runup took 14 months, giving Saddam ample time to make his plans and dump incriminating evidence.
Ask yourself, what would have happened if Bush had done what you wanted, and waited for more UN inspections? It would have taken 6 or 8 months, the Iraqis were only giving pretend cooperation, and that only because they had an American army on their border. (Do you realize what shape that army would be in after sitting the whole summer in 130 degree tents in Kuwait doing nothing? I know they're pros, but why don't you try it for just a few days and see how your morale holds up.) The UN "inspectors" would have found nothing, and the French and Russians would have had even more ammo to drag the US down in the UNSC morass and prevent war, which is what Saddam expected to happen.
Score: French 1 Russians 1 Saddam 1 US 0
Meantime the Iraqis would have continued to fill mass graves, and Saddam would have continued to train terrorists at Salman Pak, and who knows what else he would have feeled emboldened to do after his great "victory"? The Great Arab Leader, The Great Arab Defier of the Great Satan, I can just see him parading in triumph at the Arab League. Any question of serious reforms in the Arab world would have been off the table for another generation. |
