Iraq. I simply said the reason he and neocons presented to the public were internally inconsistent and intentionally misleading
And I replied, that for Bush to have relied on an "intentionally misleading" argument for his CHIEF reason, that is, to make as his main case a line of argument that he KNEW would fall apart and make him look a fool, would be pretty damn stupid on his part. I think you can agree that whatever else Bush is, he is not a stupid politician. Therefore I believe that Bush and Blair believed that the WMD case was safe to make, based on the intelligence they were getting. I notice that the very memo you are trumpeting as some sort of proof of 'no WMD' has the military asking,
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
Okay, which is it? They knew there were no WMDs or they were worried about a WMD attack? You can't have both, you know.
The one point I agree with the memo is that Saddam's possession of WMD was not really a central reason for deciding to get rid of him. It was the nature of Saddam's regime that was the real WMD. Saddam was working assiduously to get rid of the sanctions, with good success - we now know that the UN had provided him with a $23 billion slush fund, how nice of them. Sanctions could not have lasted much longer. Get rid of Saddam or let him triumph free of sanctions, that was the question. After 9/11, the weighing of such risks took on a new light. The decision was made to get rid of him. |
