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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rascal who wrote (114075)	9/6/2003 8:08:56 PM
From: Harvey Allen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Britain and US will back down over WMDs By Andy McSmith, Raymond Whitaker and Geoffrey Lean 07 September 2003 Britain and the US have combined to come up with entirely new explanations of why they went to war in Iraq as inspectors on the ground prepare to report that there are no weapons of mass destruction there. The "current and serious" threat of Iraq's WMD was the reason Tony Blair gave for going to war, but last week the Prime Minister delivered a justification which did not mention the weapons at all. On the same day John Bolton, US Under-Secretary of State for arms control, said that whether Saddam Hussein's regime actually possessed WMD "isn't really the issue". The 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, sent out in May to begin an intensive hunt for the elusive weapons, is expected to report this week that it has found no WMD hardware, nor even any sign of active programmes. The inspectors, headed by David Kay, a close associate of President George Bush, are likely to say the only evidence it has found is that the Iraqi government had retained a group of scientists who had the expertise to restart the weapons programme at any time. Foreshadowing the report, Mr Bolton said the issue was not weapons, or actual programmes, but "the capability that Iraq sought to have ... WMD programmes". Saddam, he claimed, kept "a coterie" of scientists he was preserving for the day when he could build nuclear weapons unhindered by international constraints. "Whether he possessed them today or four years ago isn't really the issue," he said. "As long as that regime was in power, it was determined to get nuclear, chemical and biological weapons one way or another. Until that regime was removed from power, that threat remained - that was the purpose of the military action." Last week Mr Blair declared at his Downing Street press conference: "Let me say why I still believe Iraq was the right thing to do and why it is essential that we see it through. If we succeed in putting Iraq on its feet as a stable, prosperous and democratic country, then what a huge advertisement that is for the values of democracy and human rights, and what a huge defeat it is for these terrorists who want to establish extremist states." He added that if anyone were to ask the average Iraqi whether they would prefer to be still living under the old regime, "they would look at as if you were completely crazy". This contrasts starkly with what the Prime Minister said in his speech to the Commons on 18 March, the day when MPs voted to endorse the decision to go to war. Then Mr Blair asserted, "I have never put the justification for action as regime change." Just as Britain and the US send more troops to Iraq and seek international help to restore stability, it has emerged that Mr Blair, almost alone among leaders of major nations, is to stay away from the opening of the UN General Assembly later this month. The development is bound to increase the Prime Minister's isolation following his decision to join the US in going to war without a UN resolution, and has led to speculation that he is reluctant to leave the country at a time when his conduct is under examination in the Hutton inquiry. Downing Street yesterday refused to comment on the grounds that it does not disclose the Prime Minister's movements in advance. But this has not applied to other international summits, where his attendance has been announced well in advance. 6 September 2003 20:07 news.independent.co.uk

To: Rascal who wrote (114075)	9/7/2003 1:08:05 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

From Swagger to Stagger _______________________________________ By MAUREEN DOWD Columnist The New York Times September 7, 2003 WASHINGTON — On one channel tonight, we can watch the iconic side of the Bush presidency. In the risibly revisionist Showtime movie "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," George W. Bush is Vin Diesel-tough as he battles terrorists. "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come get me," the fictional president fictionally snaps on Air Force One after the 9/ll attacks. "I'll just be waiting for the bastard." On network channels at the same time — W. is pre-empting himself! — we can watch the ironic side of the Bush presidency. Even though Bush the Younger has done everything in his power not to replicate the fate of his dad, he is replicating the fate of his dad. Only months after swaggering out of a successful war with Iraq, he is struggling with the economy. His numbers have fallen so fast, Top Gun is now tap dancing. He will address the nation to try to underscore the imaginary line that links the budget-busting pit of Iraq to the heartbreaking pit of 9/11. Just as the father failed to finish off Saddam, so the son has failed to finish off Saddam. Just as the conservatives once carped that the father did not go far enough in Iraq, now the "cakewalk" crowd carps that the son does not go far enough. "We need to get Iraq right and we're trying to do it a little bit on the cheap," Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor, chastised on "Nightline." "I think we could use more troops; we could certainly use more money." The more you do, the more you need to do. That's the Mideast quicksand, which is why it is so important to know how you're going to get out before you get sucked in. Dick Cheney's dark idea that a show of brutal force would scare off terrorists has ended up creating more terrorists. Tonight will be a stomach-churning moment for Mr. Bush, and he must be puzzling over how he got snarled in this nightmare, with Old Europe making him beg, North Korea making him wince, the deficit making him cringe, the lost manufacturing jobs making him gulp; with the hawks caving in to the U.N. and to old Saddam Baath army members who want to rebuild a security force; with Representative David Obey demanding the unilateral heads of Rummy and Wolfie, so that "Uncle Sam doesn't become Uncle Sucker"; with the F.B.I. warning that more Islamic terrorists who know how to fly planes may be burrowing into our neighborhoods. Does Mr. Bush ever wonder if the neocons duped him and hijacked his foreign policy? Some Middle East experts think some of the neocons painted a rosy picture for the president of Arab states blossoming with democracy when they really knew this could not be accomplished so easily; they may have cynically suspected that it was far more likely that the Middle East would fall into chaos and end up back in its pre-Ottoman Empire state, Balkanized into a tapestry of rival fiefs — based on tribal and ethnic identities, with no central government — so busy fighting each other that they would be no threat to us, or Israel. The administration is worried now about Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the face of roiling radicalism. Some veterans of Bush 41 think that the neocons packaged their "inverted Trotskyism," as the writer John Judis dubbed their rabid desire to export their "idealistic concept of internationalism," so that it appealed to Bush 43's born-again sense of divine mission and to the desire of Mr. Bush, Rummy and Mr. Cheney to achieve immortality by transforming the Middle East and the military. These realpolitik veterans of Bush 41 say that Bush père, an old-school internationalist who ceaselessly tried to charm allies as U.N. ambassador and in the White House, "agonized" over the bullying approach his son's administration used at the U.N. and around the globe. Some of the father's old circle are thinking about forming a Republican group that would speak out against the neocons. "What's happening in Iraq is puzzling," said one Bush 41 official. "The president ran on no-nation-building. Now we're in this drifting, aimless empire that is not helping the road map to peace." W. has always presented himself as the heir of Reagan, and dissed his father's presidency, using it as a template of what not to do. But as he tries to dig himself out tonight, he may wish he had emulated the old man, at least when it comes to slicing the deficit and playing nice with the allies. nytimes.com