Judging the Case for War
December 29th, 2005 at 8:12 am by David FarrarThe Chicago Tribune has done a very useful service. It has spent six weeks analysing the nine reasons Bush gave for the war in Iraq, and judging whether or not he lied, exaggerated or was correct in his reasoning. It is a lengthy and rational analysis.
Overall they have found the White House wound up exaggerating allegations that proved dead wrong, but they did not lie or try to mislead. Don’t think this means the article is pro-Bush. It criticises him in several areas. In fact it is a far more effective portrayal of the weakness of some of what the White House said, than the hysterical Bush Lied rants from the moveon.org crowd. You see it is rational and balanced.
The nine issues, and their conclusions are:
Biological and chemical weapons
There was no need for the administration to rely on risky intelligence, putting so much emphasis on illicit weaponry meant they advanced the least verifiable case for war when others would have sufficed.
Iraq rebuffs the world
Hussein had shunted enough lucre to enough profiteers to keep the UN from challenging him. Hussein was enabled to continue his brutal reign and cost untold thousands of Iraqis their lives.
The quest for nukes
For five years, the official and oft-delivered alarms from the U.S. intelligence community had been menacing.
Hussein’s rope-a-dope
Had Hussein not been deposed, would he have reconstituted deadly weaponry or shared it with terror groups? The least possible to declare true or false.
Waging war on terror
The drumbeat of White House warnings before the war made Iraq’s terror activities sound more ambitious than subsequent evidence has proven. The argument that Hussein was able to foment global terror against this country and its interests was exaggerated.
Reform in the Middle East
The notion that invading Iraq would provoke political tremors in a region long ruled by despots is the Bush administration’s most successful prewar prediction to date. A more muscular U.S. diplomacy has advanced democracy and assisted freedom movements in the sclerotic Middle East.
Iraq and Al Qaeda
No compelling evidence ties Iraq to Sept. 11, 2001, as the White House implied. By stripping its rhetoric of the ambiguity present in the intel data, the White House exaggerated this argument for war.
The Butcher of Baghdad
The White House assessments were accurate. Few if any war opponents have challenged this argument, or suggested that an unmolested Hussein would have eased his repression.
Iraqis liberated
The White House was correct in predicting that long subjugated Iraqis would embrace democracy. And while Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have major differences to reconcile, a year’s worth of predictions that Sunni disaffection could doom self-rule have, so far, proven wrong.
December 29th, 2005 at 9:03 am
The actual UN resolution in 1991 (687) regarding Iraq was breached in so many places.
Remember Saddam having to destroy missiles immediately before the war as they were in breach of the 150km limit.
Saddam was also obligated to not only not have any WMDs but prove that he had none. He kept expelling inspectors and refusing access to certain sites so there was never any concrete proof that he didn’t have any – hence the intelligence that he did was credible.
Anyone notice how the number of suicide bombers in Israel dried up after Hussein stopped sending their families US$10,000 after the attacks? If you blow yourself up now you starve your family.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 9:23 am
The notion that invading Iraq would provoke political tremors in a region long ruled by despots is the Bush administration’s most successful prewar prediction to date. A more muscular U.S. diplomacy has advanced democracy and assisted freedom movements in the sclerotic Middle East.
I dispute this – Iran is going backwards, not forwards – they recently elected a dangerous lunatic as president. None of the other countries have shown any real change or reforms except for Lebanon – and that was provoked by Syrias assasination of Hariri. I’m still dubious about the depth of political change in Iraq – the new government and legal system is going to be very religious so the elections are hardly a victory for western values in that sense, and I’m not convinced there won’t be a military coup in Baghdad as soon as the US pulls out.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 9:31 am
You overlook Egypt and Libya which are now moving the right way. And Syria is facing pressure. As for Iran one can’t say one country voting the wrong way dispeals the notion that overall events in the region are going the right way (albeit very slowly).
Also Israel/Palestone has advanced (mainly due to death of Arrfat). Also back on Iran, it is possible the new President is so bad, he may be the catalyst for structural change.
Anyway I actually think 2 years is too short a time-frame to be conclusive either way. Ask the question in 2013.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 10:31 am
I see absolutely no reason to think that Egypt and Libya are ‘slowly moving the right way’. I have friends in Egypt in the pro-Democracy movement – they tell me things have gotton considerably worse since 9/11, since Mubarak is using the war on terror as a pretext to crack down on dissent.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 10:47 am
DPF says:”You overlook Egypt and Libya which are now moving the right way”
Egypt has just jailed the person who ran against the dictator Mubarak. Nice to see you approve!
And I avidly follow the Saudi party politics, I mean keeping it all in one extended family is just awesome.
The only countries that have had representative elections have been under military occupation.
Vote:Iraq and Palestine. That gives it just so much more legitimacy that those crummy Aussies who ‘force’ people to vote .
And dont forget ‘Democratic Iran’, having a regular schedule of elections for over 20 years has made them the most popular country of the US.
Of course the US , cant wait for Iraq to follow in their footsteps. Nothing like spending huge US dollars to prop up democracy in Iraq – the funding of favourite parties by the US
December 29th, 2005 at 10:48 am
dim, perhaps you overlook the possibility that in Iran ‘the dangerous lunatic’ elected himself by way of vast electoral fraud as seems to be suggested in many of the sources I read, not all of which are right wing.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 11:13 am
One factor that is missing from this analysis is consideration of what would have happened in Iraq had the invasion not occurred. Although a counter-factual it still should be given far more significance by both sides of the debate.
There are similarities to what happened in Yugoslavia during the 90s. The demise of a dictatorship in a country with ethnic and religious tensions. The ensuing conflicts claimed around 200,000 lives in a population far smaller than of Iraq.
One possibility is that much the same would have happened when Saddam eventually fell. Or maybe not. But seeing the desperate attempts by many Sunnis to cling to their privileged position and the attempts by religious extremists to derail the democratic process, it’s hard to believe that the transition to democracy wasn
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 11:26 am
dim, perhaps you overlook the possibility that in Iran ‘the dangerous lunatic’ elected himself by way of vast electoral fraud
I know. There are also widespread allegations of fraud regarding the recent elections in Iraq – all of which strengthens my argument that true democratic reform is not occurring in the middle east.
I will concede that things are better in Palestine now that Arafat is dead (things could hardly have gotten worse).
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
The US military is going to be very busy overthrowing all those other butchers from Honduras to Khazakstan then.
Joy to the world, for Uncle Sam has come! Let democracy be embraced in light!
For all the arrogant and sanctimonious self justifications the Americans offer, it really all been about liberating the oppressed everywhere?
Yeah right.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
“Overall they have found the White House wound up exaggerating allegations that proved dead wrong, but they did not lie or try to mislead.”
Vote:I wonder how the same analysts would have judged the actions of Helen Clark in secretly leaking false information to her favourite tabloid in order to justify sacking her Police Commissioner.
December 29th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Trying to slip more lies through Dim?
In Iran the candidate lists were purged of liberals and reformers before the Parliamentary elections, and the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah and his clerics maintain power anyway.
In Iraq there is no “Supreme Leader”, there is no hierarchy of state-funded religious fools intertwined with government functions, the political parties which contested the recent elections were able to freely choose their own candidates, the Iraqi media (including Iraq The Model) can freely report any voting problems, and the UN just today declared the election was transparent and representative.
The ultra-conservative religious leadership of Iran (not to mention various Islamist groups) are very concerned that Iraq might turn into an internally peaceful capitalist democracy rather than an Islamic Republic controlled by self-appointed representatives of Allah, and you are helping them every time you participate in any propaganda aimed at poisoning western political support for the process occurring in Iraq.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
dim I think AL is right to draw to your attention the vast chasm of difference between what appear to be a series of localised electoral rorts in Iraq and the institutionalised electoral monopoly which seems to have been organised by the Mullahs in Iran. Let’s face it, by ‘normal’Middle East standards the Iraqi election was an event of outstanding virtue and they didn’t have Taito Field giving them a hand.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
AL and Adolf: dim’s initial comment still applies:
“I dispute this – Iran is going backwards, not forwards – they recently elected a dangerous lunatic as president. None of the other countries have shown any real change or reforms except for Lebanon – and that was provoked by Syrias assasination of Hariri. I’m still dubious about the depth of political change in Iraq – the new government and legal system is going to be very religious so the elections are hardly a victory for western values in that sense, and I’m not convinced there won’t be a military coup in Baghdad as soon as the US pulls out.”
Egypt is still by any standards a tyranny, one backed for decades by the US. That the US has the leverage to promote some modest reform there is unsurprising, Iraq invasion or not. What is noteworthy is that it made no use of that leverage until recently. In the case of Libya, the motivations and activities of the tyrant Gadaffi are as obscure as those of Kim in South Korea. Anyone who’d want to say they know why Gadaffi took any particular course of action is either brave or foolish.
It looks as though Bush and his pals will simply take the credit for the culmination of pressure for reform in the Middle East and ascribe it to their invasion of Iraq. Bollocks. As an example, women just gained the vote in Kuwait. That advancement in democracy is the end result of 20 years of political work by Kuwaiti women, not deus ex America. Even with the female voters, this place is still run by a royal family with a parliamentary talking shop elected off a franchise consisting of a minority of the population. By local standards it’s a glowing example of success.
If the Americans can somehow turn the Iraqis into democrats, and that’s a big if, then it may eventually turn into a positive for the Middle East. Of course, if the Soviets had somehow turned Afghanistan into a secular state that would have been a positive for the region too. It never happened, because people generally don’t like foreigners on the other end of a gun telling them how they’re going to live. For all that I think in this case they should shut up and listen to the foreigners with the guns, there are a lot of people who won’t. All of us civilian contractors are confident only of our job security.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
“The war cannot have been about removing a tyrant because there are other tyrants that America hasnt removed.”
This ends here.
1. America cannot remove ALL tyrants
Vote:2. You would not want them to
3. You do not seriously expect them to
4. It is not in their interests to
5. Removing the Taliban WAS in their power
6. Removing the Taliban WAS in their interest
7. Removing Saddam WAS in their power
8. Removing Saddam WAS in their interest
9. The removal of these two tyrannical powers was a GOOD thing
December 29th, 2005 at 8:46 pm
Trying to slip more lies through Dim? In Iran the candidate lists were purged of liberals and reformers before the Parliamentary elections, and the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah and his clerics maintain power anyway.
Those are great points, and ones I’m fully aware of, and they support my argument that democracy is NOT flowering in the Middle East – I think your dispute is with DPF and the author of the Tribune article, not me.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
The infantile stupidity of those who support the iraq war by clinging to the “America did out of altruism” is insulting to anyone who hasn’t recently had a lobotomy, and it beggars belief that sentient, well adjusted human beings can actually hold such a position in the face of all the evidence.
Since it does beggar belief, and I am an optimist by nature, I can only conclude that large numbers of spotty, porn obsessed half wits inhabit the right wing blogsphere.
All in all, proof you can indeed find enough imbeciles to prove Mr. Lincoln’s adages about fooling some people all the time.
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
TomS, I have not seen anyone on the right say that “America did [it] out of altruism”. I support what they are doing in Iraq, and I certainly do not believe it was altruism that motivated the Americans. So, what right-wing blogs have you been reading?
Vote:December 29th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
Tom S,
Vote:And yet you can’t believe that bush might be one of those people?
December 30th, 2005 at 4:02 am
Dim can normally do better than such a twisting of words. Neither the Tribune nor I said the Middle East was suddenly a democratic paradise.
However after decades of the direction being the wrong way, the direction is now the right way.
Vote:December 31st, 2005 at 5:44 pm
It is a good article. It provides a fair and balanced review. Is there an opportunity for more indepth analysis ? Certainly, but I applaud the Trib for providing this initial analysis.
Vote: