How I got the Iraq war wrong: A Different Country
by Peter Beinart
The New Republic
Post date 02.23.07
"Why, exactly, did you support this war?" asked my wife the other day. A fitting question for my last TRB, since people have been asking it of me and this magazine since we made that disastrous decision more than four years ago. For myself, perhaps the most honest reply is this: because Kanan Makiya did.
When I first saw Makiya--the Iraqi exile who has devoted his life to chronicling Saddam Hussein's crimes--I recognized the type: gentle, disheveled, distracted, obsessed. He reminded me of the South African exiles who occasionally wandered through my house as a kid.
Once, [..] I asked one of them how the United States could aid the anti-apartheid struggle. Congress could impose sanctions, he responded. Sure, sure, I said impatiently. But what else? Well, he replied with a chuckle, if the United States were a different country, it would help the African National Congress liberate South Africa by force.
If the United States were a different country. For him, the implication was obvious: The United States wasn't that kind of country. It was an anti-revolutionary power with a long pro-apartheid record. The United States didn't liberate countries, at least in the postcolonial world. At best, it stood aside.
I agreed. But, as the years passed and liberals debated war and peace, the phrase kept nagging at me. [..]
Then Makiya came along, beckoning the United States further. The Gulf war had been mostly about oil; Afghanistan mostly about self-defense. They required little idealism. Bosnia and Kosovo, on the other hand, had been multilateral efforts conducted from 15,000 feet. They required little risk. Makiya was proposing something far more ambitious: a ground war, not to stop an ongoing genocide, but to overthrow a horrific regime.
The war did have a national security rationale (although, in retrospect, it collapsed in late 2002 when the United Nations restarted inspections and those inspections found no weapons of mass destruction). But even that was linked to a moral argument, since hawks believed that Saddam, like past totalitarians, might export the cruelty he was inflicting at home. [..]
That's why Makiya insisted that an Iraq invasion do more than merely replace Saddam with a more pliant Baathist general. In deadly earnest, he was asking the United States to become what that South African exile [I met as a youth] could not even contemplate without laughing: a revolutionary democratic power.
For Makiya's neoconservative allies, the idea was intuitive: In their air-brushed narrative, that's what the United States had always been. But Makiya knew better; he knew that the United States had intervened more frequently in the Third World to quash democracy than to spread it. He knew that the Bush administration had other, darker motives. And yet, made desperate by Saddam's horrors and his resilience, he was willing to gamble.
I was willing to gamble, too--partly, I suppose, because, in the era of the all-volunteer military, I wasn't gambling with my own life. And partly because I didn't think I was gambling many of my countrymen's. I had come of age in that surreal period between Panama and Afghanistan, when the United States won wars easily and those wars benefited the people on whose soil they were fought.
It's a truism that American intellectuals have long been seduced by revolution. In the 1930s, some grew intoxicated with the revolutionary potential of the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, some felt the same way about Cuba. In the 1990s, I grew intoxicated with the revolutionary potential of the United States.
Some non-Americans did, too. "All the Iraqi democratic voices that still exist, all the leaders and potential leaders who still survive," wrote Salman Rushdie in November 2002, "are asking, even pleading for the proposed regime change. Will the American and European left make the mistake of being so eager to oppose Bush that they end up seeming to back Saddam Hussein?"
I couldn't answer that then. It seemed irrefutable. But there was an answer, and it was the one I heard from that South African many years ago. It begins with a painful realization about the United States: We can't be the country those Iraqis wanted us to be. [Like any one country,] we lack the wisdom and the virtue to remake the world through preventive war.
That's why a liberal international order, like a liberal domestic one, restrains the use of force--because it assumes that no nation is governed by angels, including our own. And it's why liberals must be anti-utopian, because the United States cannot be a benign power and a messianic one at the same time.
That's not to say the United States can never intervene to stop aggression or genocide. It's not even to say that we can't, in favorable circumstances and with enormous effort, help build democracy once we're there.
But it does mean that, when our fellow democracies largely oppose a war--as they did in Vietnam and Iraq--because they think we're deluding ourselves about either our capacities or our motives, they're probably right.
Being a liberal, as opposed to a neoconservative, means recognizing that the United States has no monopoly on insight or righteousness. Some Iraqis might have been desperate enough to trust the United States with unconstrained power. But we shouldn't have trusted ourselves.
"Why, exactly, did you support this war?" asked my wife. Her sister is an Army brigade surgeon at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, treating kids burned from head to toe. [..] Our toddler niece is in San Antonio, spending the year without a mom.
I'll always consider Makiya a hero. But I haven't seen him, or read anything he's said or written, in several years. He's living, and suffering, with the consequences of this war, I suppose. And so are we.
Peter Beinart
Why did I support the war?
WMD's. Still to this day there has been no explaination as to what happened to his WMD's. No evidence has been provided as to their destruction or to what happened to them. I still stand by the idea that they are hidden. After we moved into Iraq we found 15 or 20 fighter jets buried in the sand that we didn't know were there. How much easier is it to hide 50 gallon drums of WMD's?
Saddam had been under UN sactions for over a decade. Nothing had been done in the last 5 years of those sactions. We have since found out that he was selling off oil to different groups of people most of whom were involved or were ranking officals in the UN. Without the invasion the sactions would have been lifted by now and Saddam would have already been creating his "new" WMD's.
For those who forget or didn't know I joined the Army one month after the invasion of Iraq. I joined for many reasons and if you want I will state some of them. Some of them dove tail into this thread and some of them don't.
I have other reasons but this should be enough for the anti-war people to tear or attempt to tear me apart. Let the games begin.
U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's
By Douglas Jehl
The New York Times
Thursday 07 October 2004
Washington - Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector for Iraq said in a report made public Wednesday.
The report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, intended to offer a near-final judgment about Iraq and its weapons, said Iraq, while under pressure from the United Nations, had "essentially destroyed" its illicit weapons ability by the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a biological weapons plant, eliminated in 1996.
Mr. Duelfer said that even during those years, Saddam Hussein had aimed at "preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted." But he said he had found no evidence of any concerted effort by Iraq to restart the programs.
The findings uphold Iraq's prewar insistence that it did not possess chemical or biological weapons. They also show the enormous distance between the Bush administration's own prewar assertions, based on reports by American intelligence agencies, and what a 15-month inquiry by American investigators found since the war.
The Washington Post recently published a lengthy article regarding retired general, Anthony Zinni, who three years ago completed a tour as chief of the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, during which he oversaw enforcement of the two "no-fly" zones in Iraq and also conducted four days of punishing air strikes against that country in 1998. (1) In August 2002, Zinni was in attendance when Cheney made this statement: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
From the article:
Zinni's conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don't understand what they are getting into."
Cheney's certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never - not once - did it say, 'He has WMD.' "
Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I'd say to analysts, 'Where's the threat?' " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."
More from the article:
The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."
Zinni's opinion of the Iraqi war? From the article:
Zinni fears it is an outcome toward which U.S.-occupied Iraq may be drifting. Nor does he think the capture of Hussein is likely to make much difference, beyond boosting U.S. troop morale and providing closure for his victims. "Since we've failed thus far to capitalize" on opportunities in Iraq, he says, "I don't have confidence we will do it now. I believe the only way it will work now is for the Iraqis themselves to somehow take charge and turn things around. Our policy, strategy, tactics, et cetera, are still screwed up."
General Zinni's position on neoconservative ideologues appears to have been confirmed recently. The British press recently reported that Bush was sent a public manifesto from war hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran. (2)
Baldimo wrote:Why did I support the war?
WMD's. Still to this day there has been no explaination as to what happened to his WMD's. No evidence has been provided as to their destruction or to what happened to them. I still stand by the idea that they are hidden. After we moved into Iraq we found 15 or 20 fighter jets buried in the sand that we didn't know were there. How much easier is it to hide 50 gallon drums of WMD's?
Saddam had been under UN sactions for over a decade. Nothing had been done in the last 5 years of those sactions. We have since found out that he was selling off oil to different groups of people most of whom were involved or were ranking officals in the UN. Without the invasion the sactions would have been lifted by now and Saddam would have already been creating his "new" WMD's.
For those who forget or didn't know I joined the Army one month after the invasion of Iraq. I joined for many reasons and if you want I will state some of them. Some of them dove tail into this thread and some of them don't.
I have other reasons but this should be enough for the anti-war people to tear or attempt to tear me apart. Let the games begin.
What evidence do you need? And even if they still existed they would be worthless. He made inferior chemical weapons that had to be use soon after production. We know this because we helped him create his WMD industry during the Iran-Iraq War. In time the chemicals deteriorate and become worthless. If these weapons are still good and hidden why are they not being used? The insurgents are Sunnis, ex-military. Not only would they know where they were hidden but would also know how to use them. Why do they have to resort to chlorine in truck for chemical attacks?
Quote:U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's
By Douglas Jehl
The New York Times
Thursday 07 October 2004
Washington - Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector for Iraq said in a report made public Wednesday.
The report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, intended to offer a near-final judgment about Iraq and its weapons, said Iraq, while under pressure from the United Nations, had "essentially destroyed" its illicit weapons ability by the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a biological weapons plant, eliminated in 1996.
Mr. Duelfer said that even during those years, Saddam Hussein had aimed at "preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted." But he said he had found no evidence of any concerted effort by Iraq to restart the programs.
The findings uphold Iraq's prewar insistence that it did not possess chemical or biological weapons. They also show the enormous distance between the Bush administration's own prewar assertions, based on reports by American intelligence agencies, and what a 15-month inquiry by American investigators found since the war.
From a NYT article found at http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100804A.shtml
There was a lot of evidence prior to the war that there were no WMD in Iraq. The Bush administration was only interested in attacking Iraq and didn't want to hear anything that would prevent them from doing so. Any evidence of Saddam destroying his WMD was ignored.
Quote:The Washington Post recently published a lengthy article regarding retired general, Anthony Zinni, who three years ago completed a tour as chief of the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, during which he oversaw enforcement of the two "no-fly" zones in Iraq and also conducted four days of punishing air strikes against that country in 1998. (1) In August 2002, Zinni was in attendance when Cheney made this statement: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
From the article:
Zinni's conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don't understand what they are getting into."
Cheney's certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never - not once - did it say, 'He has WMD.' "
Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I'd say to analysts, 'Where's the threat?' " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."
More from the article:
The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."
Zinni's opinion of the Iraqi war? From the article:
Zinni fears it is an outcome toward which U.S.-occupied Iraq may be drifting. Nor does he think the capture of Hussein is likely to make much difference, beyond boosting U.S. troop morale and providing closure for his victims. "Since we've failed thus far to capitalize" on opportunities in Iraq, he says, "I don't have confidence we will do it now. I believe the only way it will work now is for the Iraqis themselves to somehow take charge and turn things around. Our policy, strategy, tactics, et cetera, are still screwed up."
General Zinni's position on neoconservative ideologues appears to have been confirmed recently. The British press recently reported that Bush was sent a public manifesto from war hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran. (2)
http://www.buzzflash.com/southern/04/01/sou04001.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22922-2003Dec22?language=printer
The Bush Administration lied to the American public and the world about why we should attack Iraq. They withheld any and all information that contradicted their view on why we had to attack Iraq.
This Iraqi War has nothing to do with terrorism or WMD. It's all neoconservative ideology.
He has even stated that Iraq had the best record keeping of any other country in the ME and they didn't find any evidence that WMD's were destroyed.
I know what my gut tells me and it tells me that something isn't right with those weapons.
bump
Saddam Hussein had failed to provide proof that he had dismantled the nuke and bioweapon development programs, rather than simply hiding them better. Since he did want the sanctions lifted, one would have expected that had he dismantled these programs, he would have shown us some evidence of having done so, e.g. video, remnants of machines, etc. Therefore, at the moment of invasion, it was really very unclear as to whether these programs were or were not still in existence. To be clear, I am not asserting that the development programs were in existence when we invaded, only that we had seen no convincing evidence that they were not. Had they still been in existence, there would have been a finite time windown of opportunity to invade before such programs reached fruition and it was too late to invade. A significant possibility that an evil dictator with a penchant for annexing neighbors is continuing to develop nukes and/or bioweapons is a very serious matter.
Furthermore, we will certainly be in a similar situation with some other dictator sometime in the future.
Baldi,
You seem to have completely missed the point that the weapons deteriorate over time. You can't just make a shell full of poison gas and leave it on the shelf for twenty years, and expect it to actually work. It doesn't.
WMD aren't just something that can be made once and then left around anywhere until they are conveinent. Dangerous stuff, degrades quickly.
You state that:
Quote:He has even stated that Iraq had the best record keeping of any other country in the ME and they didn't find any evidence that WMD's were destroyed.
No, Blix stated that they didn't have evidence that ALL the WMD were destroyed. There was plenty of evidence that SOME were destroyed.
Quote:
I know what my gut tells me and it tells me that something isn't right with those weapons.
Yeah, forget about evidence, logic, proof, any of that jazz; we all know that gut feelings are the most accurate ones in the long run.
Cycloptichorn
Your telling me you have never had a gut feeling about something that turned out to be true? A "sixth sense" for lack of a better term? You must not be human then. I don't know anyone that doesn't have gut feelings about things. They don't always turn out to be true, but sometimes they do.
Brandon9000 wrote:Saddam Hussein had failed to provide proof that he had dismantled the nuke and bioweapon development programs, rather than simply hiding them better. Since he did want the sanctions lifted, one would have expected that had he dismantled these programs, he would have shown us some evidence of having done so, e.g. video, remnants of machines, etc. Therefore, at the moment of invasion, it was really very unclear as to whether these programs were or were not still in existence. To be clear, I am not asserting that the development programs were in existence when we invaded, only that we had seen no convincing evidence that they were not. Had they still been in existence, there would have been a finite time windown of opportunity to invade before such programs reached fruition and it was too late to invade. A significant possibility that an evil dictator with a penchant for annexing neighbors is continuing to develop nukes and/or bioweapons is a very serious matter.
Furthermore, we will certainly be in a similar situation with some other dictator sometime in the future.
This is a walkback. Initial allegations had nothing to do with programs but with actual WMD which were purported to be in existence.
Then, when no WMD were found, it was the WMD programs which we had to break up.
Then, when we didn't find much evidence of active WMD programs, it was the potential programs which had to be stopped.
All part of the great quest to justify a gigantic mistake, one lie and one goalpost move at a time.
Cycloptichorn
I'd like to broaden the question.
Would you have approved invading Iraq if a Democrat president had proposed the war for any reason, including WMDs? Why?
Did it make a difference that it was a Republican president who made the decision? Why?
BBB
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:I'd like to broaden the question.
Would you have approved invading Iraq if a Democrat president had proposed the war for any reason, including WMDs? Why?
Did it make a difference that it was a Republican president who made the decision? Why?
BBB
For me, it wouldn't have mattered who proposed it (on the basis of WMD programs) since I was in favor of it long before it occurred.
Brandon9000 wrote:[/b]BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:I'd like to broaden the question.
Would you have approved invading Iraq if a Democrat president had proposed the war for any reason, including WMDs? Why?
Did it make a difference that it was a Republican president who made the decision? Why?
BBB
For me, it wouldn't have mattered who proposed it (on the basis of WMD programs) since I was in favor of it long before it occurred.
When and why did you make your decision "long before it occured"? Did you favor invading Baghdad and killing Saddam during the first Bush's war to drive Iraq from Kuwait?
BBB
Baldi,
You seem to have completely missed the point that the weapons deteriorate over time. You can't just make a shell full of poison gas and leave it on the shelf for twenty years, and expect it to actually work. It doesn't.
WMD aren't just something that can be made once and then left around anywhere until they are conveinent. Dangerous stuff, degrades quickly.
You state that:
Quote:He has even stated that Iraq had the best record keeping of any other country in the ME and they didn't find any evidence that WMD's were destroyed.
No, Blix stated that they didn't have evidence that ALL the WMD were destroyed. There was plenty of evidence that SOME were destroyed.
Quote:
I know what my gut tells me and it tells me that something isn't right with those weapons.
Yeah, forget about evidence, logic, proof, any of that jazz; we all know that gut feelings are the most accurate ones in the long run.
Cycloptichorn
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