Redstate

By IL-Glock21 Posted in War — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Roughly four years ago I started a list of the various arguments I ran into while debating opponents of the war in Iraq. From the basic to the technical, I jotted them down and cataloged my responses.

The recent "Bush Lied" thread gave me the urge to post it here for anyone interested. Comments, criticisms, corrections, etc are appreciated.

The List:

1) It was all for oil!

It can be argued that having an ally or puppet in charge of Iraq would certainly benefit the US in the realm of oil markets and ensuring a healthy supply for our extremely heavy demand. Of course if this was the case it wouldn't make sense to cut our ties with Iraq back in 1990 over their invasion of Kuwait. That invasion would actually benefit us more by having a strategic ally with even more oil reserves with an exceptionally simple cover story: Iraq reclaims what it considered its old territory in border dispute that has nothing to do with us. That would have been a far cheaper way to "steal" oil that we'll still have to pay for.

Post-Desert Storm it would certainly be a benefit to have a friendlier regime in power in regards to keeping the oil supply stable and accessible for the future, but the idea that our interventions with Iraq were "all for oil" don't make any sense if you go back to the beginning of our military involvement.

2) Implications that the WMD accusations, the idea that Iraq was a threat, or the policy of regime change started with Bush.

No matter how hard one tries to prove otherwise, these issues were bipartisan and began long before W. Bush was in the Oval Office. The WMD accusations began during the H.W. Bush (#41) administration. Those accusations were further trumpeted by the Clinton administration which also added more accusations and more evidence for the public to know. The idea that Iraq was a threat to us because they could arm terrorist groups with WMDs and possibly attack us anonymously without any risk of retaliation was a Clinton administration claim originally, and the US policy of regime change in Iraq was also started under the Clinton administration when he signed the joint resolution of congress declaring it so, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (HR 4655 - Text available from this Public Laws & Bills link). This allowed the US to support groups seeking to overthrow Saddam from within Iraq.

3) The idea that this was a new war.

From reading media and political descriptions of the invasion, one would quickly get the idea that the Persian Gulf Conflict from 1991 ended that same year and that we are now dealing with an entirely new war. The politicians on both sides of the debate haven't helped dispel the misconception at all, it benefits both sides for the public to remain confused on the issue. The Persian Gulf Conflict never ended. The hostilities ended briefly after the ceasefire agreement was signed by Iraq, but the consequent violations of that agreement within 15 days led to congress defining the conflict as ongoing until the President proclaims it over or congress proclaims it through a resolution.

"On April 3, 1991, the Council adopted Resolution 687. This resolution was one of the most important actions ever taken by the Council, responding to the hope of mankind to make the United Nations an instrument of peace and security. Resolution 687 required Iraq to take precise steps on many issues. Iraq formally notified the Security Council by letter on April 4, 1991, of its acceptance of the resolution."

Later that same year congress continued the original authorization of force to include the use of military force to enforce the ceasefire agreement. That extended authorization is what allowed H.W. Bush and Clinton to take military action against Iraq off and on for the next decade. The 2002 authorization extended the policy to finally allow for full hostilities to resume if the ceasefire agreement was still not enforced by the UN and allowed the US forces to invade and topple the regime. Reference to laws mentioned:

Public Law 102-1: Authorization for the 1991 military action.
Public Law 102-25: Defined the Persian Gulf Conflict as ongoing.
Public Law 102-190: Extended the authorization in PL 102-1 to include military action to enforce the ceasefire agreement.
Public Law 107-243: 2002 authorization to resume full hostilities. (All of these are available from the Public Laws & Bills link)

4) We "rushed to war"

This is a difficult statement to back up. Let's review the "rush to war."

1991: Liberation of Kuwait, ceasefire agreement signed by Iraq to avoid being invaded.
1991: Congress authorizes the president to use military force to enforce the ceasefire agreement. This results in the no-fly zones being established and occasional attacks on Iraq positions that fire upon us.
1991-1998: Trade and other economic sanctions against Iraq imposed due to non-compliance as well as the continued presence of US military around Iraq and in its airspace to patrol the no-fly zones.
1998: The bombing campaign after countless demands, threats, and sanctions to fully comply with the ceasefire agreement.
1998: The Iraqi Liberation Act authorizes the US to support anti-Saddam forces in Iraq in hopes of causing regime change without direct US military involvement.
1998-2002: Continued sanctions and military involvement around Iraq and within their airspace.
2002: Congress authorizes full resumption of hostilities against Iraq if the ceasefire agreement is not fully complied with after the UN threatens serious consequences for further non-compliance or even less than full compliance.
2003: When Hans Blix reports back that the compliance had improved but rattled off all the ways they were still not fully complying (even with the full threat of invasion promised unless there was full compliance, with an invasion force mounting on the borders to make that clear), the congressional authorization for the full resumption of hostilities was in full effect and the invasion proceeds.

To some, they may consider that a rush. I just don't see it.

5) Iraq was not involved in the 9/11 attacks!

Correct. Bush stated that publicly many times.

Some people were confused by the mentions of the 9/11 attacks and Iraq in the same discussions. The only real connection to Iraq is the change in policy post-attacks. The idea that a crazy lunatic in the desert on the other side of the planet is a threat that can be contained suddenly became null and void after we realized what a crazy lunatic in the desert on the other side of the planet can do. Iraq was considered a threat to us back in the Clinton era because he could have potentially armed terrorists with WMDs from the stockpiles we believed they had, and allow them the opportunity to strike us anonymously without risk of retaliation. That threat was used as justification for the bombing campaign and the continued sanctions against Iraq. After 9/11 the idea of containment became absurd. Without proof he had disarmed, which required full cooperation with the UN inspectors, there was no way we could consider Saddam contained and not a threat to us.

Alternatively it is quite valid to think that the pro-war politicians had intentionally intermingled the topics of Iraq and the 9/11 attacks to get a public perception that Iraq was somehow involved. It often appeared that their rhetoric intentionally left out why the 9/11 attacks changed the policy and just subtly left the viewers/listeners to let their imaginations fill in the gaps. From the results of some of the polling done on the topic it would seem that they not only intentionally intermingled the topics without explaining the connection, but it actually succeeded in getting many people to believe that there was a more direct connection than just a change in policy. Proving that they did this intentionally is the hard part, and to date, it is still left to mere speculation.

6) The US invasion violated international law!

This is a gray area issue. One could argue that we potentially violated the UN charter by invading without permission of the UN Security Council, but if that was the case we've been violating it in regards to Iraq since congress authorized military force to enforce the ceasefire agreement in 1991 which was used by H.W. Bush, Clinton and W. Bush for military action prior to the invasion. Consequently H.W. Bush and Clinton both used military force without UN permission, specifically with the the no-fly zones and related strikes and the 1998 bombing campaign respectively and neither initially had UN support.

So if this was a violation it wasn't started by Bush and there have been no successful bids to get the Supreme Court to affirm it violated the Article VI provisions making treaties part of the supreme law of the land. ("This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

The UN Security Council is also the only international body that can enforce UN related international law with military force, a body we have veto powers in. Ideally veto members should abide by the rules, but law that cannot be enforced is technically moot.

Outside of a potential Article VI violation of treaties (UN Charter in this case) that would technically make H.W. Bush, Clinton and W. Bush's actions violations of international law, the invasion was perfectly legal under US law which has always considered the ceasefire agreement enforceable by the US without UN permission since 1991. Hence making Congress also culpable for the violations as well, and making the focus on Bush alone a bit absurd. Especially since other notable Democrats had previously argued that other veto members of the UN Security Council had devious motives to ensure against military action against Iraq, most notably John Kerry as far back as 1997, and that acting unilaterally was a valid option in light of that fact.

7) Why not attack [fill in the blank] instead of Iraq?

There are countless factors that go into a decision like that and it would be impossible to have a "one size fits all" international policy on who we would attack. Many countries have WMDs that we have no problem with, some who are developing nuclear weapons in spite of signing international agreements that they would not can be a problem, but it's unlikely that a place like India would attack us, so why attack them? A determination of the level of actual threat they could pose to the United States or our allies has to be a big factor.

North Korea has been a royal pain in the butt for the United States as of late with nuclear proliferation problems, developing nuclear weapons, and still technically being at war with an ally that we are sworn to defend, South Korea. Why not them, right? After all the ceasefire agreement there is around half a century old and there have been violations. That sounds much worse than Iraq and it is. But then comes yet another factor that has to be considered: feasibility. Could we topple North Korea's regime? Of course we could. But it would come with severe losses and possibly have dire ramifications on Sino-American relations.

Iraq was actually a feasible endeavor and it still wasn't the proverbial cake-walk that some of the pro-war types thought it would be. The Iraq situation was even more simple than that though. The ceasefire agreement violations already gave us legal authority to attack Iraq, per congressional authorization. The goal before the 9/11 attacks was to keep the perceived threat contained and support anti-Saddam forces in Iraq to instigate regime change. The only thing that changed with 9/11 was the idea that the containment was feasible, the perceived threat suddenly went up several notches as we realized that the threat described by Clinton was itself far more feasible, that Iraq could arm terrorist groups with the WMDs he refused to prove he had destroyed and essentially attack us anonymously without risk of retaliation. The process of escalating the hostilities against Iraq had been in motion for a decade as well as the escalation of the diplomatic sanctions.

Thereby we had legal justification to invade, the diplomatic process had been almost entirely exhausted already, we already had taken smaller military measures that had been escalating, we had the ability to pull it off, and had what we considered a definite threat. And all it would have taken to eliminate the invasion was for Iraq to fully comply with the ceasefire agreement to eliminate the belief that he remained a threat.

You might be able to find a better target for the war on terror, but it'd be difficult to find one that'd be as realistic to start off with after Afghanistan.

8) We left Afghanistan and lost Osama for Saddam!

We never left Afghanistan, though some forces that probably should have stayed in Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq. This would be part of a reasonable argument for delaying the Iraq invasion. There's no real way to prove or show or conclude really that we would have caught Osama if not for the Iraq war. It's speculative, but it might be a possibility that is just unprovable.

9) We know there weren't WMDs in Iraq, thus proving the war was a pointless waste of lives and money!

It is unfortunate that the only way we could prove Iraq had disarmed was after a full scale invasion that allowed inspectors to be unhindered. It could be argued that in hindsight it was a mistake, a wasteful one at that, but it is hard to apply what we've learned since the invasion to the pre-invasion decision. Remember it wasn't just the US claiming that Iraq still retained stockpiles, it was a view shared by our allies and both US parties.

Knowing what I know now, I'd say that Iraq was not a threat to the US directly at the time and was only a moderate threat at best to our allies in the region, but I'd still support the decision to invade, first and foremost to enforce the ceasefire agreement that required Iraq, not us, to fully comply with the UN in order to prove they were no longer a threat. The invasion was a direct result of their non-compliance and forced us to do their end of the deal, which could only be done with the invasion. The other reasons for invading such as the humanitarian reasons, spreading democracy, regional stability, etc. were just additional bonuses that came along with the primary objective: holding them accountable for their violations of the ceasefire agreement.

10) The war [killed too many/cost too much/diverted funds from social programs/was sold to the public deceptively/made oil companies money/etc

Each one of these arguments can be discussed but have little bearing on whether we should or should not have gone to war. A necessary war can leave more dead than we can bear, cost more than we can bear, cause hardships that leave us miserable, involve propaganda to obtain and maintain support and morale on the home front, and can even cause economic advantages for companies that can profit from conflict, whether we like it or not.

It still has little bearing on whether or not going to war could have been considered necessary at the time.

If one is of the opinion that the war was not necessary, these factors add to the case that it was a huge waste of life, money, and quality of life while aiding to those that profit from the horrors of war.

If one is of the opinion that the war was necessary, these factors are part of the burden in doing what one must, in spite of the hardships faced.

To claim that those who felt the war was necessary support the deaths, wasting resources, or harming the quality of life at home is just charged rhetoric that gets nowhere. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone like that, honestly. On the other hand those that are shown to be supporting it purely for financial gain or responsible for misleading the public on the necessity are fair game. Hence why the war propaganda has to be carefully looked at and some people will agree that the war was unnecessary but made to look necessary while many others will view it as necessary and the people pushing for it were merely attempting to get the support needed to get it done, even if it meant stretching the truth to build a better public case.

11) Undeclared wars are unconstitutional!

Military action, even military action that is essentially war without a formal declaration has been considered Constitutional long before we were born. The federalist papers explain how and why the President is given almost unrestricted command of the armed forces of the United States by the Commander in Chief clause as well as the lack of restrictions allowed on his command by Congress which can for the most part only limit his command by controlling the funding and not raising troops, or at least not a sizable number of troops for him to command.

The first undeclared war of the United States was against the French in the l790's, and the power to use military action without a formal declaration has been limited by Congress in a Constitutionally questionable law called the War Powers Act that gives them far more discretion over what he can do with troops outside of a time of war.

There have been some who claim that the Constitution doesn't even allow a standing army, which again is hogwash. That was the rule under the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution, the Constitution itself intentionally allows a standing army per Article I, Section 8.

12) The Bush "lies"

A collection of the "lies" commonly attributed to Bush that have more often than not been completely disproved by the facts and evidence available.

A) Bush lied about Iraq trying to get uranium from Niger!

First of all Bush noted that British Intelligence had found that Iraq was attempting to acquire uranium from Africa.

The British investigation into their pre-war claims found a great number of problems but this particular claim was considered "well founded." The argument that it was based on forged IAEA documents turned out to be untrue as that was only additional evidence to support the claim, not the only evidence.

Joe Wilson who is revered as an anti-war hero on this very matter has openly stated that he did not believe Niger would have been able or willing to deal with Iraq in uranium. What is not typically mentioned is that Joe Wilson's report that was part of the US intelligence on Iraq confirmed that Iraq agents were indeed trying to acquire uranium from Niger. It is ironic that one of the more vocal anti-war figures is one of the people who helped build the case for war, even more ironic that his great contribution to the anti-war effort was a failed attempt to debunk a claim that he himself had confirmed.

It was also reported that other European intelligence agencies had also confirmed that Iraqi agents were meeting with African based smugglers on the prospect of acquiring uranium.

One of the biggest "lies" of the Bush Administration is one of the easiest to confirm as accurate.

B) Bush lied about Iraq having nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration consistently argued that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons yet, but rather that it had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program which was based on intelligence reports. They were mistaken, they did not lie. Some people argue that the claims that they could have a nuclear weapon in a year as opposed to years was a lie, but the intelligence estimates also stated that the inability to confirm the status of their weapons development could have allowed them a larger head start that could put them as early as a year away. They ran with the worst case scenario for the obvious reason that the worst case scenario is what our biggest concern was. The "mushroom cloud" comments were all stated after qualifying that we did not believe that they had nuclear weapons yet, but we did not want to wait until we found out under dire circumstances that they finally did.

C) Bush lied about Iraq having ties with al Qaeda.

Almost all of the evidence presented about such ties were about the harboring of a couple specific al Qaeda members and the training base which was in a region mainly outside of Saddam's control. None of that is really debated. The non-aggression agreement between Iraq and al Qaeda on top of this information led to serious concerns that they were in a collaborative relationship but as it turned out the one time we could prove that al Qaeda requested assistance they were ignored by the Iraqi regime which still considered them an enemy in spite of the non-aggression agreement. So it turned out not to be as bad as the evidence may have led some of us to believe... but the evidence was not non-existent, nor has it been proven to be made up out of whole cloth.

D) Bush lied about mobile weapons labs.

Powell presented satellite images and defector testimony about mobile weapons labs which Iraq claimed did not exist. The problem was that the labs did exist and were found after the invasion. They just could not be proven to be used for biological weapons development. They were found to be ill suited for that purpose. Suspiciously though they turned out to be ill suited for their alleged purpose as well, for producing hydrogen for weather balloons. This is yet another claim that is used by the anti-war side which actually aids the pro-war argument. Saddam's violation of the ceasefire agreement and refusal to cooperate with inspectors led us to believe he was hiding something very suspicious. Without the invasion we could not have verified that these mobile labs were not being used for prohibited weapons development.

E) Bush misled Congress to go to war.

Most of the Democrats who are claiming to have been misled were the same democrats arguing the same things to help bolster support for the bombing campaigns under Bill Clinton. This includes leaders like John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and dozens of others.

Just as an example:

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
-- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence."
-- Nancy Pelosi Jan. 21, 2004

She obviously wasn't misled to believe this by Bush, unless she takes her cues from Texas Governors for her foreign policy information.

Another example:

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

Perhaps by "many years" he really meant a year and a half? He must be, otherwise what president would have "misled" him?

Or perhaps it was just the nuclear worries and al Qaeda connections that "misled" congress. After all he commented that:

"The case for war was based on two key claims: that Hussein was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, and that he had close ties to the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the atrocities of Sept. 11." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), March 19, 2004

That would seem reasonable. But...

"I have heard no persuasive evidence that Saddam is on the threshold of acquiring the nuclear weapons he has sought for more than 20 years." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"And the Administration has offered no persuasive evidence that Saddam would transfer chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. As General Joseph Hoar, the former Commander of Central Command told the members of the Armed Services Committee, a case has not been made to connect Al Qaeda and Iraq." -- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

Now apparently according to Kennedy there was no persuasive evidence of either of the two issues he said convinced congress to go to war, and this was right before the vote on the subject.

Who is doing the misleading around here? The simple fact of the matter was that Bush was reiterating what was known before his Administration and continued to be supported by the intelligence community.

"'Some are suggesting, certainly, that he destroyed the weapons after 1998 or maybe even sooner. It's just counterintuitive that he would have done that. His would have been the greatest intelligence hoax of all time, fooling every intelligence agency, three presidents, five secretaries of defense and the entire world into thinking he still had the weapons." -- Rep. Jane Harmon, (D, CA) June 17, 2003

The only person misleading anyone was Saddam Hussein by not giving the UN full and complete cooperation with the inspection process to allow us to confirm he had indeed disarmed. Because of that problem our evidence was outdated and incomplete and due to his suspicious behavior and prior claims, completely off the mark.

F) Bush said that Iraq was an imminent threat!

Actually Bush stated in the most televised speech leading up to the Iraq war, the 2003 State of the Union Address, that we were not going to wait until it became an imminent threat, i.e. it wasn't an imminent threat yet, nor were willing to wait for it to become one.

Rumsfeld seems to be one of the few members of the Administration who argued that it was an immediate threat only to deny it later. As he has corrected himself later and doesn't set policy this indiscretion while noteworthy, isn't really that damning in light of the direct contradiction by the President himself.

One quote that initially seemed damning was the comments by the President's Press Secretary who was quoted out of context as affirming that the war was about an imminent threat. The out of context quote chopped off all of his response except the first word, "yes." The rest of the response actually answers another part of the reporter's multifaceted and bumbled question. He did not actually affirm that the war was based on an imminent threat, even though it appears so if you cut off his response. This was also after the war had begun so it could not even be used as evidence for the lead up to war.

Strangely enough most of the people who come up with concocted ways of trying to show that Bush was pushing an "imminent threat" argument for the war ignore two extremely relevant issues:

First: Bill Clinton as well as his Secretary of State Madeline Albright both described Iraq as a threat at that time, even going as far as describing it as one of the greatest threats we face.

Second: The Congressional Record of speeches by Democrats before the Iraq war vote as well as many of the records of other speeches by Democrats before the Iraq war vote consistently show that they overwhelmingly did not believe there was an imminent threat but they still justivied and voted for the authorization anyways.

G) Bush said we'd be greeted as liberators!

We were greeted as liberators, but by a much smaller percentage of the population than expected. The Kurds absolutely greeted us such, and the Shi'a did as well but in much smaller numbers than we had hoped. The legacy of the abandonment in 1991 still left some bitterness and doubt of our intentions unlike those Iraqis who had provided a great deal of the insight into what we could expect who were overwhelmingly supportive of the invasion. We never expected the Sunni and former Ba'athist elements to embrace the invasion, nor did we expect any Shi'i groups to form a resistance against us as we were essentially empowering them as the majority by allowing a democracy to be created. Yet another example of the pre-war intelligence simply being incomplete and wrong leading to incorrect beliefs and statements of the Administration and others. But being wrong does not equate to lying. If simply being incorrect was the equivalent to being a liar, we're all apparently compulsive liars.

H) Bush lies about the security situation in Iraq / sees through rose tinted glasses.

One of the inherent parts of politics is that there is typically little need to point out the bad things with your policies and actions. Your opponents will do that for you and if you affirm it, they will just use that against you repeatedly. You really have to consider your audience when dealing with the public. If you tell them everything wrong with your policies and your opponents do the same, the public overwhelmingly hears the negative and will turn against you. If you state the good things about your policy, your opponents will continue to point out the bad, but the public will at least hear both sides of the story without you setting yourself up for nothing but negative headlines and affirmation of the negatives. It's not ideal by any means, but that's the reality of politics today. A handy analogy is if you're selling your old car. Sure you might mention that it could use some work, but you are still going to overwhelmingly focus on the better aspects such as the new brakes, tires, and the fact that it has always run for you except that one time where the battery died, "did I mention it has a new battery now too?"

I) Why should I believe anything Bush says when he conspired to let/help the 9/11 attacks happen.

If you still honestly believe this after all of the 9/11 conspiracy theories have been overwhelmingly debunked then you are lead deficient. Resolve that immediately.

J) Well Bush is still a liar because he said [insert the blank] about [insert the other unrelated issue].

I may or may not agree. Bush is still a politician so I don't buy into everything he says and certainly don't agree with him on every issue. But changing the subject doesn't win an argument, just sets one up for a red herring fallacy of relevance.

I'm sure there are other arguments opponents of the Iraq War have made, but I'll save those for future updates.