"In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," President Bush announced Thursday night. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001." In the wake of that dark day, Bush recalled, "I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States." Saddam Hussein's defeat caps "19 months that changed the world," Bush concluded. "The war on terror is not over … but we have seen the turning of the tide."
In Bush's telling of the story, it all fits together. The war on terror gives meaning to the battle of Iraq. And the battle of Iraq demonstrates tangible success in the war on terror.
Except it doesn't. The two stories—Iraq and al-Qaida, the battle and the war—have never really meshed. Bush keeps saying they're the same thing. But saying doesn't make it so.
Remember Saddam's weapons of mass destruction—the ones whose concealment justified the invasion of Iraq? A week ago, the Washington Post reported that 38 days after entering Iraq, the United States had "yet to find weapons of mass destruction at any of the locations that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell cited in his key presentation to the U.N. Security Council in February." We hadn't even "produced Iraqi scientists with evidence about them." The only thing Bush said we had learned from interrogating Saddam's scientists was that "perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some."
What about Saddam's links to terror? Bush repeated Thursday that the Iraq war had "removed an ally of al-Qaida." Really? According to the Post, U.S. officials "have not turned up anything to support Powell's claim to the Security Council that 'nearly two dozen' al Qaeda terrorists lived in and operated from Baghdad." A Los Angeles Times investigation of the al-Qaida affiliate touted by Powell found "no strong evidence of connections to Baghdad" and concluded that the group lacked "the capability to muster a serious threat beyond its mountain borders." Saddam didn't even "control the region where the [group's] camps were located."
What does Bush have to say about the absence of evidence on these two points? "This much is certain," he observed in his victory address. "No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
Well, that's true. No terrorist network will get weapons from Pat Moynihan, either. That doesn't make his death essential to the war on terror.
Saddam was a tyrant, butcher, and serial aggressor. He jerked around the U.N. Security Council for 12 years, and the council did nothing about it. Even if all his biological and chemical weapons were destroyed years ago, his refusal to prove it—as he had pledged to do—by turning over records and personnel defied any hope of enforcing nonproliferation rules for gross offenders. Something had to be done, and Bush did it.
But don't tell us this was a triumph in the war on terror, Mr. President. Don't tell us the defeat of a secular dictator has turned the tide against a gang of religious fanatics. And don't talk about patience. You inserted a battle that could have waited into a war that couldn't, precisely because you lacked—or thought we lacked—patience for the slow, diffuse, half-invisible struggle against the people who hit us on Sept. 11. You wanted a quick, clear victory, and you got it. But don't flatter yourself. You haven't changed the world in 19 months. You've only changed the subject.
Remarks from the Fray:
In 1898, William Randolph Hearst manufactured a war following the sinking of the battleship Maine. He blamed it on Spain. There was no real evidence of that. "Please remain," he told his reporter, "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." Within days after Heart's false stories first appeared, hundreds of editorials demanded war. The American public followed the news, and soon enough, Hearst got his war. "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!," they said. Later on, we'd call what Hearst did "Yellow Journalism." President Bush's war on Iraq is the modern equivalent, Yellow Politics. Like Hearst before him, Bush justified the single most serious act any nation can conduct - war against another nation - based on supposition, gross inaccuracies, blatant falsity, and huge leaps in logic. When this was repeatedly pointed out to him before the war, Bush ignored it and relied not on facts, but on purposeful juxtaposition. Suddenly, every sentence that had a variation of the word "terrorism" or referred to 9-11 was immediately followed by another that had "Hussein" or "Iraq." "Remember 9-11!, To hell with Hussein!," Hearst might have said. Now that the war has ended, Bush continues to use the same arguments and play with the same cute juxtapositions despite not turning up hard evidence of any of his main rationales for the war (nuke program, WMD, threat to US, Al-Q link). Hearst would have been proud. No matter how you feel about the end of Hussein's regime, and there are good reasons to feel good about it, Bush's actions have been shocking. In an era when America (still) faces more danger on its own shores than ever before, we cannot afford to be led by someone who takes every opportunity to waste away our credibility in the world. It took a lot of history to denounce Hearst. One hopes Bush's history catches up with him by 2004.
--Adam_Masin
(To reply, click here)
In the main, I agree with Mr. Saletan that the links between Al Qaeda (certainly someone will correct my spelling on the name) and Iraq are tenuous, even though he does discount the documents found by British agents that suggest Iraq and Al Queda -- and particularly Osama bin Laden -- were indeed planning some activities together. But I have two objections to his argument.
1) Don't go to any Iraqi and say the U.S. didn't change the world.
2) At one time, it was common speak among those opposed to the war that we should give the inspectors months and months to find WMDs -- there's no point in now pointing to the U.S. military's failure in finding WMDs. During these 38 days, they've had a number of other pressing concerns, to say the least. Let's be fair here -- if we want to say the inspectors should have been given four or five months, let's give the U.S. military at least a year before shouting, "Where are the WMDs?"
--Sherlene
(To reply, click here)
…The geneses of terror is not a political motive, as we have been told our presence in Saudi Arabia and support of Israel caused 9/11, but something much deeper and it is this that is the enemy. Oppression is the mothers milk of terror, political, economic, social and religious. End oppression and you no longer have people interested in lashing out, or working for justifications for directing their anger. Crown Prince Faud of Saudi Arabia convened a large group of Saudi "non-royals" to discuss the ways to bring about reform in the nation most known for oppression. The clerics went berserk, why because they couldn't hold with the concept of women driving or wearing colored garments? No what has the Saudi clerics up in arms is the potential loss of control of the Arab minds in Saudi. It is for this very reason that you see the Shia clerics in Iraq organizing their people to agitate for an Islamist state, aided and abetted by another group of clerics terrified of losing control, the Iranian Ayatollahs. There is no place on earth where political borders matter less in the minds of the people than on the Arabian peninsula….We won't get a convenient change in the dynamic of oppression on the Arabian peninsula by Tuesday, it will take years to grow on the foundations that will be put down in Iraq. The alternative is to watch as the annual or semi-annual terrorist attacks take the lives of Americans here and abroad for decades to come. As someone who was in the defense business in on the Arabian peninsula for a decade, and got to know many from the Arab "street" I am convinced beyond question that the real enemy is oppression and the "thought control" which is the norm. The United States has just made what I view as the single most significant step toward real elimination of terror that could be taken. This the "wrong war?" Yes, if your interest is going after terrorists and not terror.
--Don
(To reply, click here)
You seem to forget, or not to have noticed in your article, "Impatient Justice", the reports by the UK Telegraph and Christian Science Monitor of the documents found in Baghdad linking Al Qaeda and Iraq. Even more damning is the fact that these articles reveal that it was Iraq that initiated the partnership. Furthermore, it is interesting that you chose to use the LA Times article on Ansar al Islam to torpedo Colin Powell's assessment of the terror group; however, if you had read the NY Times analysis of the same group on the same day you might have drawn the opposite conclusion.
--pat_74
(To reply, click here)
The author is right. There is no direct evidence of WMD, but if we are to go beyond cynicism toward some approximation of the truth, Saddam Hussein was a stolid supporter of terrorism in the regions, specifically, the Palestinian conflict. There is no legitimate analysis of the region without integrating the relationship of Palestine to Israel and Israel to the United States. What has happened regionally is a shake up of a long stagnant situation. The question of victory will only come in time, but the resolution of stagnation has truly changed. The US is no longer strictly beholden to Israel and its agenda as the only stronghold in the region, if, AND ONLY IF, a long standing peace and relationship with Iraq can be developed. This gives leverage for a Palestinian resolution which has no existed before. One can simplistically measure victory and defeat with what has recently transpired, but that does not change the fact that a fundamental shift in regional dynamics has occurred. Whether or not it will inspire progressive institutions and society or fall back into negation and stagnation has yet to be seen.
--thearousing
(To reply, click here)
(5/3)
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Remarks from the Fray:
In 1898, William Randolph Hearst manufactured a war following the sinking of the battleship Maine. He blamed it on Spain. There was no real evidence of that. "Please remain," he told his reporter, "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." Within days after Heart's false stories first appeared, hundreds of editorials demanded war. The American public followed the news, and soon enough, Hearst got his war. "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!," they said. Later on, we'd call what Hearst did "Yellow Journalism." President Bush's war on Iraq is the modern equivalent, Yellow Politics. Like Hearst before him, Bush justified the single most serious act any nation can conduct - war against another nation - based on supposition, gross inaccuracies, blatant falsity, and huge leaps in logic. When this was repeatedly pointed out to him before the war, Bush ignored it and relied not on facts, but on purposeful juxtaposition. Suddenly, every sentence that had a variation of the word "terrorism" or referred to 9-11 was immediately followed by another that had "Hussein" or "Iraq." "Remember 9-11!, To hell with Hussein!," Hearst might have said. Now that the war has ended, Bush continues to use the same arguments and play with the same cute juxtapositions despite not turning up hard evidence of any of his main rationales for the war (nuke program, WMD, threat to US, Al-Q link). Hearst would have been proud. No matter how you feel about the end of Hussein's regime, and there are good reasons to feel good about it, Bush's actions have been shocking. In an era when America (still) faces more danger on its own shores than ever before, we cannot afford to be led by someone who takes every opportunity to waste away our credibility in the world. It took a lot of history to denounce Hearst. One hopes Bush's history catches up with him by 2004.
--Adam_Masin
(To reply, click here)
In the main, I agree with Mr. Saletan that the links between Al Qaeda (certainly someone will correct my spelling on the name) and Iraq are tenuous, even though he does discount the documents found by British agents that suggest Iraq and Al Queda -- and particularly Osama bin Laden -- were indeed planning some activities together. But I have two objections to his argument.
1) Don't go to any Iraqi and say the U.S. didn't change the world.
2) At one time, it was common speak among those opposed to the war that we should give the inspectors months and months to find WMDs -- there's no point in now pointing to the U.S. military's failure in finding WMDs. During these 38 days, they've had a number of other pressing concerns, to say the least. Let's be fair here -- if we want to say the inspectors should have been given four or five months, let's give the U.S. military at least a year before shouting, "Where are the WMDs?"
--Sherlene
(To reply, click here)
…The geneses of terror is not a political motive, as we have been told our presence in Saudi Arabia and support of Israel caused 9/11, but something much deeper and it is this that is the enemy. Oppression is the mothers milk of terror, political, economic, social and religious. End oppression and you no longer have people interested in lashing out, or working for justifications for directing their anger. Crown Prince Faud of Saudi Arabia convened a large group of Saudi "non-royals" to discuss the ways to bring about reform in the nation most known for oppression. The clerics went berserk, why because they couldn't hold with the concept of women driving or wearing colored garments? No what has the Saudi clerics up in arms is the potential loss of control of the Arab minds in Saudi. It is for this very reason that you see the Shia clerics in Iraq organizing their people to agitate for an Islamist state, aided and abetted by another group of clerics terrified of losing control, the Iranian Ayatollahs. There is no place on earth where political borders matter less in the minds of the people than on the Arabian peninsula….We won't get a convenient change in the dynamic of oppression on the Arabian peninsula by Tuesday, it will take years to grow on the foundations that will be put down in Iraq. The alternative is to watch as the annual or semi-annual terrorist attacks take the lives of Americans here and abroad for decades to come. As someone who was in the defense business in on the Arabian peninsula for a decade, and got to know many from the Arab "street" I am convinced beyond question that the real enemy is oppression and the "thought control" which is the norm. The United States has just made what I view as the single most significant step toward real elimination of terror that could be taken. This the "wrong war?" Yes, if your interest is going after terrorists and not terror.
--Don
(To reply, click here)
You seem to forget, or not to have noticed in your article, "Impatient Justice", the reports by the UK Telegraph and Christian Science Monitor of the documents found in Baghdad linking Al Qaeda and Iraq. Even more damning is the fact that these articles reveal that it was Iraq that initiated the partnership. Furthermore, it is interesting that you chose to use the LA Times article on Ansar al Islam to torpedo Colin Powell's assessment of the terror group; however, if you had read the NY Times analysis of the same group on the same day you might have drawn the opposite conclusion.
--pat_74
(To reply, click here)
The author is right. There is no direct evidence of WMD, but if we are to go beyond cynicism toward some approximation of the truth, Saddam Hussein was a stolid supporter of terrorism in the regions, specifically, the Palestinian conflict. There is no legitimate analysis of the region without integrating the relationship of Palestine to Israel and Israel to the United States. What has happened regionally is a shake up of a long stagnant situation. The question of victory will only come in time, but the resolution of stagnation has truly changed. The US is no longer strictly beholden to Israel and its agenda as the only stronghold in the region, if, AND ONLY IF, a long standing peace and relationship with Iraq can be developed. This gives leverage for a Palestinian resolution which has no existed before. One can simplistically measure victory and defeat with what has recently transpired, but that does not change the fact that a fundamental shift in regional dynamics has occurred. Whether or not it will inspire progressive institutions and society or fall back into negation and stagnation has yet to be seen.
--thearousing
(To reply, click here)
(5/3)