Wolfowitz’s Hunger For Taking Out Saddam Clouded The Facts
Wolfowitz’s Hunger For Taking Out Saddam Clouded The Facts
Paul Wolfowitz is typically described as “the chief architect of the Iraq war.” The chief architect, according one of the British papers released today, acknowledged before the war that the threat of Iraqi weapons had not progressed enough to justify an attack, but decided to hype the evidence anyways because he thought the American public would buy it.
In a memo written about a meeting he had with then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Ambassador Christopher Meyer wrote that Wolfowitz de-emphasized the importance of the WMD argument for attacking Iraq. Meyer said, “[Wolfowitz] took a slightly different position from others in the Administration, who were focused on Saddam’s capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction Wolfowitz thought it indispensable to spell out in detail Saddam’s barbarism.”
Wolfowitz admitted in May 2003 that the WMD justification for attacking Iraq was merely pretense. In a Vanity Fair interview, Wolfowitz said: “For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”
Despite knowing the threat of Iraqi WMDs was not imminent, Wolfowitz hyped the threat to sell the war:
Wolfowitz: “Iraq presents a case of direct threat to the security of the United States and our allies and a key to the future of one of the most important regions in the world The simple truth is, disarming Iraq and fighting the war on terror are not merely related; disarming Iraq’s arsenal of terror is a crucial part of winning the war on terror.” [Wolfowitz testimony, House Budget Committee, 2/27/03]
Wolfowitz: “Disarming Iraq’s arsenal of terror is a crucial part of winning the war on terror.” [Speech to Commonwealth Club, 12/6/02]
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I love the language – we need to get some real doozies to describe the Bush administration – then, maybe, Bush voters can really get their teeth into something and vote in ways to actually “improve” this country. So far, I like Bush’s Legion of Doom.
June 13th, 2005 at 12:35 pmThe real message was this:
“Iraq presents a case of direct threat to the dumbass policies of the United States and our allies and a key to the future of one of the most important commodity in the world, oil, which we will steal at the point of a gun … The complete lie is, disarming Iraq and fighting the war on terror are not merely related; disarming Iraq’s arsenal of terror is a crucial part of winning the war on terror, which will go on forever and ever because we don’t want it to end. We’ll just feign that we are winning it. We’ll socialize the costs, privatize the profits and sucker everybody on earth. That’s the ticket.â€?
June 13th, 2005 at 2:29 pmThe bottom line is, the weapons inspectors did not find
June 13th, 2005 at 5:38 pmWMD’s and everybody knew that before the invasion.
It is illegal to declare war to take a leader out of power.
That is the issue, there was no legal cause to invade Iraq.
Votetoimpeach.org
Hi, Kriselda. I agree with you that it is a worthwhile distinction.
But I would add that Faiz’s point still stands. Wolfowitiz hyped the WMD threat and much more.
I have to agree with Ron, also. This was indeed a case of socializing the risks and costs, while privatizing the benefits.
The–by some accounts–$300 billion allocated has resulted in very fat paydays for certain corporations and private contractors.
On the same, Transparency International warns that the Iraq reconstruction, which btw is barely happening, risks becoming “the biggest corruption scandal in history.”
We’re not safer. The Iraqi people are “free,” if one election under marshal law counts as democracy, but their daily lives are worse. And the US now stands lower in world opinon than any other time in past 100 years.
Yet Bush, Cheney and neocons seem to think everything’s going according to plan. Sadly, as Ron suggests, in some perverse sense they might be right.
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January 10th, 2006 at 12:02 pm