Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz strongly suggested yesterday that, had we known Saddam did not possess WMD, the United States would not invaded Iraq. From the AP:

“If somebody could have given you a Lloyd’s of London guarantee that weapons of mass destruction would not possibly be used, one would have contemplated much more support for internal Iraqi opposition and not having the United States take the job on the way we did.”

“It was a sense that the greatest danger in taking this man on would be that he would use them,” said Wolfowitz of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. “If you could have given us a guarantee that they wouldn’t have been used, there would have been policy options available probably.“

This is a sharp departure from the White House line. Current members of the administration still claim that WMD were just one of many reasons that the United States invaded Iraq. From an 11/15/05 op-ed by Deputy National Security Advisor J.D. Crouch:

Some administration critics believe Operation Iraqi Freedom was strictly about weapons of mass destruction. The reality is that Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs were only one reason for the liberation of Iraq.

When Wolfowitz was a member of the administration, that’s what he said too. From the AP 5/23/03:

Wolfowitz insisted in the interview, and in Singapore on Friday, that there had always been three major concerns.

“One was weapons of mass destruction, second was terrorism, and the third … was the abuse of Iraqis by their own government,” Wolfowitz said at the sidelines of the Asia Security Conference in Singapore.

“And in a sense there was a fourth overriding one, which was the connection between those first two, the connection between the weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. All three of those have been there, they’ve always been part of the rationale and I think it’s been very clear.”

(HT: HuffPost)

Early returns on President Bush’s desperate pre-holiday campaign to convince the American public that he has a plan for victory in Iraq are out. Much like his Social Security offensive this past spring, President Bush is failing to fundamentally change how Americans feel about Iraq.

Results from the latest The New York Times/CBS News poll, which began interviewing Americans after President Bush delivered his first speech in the latest Iraq campaign:

– Six in ten Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of Iraq, which is essentially unchanged since public disapproval of his handling of Iraq increased above 50 percent earlier this fall.

– Fully 70 percent of Americans do not believe President Bush has a clear plan for getting American troops out of Iraq.

– Nearly six in ten Americans (58 percent) believe that President Bush is making things sound better in Iraq than they really are, compared to one third (33 percent) who say that President Bush is accurately describing the situation in Iraq.

Though these numbers are bound to shift slightly in President Bush’s favor as the public relations campaign continues, they are not likely to alter the overall structure of American public opinion on Iraq for two main reasons.

First, a majority of Americans no longer find President Bush honest and trustworthy. Actions and results will speak louder than words to a skeptical American public, especially with a president who is no longer seen as a credible leader by a majority of the American public.

Second, and related to the first, the overall trend since President Bush’s invasion of Iraq has been driven by events on the ground in Iraq.

- Brian Katulis