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President Bush, 2001 to September 2002

In January 2001 a new president took office in the United States: George W. Bush. In his inaugural address he said: "We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors....We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength."

Then came the attacks of September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden was blamed. President Bush and others had been looking with favor at regime change in Iraq - a continuation of the position taken by the U.S. Congress and its Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. According to Bob Woodward, on September 16 Bush said to his Security Advisor, Condelezza Rice: " We won't do Iraq now, but it's a question we're gonna have to return to."

The Taliban was believed to be giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, and the U.S. and Britain launched a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In early November, Germany and Italy joined the war, Germany sending 4,000 troops and Italy 2,700, an aircraft carrier, combat aircraft and helicopters. On November 13, Afghan forces hostile to the Taliban and supported by the coalition captured Kabul.

Saddam Hussein was playing his Muslim card. He had called for the U.S. not to wage a "new crusade" against any Islamic country. On December 18, 2001 he called for a meeting of Arab leaders in the holy city of Mecca. Hussein was providing $10,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and in April, 2002, he increased that to $25,000 - more money not being spent to improve the welfare of Iraqi children.

On June 2, 2002, President Bush publicly introduced the new defense doctrine of pre-emption in a speech at the U.S. military academy at West Point. After September 11 there had been talk of the need of the United States to be proactive rather than reactive. The Bush administration was not charging Hussein with complicity in the attacks of September 11th, but regarding weapons of mass destruction Bush did consider Hussein a danger. He asserted that in some instances the U.S. must strike first against another state to prevent a potential threat from growing into an actual one: "Our security will require all Americans…[to] be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives."

At a press conference on July 8, 2002, President Bush said: "It's a stated policy of this government to have a regime change. And it hasn't changed. And we'll use all tools at our disposal to do so."

Scott Ritter, a tough and straight talking former Marine Corps Major and ballistic missile technology expert and chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq was creating a stir by his doubts that Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Ritter wrote on July 20, 2002 :

While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.

With the exception of mustard agent, all chemical agent produced by Iraq prior to 1990 would have degraded within five years (the jury is still out regarding Iraq's VX nerve agent program - while inspectors have accounted for the laboratories, production equipment and most of the agent produced from 1990-91, major discrepancies in the Iraqi accounting preclude any final disposition at this time.)

The same holds true for biological agent, which would have been neutralized through natural processes within three years of manufacture. Effective monitoring inspections, fully implemented from 1994-1998 without any significant obstruction from Iraq, never once detected any evidence of retained proscribed activity or effort by Iraq to reconstitute that capability which had been eliminated through inspections.

In direct contrast to these findings, the Bush administration provides only speculation, failing to detail any factually based information to bolster its claims concerning Iraq's continued possession of or ongoing efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. To date no one has held the Bush administration accountable for its unwillingness - or inability - to provide such evidence. [note]

On July 23, at a meeting among British defense and intelligence people, President Bush is described as wanting "to remove Saddam through military action." The minutes of this meeting (a classified document) mention the need of Bush to justify military action. It was said that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" and justification for going to war was to be the Hussein regime's terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction.  The minutes of this meeting, to be published on May 1, 2005 and known as the Downing Street Memo.

Bush could have his war against Saddam Hussein but do it in a fashion that would sell, by giving Saddam chance to comply with his (Saddam's) obligations to the world community. And now he broadcast what he thought were Saddam's violations of those obligations. On September 12, President Bush gave a speech at the United Nations and spoke of U.N. Resolutions 686 and 687, including the demand that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. "Iraq' s regime agreed," said Bush, and "It broke its promise." Bush spoke of five hundred people still unaccounted for, including one U.S. pilot. He spoke of Iraq violating Security Council Resolution 1373 by continuing "to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel and Western governments." He spoke of Iraq attempting to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President (his father) and of targeting Iraqi dissidents abroad for murder. Then Bush spoke of "likely" stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that the regime was "rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons." 

On September 14, in response to a question put to him by the news magazine Time, Ritter said:

I've said that no one has backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam's doing it is in total disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he's a dead man and he knows it. [note]

In September, Senator Bob Graham of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence asks for a national intelligence estimate on the issue of Iraq's threat to the United States. It will take three or four weeks to produce what will become known as the "2002 National Intelligence Estimate."

Closer to War, October to December 2002

The Bush administration went to Congress in early October to lobby for permission to make war on Iraq should Iraq fail to comply with U.N. resolutions. He told Congress: "The Iraqi regime possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."  He spoke of the 1998 resolution by Congress and said he did not want a resolution that was weaker or that tied his hands.

A few days later the resolution that Bush was seeking from Congress passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, giving Bush the right to go to war against Iraq provided that he "declare to Congress either before or within 48 hours after beginning military action that diplomatic efforts to enforce the U.N. resolutions have failed." According to the resolution, Bush had to certify that action against Iraq would not hinder efforts to pursue the al Qaeda terrorist network.

On October 26 were massive anti-war demonstrations in Europe, Latin America, Australia, Japan and the United States. Organizers of the march in Washington D.C. described the march as having "... filled the broad boulevards and streets surrounding the White House for 20 blocks and was so large that the front of the march ran into the back as it was leaving the rally site."

The CIA has been under pressure from the Bush administration because of its past failures at intelligence gathering. The CIA director wants to please the Bush administration. The National Intelligence Estimate that Senator Graham asked for is produced, a document that justifies the position of those working in the Bush administration who want war against Iraq.  

Congressional elections in the U.S., held on November 5, indicated that many U.S. citizens were unimpressed by the demonstrators and arguments against war. For the first time in many years the party occupying the oval office gained seats in the House and Senate in the mid-term elections.

On November 8, 2002, U.S. and British influence contributed to a new resolution by the U.N. Security Council - Resolution 1441 - which deplored Iraq's failures to live up to previous resolutions. The resolution recalled that the Security Council had repeatedly warned Iraq "that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations."

Saddam Hussein had been presenting himself as a man of peace. On August 1, 2002, his administration had announced that the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, was welcome in Baghdad for "technical talks." On September 16, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that he had received a letter from the Iraqi Government offering to allow the unconditional return of weapons inspectors. On November 18, 2002, U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iraq was getting ready to defend itself militarily. According to Hussein's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, the morale of Hussein's military plummeted after senior officers learned that they faced fighting the United States without the weapons of mass destruction that they had believed that Hussein had. Hussein's bluffing had included his own senior military men.

The Hussein regime was playing to world opinion against war as best it could. Speaking to an Arab journalist, and looking forward to support from people opposed to war he said, "No one wants this aggressive military action against Iraq. Everyone is afraid of the consequences that will result from it." But if war does come, said Aziz, "...we will fight them in the cities.... They can damage buildings and installations, but they can't topple the regime with airplanes and missiles."

On December 7, Iraq submitted a 12,000-page declaration on its chemical, biological and nuclear activities, claiming it had no weapons banned by the United Nations.

On December 21, Bush approved the deployment of U.S. troops to the Gulf region.

In Baghdad on December 22  an advisor to Hussein, Amir al-Saadi, announced to journalists from around the world that Hussein's government was, according Reuters news service, "ready to answer any questions raised by the United States and Britain on its arms declaration, and would allow the CIA to come and identify suspect sites for weapons inspectors." Said al-Saadi, "We do not even have any objections if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites."

Motives and Debate

The President of the U.S. needed support to go to war. In other words, going to war was a collective enterprise, involving the motives of all those supporting the president. Of greater significance than any motive hidden in the psyche of the president was the collective rationale for going to war.

Some were describing President Bush motive's for war as different from his stated rationale for war: defense against a possible attack involving weapons of mass destruction. There were arguments that the Bush administration wanted to control Iraq's oil. James A. Paul of the Global Policy Forum wrote:

For more than a hundred years, major powers have battled to control this enormous source of wealth and strategic power. The major international oil companies, headquartered in the United States and the United Kingdom, are keen to regain control over Iraq’s oil, lost with the nationalization in 1972.

Oil in that part of the world was of interest to strategists in the United States, and some critics of the Bush administration assumed from this fact that it was oil that had motivated the Bush administration to make war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and was now motivating the Bush administration regarding Iraq. The issue of oil was involved in the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1954. Oil was one of the issues involved in the war against Iraq in 1991, but not the rationale for that war. Bush spelled out his motives for going to war and his cabinet members denied vehemently that the Bush administration was motivated by oil. Those labeling his motives for wanting war as oil depicted Bush as other than a sincere but mistaken or wrong-headed man with power; they described Bush as a blatant fake and liar, and most U.S. citizens paying attention rejected that view. 

With self-assurance as to its significance, the conspiracy theorists pointed out that Vice President Cheney has worked for Halliburton, Condoleezza Rice had had an oil tanker named after her and that Republicans took campaign contributions from oil companies.

In his State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003 President Bush spoke of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirming "in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb." He added,

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

It was not so much that Bush was being mislead by the intelligence community. Greg Thielmann, who had been director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs at the State Department, has spoken of the Bush administration "diverging from the kind of qualified and fairly carefully structured intelligence that they were being provided."  [note]   Some would accuse President Bush of lying. Some others would think of him as fooling himself with his own exaggerations, as being another of those who is not adept as drawing the line between precise knowledge and exaggeration. The Bush administration's case against Saddam Hussein was made in the Security Council on February 5 by U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, drawing from the "2002 National Intelligence Estimate" - the report that had been requested by Senator Graham - to be described by Powel in 2004 as faulty regarding weapons of mass destruction. The head of the CIA, George Tenet had assured Powell that the information he was presenting at the U.N. was ironclad. Chief weapons inspector David Kay was to accuse Tenet of wanting to be a player and as having "traded integrity for access...a bad bargain if you're running an intelligence agency."  

Powell also made his case at the U.N. based on U.N. Resolution 1441 of 1991. Hussein had failed to live up to its obligations that came with the termination of war in 1991, and Powell stated that Resolution 1441 gave Iraq "one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences." 

Some wrote that Powell had not made a convincing case regarding the danger to U.S. security by Saddam Hussein. Some others were convinced that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but that there was no convincing evidence that he intended to use them against the U.S. or U.S. forces so long as they did not attack Iraq. The argument was made that Hussein was rational enough that for the sake of his own survival he would not use his weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., Britain, Israel or his neighbors - not now, after the Gulf War of 1991 - similar to the Soviet Union, they argued, launching a nuclear attack knowing it would mean their destruction. They pointed out that Hussein did not use his weapons of mass destruction during the first Gulf War because of his fear of the consequences.

There were those who wrote about the differences between Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Unlike bin Laden, Hussein was a head of state. He could hide, but Iraq and its military could not - unlike bin Laden's operatives. Osama bin Laden was a purist, offended by the presence of U.S. troops on Muslim territory. Saddam Hussein was no such purist.

On February 12, 2003 a tape made by bin Laden was broadcast on television by al-Jazeera. Osama bin Laden swore vengeance against America if Iraq were attacked, and he demanded that the Muslim world stand in solidarity with the Muslim people of Iraq. But this was not support for the Hussein regime. Osama bin Laden called on the people of Iraq to rise up against both American aggression and against the "socialist" [Baathist] Saddam Hussein.

There were people in the U.S. who opposed pre-emptive warfare, believing that the U.S. should wait for a country to attack before we attack it. Others argued that invading Iraq would open a Pandora's box of trouble, that those Muslims angry with us for invading Afghanistan will rise again in anger across the Muslim world, and this time it would be overwhelming. Hussein, it was argued,  might put heavy casualties upon U.S. military personnel with his chemical or biological weapons or send people to the United States and Britain to spread death. And many argued that invading Iraq would cost too much money - money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Those supporting the Bush administration argued that peace in the world rested on agreements, that Hussein had reneged on his agreements and that letting agreements slide and engaging in endless delay was the mistake the brought war back to Europe in 1939.

There were predictions that the streets in Baghdad would erupt in joy similar to the throngs in Kabul that greeted the Americans. Iraqi exiles in the United States were interviewed extensively for television, speaking of their desire to see Hussein overthrown. One of the exiles was the nuclear scientist, Khidhir Hamza, who said Iraq still had 1.3 tons of low-enriched uranium, bought many years ago from Brazil, from which could be extracted sufficient highly-enriched uranium to fuel three atomic weapons. There were two Iraqi military defectors, a captain and a lieutenant general, who told of a secret government camp outside of Baghdad where Islamic terrorists from across the Middle East were trained.

There were those who supported President Bush with the simplicity expressed by a woman observing an anti-war demonstration in the United States. Referring to Hussein she said, " He hates all of us. Me, them [pointing to the demonstrators] and you. He has to be stopped." 

February, March and War

On February 14, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix reported to the U.N. Security Council and called for more time to be given to inspections. He said that cooperation by Saddam Hussein's regime was improving.

Prime Minister Blair said: "If we show weakness now, if we allow the plea for more time to become just an excuse for prevarication until the moment for action passes, then it will not only be Saddam who is repeating history. Blair was dismissive of recent concessions by the Iraqi dictator, warning: "The concessions are suspect. Unfortunately, the weapons are real."

On February 24, 2003, the United States, Britain and Spain submitted to the U.N. Security Council a joint resolution that "Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it in Resolution 1441" and that it was time to authorize use of military force against Iraq. France, Germany and Russia submitted a counter-resolution that called for inspections to be intensified and extended to ensure that there is "a real chance to the peaceful settlement of this crisis," and that "the military option should only be a last resort." The proposal by the U.S., Britain and Spain failed to gain the support needed to pass and the proposal was withdrawn before the Security Council was to have voted on it.

By March, the U.S. had an estimated 200,000 troops in Kuwait. The U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix had declared Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missiles (a scaled-down SCUD missile) in violation of U.N. Security Council resolution and had given the Hussein regime until March 1 to destroy them, and, on March1, Iraq started to destroy them. The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain called on President Hussein to step down to avoid war.  Also on March 1, President Bush's press secretary stated:

We salute the brave members of the Iraqi opposition and all Iraqis now suffering in silent captivity. Many freedom-loving nations throughout the world look forward with them to the day of their liberation.

In a radio address on March 8, Bush said,

Unfortunately, it is clear that Saddam Hussein is still violating the demands of the United Nations by refusing to disarm. Iraqi's dictator has made a public show of producing and destroying a few prohibited missiles. Yet, our intelligence shows that even as he is destroying these few missiles, he has ordered the continued production of the very same type of missiles. Iraqi operatives continue to play a shell game with inspectors, moving suspected prohibited materials to different locations every 12 to 24 hours. And Iraqi weapons scientists continue to be threatened with harm should they cooperate in interviews with U.N. inspectors.

On March 15 in a radio address, Bush called Hussein a "patron and protector of terror." He spoke of "Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel" that week having said, " 'We have a moral obligation to intervene were evil is in control. Today, that place is Iraq.' "  Bush added that "Crucial days lie ahead for the free nations of the world."

On March 17, in an 11th hour attempt against a U.S. invasion, Saddam Hussein spoke of having had weapons of mass destruction but that he no longer did. According to Iraqi television he spoke of having needed such weapons "when we were at war with Iran for eight years and when the Zionist entity was threatening us." He added: "I confirm here that we do not have weapons of mass destruction." He ended claiming strength and that the U.S. would be defeated if it invaded. 

On March 19, the U.S. launched what it called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Massive anti-war demonstrations erupted around the world.

On March 20, President Bush reported to Congress that,

Pursuant to section 204(b) of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1703(b) (IEEPA), and section 301 of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1631, I hereby report that I have taken additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 12722 of August 2, 1990, by exercising my statutory authority to confiscate and vest certain property of the Government of Iraq and its agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities.

On March 22, President Bush addressed the nation, beginning as follows:

Good morning. American and coalition forces have begun a concerted campaign against the regime of Saddam Hussein. In this war, our coalition is broad, more than 40 countries from across the globe. Our cause is just, the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world. And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.

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Copyright © 2002 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.

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