Plotting Democracy in Iraq

Dean cited a report from the Army War College that found that Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the United States and that the war was a distraction from the real threat of terror facing America; a report by the Carnegie Endowment that found no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda; and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s remarks that the administration was set on regime change in Iraq from day one. - Mathew Gross

People are trying to say that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be a regime change in Iraq. - Paul O’Neill

In fact, not only did plans for “regime change” in Iraq NOT originate with the Bush White House, the “sinister plot” was actually ratified by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton a full three years before President Bush came to Washington. According to Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, “The 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act was passed by an unanimous Senate and a near-unanimous House,” after which Mr. Clinton certified it as the law of the land with his signature. - Carl Limbacher

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime. - Iraq Liberation Act of 1998

The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life. - Bill Clinton

The global war on terrorism as presently defined and conducted is strategically unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military and other resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security. The United States may be able to defeat, even destroy, Al Qaeda, but it cannot rid the world of terrorism, much less evil. - Jeffrey Record

Cutting to the crux of present-day issues, a spring 2001 article by Jeffrey Record in the War College’s journal, Parameters, argued the legitimacy of “shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices”. Mr Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed services committee (and an apparent favourite of the Council on Foreign Relations), also advocated the acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict. Mr Record explicitly urged painting over the US’s actual reasons for warfare with a nobly high-minded veneer, seeing such as a necessity for mobilising public support for a conflict. - Ritt Goldstein

An August 2002 report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Iraq “almost certainly does have large numbers of chemical weapons and some biological weapons.” - USA Today

After the Gulf War, UNSCOM destroyed more than 480,000 liters of chemical agents and 1.8 million liters of chemical precursors in Iraq. Because of the size of the Iraqi program, however, it is widely believed that significant quantities of chemical agents and precursors remain stored in secret depots. U.N. officials have publicly expressed their doubts that the entire Iraqi stockpile of chemical weapons was found. Rough estimates conclude that Iraq may have retained up to 600 metric tons of agents, including VX, mustard gas and sarin. There are thousands of possible chemical munitions still unaccounted for. - Joseph Cirincione

The respected and nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington released on Jan. 8 a long-awaited study whose major conclusion is that the Bush administration “systematically misrepresented” the threat from Iraq’s weapons programs. Three leading nonproliferation experts — Jessica T. Mathews, Joseph Cirincione and George Perkovich — authored the study, which is based on comparisons of declassified U.S intelligence documents with U.N. weapons inspections reports and Bush administration statements. Although the authors agree that Iraq’s weapons programs potentially constituted a long-term threat, they argue that they did not “pose an immediate threat to the United States, to the region or to global security.” - Ruth Rosen

Iraq’s WMD Program represented a long-term security threat to the United States and to the region. - Jessica T. Mathews, Joseph Cirincione and George Perkovich

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. - George W. Bush

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Plotting Democracy in Iraq

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