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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us June 5 , 2006 Case In Point Questions still remain By Chris Honoré Tidings Correspondent It’s the question that haunts all discussions of the Iraq war: why did this administration make the decision to invade Iraq? What was the meta-rationale that caused the United States to put in harm’s way our troops and expend our treasure? Now, some three years later, at a cost approaching $300 billion, with thousands wounded and more than 2,400 soldiers killed, the answer to that question is more elusive than ever. Our democracy is founded on the free flow of information, hence this is a question that should not be allowed to fade. If there was a sub rosa agenda that the American people were not privy to, then it is essential we know what that agenda was. Clearly, the initial reasons proffered in the months leading up to the war by President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell have not stood the test of time or the scrutiny of newly disclosed information. During the months prior to the March invasion three years ago, Americans were told, unequivocally, that Iraq presented a clear and present danger. Recall that on Sept. 12, 2002 President Bush went before the U.N. General Assembly. He stated to the world community that Iraq possessed, or was in the process of producing, weapons of mass destruction, to include biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles, all in violation of post Gulf War resolutions. In addition, Iraq had committed a litany of human rights violations, the most significant being the gassing of its own people. Bush argued that Iraq should be disarmed by any means necessary. At this point it was the stated policy of the White House that the United States would work through the United Nations as the world community sought to bring Saddam into compliance with the imposed resolutions. On Nov. 8, 2002, after much internal debate, the United Nations passed Resolution 1441, urging Iraq to disarm or face “serious consequences.” The resolution stated that Iraq was in material breach of the terms of the cease-fire granted at the end of the Gulf War and was charged with verifying that it was no longer in possession of stockpiles of WMD and had not resumed their production. Saddam agreed to comply with 1441, and on Nov. 27, 2002, UNSCOM (U.N. weapons inspectors), which had been expelled in 1998, was permitted back into Iraq. While the inspections were underway, the administration went public, aggresively, insisting Iraq was an imminent threat. References were made to the Africa purchase of “yellow cake,” (refined uranium) used to build nuclear weapons; aluminum tubes, headed for Iraq, were intercepted and linked to nuclear reactors; a linkage was made between Iraq and 9/11; and President Bush used the image of a mushroom cloud over a city in America as a possible outcome of inaction. On Feb. 5, 2003, Secretary of State, Colin Powell, appeared before the U.N. Security Council, and, using classified photos and a vial of anthrax, made the case that Iraq was indeed in possession of WMD’s. Despite this seemingly irrefutable evidence, the council, led by France, would not agree to the use of force to disarm Iraq. It was at this point, we are told, that the administration began to discuss plans of acting unilaterally, without U.N. sanction. Or so we thought. Actually, we have since learned that the decision to invade Iraq was made long before the administration took its case to the United Nations. This fact was driven home by what is referred to as “The Downing Street Memo,” which contains an overview of a secret July 23, 2002 meeting among British defense and intelligence figures and labor government officials, discussing the buildup to the war. During this meeting Richard Dearlove (then head of British foreign intelligence service at MI6) made the remark that the “intelligence and facts were being fixed (by the United States) around the policy” of removing Saddam Hussein from power (no official sources have stepped forward to refute the legitamcy of the DSM). What the memo indicates is that the White House had made the decision to invade Iraq, if not before 9/11, then not long thereafter. This opens the administration to the charge oft heard that it cherry-picked (or embellished?) the intelligence which supported its predetermined goal of removing Saddam by force and denigrated or ignored the rest (the Valerie Plame affair). It also appears that the diplomatic dance with the United Nations prior to the war was but an elaborate ruse and that the fear of the Bush team was not that the UNSCOM inspections would fail, but that they would succeed. The decision to invade Iraq also begs another question: why Iraq and not Iran and North Korea? As we have learned, these two countries were and are threats to global stability. Again, the question: why? Was it the need to have strategic bases in this oil rich region? Or was it something else? We still don’t know. What we do know is that it wasn’t to spread freedom and democracy. That justification came later. 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