Bush State Dept Pol Dir.: Bush ""did not have to go to war against Iraq"

[papau]

tompaine.com has a nice article where Lawrence Korb reviews the Washington Post article where Richard Haass, director of policy planning at the State Department until June 2003 and still the Bush administration's special envoy to Northern Ireland, says the administration 'did not have to go to war against Iraq, certainly not when we did. There were other options." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5171-2003Nov21?language=printer

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9665

Choice Or Necessity?


Eight months after the Bush administration got us involved in a bloody war in Iraq, we are now told by one of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's closest advisers that Iraq was a war of choice after all. According to Richard Haass, director of policy planning at the State Department until June 2003 and still the Bush administration's special envoy to Northern Ireland, the administration "did not have to go to war against Iraq, certainly not when we did. There were other options" <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5171-2003Nov21?language=printer op-ed, Nov. 23 >.

Really?
This is not what the administration told us before the war and continues to tell us to this day. On March 20, as he was sending troops into Iraq because the regime of Saddam Hussein allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told them, "We are at the point at which the risk of not acting is too great to wait longer. As you prepare, know that this war is necessary . . ." Some three weeks into the war, Powell, who had made the case for war to the United Nations, stated: "We do not seek war. We do not look for war. We don't want wars. But we will not be afraid to fight when these wars are necessary to protect the American people, to protect our interests, to protect friends."

Claiming Self Defense
Even after it had become abundantly clear that the arguments the Bush administration advanced for going to war were specious, both Vice President Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz explicitly rebutted Haass's position. In an Oct. 10 speech to the Heritage Foundation in which he lashed out at those who said we had a choice about invading Iraq, the vice president said: "Some claim we should not have acted because the threat from Saddam Hussein was not imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?" On Nov. 4 Wolfowitz stated: "But one of the things that Sept. 11 changed was that it made it a war of necessity, not a war of choice."

The president himself continues to proclaim how necessary the war was. On Nov. 22 he said at a press conference in London, "Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary." On Thanksgiving Day the president told the troops in Baghdad: "You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so we don't have to face them in our own country." <snip>

Lawrence Korb is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information. He served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

[pansypoo53219]

1. but but but

george said he was a patient man.

[DrBB]

2. OMFG--THAT'S the cover of Miller's latest???

That is fan-TAST-ic!

Just the fucking picture makes his point; all it has to do is sit there on the shelf! What an ugly sneering prick he is--all his inner foulness, vindictiveness, pettiness, and pure piggish narcissism apparent in that shot. One of my all time faves.

Oh, what was this thread about again? Sorry....

[papau]

3. I do like the photo! - the link is below!

h....

just remove the "h" before http and you too can post a great Bush photo on DU!

[grasswire]

4. he has the most bizarre nose

It's like mother nature stuttered and gave him a double nose...one on top of the other, one half formed. Very bizarre.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. He reminds me of Rigsby from the UK sitcom 'Rising Damp'

still a byword for a snivelling, untrustworthy, cowardly, lying landlord, after 25 years.

[DarkSim]

6. Drawing boards

Brillant, Miller never dissapoints me in his articles and writings. i think that this issue needs to be brought out much more. The freakin media wont do it.

But us on the net sure as hell can!