April 27, 2003
Officials ADMIT No WMD; War = Excuse to Flex U.S. Muscle
Reason for War? White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything
To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy.
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABC News the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam’s weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
“We were not lying,” said one official. “But it was just a matter of emphasis.” …
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed everything, including the Bush administration’s thinking about the Middle East — and not just Saddam Hussein.
Senior officials decided that unless action was taken, the Middle East would continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists. Officials feared that young Arabs, angry about their lives and without hope, would always looking for someone to hate — and that someone would always be Israel and the United States.
Europeans thought the solution was to get a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But American officials felt a Middle East peace agreement would only be part of the solution.
The Bush administration… decided it must flex muscle to show it would fight terrorism, not just here at home and not just in Afghanistan against the Taliban, but in the Middle East, where it was thriving.
Officials deny that Bush was captured by the aggressive views of neo-conservatives. But Bush did agree with some of their thinking. …
The Bush administration wanted to make a statement about its determination to fight terrorism. And officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target.
Other countries have such weapons, yet the United States did not go to war with them. And though Saddam oppressed and tortured his own people, other tyrants have done the same…
But Saddam was guilty of all these things and he met another requirement as well — a prime location, in the heart of the Middle East, between Syria and Iran, two countries the United States wanted to send a message to. …
But what if Sept. 11 had never happened? Would the United States have gone to war with Iraq? Administration officials and others say no, at least not now. …
Listen closely, officials said, to what Bush was really saying to the American people before the war.
“I hope they understand the lesson of September the 11th,” Bush said on March 6. “The lesson is, is that we’re vulnerable to attack, wherever it may occur, and we must take threats which gather overseas very seriously. We don’t have to deal with them all militarily, but we have to deal with them.” …
One official said that in the end, history and the American people will judge the United States not by whether U.S. officials find canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent.
History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America.
ABC News
April 25, 2003
The only surprise in this is that anyone in the know would ‘fess up this early in the game, even off the record.
Why has anyone spoken at all? Remember, you will not hear anything from the American media that the White House doesn’t want you to hear… which suggests that this “admission” is just a deliberate ploy to… What? Class? Anyone?
Could this “confession” just be another nail in somebody’s coffin? But whose coffin? Who do they want to bury? Tony Blair? His future rests on the existence of WMD in Iraq. Colin Powell? His entire U.N. presentation depended on the existence of WMD in Iraq.
I say neither — because if the goal were to submarine Blair and/or Powell, this “leak” would have come from within the White House. And the ABC report (rather carefully) cites only unnamed “officials inside government and advisers” — not anyone in the White House. If the source was within the WH, I’m pretty certain ABC would have emphasized that, for the sake of credibility.
Now, ask yourself: Who “resigned” the same day this report came out?
Tommy White, are you our new Deep Throat?
(If you’d like a beautiful dissection of the White House bullshit factor, Media Whores has a great piece up on their front page right this second (go look now, before it gets moved).
And here’s a great companion piece — Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies — from the ever-reliable Independent.)
Filed under: Afghanistan, George W. Bush, Iraq, September 11
