Tom Friedman in Sunday's New York Times: 2 Servings of Reality, Please
The war to oust Saddam Hussein was always a war of choice (a good choice, I believe). But democracies don't like to fight wars of choice, and, if they do, they want them to be quick sprints, like Bosnia, Kosovo or Grenada — not marathons. Knowing this, the Bush team tried to turn Iraq into a war of necessity by hyping the threat Saddam may have posed with W.M.D...President Bush is deeply morally unserious when he tells Americans that we can succeed in this marathon and still have radical tax cuts for the rich and a soaring deficit, and the only people who will have to sacrifice are reservists and soldiers. And the Democrats had better decide: What is their party going to be about? Wallowing in the mess, endlessly criticizing how we got into Iraq, or articulating a broader, more realistic vision for successful nation-building there?I think he's mostly right, although there is no clear line of demarcation between war of choice and war of necessity. Sometimes, the distinction is apparent only in hindsight. A pre-emptive war can be necessary if the goal is to avert a more calamitous war of necessity down the road, as was the case here. The administration did not "hype" the threat, it acted on the assumptions about Iraqi WMD programs that it inherited from the Clinton Administration, and which, to this day, Clinton officials such as Madeleine Albright still stand on. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 30, 2003 07:00 AM
I completely agree with Friedman's comments (except for thinking that making war on Iraq against the wishes of virtually the entire world was a good choice). There is no questioning that the Bush team hyped the threat. The Bush administration's exaggerations about the Iraqi threat were far greater in number and scope than were their outright lies (of which there were more than we should tolerate). Look at how Cheney is STILL hyping an Iraqi connection to the attacks of 9/11 as recently as 2 weeks ago on Meet the Press. I never heard Clinton or Albright say they thought Iraq was about to go nuclear, either. There are plenty of articles and even a few books giving detailed, footnoted, verifiable catalogs of the hype. Go read some.
Posted by: Simon on September 30, 2003 11:33 AM