[Marxism] So I Lied. What Are You Going to do About it?

["Alain St-Amour" <alainstamour@xxxxxxxx>]

http://tinyurl.com/2zont

December 18, 2003
WHITE HOUSE MEMO
Remember 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'? For Bush, They Are a Nonissue
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 ? In the debate over the necessity for the war in Iraq, few 
issues have been more contentious than whether Saddam Hussein possessed 
arsenals of banned weapons, as the Bush administration repeatedly said, or 
instead was pursuing weapons programs that might one day constitute a threat.

On Tuesday, with Mr. Hussein in American custody and polls showing support for 
the White House's Iraq policy rebounding, Mr. Bush suggested that he no longer 
saw much distinction between the possibilities.

"So what's the difference?" he responded at one point as he was pressed on the 
topic during an interview by Diane Sawyer of ABC News.

To critics of the war, there is a big difference. They say that the 
administration's statements that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons that 
it could use on the battlefield or turn over to terrorists added an urgency to 
the case for immediate military action that would have been lacking if Mr. 
Hussein were portrayed as just developing the banned weapons.

"This was a pre-emptive war, and the rationale was that there was an imminent 
threat," said Senator Bob Graham of Florida, a Democrat who has said that by 
elevating Iraq to the most dangerous menace facing the United States, the 
administration unwisely diverted resources from fighting Al Qaeda and other 
terrorists.

The overwhelming vote in Congress last year to authorize the use of force 
against Iraq would have been closer "but for the fact that the president had so 
explicitly said that there were weapons of mass destruction that posed an 
imminent threat to citizens of the United States," Mr. Graham said in an 
interview on Wednesday.

As early as last spring, Mr. Bush suggested that the Iraqis might have 
dispersed their biological and chemical weapons so widely that they would be 
extremely difficult to find. And some weapons experts have suggested that Mr. 
Hussein may have destroyed banned weapons that he had in the early 1990's but 
left in place the capacity to produce more.

This week, at a news conference on Monday and in the ABC interview on Tuesday, 
Mr. Bush's answers to questions on the subject continued a gradual shift in the 
way he has addressed the topic, from the immediacy of the threat to an 
assertion that no matter what, the world is better off without Mr. Hussein in 
power.

Where once Mr. Bush and his top officials asserted unambiguously that Mr. 
Hussein had the weapons at the ready, their statements now are often far more 
couched, reflecting the fact that no weapons have been found ? "yet," as Mr. 
Bush was quick to interject during the interview.

In the interview, Mr. Bush said removing Mr. Hussein from power was justified 
even without the recovery of any banned weapons. As he has since his own 
weapons inspector, David Kay, issued an interim report in October saying he had 
uncovered extensive evidence of weapons programs in Iraq but no actual weapons, 
Mr. Bush said the existence of such programs, by violating United Nations 
Security Council resolutions, provided ample grounds for the war.

"If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," Mr. Bush continued, 
referring to Mr. Hussein. "That's what I'm trying to explain to you. A 
gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with, and it 
was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger."

Pressed to explain the president's remarks, Scott McClellan, the White House 
spokesman, said Mr. Bush was not backing away from his assertions about Mr. 
Hussein's possession of banned weapons.

"We continue to believe that he had weapons of mass destruction programs and 
weapons of mass destruction," Mr. McClellan said on Wednesday.

Mr. Bush has always been careful to have multiple reasons ready for his major 
policy proposals, and his administration has deployed them deftly to adapt to 
changing circumstances.

In trying to build public and international support for toppling Mr. Hussein, 
the administration cited, with different emphasis at different times, the 
banned weapons, links between the Iraqi leader and terrorist organizations, a 
desire to liberate the Iraqi people and a policy of bringing democracy to the 
Middle East.

When it came to describing the weapons program, Mr. Bush never hedged before 
the war. "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today ? and we do ? 
does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even 
stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?" Mr. Bush asked during a 
speech in Cincinnati in October 2002.

In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad in April, the White House was equally 
explicit. "One of the reasons we went to war was because of their possession of 
weapons of mass destruction," Ari Fleischer, then the White House spokesman, 
told reporters on May 7. "And nothing has changed on that front at all."

On Wednesday Mr. McClellan, when pressed, only restated the president's belief 
that weapons would eventually be found. Mr. Bush, despite being asked 
repeatedly about the issue in different ways by Ms. Sawyer, never did say it, 
except to note Mr. Hussein's past use of chemical weapons. He emphasized Mr. 
Hussein's capture instead.

"And if he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction?" Ms. Sawyer asked the 
president, according to a transcript provided by ABC.

"Diane, you can keep asking the question," Mr. Bush replied. "I'm telling you ? 
I made the right decision for America because Saddam Hussein used weapons of 
mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. But the fact that he is not there is, means 
America's a more secure country."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/politics/18PREX.html?pagewanted=print&position=

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