We Need to Focus on What to Do Next in Iraq
by Ray Chadwick
Advocates of disengagement often focus on the past decisions to engage in Iraq, attempting to justify withdrawal by impugning the motives that led (and keep) us there. Here are a few such examples.
It’s all about oil!
Of course it is about oil. Oil is critical to the United States economy and our current way of life, as it is for other developed and developing nations. Oil by-products power vehicles, heat homes and are essential ingredients in fertilizers, plastics, and a host of other items of daily life.
Like it or not, protection of a stable supply of oil is in the strategic interest of the United States.
It’s US Imperialism, using the military to control oil!
Where the US has intervened militarily, American armies don’t remain to control conquered lands. Ask the Germans, Japanese, French, Koreans, Kuwaitis and Saudis.
If the United States dominates the world, it is due to the ideals in our Constitution, our personal freedoms, our free markets and capitalist system, and the attractions of our culture and products.
Bush always planned to attack Iraq!
The policy for regime change in Iraq actually began during the Clinton administration.
President Clinton said on December 16, 1998:
“So long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.”
That same day, the President (Clinton, that is, not Bush) explained the first of a series of attacks on Iraq:
“Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity. Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.”
If Bush took office with an Iraq plan, perhaps it was because that plan was already the position of the United States.
The Iraq War was planned by neo-cons!
The Project for a New American Century describes itself as “a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.”
The “neo-con plan” allegation relates to a January 1998 letter this group sent to President Clinton, signed by John Bolton, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others who later worked for Bush.
The letter stated “current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding,” and “is dangerously inadequate.” “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.”
Congress and President agreed with them. The Iraq Liberation Act, “to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq” passed the House 360 to 38 and the Senate unanimously. President Clinton signed it on October 31, 1998.
Rather than evidence of a plot, the letter actually provides a coherent assessment of the Iraq situation. President Clinton, hardly a neo-conservative, must have agreed.
We never cared about Iraq’s chemical weapons before!
Actually, the United States did attempt to curtail Iraq’s use of chemical weapons.
The US had no diplomatic relationship with Iraq when Iraq deployed chemical weapons against Iran in 1983. On November 1, 1983, the State Department was “considering the most effective means of ending Iraqi CW use including, as a first step, a direct approach to Iraq.”
In Baghdad on December 19, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld told the Iraqi Foreign Minister that “our efforts to assist were inhibited by…the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights.” In Rumsfeld’s meeting the next day with Hussein, “Saddam said he had … been briefed on (Rumsfeld’s) meeting with (the) Foreign Minister.”
You can find the relevant documents at George Washington University’s National Security Archive. (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm)
The United States attempted to reestablish contacts with Iraq and stop use of chemical weapons. After diplomacy failed, the United States condemned Iraqi use of chemical weapons on March 5, 1984.
That’s enough for the past.
Regardless of how the Iraq war began, the debate today needs to focus on what to do next, and how to protect our troops, our citizens, our interests and our allies.
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Ray F. Chadwick is a resident of Bedford who is active in promoting conservative and Republican ideals.