In October of 2000, my wife announced, “If George W. Bush is elected, we’ll be at war in less than two years.” She felt “going to war” was an inherent part of Mr. Bush’s foreign policy position.
If, then, Governor Bush’s bellicose appearance was a valid indicator, I would have agreed with her, but, I thought, there are all kinds of “checks” on this type of behavior such as international opinion and, of course, the constitutional requirement for a president to get the approval of congress[1] before marching off to war.
After the shock of 9/11, I felt a little relief because I thought the “calculated” response of attacking Afghanistan would satisfy President Bush’s bellicosity. My spouse’s prediction would have been correct, but only because of an unexpected turn of events.
But before the dust was settled from the bombing of Afghanistan, the U.S. was invading Iraq. On March 19, 2003, President Bush announced, “On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war.” That little move made my wife a prophet.
Gustave Gilbert was an American psychologist who was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant during World War II. During the Nuremberg Trials, he was given access to many high-ranking Nazis, including Hermann Goering, commander of the Luftwaffe. The following is one of the exchanges between Gilbert and Goering, as recorded in Gilbert's book, Nuremberg Diary[A]:
Gilbert: We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
Goering: “Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
Gilbert: “There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare war.”
Goering: “Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Of course, President Bush didn’t move the troops on his own. The President had been given the authority to order this action by Congressional Resolution 114, the purpose of which was “To Authorize the Use of US Armed Forces Against Iraq.”
Resolution 114 was adopted by the Senate on October 12, 2002, at 12:50 a.m. on a vote of 77 to 23. The House had passed Resolution 114 on the previous day on a vote of to 296 to 133. The big question is, "Why?" What was so important about Iraq that could cause 77 senators and 296 representatives vote for the deaths of what was to become thousands of U.S. troops and tens of thousands more Iraqis?
No one would blame you if you guessed “weapons of mass destruction” or “ties with Al Qaeda,” but you would be wrong – or, at least, should be. Because while the American public was inundated concerns over WMD and terrorism, Congress knew, or should have known, that Iraq was far less threatening on both counts than, say, Iran. If we look at the terrorism issue alone, priorities greater than even Iran were Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, in that order.[2]
So, why Iraq? To answer that question, we need to look at the philosophy of many Republicans (and, judging by the vote on Resolution 114, more than a few Democrats). The formation of this philosophy began with Gulf War I and the actions of President George H.W. Bush.
The First Gulf War was so successful in achieving the stated objective of removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 that many thought the U.S. should have continued on to Baghdad and the elimination of Saddam Hussein, himself. President H.W. Bush was still defending his decision to not invade Iraq in 1998 in an article[3] which he co-authored with Brent Scowcroft, who had served as his National Security Advisor. An excerpt from that article illustrates the point:
So, it should come as no surprise that, by the time of the 2000 presidential election, the “failure” of Gulf War I to remove Saddam from power and the desire to see that accomplished were still being debated. Actually, not so much debated as “talked about” since both, then, Governor George W. Bush and, then, Vice-President , Al Gore, did not make statements during the October 11, 2000, presidential debate against a more aggressive posture.
While Vice President Gore made it clear he did not want to “…give up on the sanctions…,” he did appear to express regret that, “at the end of that war [in the Persian Gulf], for whatever reason, it was not finished in a way that removed Saddam Hussein from power. I know there are all kinds of circumstances and explanations. But the fact is that that's the situation that was left when I got there [i.e. to the Whitehouse as a part of the Clinton administration]…..”
When asked if there was any difference on how either would handle Middle East policy, Vice President Gore answered, “I haven't heard a big difference in the last few exchanges.” Governor Bush, however said, “…I could handle the Iraqi situation better…” and explained that this meant getting Saddam Hussein out of power.
In The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil indicates that by the end of the second week of the Bush administration’s first term (nine months before 9/11), “…the dialogue…had been mostly about hows – how to weaken or end Saddam’s regime….[and O’Neil]…wondered, when, exactly, the whys – why Saddam, why now and why this was central to U.S. interests – were to be discussed…”[4]
Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar under Presidents Clinton and Bush until his resignation March, 2003, stated that, in the wake of 9-11, this view hadn’t changed and that, while the CIA was explicit about al Qaeda being responsible, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz were unconvinced and maintained that the focus should be Iraqi-sponsored terrorism. For his part, Clarke was astounded. “Having been attacked by al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor,” he said.[5]
The most succinct statement of the “Republican” philosophy regarding the US via the rest of the world was arguably outlined in a “budget memo” prepared by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and comments made by him a National Security Council briefing, both within the first month of the administration’s first term. The “budget” memo noted the following as the guiding elements of foreign policy:[6]
Secretary Rumsfeld’s conclusion was, “...the risk to the US is increasing as it fails to respond effectively and decisively to asymmetric threats...."
O’Neil's characterization[7] of the comments of Secretary Rumsfeld’s made during the NSC meeting of February 1, 2001, seems to indicate this new foreign policy posture had two goals:
So, it seems that “terrorism” and “weapons of mass destruction” were, at best, excuses for going after Saddam and, at worst, distractions from the main objectives of (1) dissuasion and (2) creating a US aligned regime which would change everything in the Middle East.
Maybe this is why the "Downing Street Memo"” attracted fairly little controversy: it was well-known that the Bush administration was set on Iraq well before the WMD issue made it a national priority. The following excerpts from this memo, which contained notes from the Prime Minister’s meeting of July 22, 2002, more than two months before the vote on Resolution 114, illustrate the point:
So, maybe it wasn’t well-known to the American people, but, if it was known in the British Isles, then certainly it was well-known to anyone in the Washington, D.C. beltway, and this is where, not unlike Vietnam, the American people were misled, or allowed themselves to be misled. This was not about a war on terror or, even, WMD: it was about (1) using Saddam as an example to dissuade other countries from gaining ‘asymmetric’ military capabilities and (2) the U.S. getting a foothold in the Middle East.
Which brings us back to why did 77 senators vote for Resolution 114? Since the response would be a lot of rhetoric about WMD or the realpolitik of opinion polls and the upcoming election, maybe a better question is what caused 23 senators to vote against it?
So,this is the project I’ve assigned to myself: track down the words of 23 senators and put them in the record entitled something like, "The words of those senators who voted, 'No' [to Resolution 114]." It would be interesting, I think, to see the results.
When it’s all done, I wonder how many, if any, these senatorial remarks will be reminiscent of category of Gaylord Nelson, the noted Democratic senator from Wisconsin who is credited as the founder of “Earth Day.” In 1965, President Johnson was leaning heavily on Congress for a vast expansion of appropriations for the Vietnam War. Senator Nelson was one of only three who opposed it. In explaining his vote, Nelson is quoted as saying to the President and his Democratic colleagues, “You need my vote less than I need my conscience.”[9]