A key piece of evidence in the Bush administration's case against Iraq is being challenged in a report by independent experts who question whether thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes recently sought by Iraq were intended for a secret nuclear weapons program.
The White House last week said attempts by Iraq to acquire the tubes point to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. But the experts say in a new report that the evidence is ambiguous, and in some ways contradicts what is known about Iraq's past nuclear efforts.
The report, from the Institute for Science and International Security, also contends that the Bush administration is trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to interpret the evidence. The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, was authored by David Albright, a physicist who investigated Iraq's nuclear weapons program following the 1991 Persian Gulf War as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection team. The institute, headquartered in Washington, is an independent group that studies nuclear and other security issues.
"By themselves, these attempted procurements are not evidence that Iraq is in possession of, or close to possessing, nuclear weapons," the report said. "They do not provide evidence that Iraq has an operating centrifuge plant or when such a plant could be operational."
The controversy stems from shipments to Iraq of specialized aluminum metal that were seized en route by governments allied with the United States. A U.S. intelligence official confirmed that at least two such shipments were seized within the past 14 months, although he declined to give details. The Associated Press, citing sources familiar with the shipments, reported that one originated in China and was intercepted in Jordan.
The shipments sparked concern among U.S. intelligence analysts because of the potential use of such tubes in centrifuges, fast-spinning machines used in making enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. High-strength, heat-resistant metals are needed for centrifuge casings as well as for the rotors, which turn at up to 1,000 rotations per minute.
There is no evidence that any of the tubes reached Iraq. But in its white paper on Iraq released to the United Nations last week, the Bush administration cited the seized shipments as evidence that Iraq is actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said in a televised interview that the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."
Since then, U.S. officials have acknowledged differing opinions within the U.S. intelligence community about possible uses for the tubes -- with some experts contending that a more plausible explanation was that the aluminum was meant to build launch tubes for Iraq's artillery rockets.
"But the majority view, held by senior officials here, is that they were most likely intended for gas centrifuges," one U.S. intelligence official said in an interview.
The new report questions that conclusion on several grounds, most of them technical. It says the seized tubes were made of a kind of aluminum that is ill-suited for welding. Other specifications of the imported metal are at odds with what is known about Iraq's previous attempts to build centrifuges. In fact, the report said, Iraq had largely abandoned aluminum for other materials, such as specialized steel and carbon fiber, in its centrifuges at the time its nuclear program was destroyed by allied bombers in the Gulf War.
According to Albright, government experts on nuclear technology who dissented from the Bush administration's view told him they were expected to remain silent. Several Energy Department officials familiar with the aluminum shipments declined to comment.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
It would be an entirely different question if the country's life was in danger, its existence at stake; then -- that is one kind of patriotism-- we would all come forward and stand by the flag, and stop thinking about whether the nation was right or wrong; but when there is no question that the nation is in any way in danger, but only some little war away off, then it maybe that on the question of politics the nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which. -- Mark Twain
Last week, President Junior did something unexpectedly clever. The president who supposedly pays no attention to opinion polls did what key Democrats, his own Secretary of State and the vast majority of Americans clearly wanted: he took his case against Iraq to the United Nations, basically challenging it to do something about Saddam Hussein's flouting of international law.
Not since the U.S. and Britain bombed Iraqi military targets after Saddam expelled UN weapons inspectors in 1998 has the Security Council been called upon to enforce its own resolutions. It's reported that Bush's speechwriters even added mollifying words after being shown the advance text of Secretary General Kofi Annan's address stressing the moral and political necessity of multilateral cooperation.
Junior did exactly what Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), a likely candidate for the 2004 Democratic nomination, had urged in a toughly-worded New York Times column. "We are at a strange moment in history," Kerry wrote "when an American administration has to be persuaded of the virtue of utilizing the procedures of international law and community?institutions American presidents from across the ideological spectrum have insisted on as essential to global security."
For once, Bush acted like a grownup. Overnight, international opinion shifted dramatically in the administration's favor. Besides the ballyhooed "weapons of mass destruction," Bush enumerated the Iraqi tyrant's offenses against U.N. resolutions dating from the Gulf War?the torture and repression of ethnic and religious minorities, hiding prisoners and stolen property, oil-smuggling in defiance of U.N. sanctions, and failure to pay reparations.
Confronted with a U.S. president who portrayed Saddam as an international outlaw instead of threatening to act like one, the Security Council appears willing to confront Iraq's transgressions. Even the French, Russians and Chinese seem likely to go along. Once again, Democrats hoping Secretary of State Colin Powell will resign in protest are left to commend his steadfast service.
No sooner had Junior returned to Washington, however, than he reverted to partisan form, sneeringly demanding that congressional Democrats write him a blank check before the November elections to attack Iraq or be branded appeasers. "If I were running for office," Bush said "I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people?say, vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I'm going to wait for somebody else to act." Somebody else, in this instance, being the same U.N. Security Council whose help Bush had just earnestly solicited.
The administration's need to distract voters from its disastrous economic policies, its Social Security nostrums GOP candidates are fleeing, and its coziness with corporate criminals is obvious.
Democrats, however, needn't whine about Bush "politicizing" foreign policy. Americans are paying attention; they will heed a serious argument. Sen. Kerry pointed out that "[s]ome in the administration actually seem to fear that...an ultimatum might frighten Saddam Hussein into cooperating."
Iraq's seeming capitulation may indeed prove a stalling tactic. Reverse centuries of American tradition, however, in an unprovoked attack to bring about "regimechange?" What's the big hurry? Iraq poses no immediate threat to U.S.security. Even the Iraqi army's loyalty to Saddam is questionable. Iraq has no navy. British and American warplanes operate over Baghdad with impunity.
In their 1998 book "A World Transformed," George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, explained that "[t]rying to eliminate Saddam [during the Gulf War] would have incurred incalculable human and political costs....We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well....Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different-and perhaps barren-outcome."
War should be the last option, not the first. Congress should offer Junior exactly what he says he wants: unequivocal support for actions the U.N. Security Council deems necessary. Nothing more. Let's see if he has sufficient wisdom to accept what could be a major diplomatic triumph at the possible expense of a short-term political advantage.
DOHA, QATAR ? Inside the Habanos Bar at the Ritz-Carlton, the smiling sheikhs and chuckling US generals avoid disturbing one another as over-anxious Romanian waiters lop off the ends of their fresh Cuban cigars. The compassionate gaze of a uniformed Fidel Castro staring down from a portrait is a reminder of the awkwardness of fighting wars in strange places.
General Tommy Franks, the chief of US Central Command, dropped into the Ritz this week to stress to his Gulf Arab friends ? including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait ? the danger that Saddam Hussein poses to the region. But, based upon the noises made by some of his allies afterwards, General Franks still has some convincing to do.
"For Arab leaders and citizens there is a big difference between what Winston Churchill warned about Hitler's expansionism and George Bush is now warning about Saddam's alleged intentions," says Amr El-Kahky, an Egyptian political analyst and television correspondent at the groundbreaking Qatari cable news channel, Al Jazeera.
"After all, Saddam has not started a new war, he has been beaten badly the last time he started one and he is now under intense scrutiny."
Fear of a frightened Saddam
What the Arab regimes fear most, say analysts, is a cornered Hussein, who, facing his own certain end with no option of personal survival, decides to lash out at his neighbors.
Western and Arab analysts say that Arab politicians and citizens see Hussein as a leader who will act within reason when the US and its allies apply deterrent pressure to keep him in his box. The prevailing Arab view is the equivalent of the way many in Washington once looked at the Soviet Union as a calculating foe, unwilling to make a move that would surely provoke massive retaliation.
The already intense world scrutiny of Iraq took on an ever-sharper focus yesterday. Mark Gwozdecky, a senior weapons inspector attached to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in Vienna that the world cannot "give an authoritative guide yet" to what weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein does have, but that Gwozdecky's staff, who fill the ranks of the UN inspectors now likely headed for Baghdad, intend to start new inspections in Iraq within a matter of weeks.
Arab action
Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, which signaled a new willingness this past week to back UN-sanctioned military action against Iraq, are credited by Western diplomats with helping to force President Saddam Hussein into allowing the return of UN weapons inspectors.
Last week, when Saudi Arabia and tiny Qatar finally bowed to Washington's intentions, Baghdad stood on the precipice of losing its own battle to win more Arab support for the dropping of US-led economic sanctions and military threats. Then, early this week, Hussein caved into the idea of renewed UN inspections.
But the new readiness to back a UN action should not be confused with the notion that these same Arab countries now fear Iraq, says Charles Heyman, editor of the London-based Jane's World Armies.
"They don't feel that Saddam is a threat to them whatsoever," says Mr. Heyman, who returned last week from a tour of the Arab world. "I couldn't find any Arab anywhere [who] felt Saddam was a personal threat to them. They felt the real threat was a knock-on to any US-led attacks on Iraq.
They are also worried about who will replace Saddam and whether it might turn out to be a fundamentalist regime.
Basically, what they are saying is, 'better the devil we know than the one we don't.'"
Yet while White House legal council Gordon Grey told the BBC this week that Hussein was threatening the "annihilation of his neighbors," few officials or citizens here say they are endangered by the man the US government has designated as their region's bogeyman.
'No great threats'
The US Central Command, which is bolstering its presence in the Gulf, is leading US and Arab cooperative efforts to deal with the threats posed by another major war in the region. Tiny Qatar forms the nexus of its ongoing work.
Qatari Brig. Gen. Hamad Al Hinzab says, however, that the region faces "no great threats" despite rising fears in Washington that Saddam Hussein has bolstered his chemical weapons capabilities and is working to create a nuclear bomb.
Other Gulf officials say privately that they fear Hussein's chemical weapons potential, but only if it is unleashed on them in response to a US-led preemptive strike.
Herb Kelman, who directs the Center for Conflict Resolution at Harvard University, says that the apparent lack of fear in the Arab world doesn't mean that Saddam Hussein's neighbors trust him.
"The evidence that the Arabs are considering is that Saddam is something of a rational actor," says Mr. Kelman. "We see this even now with his decision to allow the weapons inspectors back in. Saddam may be evil, but he is probably not suicidal."
Kelman says that for a peaceful resolution to the tensions in the Gulf, Hussein must be provided with options, like permitting full inspections, rather than just the "regime change" that the Bush administration had been insisting on until recently until the president addressed the United Nations and made no direct mention of it.
Says Mr. El-Kahky, the Egyptian political reporter at the Al-Jazeera cable network: "Saddam can't do anything now and he knows he can't use his chemical weapons. If he does, he will die, too. He wants to cling to power and that is exactly what he will do."
As Congress confronts the prospect of war, it should consider some constitutional fundamentals. The Bush administration would have us believe that international law contains only ambiguous or advisory requirements. In fact, the United Nations Charter was ratified as a treaty by the Senate after World War II, and the Constitution explicitly makes all treaties "the supreme law of the land."
The president has no power to pick and choose among the laws that bind him - unless Congress tells him otherwise. This is what makes the precise terms of any Congressional authorization for war against Iraq so important. According to judicial precedents, treaties like the United Nations Charter can be trumped only by subsequent legislation. The Charter would lose its status as governing domestic law if Congress explicitly authorizes the president to make war in violation of its terms.
A narrowly written Congressional authorization for action against Iraq, however, would not violate the United Nations Charter and would not change the legal status quo. Under such an approach, Congress can make it clear that the country is ready to use force against Iraq, but only if this is consistent with Charter requirements.
The resolution that Mr. Bush submitted to Congress Thursday takes a much broader tack. It would allow him to use force without regard to the legal limitations imposed by the United Nations Charter.
This effort to gain greater authority contrasts sharply with the approach taken by the president's father. In the run-up to the Persian Gulf war, George H.W. Bush first obtained a United Nations Security Council resolution permitting the use of force against Iraq. Only then did he seek and receive authorization for war from Congress. This is by far the better procedure, allowing Congress to make the final judgment after it becomes clear that no peaceful resolution of the conflict is possible.
In contrast, the president's proposal lets him "use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force" - even if he fails to gain further Security Council authorization. This goes far beyond anything allowed by the Charter, which restricts the unilateral use of force to self-defense against "armed attack." The president's resolution does not mention this crucial limitation. Instead, it converts self-defense into a broad doctrine that can justify unilateral pre-emptive strikes.
This represents a sharp break with past American practice. Even during the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy recognized the stringent limitations the Charter places on the right of self-defense. When intercepting Soviet ships carrying missiles to Cuba, he was careful to invoke the authority granted by the Charter to regional peacekeeping institutions. When America has invoked self-defense in the past, it was in response to clear threats by hostile nations to its soil or to its citizens.
The president's resolution does not assert that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, but claims an "inherent right" to act in self-defense against risks that do not pose a direct and immediate threat of armed attack. This is nothing less than the repudiation of the United Nations Charter's effort to restrict unilateral uses of force to extreme cases, and to make collective, multinational security measures the norm.
This is not the time for Congress to eliminate these long-standing restrictions on unilateralism. Its war resolution should permit the use of military force only after authorization by the Security Council. If the president concludes that the Security Council has reached an impasse that makes it impossible to deal with the Iraqi threat, he should then return to Congress to make his case for throwing off the restraints imposed by the United Nations Charter.
Only then should we consider the need to abandon legal restrictions that have guided America for two generations.
Bruce Ackerman is a professor of law and political science at Yale.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
The question that tore America apart long after Congress passed the seemingly innocuous Tonkin Gulf resolution -? What is the purpose of this bloody conflict? -? must be answered now about the Bush administration's rapid drive toward war in Iraq. At the risk of alienating those on both sides of the debate, I have to say that so far, only a single convincing rationale for the president's policy has been argued.
It isn't to secure oil, although Baghdad does control the second-richest proven petroleum reserves in the world. Saddam Hussein has been perfectly willing to sell his country's oil, and permit development of those reserves, for decades. And until he misunderstood that strange message from the first President Bush's ambassador in 1990, and decided to invade Kuwait, American policymakers and industrial leaders like Donald Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger were perfectly willing to do business with him.
(Which also suggests, despite all the recent manufactured angst in Washington, that his gassing of the Kurds and Iranians during the 1980s is also not the reason for our elites' hostility toward his regime.)
It isn't to stop aggression, because Saddam has remained inside his box for a decade, since the end of the Gulf War. (Back then I supported Desert Storm as an unavoidable international response to Saddam's violation of a United Nations member state's sovereignty. Many aspects of that war and the propaganda surrounding it were, however, repugnant.) Baghdad's neighbors fear the consequences of an American invasion far more than they fear Saddam, his weakened army or his depleted arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
It isn't because he's really Hitler. As tensions grow, far-fetched historical analogies are being tossed around. That German minister's remarks comparing Bush to the Nazi dictator were vile and stupid -- but for all his brutal criminality and national-socialistic ideology, Saddam isn't quite Hitler either. He lacks the Nazi dictator's methods and ambitions, not to mention his means. Postwar Iraq hardly resembles prewar Germany. By the time the United States entered the war against the Axis, Hitler's war machine had been conquering Europe for five years.
It isn't to boost war profiteering. Under Bush the Pentagon budget is to be set on maximum bloat anyway, with "missile defense" slated to enrich Republican contributors and impoverish the rest of us. Military "reform" plus "homeland security" offer plenty of opportunities for conservative-style waste, fraud and abuse. The Carlyle Group, Halliburton and the rest of the Bush-Cheney industrial complex will do fine without blowing $200 million in another desert war
It certainly isn't to prevent proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. As the Washington Post reported yesterday, current U.S. policy is actually designed to thwart completion of a new international regime against biological weapons. The Bush hawks aren't too keen on multilateral action to prevent proliferation of chemical weapons, and they've been slow to deal with the truly mind-boggling problem of unsecured and stray fissile material in the former Soviet states. If these issues were keeping Dick Cheney and Richard Perle awake at night, American policy would be quite different.
The recent International Institute for Strategic Studies report often quoted to justify immediate intervention is a fairly measured assessment of the situation. Among its findings are that "Iraq has probably retained a small force of about a dozen 650km range al-Hussein missiles. These could strike Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Kuwait [and could] be armed with [chemical or biological] warheads ... Iraq does not possess facilities to produce long range missiles and it would require several years and extensive foreign assistance to construct such facilities." Are we going to war to take out 12 medium-range missiles?
It isn't even to keep Saddam from going nuclear. The IISS report found that "Iraq does not possess facilities to produce fissile material in sufficient amounts for nuclear weapons. It would require several years and extensive foreign assistance to build such fissile material production facilities." Only if Iraq managed to obtain a sufficient amount of black-market weapons-grade uranium could a bomb conceivably be constructed. Saddam has been trying to do exactly that for 12 years without success.
According to the best estimates, Iran's nuclear program is more threatening, and North Korea's missile program is much more advanced -- yet there seems to be no immediate imperative for "regime change" in those countries.
Nobody believes Iraq can build an atomic bomb, or construct a long-range ballistic missile, between now and Election Day.
That leaves us with the last, most plausible reason for the Bush team's sudden decision to press for war: because it is the best way to mobilize public opinion behind the president and his domestic political objectives, notably preserving his party's strength on Capitol Hill.
The Democrats may lack the courage to say this, but they know that it's true. The world may someday have ample reason to overthrow Saddam violently, and that day may come soon. But for now, the partisan stampede toward war ought to be resisted in favor of a strong new inspection regime backed by force.
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About the writer: Joe Conason writes a daily journal for Salon. He also writes a weekly column for the New York Observer.
TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: There has always been a sense, or at least lip-service, that war should not be politicized for partisan gain. To some extent, both parties had been trying to be moderately bipartisan on the current situation, with Democrats in Congress working with the White House on a resolution to authorize action against Iraq. Well, today the gloves came off.
----
There are any number of cliches that all go at the idea that politics is war without the guns. But when it comes to real war, and that's what we're talking about these days, there is a question as to when it is appropriate for politics to play a part. Now clearly the idea that wars should somehow be above politics is ridiculous. There is no more important decision that a government can take. Politics plays a part in every war. But what about partisan politics, somehow using war or the threat of war for political gain?
This is an election season after all. The Democrats, who had hoped to be able to use the state of the economy, the corporate scandals, and other domestic issues to their advantage, have been trapped by the focus on the question of war with Iraq. The public generally pulls behind the President during a time of war. The Republicans have been successful in focusing attention on issues of national security, and there have been a number of cases where administration officials have been quite open about how those issues can help their cause, and how Republican candidates can use those issues in their campaigns. The President has been doing at least two or three fundraisers a week, as has Vice-President Cheney. The Democrats cry foul, saying that it?s inappropriate in a time of war, the Republicans counter that people want to hear from the President in these times.
But one of the lines that the President has been using has been to say that, in reference to the debate over the Homeland Security bill, the Senate is more interested in Washington special interests than in the security of this country. Today in the Senate, Sen. Daschle exploded over that line, saying it was an insult to all veterans who happen to be Democrats, and demanding that the President apologize. This at the same time that the Democrats were working with the White House on a resolution about Iraq. But his speech was one of the strongest that has been seen in the Senate in a long time. It follows the speech earlier this week by Al Gore criticizing the President on his Iraq policy. Of course, the administration, and the Republican Party have fired back. Bipartisanship in a time of war? Sure doesn't look like it from here. John Donvan will report on the escalating war of words, and Chris Bury will anchor as we look at the conflict, and its real implications.
This was a late change for us. We had planned to air a broadcast about the unique people who have won the MacArthur awards, the so-called "genius grants" this year. That story will air instead on our companion show, Up Close tonight.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
Washington, D.C.
RETELLING THE STORY THEY LIKE: What a week to be eaten up by time-consuming obligation! But before we run to our latest meeting, we want to direct your attention to one prime attack that has followed Al Gore?s Monday speech.
Starting in 1999, the press corps?typing RNC spin?invented a story it very much liked: Al Gore is a great big liar. Al Gore has a problem with the truth. And the treasured theme has been dragged out again in the wake of Gore?s speech this past Monday. Was Gore correct in his seminal claim?the claim that a War on Saddam would harm the War on terror? Spinners don?t want to bother with that. Instead, many ran to a treasured claim?Al Gore is lying again. In particular, they claimed that Gore was lying about his reaction to the Gulf War in 1991.
On Tuesday evening?s Special Report, Brit Hume spun the spin quite nicely. First he played video from Gore?s Monday speech: GORE (9/23/02): Back in 1991, I was one of a handful of Democrats in the United States Senate to vote in favor of the resolution endorsing the Persian Gulf War. And I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration?s hasty departure from the battlefield. ?All right,? Hume remarked, continuing directly. ?Hasty departure from the battlefield.? Then he quoted something Gore said back in 1991: GORE (4/18/91): I want to state this clearly. President Bush should not be blamed for Saddam Hussein?s survival to this point. There was throughout the war a clear consensus the United States should not include the conquest of Iraq among its objectives. On the contrary, it was universally accepted that our objective was to push Iraq out of Kuwait, and it was further understood that when this was accomplished, combat should stop. Hume implied that Gore had contradicted himself. ?How do we explain that, as against what he said yesterday?? he asked his crack, ?all-star? panel.
But, as is so often the case in these GORE LIAR tales, Hume was quoting selectively. Here is the fuller text of what Gore actually said on Monday: GORE (9/23/02): I was one of the few Democrats in the U.S. Senate who supported the war resolution in 1991. And I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration?s hasty departure from the battlefield, even as Saddam began to renew his persecution of the Kurds of the North and the Shiites of the South?groups we had encouraged to rise up against Saddam. Absent-mindedly, Hume forgot to include the highlighted passage. When the highlighted statement is omitted, Gore?s comment on Monday seems to contradict what he said in 1991. With the highlighted passage left in, the statements are not contradictory.
Did Gore criticize Bush in 1991? Yes, he unmistakably did. He defended Bush?s decision to leave Saddam in place, but criticized his failure to protect the Kurds when Saddam began to persecute them (many others made this complaint). Here for example is a story segment from the 4/13/91 New York Times: NEW YORK TIMES (4/13/91):
Gore Criticizes Bush
The difficulty for President Bush is that before he can extricate himself from Iraq, his postwar policy may become the centerpiece issue at the outset of the 1992 Presidential campaign season. One possible Democratic contender who supported Mr. Bush?s decision to go to war, Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, said today that Mr. Bush?s handling of the postwar insurrection in Iraq ?revives the most bitter memories of humankind?s worst moments.? That sounds like a criticism to us?and, of course, that ?postwar insurrection? was the matter involving the Shiites and the Kurds. In short, Gore?s statement on Monday was perfectly accurate?if you quoted the statement in full. But Hume chopped off the passage which explained what Gore meant, and then Hume and his hapless band began to do what they do best?slander Gore.
How utterly stupid was Hume?s hapless panel? Greatest Hits began to fly by as they replied to Hume?s presentation: HUME: How do we explain that, as against what he said yesterday?
BILL SAMMON: It?s inexplicable. It?s puzzling why he would flip-flop on something so easily checkable.
MORTON KONDRACKE: He invented the Internet. He?s got a bad memory.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: He?s the guy who told us about prescription drugs, the mother-in-law and the dog. He hasn?t learned. ?It?s inexplicable,? said the hapless Sammon. ?He hasn?t learned,? Krauthammer said. And Kondracke took the big prize, calling ?invented the Internet? back for a bow. Can a democracy function without a press corps? Hapless spinners like these worthless men suggest that we may soon find out.
Last week, Peggy Noonan drew back the curtain. How does your ?press corps? actually function? ?It?s not hard to imagine,? the hapless scribe said. And it?s ?not hard to imagine? pleasing tales, or to repeat those tales again and again. Engineers who behaved like Hume did would have to be fired, on the spot. But tonight, Brit Hume will broadcast again. And don?t worry?the dissembling will continue.
WHAT GORE SAID ON MONDAY WAS PERFECTLY ACCURATE: What Gore said this past Monday was perfectly accurate. Here is an AP report from April 13, 1991: THE AP (4/13/91): Later Friday, Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., delivered a broad policy speech to the editors. He said President Bush has failed to adequately protect the environment, help the middle class and, more recently, aid Kurdish refugees?
Gore noted that he supported the war against Iraq to liberate Kuwait, but he said Bush has since let down the Kurdish and Shiite rebels who sought to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
?We should not have allowed Saddam Hussein to violate the terms of the cease-fire and use his helicopters to slaughter men, women and children,? Gore said.
The Bush administration has insisted it would be unwise to send U.S. troops into Iraq to support rebels, but recently warned Iraq not to attack refugees fleeing north.
Vice President Dan Quayle defended Bush's position in a speech to the editors on Thursday. What Gore said this past Monday was perfectly accurate. We wonder if the hapless Hume will let his viewers know that.
Bill Clinton was walking along the beach when he stumbled upon a genie's lamp. He picked it up, rubbed it, and lo and behold a genie appeared. Bill was amazed! He asked if he got three wishes.
The genie said, "Nope ... due to constant downsizing, and the world's general economic condition, I can only grant you one wish. So what will it be?"
Bill didn't hesitate. He said, "I want to be remembered for stopping the terrorists, and for bringing peace in the Middle East ... instead of all that other stuff about women and lying. I want Bin Ladin to be eliminated, and all his Taliban collected. See this map ... here is Kabul, and I want these surrounding countries to stop fighting with each other ..."
The genie looked at the map of the Middle East and exclaimed, "Jeez, Fella! These people have been at war for thousands of years. I'm good, but I'm not that good. I don't think it can be done. Make another wish."
Bill thought for a minute and said, "You know, people really don't like Hillary. Even though she got elected, they call her a carpetbagger. They think she's an ugly, mean-spirited witch who likes to push people around. They even booed at her at the WTC fund-raiser. I wish for her to be the most beautiful and gracious woman in the world, and for everyone to love her."
The genie let out a long sigh and said, "Lemme see that map again."
The White House's focus on Saddam is meant to divert attention from America's still-AWOL Public Enemy No. 1.
We all know who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, don't we? No, not Osama bin Laden. God, that is so last year. It never turns out to be the person you first suspect. It was Saddam Hussein. For some reason we couldn't find him when we went after him in Afghanistan, bringing that magic elixir of regime change along with us. But now we've got a better idea: Track him down where he actually lives, in Baghdad, and punish him right in his own backyard. It's the only way to obtain justice for the thousands he killed on 9/11.
In this latest rewrite of history, Osama has suddenly lost his beard and grown a mustache, morphing into the Butcher of Baghdad -- or one of the look-alike stand-ins Saddam has been using for public appearances since 1998.
"You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," said President Bush in the Oval Office last week.
Really? He can't differentiate between a group of evil ultra-radical Islamic fundamentalists that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and an evil secular nationalist who, despite the frantic efforts of the Bush administration, has not been directly linked to 9/11? He'd better start making such distinctions -- and fast. When every expert who knows anything about the Mideast can distinguish between the two, is it too much to ask that a president who's ready to go to war look a bit closer?
People under stress often regress to earlier stages of development. It appears Bush is so intent on getting Saddam, so tightly gripped by a need to succeed where his war-hero dad failed, so obsessively determined to lay the murderous 9/11 assault at Baghdad's door, that he's regressed to that level of childhood development where fantasy, reality and wish fulfillment are all mixed up. Except that this time, things like nuclear weapons and the safety of the world for the next few decades are involved.
Now, I'm no psychologist, but I believe there is a clinical term for this condition: going off the deep end.
How else to explain the president's bizarre response to a reporter's straightforward query last week about who poses a bigger threat to America, Saddam or al-Qaida?
"That's an interesting question," he replied. "I'm trying to think of something humorous to say but I can't when I think about al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein."
When did the president take over "The Tonight Show"? Why would the idea that he should make a joke about such a deadly serious subject even cross his mind? It would be like asking Danielle van Dam's parents about the trial of their daughter's murderer and having them apologize for not being ready with a humorous quip.
No, Mr. President, you needn't apologize -- your inability to treat serious subjects lightly is not one of your deficiencies. So rather than struggle to come up with a wan witticism, why don't you just answer the question? Especially since it appears by your actions that you've already come up with one.
Instead of bothering to give the least defense of his sudden fusion of Saddam and Osama, Bush launched into a fantasy-fueled diatribe: "The danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al-Qaida becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world."
The president's regressed condition is spreading like the West Nile virus throughout the West Wing and beyond.
Witness the symptomatic blurring of fact and fantasy exhibited by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When asked at an Armed Services Committee hearing about what is now compelling us to "take precipitous actions" against Iraq, Rumsfeld barked: "What's different? What's different is 3,000 people were killed." Yeah, by Mohammed Atta and company -- not Saddam Hussein. By why quibble over details when there is a propaganda war to be won?
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice continued the assault on reality when she vaguely yet ominously claimed: "There clearly are contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq that can be documented." Well then, why not document them? We've documented contacts between al-Qaida and our oil dealers in Saudi Arabia and al-Qaida and our new best friends in Pakistan. But I don't see any B-2s powering up for raids over Riyadh or Karachi.
As is the White House custom, Rice simply refused to back up her claims. So did Rumsfeld, who memorably rebuffed a reporter late last week by saying, "That happens to be a piece of intelligence that either we don't have or we don't want to talk about." In other words: Proof? We don't need no stinking proof! And just because I'm asking your sons and daughters to possibly sacrifice their lives for it doesn't mean you deserve to know whether it even exists.
It would be nice if we could just take them all at their word and let the bombs fall where they may. But Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who, as chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence is privy to the inside scoop, says he's seen no evidence of any link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.
So we're left with the fevered, infantile imaginings of the president and his pals. "We had dots before," said Anna Perez, Rice's spokeswoman. "Now we have a higher density of dots. Have we connected those dots? No."
Perhaps the president should put down his saber-rattle, pick up his crayons, and connect them before drawing us into a bloody war.
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About the writer: Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of eight books. Her most recent, "How to Overthrow the Government," was published in 2000 by Regan Books (HarperCollins).
When it comes to the Bush administration's foreign policy, it's best to heed John Mitchell's classic advice: Watch what we do, not what we say.
Richard Nixon's attorney general, one of the architects of Watergate, was being realistic, not cynical, when he gave the press and public that cautionary advice early in the Nixon years. And it is only realistic to point out its applicability to the current administration.
This is a president who, in the space of a few weeks last spring, announced first that the United States would not intervene actively in the Middle East, then told Ariel Sharon to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank "without delay," and then, with the occupation still in place, told the Palestinians to change their government and oust Yasser Arafat, which hasn't happened either.
But the clearest example is President Bush's famous description of the adversaries he sees for the United States: the "axis of evil." That axis, he told the world in his last State of the Union address, was made up of Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
Eight months later, as no one could have predicted from that speech, the Bush administration is preparing to send a high-level envoy to North Korea to pursue warming relations with that government, while lobbying Congress and the U.N. Security Council to approve going to war with Iraq. Iran has disappeared from the horizon, at least for now.
As several people have pointed out, North Korea has the raw materials for nuclear weapons and possesses missiles that could drop them on Japan, South Korea and U.S. troops protecting those countries. Iraq is suspected of seeking nuclear weapons it could use against its neighbors, but it apparently lacks the raw materials now.
But Bush has had Iraq in his sights for months and will not be diverted. It was back on April 28 that Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger reported in the New York Times that Bush administration officials had shifted the timetable for moving against Saddam Hussein.
"Until recently," they wrote, "the administration had contemplated a possible confrontation with Mr. Hussein this fall, after building a case at the United Nations that the Iraqi leader is unwilling to allow the kind of highly intrusive inspections needed to prove that he has no weapons of mass destruction."
In the same article, they wrote, "Senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions."
Ever since the major fighting ended in Afghanistan, the administration has bent its efforts to creating those conditions, and Bush seems determined to do just that -- to begin engaging Iraq early next year.
The rationale for that war is as flexible as the president's ever-changing justifications for his tax cut -- sharing the surplus, stimulating the economy or just reducing the price of success. In the summer, Vice President Cheney and others said it was the imminent threat of Iraq's acquiring nuclear weapons that required action. But when international agencies and allied intelligence services said they were skeptical that Iraq had the materials for such weapons, even if it had the desire, other explanations were forthcoming.
The president gave the United Nations a list of Iraq's offenses, down to and including its failure to account for prisoners taken during the Persian Gulf War, and indicated that Iraq would have to make amends for all of them to avoid military punishment.
And finally, when Democrats including Al Gore and Edward M. Kennedy suggested that a war with Iraq might cost us allies and energy for the war against terrorism, the administration discovered and publicized links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
Different versions of that linkage were offered by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. But, as Karen DeYoung has reported in The Post, others in the administration said it was a mistake to try to hang the war plans on such a connection. She quoted a senior official as saying, "You look for a consensus on [intelligence] analysis, but it's very subjective."
What is not subjective or shifting is President Bush's determination to do what he set out to do. He wants Hussein out of there, and it is clear he is preparing to send U.S. troops to accomplish that goal.
Watch what he does -- not what he says.
I wonder how Barbra Streisand feels.
On September 29, at the fancy Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, she headlined a $6 million fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. With her on the stage was House minority leader Richard Gephardt. As she sang a politics-drenched rewrite of "The Way We Were" ("Mis'ries/seems that's all that fills the news/blame the fellas in the White House/for the way we are"), she interjected comments bashing George W. Bush and the Republicans. At one point she commented, "I find bringing the country to the brink of war unilaterally five weeks before an election questionable--and very, very frightening." This remark echoed a confidential memo a Streisand aide sent Gephardt a few days earlier. In that note, Streisand pressed "Democrats to get off the defensive and go on the offensive." The memo also said, "Many of the industries run by big Republican donors and insiders clearly have much to gain if we go to war against Iraq. Barbra urges the Democrats to publicly convey this message to the American people."
That's hardly the message Gephardt pushed once he left Babs-land and returned to Washington. Three days after the concert, he brokered a deal with the White House that guaranteed passage of a resolution authorizing Bush to launch war on Iraq as "he determines to be necessary and appropriate" in order to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and to enforce United Nations resolutions. The Gephardt-backed measure was less of a blank check than the one Bush had sent to Congress. The differences, though, meant little. Under the negotiated resolution, Bush will have to report to Congress that "diplomatic and other peaceful means alone" were not sufficient to thwart Saddam Hussein and enforce UN resolutions. But Bush does not have to issue such a report until two days after he initiates an attack. Gephardt (and the GOP House leaders) are telling Bush, shoot whenever you like, explain later. And once bombs are falling and US troops are in harm's way, how many members of Congress are going to challenge Bush's finding, if they consider it unpersuasive, and then attempt to de-authorize a wartime president? ("I demand you withdraw 100,000 troops and recall the bombers because you misread the last Iraqi communique on the inspections process!")
If war comes, it will not only be Bush's war. It will be Gephardt's war. Other key shareholders will be Democratic Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Edwards, two presidential wannabes who have been pre-running as get-Saddam hawks. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's stake in the enterprise is uncertain as of this writing. He has griped about Bush's politicized rhetoric and raised questions about Bush's dash toward war, but has not opposed the underlying policy. (And Daschle can thank Gephardt, who held his own unilateral negotiations with the White House, for cutting a deal that undermined any move Daschle might have contemplated to limit the use-of-force resolution.) Most Democrats in both the House and the Senate are expected to vote in favor of authorizing Bush to mount a war--even a unilateral one--against Saddam Hussein.
Which means that on the most vital issue of this election season, there is little distinction between the two parties. The Republicans are almost entirely for this war; the Democrats are mostly for it. Whatever happens--good, bad, in-between--Gephardt and the war-enabling Dems will bear responsibility and will deserve to be judged alongside Bush. In fact, some might deserve to be judged more harshly. It is no secret that on Capitol Hill, many Democrats are motivated to vote for the resolution out of political calculation. They do not believe war against Iraq at this time is a good idea, but they fear looking soft or being caught on the wrong side of what might be a popular war. They are hoping to buy security--their own-- with blood.
Bush may be motivated in a similar fashion, but there's a greater chance he truly believes in the mission. Gephardt, too, might buy the ever-shifting national security arguments for this war pitched by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice (rather than the caution expressed recently by retired General Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander; retired General Joseph Hoar, a former chief of the US Central Command; and retired General John Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), but since 9/11 he has also adopted the political strategy of embracing the President on foreign policy matters in an attempt to prevent Republicans from hurling the time-tested weak-on-security charge against the Democrats. And against himself. Gephardt, after all, is eyeing a presidential run.
Perhaps when he lies awake at night, counting sheep on a White House lawn, Gephardt can say how much of his support for this war stems from policy concerns, and how much from crass political gamesmanship. But it's tough to see how his stance will benefit him and the Democrats. If the war goes well--and that is a possibility--Bush will receive most, if not all, of the credit and be strengthened for 2004. (Hopeful Democrats might note that Bush I was booted out of office after winning the Gulf War, but Bush II's accomplishments--"liberating Iraq" and "taking out" Saddam--will probably resonate more deeply and for longer than did his father's success in pushing Saddam out of Kuwait.) Me-too Democrats will likely find it difficult to tap the post-war celebration for political advantage. And if the war turns ugly, Gephardt and the other Democratic leaders now leaping aboard Bush's war-wagon will be in no position to complain.
So what's a frightened diva to do? Gephardt is not only not accusing Bush of using diversionary tactics, of practicing arrogant and perhaps dangerous unilateralism, and of greasing the wheels of war-profiteering. He is literally empowering Bush. He fiercely attacks the President on economic and budgetary matters. But he is greenlighting an endeavor that could further derail the federal budget and consume resources for the sort of domestic programs Streisand and Gephardt crave. With their wholehearted support of Bush's prospective war, Gephardt and other Democrats are essentially agreeing with Bush's argument that the nation's number-one priority is the anti-Saddam crusade.
Not rising poverty. Not the rising number of Americans without health insurance. Not rising unemployment. Not pension reform. No matter how loud Gephardt thumps the podium on the House floor when he claims these are the real issues of the ongoing congressional campaign.
Gephardt's actions do not remove the war issue from the political table; they add momentum to preparations for war. He has cosigned the current centerpiece of the Bush presidency. In Streisandian terms, Bush said to Congress, "Don't Rain on My Parade," and Gephardt bounded forward with an opened umbrella. This war will be a Republican-Democratic duet.
Washington, D.C. - Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa is breaking with his party and his president to oppose a resolution in the House authorizing use of military force against Iraq.
"There may be a case for regime change, but not for war against Iraq and its people," Leach, a Republican from Iowa City, told the House Committee on International Relations.
Leach may become the only GOP member of the Iowa delegation in the House and Senate to oppose a resolution against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Even Democrat Tom Harkin, who has been expressing caution about war, on Thursday told Iowa reporters that he may be able to back a revised version of the resolution in the Senate.
"I believe it's moving in the right direction," Harkin said. "I'm going to see what amendments may be offered."
Under an agreement by the president and Republican and Democratic House leaders, the resolution would authorize use of force against Iraq, but also would require that the president report to Congress within 48 hours of such action about why diplomatic means were insufficient.
He would have to continue to report every 60 days while war continues and report on plans for rebuilding and peacekeeping. The United Nations Security Council would not have to give its approval for unilateral action.
Other Iowa Republicans initially were reluctant to back military force but have shifted as President Bush made a case for action, and a new deal on the resolution's wording emerged.
Leach is facing a tough re-election challenge from Democrat Julie Thomas of Cedar Rapids in a new district in eastern Iowa dominated by Democrats. But he has stuck with his reservations on Iraq.
His top aide, Bill Tate, said he believes Leach would not be interested in a revised version of the resolution. "His judgment is the use of force would be a mistake," said Tate.
Thomas said she does not have access to briefings like members of Congress, but opposes military action on the basis of the information she has. "I do not think the president has made the case for a pre-emptive attack against Iraq," she said, adding that public sentiment in the 2nd District is strongly against the use of force.
Leach told the committee, of which he is a senior member, that he has enormous regard for the president and his senior advisers, but that he has come to the conclusion that engaging in war "the wrong way" can jeopardize the war against terrorism and "undercut core American values and leadership around the world."
He said he also is not sure questions such as governance after the war and the reaction in the Muslim world have been adequately addressed. Most of all, the resolution is based on a misunderstanding of modern weapons of war, said Leach.
The assumption is that the United States should counter Saddam's nuclear weapons program, said Leach. But Saddam's access to tons of biological agents in mobile labs, and the threat they could pose to Israel, is underestimated, he said.
"When a cornered tyrant is confronted with a 'use or lose' option with weapons of mass destruction, and is isolated in the Arab world unless he launches a jihad against Israel, it is not hard to imagine what he will choose," said Leach. "Israel has never faced a graver challenge to its survival."
A biological attack by Iraq might be met with a nuclear response from Israel, Leach said.
"Not only would we be the potential precipitating actor, but our troops could be caught in crosswinds and crossfire," he said.
WASHINGTON - A sudden appetite for war with Iraq seems to have consumed the Bush administration and Congress. The debate that began in the Senate last week is centered not on the fundamental and monumental questions of whether and why the United States should go to war with Iraq, but rather on the mechanics of how best to wordsmith the president's use-of-force resolution in order to give him virtually unchecked authority to commit the nation's military to an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation.
How have we gotten to this low point in the history of Congress? Are we too feeble to resist the demands of a president who is determined to bend the collective will of Congress to his will - a president who is changing the conventional understanding of the term "self-defense"? And why are we allowing the executive to rush our decision-making right before an election? Congress, under pressure from the executive branch, should not hand away its Constitutional powers. We should not hamstring future Congresses by casting such a shortsighted vote. We owe our country a due deliberation.
I have listened closely to the president. I have questioned the members of his war cabinet. I have searched for that single piece of evidence that would convince me that the president must have in his hands, before the month is out, open-ended Congressional authorization to deliver an unprovoked attack on Iraq. I remain unconvinced. The president's case for an unprovoked attack is circumstantial at best. Saddam Hussein is a threat, but the threat is not so great that we must be stampeded to provide such authority to this president just weeks before an election.
Why are we being hounded into action on a resolution that turns over to President Bush the Congress's Constitutional power to declare war? This resolution would authorize the president to use the military forces of this nation wherever, whenever and however he determines, and for as long as he determines, if he can somehow make a connection to Iraq. It is a blank check for the president to take whatever action he feels "is necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." This broad resolution underwrites, promotes and endorses the unprecedented Bush doctrine of preventive war and pre-emptive strikes - detailed in a recent publication, "National Security Strategy of the United States" - against any nation that the president, and the president alone, determines to be a threat.
We are at the gravest of moments. Members of Congress must not simply walk away from their Constitutional responsibilities. We are the directly elected representatives of the American people, and the American people expect us to carry out our duty, not simply hand it off to this or any other president. To do so would be to fail the people we represent and to fall woefully short of our sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution.
We may not always be able to avoid war, particularly if it is thrust upon us, but Congress must not attempt to give away the authority to determine when war is to be declared. We must not allow any president to unleash the dogs of war at his own discretion and for an unlimited period of time.
Yet that is what we are being asked to do. The judgment of history will not be kind to us if we take this step.
Members of Congress should take time out and go home to listen to their constituents. We must not yield to this absurd pressure to act now, 27 days before an election that will determine the entire membership of the House of Representatives and that of a third of the Senate. Congress should take the time to hear from the American people, to answer their remaining questions and to put the frenzy of ballot-box politics behind us before we vote. We should hear them well, because while it is Congress that casts the vote, it is the American people who will pay for a war with the lives of their sons and daughters.
Robert C. Byrd is a Democratic senator for West Virginia.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Please note: The is a hoax
URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL:
DearSir/Madam:
I am George W. Bush, son of the former Head of State of the United States of America, George H. W. Bush who was deposed under mysterious circumstances in November, 1992. After my father was deposed, myself and members of my family including my brothers have been put through hell with interrogations, on account of mismanagement of the destruction of Iraq by my father. The aftermath of these interrogation has led to the continuous effort of the American people with co-operation from the United Nations and others to freeze, and confiscate war powers belonging to my father which were deposited with the United States Congress.
Fortunately, just after the defeat of my father, his advisers in anticipation of the current situation made arrangements to secretly move the idea of bombimg Baghdad to safe-keeping in a security vault at the Republican Party National Bank. This idea has been in the vault since then and we feel that it is now necessary to put it into action for fear of discovery that it is based on total fraud.
We are therefore seeking a business partner capable of accommodating such huge amounts of death and destruction and who is able to manage or nominate trustees to manage this war in the interim as we watch the political situation unfold.
Your main responsibility would be to assist in sending your young men to fight and die. For obvious reasons we must insist that all arrangements are made in your name. For your assistance and confidentiality in these matters we would be willing to offer to you, upon negotiations, an agreeable percentage of the oil profits accruing from the investment.
I am absolutely positive that this arrangement will be of mutual benefit to both of us and I think that it is of utmost importance that you reach me through my personal email address stating your telephone and fax numbers and I would give you a telephone call to discuss the matter further and if we reach an acceptable arrangement, then we can proceed further. Finally, I crave your indulgence to treat this letter with utmost seriousness and I trust that this will be the beginning of a long lasting business relationship.
Best Regards,
George W. Bush"
According to the Bush administration, the threat posed by Iraq is serious enough to risk the lives of American soldiers, to end the lives of what would undoubtedly be thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians, and to risk a chemical or biological attack on the American homeland, but not serious enough to interrupt prime-time television. None of the big three broadcast networks carried President Bush's case-for-war speech Monday night because, they say, the White House didn't ask. Preempting Saddam Hussein is one thing, apparently, but preempting Drew Carey is another.
For France, this diplomatic pas de deux is as much about the future workings of the international system ? and America's place in it ? as it is about Iraq's threat to international security, officials and analysts say. The main French concern is the US attempt to forge a new right to pre-emptive action.
"France, like a number of other countries, is pretty alarmed at the prospect of a superpower that can take military action anywhere it wants without restraint, so for them the focus becomes influencing that power as much as anything else," says Paul Saunders, director of the Nixon Center, a policy-study center here. "For the French, the Security Council is the last line of defense." Three other countries besides the US and France are permanent members of the UN Security Council and have veto power over Security Council resolutions ? the United Kingdom, Russia, and China. But it is France that is most clearly stumping America's drive for international unity against Iraq.
The resolution fight
The US, backed by Britain, wants a tough Security Council resolution that contains both unfettered weapons inspections and if the Iraqis hinder full inspections, as in the past, the threat of war. France, backed by Russia, wants two resolutions ? the first authorizing a tough inspections regime. Only a second, eventual resolution would authorize military intervention if the Iraqis failed to abide by the first.
The two-step resolution would address France's real concerns about Iraq, which it shares with the US, but also those about what it sees as an America prone to a pistol-packing diplomacy. "For the French, this is about America and its relations with them and the world," says a senior European diplomat in Washington.
France sees the Bush administration snubbing other global organizations ? such as the International Criminal Court, or the Kyoto Protocol on climate change ? and they seize upon the Security Council as the last best hope for reining in the US juggernaut.
"The French, like most Europeans, don't want to give carte blanche to the Americans," says Francois Heisbourg, director of the Institute for Strategic Research in Paris.
The situation creates a "high degree of tension" between the US and its oldest ally, Mr. Saunders says, and places Paris on a delicate tightrope. "On the one hand, the French want to use the Security Council to have some influence over US policy, but at the same time they really don't want to be so obdurate towards American concerns that the Bush administration is persuaded to go outside the UN."
For the French government, use of the Security Council veto over US action in Iraq would actually constitute defeat for both France and the international system in that it would free the US to act largely alone in a key region.
Room for a compromise?
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin summed up his nation's concerns about this last week in a response to a member of the National Assembly who said France should veto any resolution authorizing use of force by an "intimidating" US. "If France waives the veto," Mr. de Villepin said, "it will deprive us of influence and the capacity to be part of the international game."
US officials ? most clearly those closest to the position of Secretary of State Colin Powell ? believe a compromise will be found, reflecting the importance that both the US and France put on a show of unity in the Security Council. But others say the outcome will depend not so much on the French, but on whether the Bush administration ultimately decides that working within the international framework is more important than a path to war.
"This is a tricky situation, [because while] the French have been careful not to close off any options, the Americans haven't yet made clear who is running things on their side," says Mr. Heisbourg. Citing a continuing split in Washington between the "forget-inspections-and-go-to war" forces and those who want to give a chance to inspections and work with the international community, Heisbourg says: "We don't know yet if Bush is going to go with the Cheney government [referring to Vice-President Dick Cheney] or the Powell government."
French ponder broad interests
The French are also taking a broader view than focusing solely on their relations with the US. Among France's other interests are its economic ties to the region, its historic role in the Middle East, and its rather un-European recognition of the role of military might in the world today. Paris clearly wants to safeguard its commercial dealings with Baghdad and the Arab world. It also wants to be involved in any post-Hussein planning for Iraq.
"Who's going to be influencing events in the Middle East in the future, that's key for France," says the diplomat. "They are one of the few countries that can contribute to a military operation in Iraq or anywhere, and they want the US [to be] mindful of that. But they also don't want to look back some day and say [of this crisis], that was when the US was left on its own in the Middle East."
President Bush continues to encounter war critics in the unlikeliest of places -- the United States military, for example. Last summer, retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security advisor to Bush's father during the Gulf War, bluntly expressed his doubt about a unilateral war against Iraq. A few weeks later, a trio of four-star generals appeared before Congress to echo that concern.
One of them was Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO military commander. "If we go in unilaterally, or without the full weight of international organizations behind us, if we go in with a very sparse number of allies, if we go in without an effective information operation ... we're liable to supercharge recruiting for al-Qaida," Clark said.
Now comes retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command for U.S. forces in the Middle East, who has worked recently as the State Department's envoy to the region with a mission to encourage talks between Palestinians and Israelis. Zinni, a Purple Heart recipient who served in Vietnam and helped command forces in the Gulf War and in Somalia, spoke last Thursday in Washington at the Middle East Institute's annual conference and laid out his own reservations about a potential war with Iraq.
In a keynote address striking for its critical assessment of the Bush administration, Zinni stressed the need to get the Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on track, build a broad coalition against Iraq, create trust among allies in the region -- and put Saddam Hussein's threat in perspective.
He also took issue with hawks in and around the administration who downplay the importance of Arab sentiment in the region. "I'm not sure which planet they live on," Zinni said, "because it isn't the one that I travel." And he challenged their suggestion that installing a new Iraqi government will not be especially difficult. "God help us," he said, "if we think this transition will occur easily."
Following his speech, in an exchange moderated by former U.S. ambassador to Israel Edward Walker, Zinni answered questions from the audience. In that session he was even more pointed as he discussed the possible consequences of an attack on Iraq and why war should always be used only as a last resort.
What level of troops do you think that we're going to have to invest in order to carry out an operation in Iraq?
I'm a subscriber to Colin Powell's doctrine: Use overwhelming force. As a military man, I bristle against ideas of small forces and of surrogate forces that we trust that can draw us into things. We then become responsible for their actions and for their welfare; that can suck us into cities and places where units are still fighting that wouldn't normally fight us if we overwhelmed the situation.
We do not want to get involved in something that is done on the cheap or that is done in a way that maximizes destruction or leaves doubt in the minds that might fight us that they have any other option and don't have a clear way ... to remain intact and have a possible role in [building] a much more viable Iraq.
Do you think the war is unavoidable? Do you think that we are rushing into the war with Iraq without studying the consequences?
I'm not convinced we need to do this now. I am convinced that we need to deal with Saddam down the road, but I think that the time is difficult because of the conditions in the region and all the other events that are going on. I believe that he can be deterred and is containable at this moment. As a matter of fact, I think the containment can be ratcheted up in a way that is acceptable to everybody.
I do think eventually Saddam has to be dealt with. That could happen in many ways. It could happen that he just withers on the vine, he passes on to the afterlife, something happens within Iraq that changes things, he becomes less powerful, or the inspectors that go in actually accomplish something and eliminate potential weapons of mass destruction -- but I doubt this -- that might be there.
The question becomes how to sort out your priorities and deal with them in a smart way that you get things done that need to be done first before you move on to things that are second and third. If I were to give you my priority of things that can change for the better in this region, it is first and foremost the Middle East peace process and getting it back on track. Second, it is ensuring that Iran's reformation or moderation continues on track and trying to help and support the people who are trying to make that change in the best way we can. That's going to take a lot of intelligence and careful work.
The third is to make sure those countries to which we have now committed ourselves to change, like Afghanistan and those in Central Asia, we invest what we need to in the way of resources there to make that change happen. Fourth is to patch up these relationships that have become strained, and fifth is to reconnect to the people. We are talking past each other. The dialogue is heated. We have based this in things that are tough to compromise on, like religion and politics, and we need to reconnect in a different way. I would take those priorities before this one.
My personal view, and this is just personal, is that I think this isn't No. 1. It's maybe six or seven, and the affordability line may be drawn around five.
I want your opinion of what the Iraqi people want. Are they going to greet our troops as liberators?
I think that, again depending on how this goes, if it's short with minimal destruction, there will be the initial euphoria of change. It's always what comes next that is tough. I went in with the first troops that went into Somalia. We were greeted as heroes on the street. People loved to see us; when the food was handed out, the water was given, the medicines were applied, we were heroes. After we had been there about a month, I had someone come see me who said there was a group of prominent Somalis that wanted to talk to me. I met with them. The first question out of their mouths was that we'd been there a month, hadn't started a jobs program, and when were we going to fix the economy? Well, I didn't know it was my Marine unit's responsibility to do that.
Expectations grow rapidly. The initial euphoria can wear off. People have the idea that Jeffersonian democracy, entrepreneurial economics and all these great things are going to come. If they are not delivered immediately, do not seem to be on the rise, and worse yet, if the situation begins to deteriorate -- if there is tribal revenge, factional splitting, still violent elements in the country making statements that make it more difficult, institutions that are difficult to reestablish, infrastructure damage, I think that initial euphoria could wane away. It's not whether you're greeted in the streets as a hero; it's whether you're still greeted as a hero when you come back a year from now.