Untitled Document
It's bad enough that the Bush administration had so little international support
for the Iraqi war that its "coalition of the willing" meant the United
States, Britain, and the equivalent of a child's imaginary friends.
It's even worse that, as the British Downing Street memo confirms, the administration
had so little evidence of real threats that officials knew from the start that
they were going to have to manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning
still is that they effectively began this war even before the congressional
vote.
This transcript of a July 23, 2002, British prime minister's meeting, whose
legitimacy the British government confirms, details the Bush administration's
early intention to go to war against Iraq.
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action,
even if the timing was not yet decided," the document says. "But the
case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability
was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." As the document states,
"the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The document is damning, particularly coupled with the testimony of former
Bush ghostwriter Mickey Herskowitz that Bush was talking about invading Iraq
as early as 1999. But it's even more disturbing as we start learning that this
administration began actively fighting the Iraq war well in advance of the March
2003 official attack -- before both congressional authorization in October 2002
and the United Nations' November resolution requiring Saddam Hussein to open
the country to inspectors.
Charlie Clements, now head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee,
described driving in Iraq months before the war. "A building would just
explode, hit by a missile from 30,000 feet." "What is that building?"
Clements would ask. "Oh, that's a telephone exchange," he was told.
Later, at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, Clements heard a U.S. general boast
"that he began taking out assets that could help in resisting an invasion
at least six months before war was declared."
Earlier this month, Jeremy Scahill wrote a powerful piece on the Web site of
the Nation, describing a huge air assault in September 2002. "Approximately
100 U.S. and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace," Scahill
writes.
"At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation,
including U.S. F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack
planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western
air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that
lay in wait in Jordan.
"Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control
centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers
and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's
ability to resist."
As Scahill points out, this was a month before the congressional vote and two
months before the U.N. resolution. The United States hadn't declared war. Bush
had no authorization, not even a fig leaf. This pre-emptive war pre- empted
Congress and international law.
Most Americans don't know about these prewar attacks. The bombings that destroyed
Iraq's air defenses were under the radar for both the American media and American
citizens.
If coverage of the Downing Street memo continues to increase, I suspect the
administration will try to dismiss it as mere diplomatic talk, just inside baseball.
But officials weren't just manipulating intelligence so they could attack no
matter how Saddam Hussein responded. They weren't just bribing would- be allies
into participation.
They were already fighting a war they'd planned long before. They just didn't
bother to tell the American public.