1. Moving the Goal Line

When Bush re-opened the Iraq question in 2002, after letting it lie dormant and ignored for neatly two years, what was the stated goal?  The re-introduction of arms inspectors into Iraq.


Grudgingly, Saddam Hussein allowed them back in.


At this point, the goal line was moved.  Iraq had to agree to let the inspectors move about unfettered, and allow out-of-country interviews of its scientists.


Grudgingly, they did.  Dr. Blix has reported no significant resistance, and although he has not actually requested out-of-country interviews, in principle (an untested principle to be sure, but in principle), those would be allowed.


Then, ludicrously, the goal line was moved to compliance with UN Resolution 1441--never mind that compliance is subsumed into the above two demands--and total disarmament became the stated goal.

I want to stop to make a point here.

There is no difference between compliance and grudging compliance.

None.

Just how do you think the US government would respond if the UN demanded to inspect our nuclear, chemical and biological weapons--our weapons of mass destruction?  And how would you feel?

Yeah, I thought so.  So no complaints about foot-dragging and "only under duress" compliance.  We'd behave exactly the same way.  Compliance is compliance, whether or not they complain throughout.

So, Iraq has been complying.  They're not doing it willingly, but they're doing it.

And now the goal line has been moved once more, and well outside our rights to demand under international law: the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

It's been deliberately moved someplace so that Bush can "justify" an unjustifiable war.

2: Owning Up

Saddam Hussein didn't appear out of nowhere.  He's been a figure--shadowy or otherwise--in Iraqi politics for forty years.

He was just another tin-pot dictator, ignored by the world until it was convenient for us to have him fight Iran for us in the early and mid 1980s.

We made him a military power.

Let me repeat that.  Saddam Hussein's military "force to be reckoned with" is there because the United States government sold it to him.

This does not absolve Saddam Hussein of culpability for his own behavior.  But let's at least be honest about how he got into his position: we made him, and we made him for our purposes.

3: Why now?

Before Iraq suddenly came up last year, what were the lead stories in the news?

They were all about criminal behavior in corporate boardrooms, from Ken Lay to Martha Stewart.

And a few media outlets were starting to ask questions about the behavior of one George Walker Bush when he ran a company called Harkin Energy.

Questions about insider trading and other corporate malfeasance.

And then: Iraq.  Nothing but Iraq.  All Iraq, all the time.

How convenient for George Walker Bush that Iraq came up just in time to divert the attention of the press from allegations about his insider trading while running Harkin.

How very suspiciously convenient. indeed.

I believe that George Walker Bush is wagging the dog, that he has created an unnecessary international crisis in order to shield himself from Congressional inquiry and criminal investigation.

Neither oil nor George Walker Bush is worth sending our men and women to die for.  Bring them home.