Clinton Lied!

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I think it's wonderful that you've got a link to sofiavergara.com

Thanks, Bill.

It worries me that the next time a Democratic administration wants to kill a bunch of Muslims on false pretenses for political gain, there won't be much resistance.

This is a great link, and very relevant. Many on this side of the political spectrum act as if the idea to invade Iraq was a bolt out of the blue. Don't forget that bin Laden's #2 beef was the sanctions regime against Iraq and that "regime change" (how could we forget when the right, correctly, has made the point over and over) as policy was established by Clinton.

It's important to understand that the foreign policy of both parties is positively neoconservative, and will continue to be so if Democratic primary voters can't force a genuine anti-war candidate over Hillary Clinton, who is a creature of New York politics and therefore an unreflective advocate for Israel or Obama, who should be considered suspect on the basis of 1) his comments about Iran 2) his hemming and hawing about withdrawal from Iraq and 3) his favor with the media, who promote the war.

Look at Clinton's presidency, meanwhile: saddled with Republicans (Cohen and Gergen), a hard-core neocon at CIA (Woolsey), a defense secretary before Cohen who was fucking Judith Miller (Aspin), Holbrooke at State (supported invading Iraq). 1998 the Clinton admistration pulled nearly the same stunt as Bush in 2003, withdrawing inspectors in order to bomb and saying they were "kicked out." After Clinton, things only got worse with the Democrats: look at the their ticket in 2000, with Lieberman; Gore's NSA (?) also would have been Leon Fuerth
(That said, I think Gore has had a true conversion; it is not coincidental that a man once the darling of the New Republic will have nothing to do with the major media any more).

Bin Laden's

Did you miss the part where Saddam barred UN weapon inspectors during the Clinton years? And the part where Saddam allowed the UN inspectors back in during the Bush administration years?

And did I miss the part where the US invaded Iraq during the years of the Clinton administration?

Did Clinton invade Iraq on that basis even though there were UN inspectors in country who were finding NOTHING?

Answer: no.

Did you miss the part where Saddam barred UN weapon inspectors during the Clinton years?

Uhhh..bullshit.

Saddam kicked out the inspectors durning Clinton about the same way he did for Bush (he didn't). Clinton also bombed the living hell out of Iraq over it. Amazing to see the memory hole in action when it comes to the Clinton years.

Am I maybe the last person left that remembers 1998-2000 Iraq was bombed about three times a week?

I come to this as an anti-war conservative, rather than an anti-war leftist as Brendan and Ed Marshall seem to be, so feel free to dismiss me as a anti-Clinton conservative troll. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to note:

1. We certainly did bomb Iraq a lot under Clinton, most famously during his impeachment.
2. Iraq did not kick out the inspectors in 1998.
3. I'm surprised, considering the near-universal consensus on the left that George Tenet was incompetent and Bush's presentation of him with the Medal of Freedom an outrage, how conveniently people forget that he was a Clinton appointee.
4. On the other hand, Clinton does deserve credit for not actually invading and occupying Iraq during his presidency. That IS a big difference between him and Bush.

->Ed

Saddam did indeed bar the inspectors from inspecting areas that they wanted to inspect during the years of the Clinton administration, and he required advance notice for inspections of other areas. Perhaps you weren't aware of this.

The interference with the inspections was stopped when the inspections were resumed during the Bush administration years. Indeed, that is why the inspections were resumed. You probably weren't aware of that either.

Specific "no fly" areas of Iraq were bombed. That didn't include Baghdad or other populated areas. I think your memory is faulty that bombings averaged three per week during the period 1988-2000; if you have any factual citations to back that up, let's see them please.

Hussein accused the US of illegally using UNSCOM for spying. The Clinton administration denied it even though they knew it was true, and used it as a pretext for the December 1998 bombing that delayed the House impeachment vote. The Washington Post knew about this too and kept it quiet.

Here's a link to Dr. Hans Blix's report to the UN, dated 7 MARCH 2003. http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusnewsiraq.asp?NewsID=414&sID=6

When the inspectors left Iraq during the Clinton years, it was by decision of the UN, due to Saddam's refusal to cooperate with the inspectors. When they in 2003, it was because their safety was at risk due to a imminent invasion by the United States.

Ed - Four days of bombing following the inspectors leaving (whether they 'left' or were 'forced out' I'll leave to one's imagination) is hardly equivalent to bombing, invading, and occupying the same country for four years. Post December 1998, we did bomb Iraq in the no-fly zones on a rather frequent if low-intensity basis. I even seem to recall the Air Force starting to use concrete-filled bombs rather than high explosives on targets to minimize civilian deaths. In any event, if you have statistics to back up the three times a week charge, I'd love to see them. As I recall, though, the bombing in the no-fly zones was rather less frequent before a mid-2002 bombing campaign was started to prepare the way for the invasion (this has been documented in Cobra II and other books about the war). Attacks certainly did increase then, probably reaching three times a week at the height of the campaign. As to the why-did-the-inspectors-leave question, I believe Steve B has got the basic story correct.

James Kabala: Yes, George Tenet was one of Clinton's worst appointees. The man did make mistakes, like the milquetoast Warren Christopher at the State Department. But the title of worst Clinton appointee goes to the extraordinarily incompetent Louis Freeh at the FBI. Still, Bush doesn't completely get off the hook for Tenet; he could have had him replaced when he took office in 2001. But you're right, he was a bad appointee by Clinton.

What the article doesn't make clear, or at least doesn't correctly emphasize, is that Saddam lied continually about his weapons programs, denying he had ever possessed them until his son-in-law defected in 1995. He then coughed up a declaration, but given his track record the Clintonistas could certainly have honestly believed that this was just a grudging admission of what his son-in-law had divulged, leaving other parts of the program still hidden.

The background for all of this is the shock inspectors received in 1991 when they uncovered how advanced his nuclear program was, despite international inspections. The great majority of policymakers considered Saddam's regime relentlessly determined to pursue weapons programs, while being masters at hiding them from even active inspections. The Clinton administration and the Bushies had this basic assumption at the heart of their policy because they both believed it was true. The alternative explanation is some grand conspiracy that united Sandy Berger, Madeline Albright, Richard Butler, Wolfowitz and Feith.

As for frequent air attacks between 1998 and 2001, the US was constantly engaging Iraqi air defenses over this period. Basically if they turned their missile radar on we lauched missiles at them. Attacks on building were much more rare.

As the author of the article in question, I'd like to clear a few things up.

[SteveB: When the inspectors left Iraq during the Clinton years, it was by decision of the UN, due to Saddam's refusal to cooperate with the inspectors. When they in 2003, it was because their safety was at risk due to a imminent invasion by the United States.]

Not true. The inspectors chose to leave Iraq in both 1998 and 2003 because their safety was in danger due to imminent bombing. The difference was that in 1998, UNSCOM chief Richard Butler was in cahoots with the Clinton administration, which was obviously not the case in 2003 with Bush and Hans Blix.

The 1998 episode was written up by Barton Gellman of the Washington Post (12/18/98). He showed how Butler allowed US officials to rewrite portions of his report to the Security Council, strengthening its conclusions to help justify the bombing campaign:

//Among the circumstances cited by those who suspect Butler of coordinating
with Washington on a rationale for war, three stand out:

One is that Butler made four visits to the U.S. mission to the United
Nations on Monday, the day before finishing his report.

A second is that administration officials acknowledge they had advance
knowledge of the language he would use and sought to influence it, as one
official said, "at the margins."

The third is that Butler ordered his inspectors to evacuate Baghdad, in
anticipation of a military attack, on Tuesday night -- at a time when most
members of the Security Council had yet to receive his report. //

[SteveB: Saddam did indeed bar the inspectors from inspecting areas that they wanted to inspect during the years of the Clinton administration, and he required advance notice for inspections of other areas.]

I'd like to propose a line of questioning. You and I and everyone else now know that Iraq was in fact free of WMD, starting in late 1991 (when it decided to junk its remaining stockpiles). So what in the world were the Iraqis afraid of? Why did they sometimes block access to what they called "sensitive sites" - i.e., presidential residences, elite military barracks, the Ministry of Defense? They obviously weren't afraid of WMD being discovered. Do you think it had nothing to do with Clinton's policy of changing the regime in Baghdad? The CIA-fostered coup plots, the secret bugging of leadership structures - both of which the Clinton administration carried out using UNSCOM as an unwitting Trojan Horse?

[RD: What the article doesn't make clear, or at least doesn't correctly emphasize, is that Saddam lied continually about his weapons programs, denying he had ever possessed them until his son-in-law defected in 1995. He then coughed up a declaration, but given his track record the Clintonistas could certainly have honestly believed that this was just a grudging admission of what his son-in-law had divulged, leaving other parts of the program still hidden.]

From my article: "The information proved, once and for all, that Iraq had been lying about its weapons programs: its pre-Gulf War efforts to build and perfect biological weapons had progressed much further than the regime had ever admitted..."

But there's a more important point. The Clinton administration had very clear policy: They were against lifting sanctions or normalizing relations with Iraq *even if* Iraq disarmed. Let's quote Madeleine Albright: "We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted."

It's not like they were hoping Iraq would comply with the inspections but found themselves frustrated by Iraqi defiance. They were *afraid* that Iraq would convince the world it had disarmed, because then their policy would be exposed as being in total contradition to that of every other country in the world, not to mention with the Gulf War-era Security Council sanctions that the US *itself* had sponsored.

Iraq brazenly lied about its weapons programs in 1991 when the inspections started. It lied because it thought the inspections would be ineffective anyway. Within a year Saddam realized he had made a mistake. The UN turned out to be *extremely* effective. So in a panic, Saddam secretly destroyed his stockpiles, ended his weapons programs, and burned all the documents. Once the UN realized that there had been much more to Iraq's WMD programs than the Iraqis were letting on, it told Baghdad to fork over the documentation. Unfortunately the documents were all destroyed.

That's why the Iraqis kept brazenly insisting these programs never existed - because they lacked the documentation to prove that the programs had subsequently been destroyed. Once you admit that you had a WMD program, but you're unable to prove it's been dismantled, you've locked yourself in a Catch-22. Everyone must assume that the program still exists somewhere.

All of this nonsense might have been settled in an adult fashion - maybe - but the Clinton administration had no interest in settling it. They didn't care about Iraqi disarmament. They cared about regime change. That might sound familiar.

Seth-

The words you quote from the Post simply don't support the assertions you say they do. Also, the weapons inspectors did in fact leave because of their own conclusion that Saddam did not live up to his promise to cooperate with the UN inspectors. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9812/15/un.iraq/

You claim that the UN was in cahoots with the Clinton Administration. The Clinton Administration was able to have the UN (presumably including the Security Council) do whatever the Clinton Administration wanted. Somehow poor old George Bush wasn't able to exert any influence over the UN.

Your other claims boil down to an assertion that the all-powerful Clinton Administration was the basis for Saddam Hussein's dishonesty. (I guess we're supposed to believe that poor old George Bush wasn't able to force him to be dishonest). You rely on a single statement you claim is from Madeleine Albright; but you don't give any citation or provide any context whatsoever for the your "quote" and then add your own suppositions as the basis for your conclusions that Saddamm's refusal to cooperate with the UN was somehow Clinton's fault.

Your case is somewhat less than compelling.

SteveB,

I left a comment earlier that seems to have been held up, but in the meantime, may I gently suggest you dial it back a little bit? Seth probably knows more about this subject than almost anyone in the U.S., and if you're honestly interested in learning about it, you would do well to listen to him.

I'll leave the rest to him (and my previous comment, whenever it shows up), but there's simply no question Butler withdrew the UNSCOM staff at the urging of the Clinton administration. This is from Richard Butler's book The Greatest Threat (p. 210):

Once my [December 15, 1998] report had been circulated to members of the Security Council, I received a telephone call from U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh inviting me for a private conversation at the U.S. mission...Burleigh informed me that on instructions from Washington it would be "prudent to take measures to ensure the safety and security of UNSCOM staff presently in Iraq." The United States had begun measures to reduce its staff levels in embassies throughout the region, and British authorities were doing the same...I told him that I would act on this advice and remove my staff from Iraq.

> Jonathan

Although I accept your assertion that Seth has a great deal of knowledge on the subject, I have a hard time believing that he knows more than "almost anyone in the US" (presumably that would include Clinton Administration insiders, Clinton himself, Newspaper and Magazine reporters, etc.)

Second, I do know the difference between biased and unbiased writing. The former is characterized by presentation of facts on both sides of an issue. The latter is characterized by selective presentation of facts, incomplete quotations, etc. Seth's work also includes unsupported speculation. In the final analysis, his work must stand or fall on the basis of its own content. On that basis, it simply isn't persuasive.

As to why Butler left Iraq, there is also "simply no question" that Butler had concluded that Saddam was refusing to cooperate with the UN inspectors, and had so informed the UN. That is clearly relevant in analysing the basis for Clinton's conclusions about Saddam's activities.

Fuck it, Jonathan.

Clinton said so, that's it and that's that.

Obviously Clinton had great reasons for bombing the hell out of Iraq over and over and over for non-existant weapons of mass destruction.

-> Ed and Compatriots

Here's my gentle suggestion. Rather than trying to build your case on sarcasm, character assignation directed simultaneously at the Clinton Administration and UN personnel, assertions that the Clinton Administration's dispute with Saddam Hussein was "nonsense", arguments that Saddam Hussein couldn't possibly have complied with applicable UN requirements, etc.; why not simply lay out positive facts to support your assertion that Saddam was earnestly trying to comply with UN requirements? Why not lay out facts to show that Saddam did give, or earnestly tried to give, full cooperation to Butler and the other weapons inspectors? Explain why you were ready to give Saddam Hussein your trust without verification in late 1998.

That would greatly help your arguments, imo.

Excellent article Seth; however it should have mentioned that there were serious questions about Kamel's credibility, in particular his claim that Iraq had destroyed all of it's WMD. This is from a 2003 Washington Post article about the subject:

U.N. inspectors have challenged the veracity of Kamel's claims.

Kamel, the former director of Iraq's Military Industrialization Corp., which oversees the country's weapons programs, acknowledged that Iraq had preserved much of the technology and know-how required for producing banned weapons in order to reconstitute the program after U.N. inspectors left the country.

But he told the delegation, headed by then-chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus, that "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons -- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed."

Ekeus and other former U.N. inspectors said this week that while Kamel provided valuable information, he frequently embellished and lied to enhance his reputation or to preserve illegal weapons programs. "He was a consummate liar," Ekeus said in a telephone interview. "He wanted to return [to Iraq] at some stage and make a political comeback when Saddam Hussein moved to the side. All the more reason to preserve some of the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] secrets."

Kamel returned to Baghdad in 1996, where he was killed.

Ekeus said Kamel's suggestions that Iraq had destroyed all of its chemical and biological weapons as early as 1991 were "absurd." The former U.N. Special Commission, which was responsible for destroying Iraq's weapons from 1991 to 1998, carried out the destruction of more chemical, biological weapons than occurred during the Persian Gulf War, Ekeus noted. He said also that the U.N. inspectors carried out the destruction of tons of chemical weapons and agents between 1992 and 1994.

You rely on a single statement you claim is from Madeleine Albright; but you don't give any citation or provide any context whatsoever for the your "quote" and then add your own suppositions as the basis for your conclusions that Saddamm's refusal to cooperate with the UN was somehow Clinton's fault.

A Googling of the quote shows lots of hits. Even with putting quotation marks around it. If it's bogus, it has as wide a currency as the Gore-invented-the-internet one.

Why not lay out facts to show that Saddam did give, or earnestly tried to give, full cooperation to Butler and the other weapons inspectors? Explain why you were ready to give Saddam Hussein your trust without verification in late 1998.

Why not in 2003? It works exactly the same.

Seth - If I recall correctly, a summary of an Army report based on interviews with Saddam and former regime officials published in Foreign Affairs and other reports based on interviews with former regime officials basically concluded that Saddam did not cooperate fully with UN inspections because Saddam wanted to maintain ambiguity as to whether or not he had WMDs vis-a-vis Iran, not because he was paranoid of American spying. If he were forced to admit his cupboard was bare, as it were, he felt he would be open to attack from the east. WMDs were his ace in the hole against Iran, not the United States. Thus the rationale for his game with the inspectors. The whole point of Iraqi policy during the inspections regime was to do enough to get the UN and United States off its back while maintaining enough ambiguity as to convince Iran it still had WMDs. To claim that Iraq was just dying to convince the world it had disarmed is an exaggeration.

It strikes me that the attempt to draw a straight line between Clinton's inertial Iraq policy and Bush's invasion is not at all convincing. The policy of the United States was not explicitly regime change until the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in January 1998, and even then Clinton supported it half-heartedly. I seem to recall that a sum of money was appropriated by said act and was largely unspent until the buildup to the war in 2002. To claim that all Clinton cared about was regime change isn't supported by his administration's behavior. I agree that the administration wasn't so much interested in Iraqi disarmament, but it wasn't interested in regime change so much as it was interested in maintaining the dual containment policy of Iran and Iraq. I think the distinction is important: while Clinton used erroneous information (and there's nothing it the article that convinces me it was on a par with the manipulation of intelligence conduced by the Bush adminsitration) to support a policy of containment, Bush used it (and then some) to support a policy of invasion. There's a difference.

Ed - Give it up. You haven't provided evidence to support your contention that Clinton did anything other than bomb Iraqi air defense sites intermittently after Desert Fox in 1998. And those four days of bombing does not constitute "bombing the hell out of Iraq over and over and over."

->Jeffrey

I have read the full statement in context -- it gives Albright's position that that mere compliance with only the WMD portions of Security Council Resolution 687 would not be sufficient for lifting of santions. Albright goes on to state in the same paragraph:

"Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council Resolutions to which it is subject."

Albright's statement taken in contxt does not support the Seth's proposition that the Clinton Administration had a clear policy against lifting economic sanctions under any circumtance.

And so again I would ask, where is the evidence that Saddam Hussein was earnestly attempting to comply with even the inspection requirements? What is the basis for your belief that Saddam Hussein was entitled to be trusted without verification in 1997 (when Albright made the statement in question) or in late 1998 when the weapons inspectors left Iraq?

"If you want to be very cynical then you say what has in fact resulted from these zones is death and destruction," says Hans von Sponeck, the coordinator of the UN Humanitarian Program in Iraq from 1998-2000. "On average, during the time I was in Iraq, there were bombing incidents every 3 days. The casualties were in the very areas that they allegedly established to protect people. How, at a 10,000-meter height, can you protect a Shi'ite population? That is a fantasy. The cruel reality is that people are dying as a result of these no-fly zones."

http://www.iraqjournal.org/journals/021202.html

I don't have Lexis-Nexus but anyone who does will find reports on US/UK bombing every few days way, way, back in the international section because the story just got old.

You guys scare the hell out of me.

Thanks for the quote Ed. I check and found something similar:

"Initially, Iraq rarely challenged the no-fly zones, although it considered them illegal as they were instituted unilaterally by the U.S. and Britain, without benefit of a U.N. resolution. But in December 1998, Saddam's forces began firing on aircraft entering Iraqi airspace, and the allies retaliated with bombs and missiles. The result, according to Hans von Sponeck, the coordinator of the U.N. Humanitarian Program in Iraq from 1998 to 2000, was bombings that occurred, on average, every three days."

According to this, the frequent bombings resulted from Saddam's forces firing on US and British aircraft.

The fact that Saddam was firing at aircraft enforcing the no fly zone hardly evidences a peaceful, nonbelligerent Saddam Hussein. It is beyond me why you believe this conduct would support trust without verification.

Let's start with the basic issue: What was the Clinton policy on Iraq? I don't think there's any ambiguity here. The policy was that sanctions would never be lifted as long as a Saddam was in power. Just after the 1992 election, president-elect Clinton gave an interview where he was asked about his Iraq policy. He said that as a Baptist, he believed in death-bed conversions. If Saddam complied with his obligations, sanctions should be lifted and Iraq should become a normal country again. Immediately there was a hue-and-cry from pundits like Tom Friedman. Clinton's advisors quickly backpedaled and explained that there would be no change in policy from the Bush era: sanctions would stay on Iraq no matter what. That continued to be the policy through Clinton's two terms in office. As Richard Haass said in the 1995 interview cited in my article, US policy was "trying to keep sanctions in place so long as Saddam is in power. That might be something the United States wants. But we're on political and legal thin ice when we say that."

[SteveB: I have read the full statement in context -- it gives Albright's position that that mere compliance with only the WMD portions of Security Council Resolution 687 would not be sufficient for lifting of santions. Albright goes on to state in the same paragraph:

"Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council Resolutions to which it is subject."

Albright's statement taken in contxt does not support the Seth's proposition that the Clinton Administration had a clear policy against lifting economic sanctions under any circumtance.]

You omitted the next passage of Albright's speech: "Is it possible to conceive of such a government under Saddam Hussein? When I was a professor, I taught that you have to consider all possibilities. As Secretary of State, I have to deal in the realm of reality and probability. And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's intentions will never be peaceful."

[SteveB: The words you quote from the Post simply don't support the assertions you say they do. Also, the weapons inspectors did in fact leave because of their own conclusion that Saddam did not live up to his promise to cooperate with the UN inspectors. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9812/15/un.iraq/ [...] As to why Butler left Iraq, there is also "simply no question" that Butler had concluded that Saddam was refusing to cooperate with the UN inspectors, and had so informed the UN. That is clearly relevant in analysing the basis for Clinton's conclusions about Saddam's activities]

I think Jonathan settled part of this question when he quoted from Richard Butler's book: Butler himself wrote that he withdrew the inspectors for their own safety because a Clinton administration official telephoned him and warned him that bombing would begin shortly.

As for the inspectors' "own conclusion" that Saddam wasn't cooperating with the UN - like I said, that was certainly Butler's conclusion and he allowed the US to shape his report to strengthen that argument. (Butler, you'll recall, later became a leading advocate for Bush's invasion.) But that was not the conclusion of all the inspectors. In fact, Butler's French senior advisor, Eric Fournier, described the episode this way in a 2002 interview with journalist Christopher Kremmer: "Why did the bombings occur in December 1998? Well, because Richard Butler reported that the Iraqis had not cooperated with inspections, even though more than three hundred had taken place in a few weeks and only a handful had been a problem. Three out of three hundred did not go perfectly smoothly...the report, drafted like that, was a good excuse for some members of the Security Council to take action."

Recall that most members of the Security Council were furious about Butler's collusion with Washington, which is why UNSCOM was quickly killed and replaced with the more independent UNMOVIC under Hans Blix.

[RC: Ekeus said Kamel's suggestions that Iraq had destroyed all of its chemical and biological weapons as early as 1991 were "absurd." The former U.N. Special Commission, which was responsible for destroying Iraq's weapons from 1991 to 1998, carried out the destruction of more chemical, biological weapons than occurred during the Persian Gulf War, Ekeus noted. He said also that the U.N. inspectors carried out the destruction of tons of chemical weapons and agents between 1992 and 1994.]

I remember this Ekeus quote very well. But it made no sense. The chemical weapons the UN destroyed between 1992 and 1994 were weapons that Iraq had voluntarily declared and handed over to the UN. In fact, it was Hussein Kamel himself who handed them over. When Kamel defected in 1995 and told the inspectors not to worry, that all WMD had been secretly destroyed in 1991, there was no ambiguity about which weapons he was talking about: he meant the weapons Iraq had *not* declared and had tried to keep secret. There's no contradiction here. And Ekeus of all people should know this.

I once asked Scott Ritter what he thought accounted for this obvious solecism on Ekeus' part. I assumed he had been lying. Ritter said he doubted it. Ekeus is old and these things happened years ago. His memory was probably just faulty. In any case, the issue has been definitively resolved by the Kay report: Kamel was telling the truth - the weapons were secretly destroyed in 1991.

[woot: Seth - If I recall correctly, a summary of an Army report based on interviews with Saddam and former regime officials published in Foreign Affairs and other reports based on interviews with former regime officials basically concluded that Saddam did not cooperate fully with UN inspections because Saddam wanted to maintain ambiguity as to whether or not he had WMDs vis-a-vis Iran, not because he was paranoid of American spying. If he were forced to admit his cupboard was bare, as it were, he felt he would be open to attack from the east. WMDs were his ace in the hole against Iran, not the United States. Thus the rationale for his game with the inspectors. The whole point of Iraqi policy during the inspections regime was to do enough to get the UN and United States off its back while maintaining enough ambiguity as to convince Iran it still had WMDs. To claim that Iraq was just dying to convince the world it had disarmed is an exaggeration]

I've always found the "Saddam was bluffing" argument to be not only wrong but very, very funny. I wrote a whole article on this theory for FAIR (only an excerpt is online here: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1181). The theory is wrong on the facts, plus it makes no logical sense. It's wrong on the facts for an obvious reason. Neither Saddam nor anybody from his regime ever made any kind of public statement implying that Iraq still had WMD. Instead, they were constantly saying the opposite: swearing up and down to anybody who would listen that they had no WMD. What makes the theory funny is that back when Iraq was vehemently denying that it had WMD, its denials were contemptuously dismissed as mere propaganda by the *very same people* who now are now peddling the theory that Iraq actually hoodwinked us into believing it was armed to the teeth. Not sure if this counts as Kafkaesque or Pynchon-like or Orwellian or what-have-you.

Logically the theory makes no sense because it's ridiculous to believe that Iran or Israel would be intimidated by the thought that maybe Iraq might have some old mustard gas lying around. It's not like serious people entertained the possibility that Saddam might have a usuable nuclear missile in the basement.

[woot - It strikes me that the attempt to draw a straight line between Clinton's inertial Iraq policy and Bush's invasion is not at all convincing. The policy of the United States was not explicitly regime change until the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in January 1998, and even then Clinton supported it half-heartedly. I seem to recall that a sum of money was appropriated by said act and was largely unspent until the buildup to the war in 2002. To claim that all Clinton cared about was regime change isn't supported by his administration's behavior. I agree that the administration wasn't so much interested in Iraqi disarmament, but it wasn't interested in regime change so much as it was interested in maintaining the dual containment policy of Iran and Iraq. I think the distinction is important: while Clinton used erroneous information (and there's nothing it the article that convinces me it was on a par with the manipulation of intelligence conduced by the Bush adminsitration) to support a policy of containment, Bush used it (and then some) to support a policy of invasion. There's a difference.]

First off, it's true that Clinton's policy wasn't *explicitly* regime change (until 1998). But it was *actually* regime change from the very beginning. The sanctions, the spying using UNSCOM, the many coup attempts, the insistence that sanctions would never be lifted as long as Saddam was in power - it was a policy of regime change, albeit constrained by an understanding that there were few good options for carrying it out.

But let's make one thing clear. There did exist strong support within the Clinton administration for launching a regime-change war in Iraq. And the strongest supporter of that option was......the Office of the Vice President. (This is all discussed in Ken Pollack's book, which I don't have handy. Anyone care to post the relevant passages?)

[Ed Marshall - "If you want to be very cynical then you say what has in fact resulted from these zones is death and destruction," says Hans von Sponeck, the coordinator of the UN Humanitarian Program in Iraq from 1998-2000. "On average, during the time I was in Iraq, there were bombing incidents every 3 days. The casualties were in the very areas that they allegedly established to protect people. How, at a 10,000-meter height, can you protect a Shi'ite population? That is a fantasy. The cruel reality is that people are dying as a result of these no-fly zones."]

By the way: After von Sponeck did an investigation counting the number of civilian deaths from airstrikes in the no-fly-zones, the Clinton administration had him fired.

Seth,

Nothing you say justifies your ignoring Albright's statement:

"Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council Resolutions to which it is subject."

That statement totally undercuts what you had earlier claimed that Albright was saying. The fact that Albright goes on to say that she didn't believe Saddam Hussein would ever be peaceful doesn't justify your taking her words out of context; nor does it contradict her previous statement quoted above.

Ed - First, thanks for finally supplying something in the way of evidence.

Seth - I think you misread my earlier argument. I didn't say Saddam was trying to bluff the United States. He was trying to bluff Iran. I agree he was trying to convince the UN (or more accurately convince it enough) that he didn't have weapons. The reason he didn't go all the way to remove any doubt whatsoever (of course, this is probably irrelevant given the jones Bush had to invade anyways) was that he was specifically trying to convince Iran he did have WMDs - or create enough ambiguity in the minds of the Iranian leadership to think twice abou attacking his regime. Here's a lengthy excerpt from the Foreign Affairs article I referenced earlier, based on interviews with top regime officials and military commanders:

"When it came to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam attempted to convince one audience that they were gone while simultaneously convincing another that Iraq still had them. Coming clean about WMD and using full compliance with inspections to escape from sanctions would have been his best course of action for the long run. Saddam, however, found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having WMD, especially since it played so well in the Arab world.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1987, was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD but claims that many within Iraq's ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed. Even at the highest echelons of the regime, when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth. According to Chemical Ali, Saddam was asked about the weapons during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack.

By late 2002, Saddam finally tilted toward trying to persuade the international community that Iraq was cooperating with UN inspectors and that it no longer had WMD programs. As 2002 drew to a close, his regime worked hard to counter anything that might be seen as supporting the coalition's assertion that WMD still remained in Iraq. Saddam was insistent that Iraq would give full access to UN inspectors "in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war." But after years of purposeful obfuscation, it was difficult to convince anyone that Iraq was not once again being economical with the truth.

Ironically, it now appears that some of the actions resulting from Saddam's new policy of cooperation actually helped solidify the coalition's case for war. Over the years, Western intelligence services had obtained many internal Iraqi communications, among them a 1996 memorandum from the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service directing all subordinates to "insure that there is no equipment, materials, research, studies, or books related to manufacturing of the prohibited weapons (chemical, biological, nuclear, and missiles) in your site." And when UN inspectors went to these research and storage locations, they inevitably discovered lingering evidence of WMD-related programs.

In 2002, therefore, when the United States intercepted a message between two Iraqi Republican Guard Corps commanders discussing the removal of the words "nerve agents" from "the wireless instructions," or learned of instructions to "search the area surrounding the headquarters camp and [the unit] for any chemical agents, make sure the area is free of chemical containers, and write a report on it," U.S. analysts viewed this information through the prism of a decade of prior deceit. They had no way of knowing that this time the information reflected the regime's attempt to ensure it was in compliance with UN resolutions.

What was meant to prevent suspicion thus ended up heightening it. The tidbit about removing the term "nerve agents" from radio instructions was prominently cited as an example of Iraqi bad faith by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his February 5, 2003, statement to the UN."

And I'd disagree with you that Clinton's policy on Iraq was 'regime change' through and through for eight years. With the exception of coup attempts (which were extremely half-baked), sanctions, no-fly zones, bombing, and spying are equally consistent with a policy of containment as they were a policy of regime change. Overall, I'd argue that Clinton's Iraq policy was driven by the inertia left over from the first Bush team's post-Gulf War I policy that left Saddam in power and inspectors on the ground. Clinton didn't really have much of an Iraq policy aside from continuing sanctions and containment. I don't disagree that there were people in the administration who would advocate regime change through invasion - fortunately, these people didn't carry enough weight to bring it about. Unfortunately, they had enough weight to convince people and congresspeople to be in favor of it in 2002. Anyway, as far as Clinton's policy goes, I think we should agree to disagree here - we simply have divergent interpretations. I suppose I find stupidity a more compelling explanation for bad policy than malevolence.

What a load of horseshit to cover for a man out of office for seven years now. Thousands died and more lost limbs over this and not only do you not remember that it happened, when reminded (or informed) of it the priority is to spin for Clinton in the exact same fashion Bush supporters do.

Gross.

Ed,

You are a real piece of work. OK, so Saddam Hussein never did anything to bring any of this on his country. And btw, if you had bothered to read Dr Blix's report which I cted earlier, you will see that he says,

"In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties and certainly much less than those that were faced by UNSCOM in the period 1991 to 1998. This may well be due to the strong outside pressure." ... and

"The Iraqi side has tried on occasion to attach conditions, as it did regarding helicopters and U-2 planes. It has not, however, so far persisted in these or other conditions for the exercise of any of our inspection rights. If it did, we would report it."

So Hussein was clearly more cooperative in 2003 than in 1998. Nevertheless, in view of his history, it would be naive to expect either Clinton or Bush to trust him without verification. Invading the country at a time when the inspectors on the ground believed they were making progress (as opposed to 1998 when the belief was the exact opposite) is another question entirely.

But based on your history, I honestly don't expect you to pay a bit of attention.

This is a serious question and I hope someone answers it honestly. Did Bill Clinton ever express a public opinion one way or the other on either the war resolution of Fall 2002 or the invasion of Spring 2003?

"I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over," Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book "My Life."

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/index.html

My recollection is that this is an accurate portrayal of Clinton's views.

James,

As far as I know, Clinton did not say anything before the war. But he said a lot in 2004. As you see, it was vintage Clinton, trying to appeal to all sides to the degree that he made no sense whatsoever.

SteveB,

I suggest you read the Duelfer report. (I won't include any links because that held up my last comment, but you can find it by googling "Duelfer" and "CIA.")

In it you'll find that the Iraqi regime's blocking of inspections was in fact for the exact reasons the Iraqis claimed at the time:

Iraq engaged in denial and deception activities to safeguard national security and Saddam’s position in the Regime...

Saddam was convinced that the UN inspectors could pinpoint his exact location, allowing US warplanes to bomb him, according to a former high-level Iraqi Government official. As a result, in late 1998 when inspectors visited a Ba’th Party Headquarters, Saddam issued orders not to give them access. Saddam did this to prevent the inspectors from knowing his whereabouts, not because he had something to hide, according to the source.

In order to preserve his dignity and security, Saddam wanted to ensure that he had absolutely no contact with UNMOVIC inspectors. SSO “minders” used radios to alert Saddam’s security personnel of UNMOVIC’s actions so he could avoid contact with inspectors. According to a former senior Iraqi official, on one occasion when inspectors arrived at a presidential site, Saddam left through the back gate.

The Baath headquarters incident was in fact cited by Richard Butler in December, 1998 as evidence of Iraqi non-compliance:

The next site, designated for inspection on the basis of solid evidence presented to UNSCOM of the presence of proscribed material, was declared by Iraq to be a Ba'ath Party Headquarters. Iraq initially declared it to be sensitive and therefore subject to special procedures issued by the former Executive Chairman, Ambassador Ekeus, to his inspectors in 1996. The Chief Inspector was instructed to conduct his inspections according to the requirement he assessed he needed for a credible and timely inspection.

-- UNSCOM CHAIRMAN BUTLER'S REPORT TO UN SECRETARY GENERAL

At the same time, the Duelfer report says, the Iraqi regime was trying to make some sort of deal with the Clinton administration:

Saddam did not consider the United States a natural adversary, as he did Iran and Israel, and he hoped that Iraq might again enjoy improved relations with the United States, according to Tariq ‘Aziz and the presidential secretary...

Throughout the UNSCOM period, Iraqi leaders extended a number of feelers to the United States through senior UNSCOM personnel offering strategic concessions in return for an end to sanctions. The stumbling block in these feelers was the apparent Iraqi priority on maintaining both the Saddam Regime and the option of Iraqi WMD.

* In a custodial debriefing, Saddam said he wanted to develop better relations with the US over the latter part of the 1990s. He said, however, that he was not given a chance because the US refused to listen to anything Iraq had to say.
* In 2004, Charles Duelfer of ISG said that between 1994 and 1998, both he and UNSCOM Executive Chairman Rolf Ekeus were approached multiple times by senior Iraqis with the message that Baghdad wanted a dialogue with the United States, and that Iraq was in a position to be Washington’s “best friend in the region bar none.”

The part about Iraq insisting on retaining a WMD "option," however is highly questionable. See this, from another section of the Duelfer report:

On multiple occasions very senior Iraqis close to the President made proposals through intermediaries (the author among others) for dialogue with Washington. Baghdad offered flexibility on many issues, including offers to assist in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Moreover, in informal discussions, senior officials allowed that, if Iraq had a security relationship with the United States, it might be inclined to dispense with WMD programs and/or ambitions.

And this is from a Nov. 2003 NewsMax article, which for a change actually is accurate:

NewsMax has learned that about a year after Iraq accepted a cease fire to end Operation Desert Storm (February 1991), Saddam began a concerted effort to "strike a deal" with the White House...

In early 1992, Nizar Hamdoon was named as Iraq's United Nations ambassador. Hamdoon, well known in diplomatic circles as a "protege" of Saddam's, was sent to New York City to open a "back channel" with Washington...

In diplomatic circles, Hamdoon's U.N. assignment was a signal that Baghdad was seriously looking for a deal with the White House. At the U.N., Hamdoon opened an "unofficial" channel to Washington through deputy chief Iraq arms inspector Charles Duelfer...

Duelfer, who had numerous "unofficial" meetings with Hamdoon, often acted as a conduit between the Iraqi diplomat and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who herself personally met Hamdoon several times when she was U.S./U.N. ambassador...

In the end, according to Hamdoon, no accommodation could be reached with Washington...

At almost every turn, Hamdoon explained his offers would "hit" a brick wall. That wall was Madeleine K. Albright. Albright continuously rebuffed Hamdoon and any others acting on Baghdad's behalf, confided several former Iraqi diplomats.

Albright it is said, had one agenda: Not WMD, not disarmament, just the removal of Saddam Hussein...

In April of 1995, then U.N. Iraq arms chief Rolf Ekeus, briefed the Security Council on his latest findings on chemical and biological weapons (WMD)...

"She [Albright, then U.S. ambassador] did not seem to care about or understand the importance of the findings," explained Ekeus. "She was more interested in what was going on in Saddam's presidential palaces," he added.

In fact, Hamdoon confirmed, that the issue of WMD was never really an issue between Baghdad and Washington:

"What they wanted was the one thing we could not give them, Saddam Hussein."

Hamdoon once explained that the White House conveyed the message: "Get rid of Saddam and then all things are possible."

Finally, in terms of Saddam "bluffing," this is from the Duelfer report:

Saddam never discussed using deception as a policy...

Saddam never talked openly about bluffing in regard to WMD.

i'm sorry Jonothan, but I have to look at what Saddam did instead of what he said. Believe whatever you want. Based on what he actually did, his words weren't particularly reliable.

Nevertheless, I do believe he deserved to be treated fairly and as a human being; right up there with the rest of us, myself included.

Regards.

Given that Sen. Hillary Clinton made the major Democratic floor speech for the Iraq war resolution (immediately following Sen. Byrd's, the major Dem. speech opposing it), and given her consistent support for the invasion, and her support well into 2004 for the occupation that followed, and the absence of anything former President Clinton said or wrote opposing the Bush administration policy in that period, it seems fair to assume that he supported the policy.

Counter-evidence would have to be in the form of something he said or wrote _at the time_ (i.e., between July 2002 and spring 2004).

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