What does it mean to overemphasize the presence of what is absent? That Zen-like question arises from an interview the Associated Press recently published with Douglas Feith, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s departing chief policy advisor. Feith told the AP the Bush administration “overemphasized” the matter of weapons of mass destruction as the rationale for invading Iraq and overthrowing the government of Saddam Hussein
That has to be the understatement not only of the young century, but of the last several centuries.
Reality to Mr. Feith: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Feith seems to have a clue to the problem: “Anything we said at all about stockpiles was overemphasis, given that we didn’t find them.” Yes, at the risk of sounding Zen-like again, any emphasis would have been overemphasis.
He added, “Our intelligence community made, apparently, an error, as to the stockpiles.” Considering that we taxpayers pay a good bit of change for that intelligence “community,” the mind boggles at the idea that it could have made such an “error” innocently. Isn’t it more likely that it was accommodating the higher-ups who were spoiling for war even before 9/11? This suspicion is hardly undercut by the fact that other countries’ intelligence agencies and even the Clinton administration thought Saddam had WMDs.
In his interview with the AP, Feith said, “It would have been better had we done a better job of communicating in all of its breadth the strategic rationale for the war.” Which was what? According to the AP summary, “The broader rationale, Feith said, included the danger posed by Iraq’s potential to resume building chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons — know-how that the Iraqi regime developed before the 1991 Gulf War.”
It is doubtful the American people would have supported an invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam might some day try to develop weapons. Why should he use them against the United States? Without provocation he’d have no reason to commit personal and national suicide.
The administration realized that people had to be panicked into supporting the war. That’s why, as former defense official Paul Wolfowitz conceded, the various parts of the administration agreed to build its case on the alleged WMDs rather than other issues. That case was spiced up with hints that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, though he did not. Feith approved this strategy: “Had Saddam Hussein not been a supporter of terrorism and a guy who developed and used WMD, I don’t think that simply saying he’s a tyrant and we have a chance to replace a tyrant would have motivated the war.”
But Saddam had no record of supporting terrorism against the United States. His efforts were confined to helping Palestinians who are under occupation. (Not that this excuses his encouraging the murder of innocents.) As for Saddam’s development and use of WMDs (i.e., poison gas), that occurred during Iraq’s war with Iran, when he was a U.S. ally. Memories are fleeting: the Reagan administration supplied Saddam with WMD materials back then. Rumsfeld was a special envoy in the effort.
Feith told the AP he is annoyed that people think the lack of weapons means there was no reason to go to war. According to the AP, such people “ignore the broader reasoning, he said, which included the dangers posed by Saddam’s record of aggression against Kuwait, hostility toward the United States, a ‘rhetorical and financial support’ for terrorism and a weakening of the world’s resolve to contain his ambitions.”
But how could these have been good reasons for the American people to be forced into a war of conquest, which, as predicted, has spawned violence not only in Iraq but in Spain and England, with the United States perhaps next? America cannot be a prosperous and peaceful place if its government insists on policing the world. Empire is expensive. Protecting far-flung “interests” costs money and, inevitably, lives. Do you want to know the price of empire? It’s random searches of subway passengers in New York City. And that’s just the beginning.
