The Deaths of Others by John Tirman

Author:John Tirman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: non.fiction, History
ISBN: 9780195381214
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2011-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

“OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM”

By late summer 2002, the Bush administration was using the Iraqi WMD threat as a primary thrust of its policy objectives in the region. The supposed danger posed by Saddam became Topic A on the Sunday morning talk shows, the op-ed pages, and indeed the rhetoric of high administration officials, most prominently Cheney and Rice. This putative threat was the proximate and justifying cause of starting the war; the “transformation” of the Middle East was mere subtext.

By early 2003, President Bush was prepared to make the case for war:

Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to their terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

This threat is new; America’s duty is familiar …. The ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America. Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror. Once again, this Nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.

The conflation of Saddam and terrorism is notable. Earlier in this State of the Union speech, the president also spoke of preparations for homeland protection against chemical and biological weapons. * The case being made was confident and unambiguous: Saddam was hoarding vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons and 30,000 delivery munitions, and perhaps planning a WMD attack on the United States through his al Qaeda allies. (“Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans—this time armed by Saddam Hussein.”) There was no doubt that a war would commence soon.

While the public was somewhat ambivalent about this prospect, it was generally supportive: a Gallup survey at the onset of the war reported only 23 percent saying the war was a mistake, with 75 percent supportive. That included the “rally effect” of the public being more favorable once the military action had begun; two weeks before, the American people appeared to favor war only if the UN Security Council approved it. But support for action to remove Saddam was consistently majoritarian.36 The public believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, as administration officials repeatedly hinted and which no doubt bolstered the support for the war.37 In the run-up to the March 20 invasion, the absence of dissenting voices in the major news media and the general enthusiasm for war shown by some elite media, particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, may have influenced public opinion.

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