Archives for 2003

is starting to look like nothing more than the old bait-n-switch trick, a base fraud that really required a great deal of intention to come up with. Part of the tactic can be seen clearly in this CNN story: Iraq story falls short, Democrats say.

Way down at the end, Condi Rice is quoted as saying the following, “The president of the United States did not go to war because of a question of whether or not Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa […] He took the American people and American forces to war because this was a bloody tyrant who for 12 years defied the international community.”

In fact, this is not true, it is a blatant lie. The administration went for the war by making the case that yes Saddam was a tyrant and yes he was a barbarian, but the proximate cause was expressly NOT that – because there’s no provision for pre-emptive war in such a situation. Rather, their case was very specific – none of those things were the reasons for war, though awful – the reason for war was the “imminent threat” Saddam posed. That was what Congress and the public around the world were sold, not that he was a monster. Everyone knew he was a monster – but as the French and others know, that is not enough to justify war.