Miller Didn’t Start The Fire

I’ve been thinking about Donklephant’s post by Callimachus this morning called “______ Lied”. The post itself has a liberal-biased tilt, but the original column, It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story seems to be straight reporting to me and I think it’s something that many of us die-hard anti-Iraq-War-Bill-Clinton-loving liberal try very, very hard to ignore or forget.

The truth is that the fear of Suddam Huissen’s potential to wage nuclear destruction on his neighbors and the world didn’t start in January 2001 or even after September 11, 2001.

Here are a few past headlines from The New York Times:

• “Iraq Has Network of Outside Help on Arms, Experts Say”(November 1998)
• “U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production of Chemical Weapons in Sudan”(August 1998)
• “Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort” (February 2000)
• “Signs of Iraqi Arms Buildup Bedevil U.S. Administration” (February 2000)
• “Flight Tests Show Iraq Has Resumed a Missile Program” (July 2000) [“It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story”]

It’s important to note here that despite recent accusations and theories that Judith Miller single-handedly convinced the American public that an invasion of Iraq was not only necessary but the right thing to do, she shared a byline on only one of these articles, the rest were written by others. Also, The New York Times wasn’t the only paper making these Clinton-era claims; The Washington Post’s archives contains similar articles.

Clinton administration officials, intelligence officials, U.N. weapons inspectors, and international analysts at the time claimed that Iraq would be “capable within months — and possibly just weeks or days — of threatening its neighbors with an arsenal of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons;” it was believed that Iraq was “still hiding tons of nerve gas” and was “seeking to obtain uranium from a rogue nation or terrorist groups to complete as many as four nuclear warheads.” It was believed that Hussein spent $120 billion in oil revenue and “devoted his intelligence service to an endless game of cat and mouse to hide his suspected weapons caches from United Nations inspections.” He was reportedly “scouring the world for tools to build new weapons” and there were concerns that he was closer to building a nuclear weapon than he was in 1991.[“It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story”]

Heck, the Clinton administration was so worried about Iraq’s growing nuclear program, that they bombed Iraq for four days in 1998 .

From 1998 through 2000, the Times editorial page warned that “without further outside intervention, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missile plants within a year” and that “future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again.” Otherwise, Iraq could “restore its ability to deliver biological and chemical weapons against potential targets in the Middle East.” “The world,” it said, “cannot leave Mr. Hussein free to manufacture horrific germs and nerve gases and use them to terrorize neighboring countries.”

[…]

The Times was not alone, of course. On Jan. 29, 2001, The Post editorialized that “of all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous — or more urgent — than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade’s efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf,” including “intelligence photos that show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons.”

[…]

As we wage what the Times now calls “the continuing battle over the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq,” we will have to grapple with the stubborn fact that the underlying rationale for the war was already in place when this administration arrived.[“It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story”]

If the danger from Hussien and Iraq was so immenent, why did we as a nation wait so long?

If the danger from Hussein and Iraq was so real, why did we struggle to find allies to back us up?

If Hussein really is the insane dictator, willing to use chemical warfare on his own people — which we know is true — why then did he not use these weapons of mass distruction on American troops marching toward Baghdad? One argument the right likes to give is that Hussein shipped them to other countries to hide them, but I question why he would make WMD and then not use them during a time of war?

If there were WMD and real proof of them, why did the Bush administration try to discredit Joseph Wilson, a retired diplomat, when he refuted their claims of evidence that Iraq had bought uranium from Nigeria? Why would they need to if the evidence was so strong?

I have a lot of questions, but somehow I don’t think we’ll ever know the whole truth.

tags: Judy Miller, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, Iraq, George W. Bush, politics, WMD, Joe Wilson

One comment

1. on October 26, 2005 at 12:00 pm

   ford4x4 said:

   I was an ardent supporter of the war when it started. I still support the war now, but for different reasons than in the begining. I think Saddam pulled off one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in history. In his mind, all he had to do was convince the world that he had these weapons and capabilities, and he’d be left alone because everyone would fear him.

   BTW If you read the last paragraph of Cal’s post as sarcasm (which I did), it takes the liberal slant out of it.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.