It’s the question feared by every Republican seeking to become President in 2016: “Would you have invaded Iraq in 2003 if you had known then what we know now?”
And when Republican Presidential candidates haven’t dodged the question, they’ve responded defensively–or argumentatively:
- Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio: Invading Iraq was “not a mistake because the president was presented with intelligence that said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “In retrospect the intelligence that everybody saw, that the world saw, not just the United States, was faulty. Once we invaded and took out Saddam Hussein, we didn’t focus on security first.”
- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: “If we knew then what we know now and I were the president of the United States, I wouldn’t have gone to war. But you don’t get to replay history.”
- United States Senator Ted Cruz of Texas: “Of course not. The entire predicate of the war against Iraq was the intelligence that showed they had weapons of mass destruction and that there was a real risk they would use them.”
Admittedly, the answers to many of life’s questions lie in the future–and can only be revealed over time.
As the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard observed: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
Soren Kierkegaard
Thus, it is pointless to hold anyone–including past Presidents–accountable for not knowing truths that would emerge only years later.
Instead, the question reporters should be asking Republican Presidential candidates is: “How do you feel about a President who provoked a needless, bloody and financially ruinous war in Iraq?”
Or: “How do you feel about a President who starts a war claiming that a ‘madman’ will attack America with WMDs–and then, when they aren’t found, publicly jokes about it?”
There is actually a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war. A parallel in how Adolf Hitler launched his invasion of Poland.
ADOLF HITLER
When Germany’s Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, wanted to invade Poland in 1939, he mounted a sustained propaganda campaign to “justify” his ambitions.
Adolf Hitler
German “newspapers”-–produced by Joseph Goebbels, the club-footed Minister of Propaganda–-carried fictitious stories of how brutal Poles were assaulting and even murdering their helpless German citizens.
In theaters, German audiences saw phony newsreels showing Poles attacking and raping German women living in Poland.
For a time, Hitler not only deceived the Germans but the world. Just before German tanks and troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, members of Hitler’s dreaded SS secret police rounded up a number of prisoners from German concentration camps.
The inmates were dressed in Polish Army uniforms and driven to a German radio station at Gleiwitz, on the German/Polish border.
There they were shot by SS men. Then Polish-speaking SS men “seized” the station and broadcast to Germany that a Polish invasion of Germany was now under way.
Hitler, addressing Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag, dramatically asserted: “This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5.45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.”
Leaders of Britain and France were taken in by this ruse. They had pledged to go to war if Hitler attacked Poland. But they didn’t want to take on Germany if Poland had been the aggressor.
By the time the truth became known, Poland was securely in German hands.
On August 22, 1939, Hitler had outlined his strategy to a group of high-ranking military officers:
“I shall give a propagandist cause for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked, later on, whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war, it is not Right that matters, but Victory.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
American President George W. Bush followed a similar strategy while he prepared to invade Iraq: He ordered the topmost members of his administration to convince the American people of the war’s necessity.
Among those members: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice; Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Condaleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld
Among their arguments-–all eventually revealed as lies-–were:
- Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had worked hand-in-glove with Osama Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
- Saddam was harboring and supporting Al Qaeda throughout Iraq.
- Saddam, with help from Al Qaeda, was scheming to build a nuclear bomb.
- Iraq possessed huge quantities of chemical/biological weapons, in violation of UN resolutions.
- Saddam was preparing to use those weapons against the United States.
- American Intelligence agencies had determined the precise locations where those weapons were stored.
- The war would be self-financing via the oil revenues that would come from Iraq.
- Invading American forces would be welcomed as liberators.
ADOLF HITLER
Hitler intended Poland to be only his first conquest on what became known as “the Eastern Front.” Conquering Poland would place his powerful Wehrmacht on the border of the country that was his ultimate target: The Soviet Union.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Vice President Dick Cheney–the “power-behind-the-throne” of the Bush Presidency–had his own ambitions for conquering Iraq.
According to former Bush speechwriter David Frum: Cheney longed for war in Iraq to gain reliable control of that nation’s vital oil resources. A successful occupation of Iraq would also allow the United States to threaten such bordering Islamic nations as Syria, Iran and even Saudi Arabia.





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THE WRONG QUESTION ABOUT IRAQ: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 16, 2015 at 1:22 amIn late April, 1975, Vietnam veterans stared in horror at their TVs as the army of North Vietnam swept toward Saigon. The “peace with honor” that former President Richard M. Nixon had claimed to fashion had lasted no more than two years.
American news media captured the appalling sight of United States military and Intelligence personnel being frantically airlifted by helicopter from the roof of the American embassy.
Americans’ scrambling to evacuate Vietnam
The eight-year war had cost $600 billion and the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. servicemen. Suddenly, before the eyes of American TV viewers, the longest and most divisive war in United States history was ending in shame.
And now, it’s deja vu all over again.
From 2003 to 2011, the war in Iraq cost the United States $2 trillion and the lives of 4,484 servicemen.
And now, as a horde of Republicans compete for the Presidency in 2016, the Iraq war has resurfaced to haunt them with a vengeance.
And most candidates have claimed that, if they had been able to foresee the future, they wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, as President George W. Bush did on March 19, 2003.
But there is far more to the United States’ tortured intervention in Iraq than most Americans know. Or than Republicans want to admit.
There is, in fact, a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war. A parallel that has its roots in Nazi Germany.
ADOLF HITLER
When Germany’s Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, decided to invade Poland in 1939, he refused to consider any efforts to avert a conflict: “I want war. I am the one who will wage war.”
Despite frantic efforts by the French and British governments to resolve the crisis that Hitler had deliberately provoked, he refused all offers of compromise.
“I am only afraid,” Hitler told his generals at a military conference on August 22, 1939, “that some Schweinehund [pig dog] will make a proposal for mediation.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Bush made it clear to his closest aides that he sought a pretext for invading Iraq.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush held a private meeting with Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council.
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything,” said Bush. “See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”-–not Iraq.
On September 22, 2001, Bush received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.
Yet on November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.
ADOLF HITLER
Adolf Hitler knew that Poland’s government could never accept his demands for the Polish city of Danzig.
GEORGE W. BUSH
So, too, did George W. Bush make a demand he knew could never be accepted. On the eve of launching war on Iraq, Bush issued a humiliating ultimatum to Saddam Hussein:
“Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.”
ADOLF HITLER
Hitler never regretted his decision to invade Poland. Only hours before committing suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, he asserted in his “final political testatment”: “It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq, which occurred on March 19, 2003. In his 2010 memoirs, Decision Points, he wrote:
“For all the difficulties that followed, America is safer without a homicidal dictator pursuing WMD and supporting terror at the heart of the Middle East.”
And in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer on November 8, 2010, Bush again sought to justify his decision to go to war:
LAUER: Was there ever any consideration of apologizing to the American people?
BUSH: I mean, apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision, and I don’t believe it was a wrong decision.
ADOLF HITLER
On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler announced his attack on Poland before Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag.
Hitler–a decorated World War I veteran–said: “I am from now on just first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
On May 1, 2003, Bush–who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard-–donned a flight suit and landed a Navy jet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
A banner titled “Mission Accomplished” was displayed on the aircraft carrier as Bush announced–wrongly–that the war was over.
The effect–and intent–was to portray Bush as the triumphant warrior-chieftan he never was.
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