Powerline is all over Paul O’Neill’s claims that the US was planning to go after Iraq prior to September 11. He mentions documents that "prove" that the US was looking at potential gas and oil sites in Iraq.
Except that the documents (which can be seen here) are standard reports on Iraqi oil fields and deals that existed at the time rather than any post-war plan to divide up Iraq.
Furthermore, the Clinton Administration also had plans for invading Iraq – it would be ridiculous for them not to have. In fact, President Clinton personally signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that officially made the overthrow of Saddam Hussein US policy.
In essence, O’Neill is arguing that Bush has a plan to deal with a state that had already been involved in one major war and still posed a threat to the region – and that’s a bad thing. I’m not sure what world Paul O’Neill lives on, but that shouldn’t be even remotely big news. Of course Bush would have a proposal on the table to deal with Saddam Hussein. He would be negligent if he didn’t. It was only the events of September 11 that made the implementation of that policy a national priority.
O’Neill is trying to sell books by appealing to the anti-war crowd and slamming the Bush Administration. His arguments on national security are based on blantantly overblown "evidence" that show just how completely uncredible his book is.
Don’t we have plans to invade Canada, too? I’m sure we’ve got all kinds of plans.
Sssh… we don’t want the Canadians to find out about our secret invasion plans now… 🙂
Furthermore, the Clinton Administration also had plans for invading Iraq – it would be ridiculous for them not to have.
Personally I would like to disagree, but that is not why I am posting now. Rather, I would like to ask you, Jay, to explain in more detail (as a personal favor to me) the philosophy of politics implicit in your statement. Why is it ridiculous not to have plans for invading a country at any given point in time? Is this just the case for Iraq, or only for Iraq after 1991, or should any government in the world have plans for invading any given country at any given time?
And again, I am asking for your opinion; I am not trying to make a statement here.
Janek
Oh, since Clinton did it it’s alright? 😉
Seriously, though, there is a difference–Clinton advocated regime change through either nonviolent or internal means, and not though a risky and costly invasion. Clinton saw the idiocy of trying to keep the Iraqi people from being killed by killing the Iraqi people (at least 7968 of them at the time of this post, not to mention over 20,000 Iraqi seriously injured and the hundereds of American soldiers killed).
Oh, since Clinton did it it’s alright? 😉
Seriously, though, there is a difference–Clinton advocated regime change through either nonviolent or internal means, and not though a risky and costly invasion. Clinton saw the idiocy of trying to keep the Iraqi people from being killed by killing the Iraqi people (at least 7968 of them at the time of this post, not to mention over 20,000 Iraqi seriously injured and the hundreds of American soldiers killed).
Hi JR,
where did you get that very precise number of deaths?