The MinuteMan tries to cheer those of us who are terrified at the failure to find Saddam's WMDs. He claims that the failure to find them "is a GOOD thing." If we had found them, he argues, President Bush would declare victory and thereafter let Iraq fall into chaos like Afghanistan--for remember, GWB doesn't "do nation-building."
But if we don't find WMDs, the only possible justification for the war is to help the Iraqi people. So as long as we don't find WMDs, GWB will work very hard to give Iraq a better future. As soon as we find WMDs, however, GWB will pull out--and let Iraq twist slowly, slowly in the wind.
For ingenuity, he gets scores of 9.9, 9.8, 9.7, 9.9, and 3.4 from the East German judge.
Posted by DeLong at June 7, 2003 12:45 PM | TrackBackJust One Minute: ...But (and with Martha under lock and key, I feel safe in stealing this), not finding WMDs is a GOOD Thing.... Anyway, if we fail to find WMDs, then it becomes much more important for Bush to deliver on the other aspects of the deal - rebuilding Iraq, and pushing for a Palestinian settlement can not go to the back-burner. Good news!
Well, I'm inclined to think that the administration will declare a human rights-based victory and ignore Iraq anyway, but I suppose every cloud has a silver lining (soon, everyone will think that the war was about human rights all along, and WMD will no longer be in people's vocabularies, just as most anti-war commentators thought that the U.S. would win the war militarily, but wasn't justified or competent at reconstructing Iraq, but the general consensus now was that anti-war commentators were wrong all along because they thought the U.S. would get into a military quagmire (this idea, never actually prominent among anti-war commentators, being caused by a few days of concern that the U.S. military was being hampered by insufficient resources)).
At least, that's my prediction, but I'm no prophet.
Posted by: Julian Elson on June 7, 2003 08:22 PMAnd Iraq appears to be heading for chaos anyway.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on June 7, 2003 11:56 PMPATHETIC:
"...if we don't find WMDs, the only possible justification for the war is to help the Iraqi people..."
James Schlessinger (former Secrtary of just about everything) and Thomas Pickering (current crony in chief at Boeing, former "high-level" US "diplomat") on or about 12 April 2003 stuck THEIR heads up out of THEIR air conditioned bunkers long enough to allow as how THEY thought the cost to US tax payers of occupying Iraq (based on a "multi-year" deployment of 75 thousand troops) would amount to $20 billion/year or so, for "several" years...
"The United States has a vital interest in helping to create a stable, prosperous Iraqi government that renounces weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism, does not threaten its neighbors and respects the rights of its people. Meeting this goal will require from the United States a multiyear, multibillion dollar commitment.
President Bush should continue and expand his efforts to explain the rationale for postwar American engagement in Iraq and to describe the extent of the required commitment. Financially, this could amount to about $20 billion annually for several years. Keeping 75,000 troops in Iraq will cost the United States about $17 billion a year, and reconstruction and humanitarian assistance could cost several billion more...."
[You can buy THAT piece of "intelligence" in it's 'spin doctored' entirety here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70913FC3E5F0C718DDDAD0894DB404482 ]
..ONE formerly respected, STILL rather well-known (if ignorant, flaming pinko-liberal, treasonous coward) a MERE professional soldier AND Army Chief of Staff, General Erik Shenseki, "speculated"--BEFORE Chief UN weapons' inspector Hans Blix had any further opportunity to "put the lie" to the BIG Branch Dickweedian LIE about the "imminent threat" those non-existent Iraqi WMD's presented to the good heartlandish folks out in USTVLand Inc., AND BEFORE Vice Branch Dickweedian of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spun the "facts on the ideological ground" FOR him--FOR THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD that running a snake pit like Iraq by 'remote control' from some bunker in The Pentagon MIGHT require a few more hobnails on the ground (and unspoken billion$ AND unmentioned "bodybags" ) than THAT:
Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force's Size
By Eric Schmitt
New York Times
February 28, 2003
"In a contentious exchange over the costs of war with Iraq, the Pentagon's second-ranking official today disparaged a top Army general's assessment of the number of troops needed to secure postwar Iraq. House Democrats then accused the Pentagon official, Paul D. Wolfowitz, of concealing internal administration estimates on the cost of fighting and rebuilding the country.
Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops. Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year. He said it was impossible to predict accurately a war's duration, its destruction and the extent of rebuilding afterward..."
THAT report can be had for free HERE:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2003/0228pentagoncontra.htm
WHO do YOU believe?
I'LL tell you, quite frankly, what I believe:
I believe the only REAL "compassion" in this cesspool of "crocodile tears" is for that army of well-heeled, well-connected, corporate "beggars" who, "just by coincidence" of course, stand to profit from it: like, for instance ...
[An "off-hand", and admittedly woefully incomplete list--in alphabetical order]
Bechtel
Boeing
British Petroleum
Carlyle Group
DynCorp
Exxon-Mobil
Halliburton
Lockheed-Martin
MPRI
Northrop-Gruman
Raytheon
TRW
...The list goes on, of course--with impunity-- along with the bloody, corrupt, deceitful, disgraceful, self-defeating madness of it all.
Call me cynical if it makes you feel good about yourself, but I believe this snake will continue eating its tail until we and the media and the Congress and the Courts rise up to put an end to it--or until it puts an end to us. Whichever comes first....
I confess to putting forward a version of the same lineIn an odd sense, the postwar mess in Iraq has been good for the Israel-Palestine peace process. It's clear now that if the peace process fails, the chances of a successful outcome in Iraq would be greatly reduced by resurgent anti-US feeling throughout the region. That along with the failure to find WMDs and the gradual realisation that Iraqi casualties were much higher than first claimed, would discredit the case for war, although this would probably take the form of gradually disillusionment (as with Gulf War I) rather than a sharp swing in public opinion. So Bush has a lot riding on this, and Blair even more so.
Posted by: John on June 9, 2003 04:41 AMTrying a repost of the previous comment.
I confess to putting forward a version of the same lineIn an odd sense, the postwar mess in Iraq has been good for the Israel-Palestine peace process. It's clear now that if the peace process fails, the chances of a successful outcome in Iraq would be greatly reduced by resurgent anti-US feeling throughout the region. That along with the failure to find WMDs and the gradual realisation that Iraqi casualties were much higher than first claimed, would discredit the case for war, although this would probably take the form of gradually disillusionment (as with Gulf War I) rather than a sharp swing in public opinion. So Bush has a lot riding on this, and Blair even more so.
Posted by: John on June 9, 2003 04:43 AMTrying a repost of the previous comment without embedded HTML. Sorry for the repetitions
I confess to putting forward a version of the same line here:
http://mentalspace.ranters.net/quiggin/archives/001050.html
In an odd sense, the postwar mess in Iraq has been good for the Israel-Palestine peace process. It's clear now that if the peace process fails, the chances of a successful outcome in Iraq would be greatly reduced by resurgent anti-US feeling throughout the region. That along with the failure to find WMDs and the gradual realisation that Iraqi casualties were much higher than first claimed, would discredit the case for war, although this would probably take the form of gradually disillusionment (as with Gulf War I) rather than a sharp swing in public opinion. So Bush has a lot riding on this, and Blair even more so.
Posted by: John on June 9, 2003 04:45 AMBoy that East German judge is harsh.
Posted by: John Isbell on June 10, 2003 09:09 AM