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“IRAQ: A WAR OF CHOICE, (CONT.)” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2552-E2553 on Dec. 15, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
IRAQ: A WAR OF CHOICE, (CONT.)
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HON. BARNEY FRANK
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Monday, December 15, 2003
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, on December 8, I inserted into these pages an extraordinarily important article by Richard Haass, formerly the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department in the Bush administration. This article by Mr. Haass, which appeared in the November 23 Washington Post, has received far too little attention. In it, this very high ranking State Department official under the presidency of George Bush acknowledged what many of us have been arguing in the face of the administration's efforts to prove the contrary; namely, that the war in Iraq was motivated not by a fear of weapons of mass destruction or of the need to combat terrorism, but rather as a conscious policy choice in service of the administration's view of the world. As Mr. Haass himself argued in the central point of his essay, Iraq was a war of choice and not of necessity. Obviously if it had been occasioned by the likelihood of Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction or of his furthering the efforts of al Qaeda, it would have fallen into the war of necessity category.
While I was disappointed that more attention had not been paid to this, I was not surprised to see in the December 8 Washington Post a very thoughtful article by Lawrence J. Korb underlining exactly how significant Mr. Haass's article was. Lawrence J. Korb who served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan has been for years one of the most thoughtful critics of national security excesses, and a strong articulator of rational foreign policy.
As Mr. Korb explicitly notes, what Richard Haass says in explaining the war in Iraq is directly contrary to the rationale given by the President, the Secretary of Defense and other high administration officials. It is, as Mr. Korb notes, unfortunate that Mr. Haass ``was unwilling to go public with his views as did General Eric Shineski, while he could have made a difference.'' But while I join Mr. Korb in that regret, I do want to express admiration for Mr. Haass for speaking out now. Obviously he is aware of how much what he writes contradicts the official rationale for this war given by the Bush administration, and in this case the adage better late than never is relevant.
Because Lawrence J. Korb so clearly emphasizes the importance of Richard Haass's original article and because this is a significant debate that is getting too little attention from the American public, I ask that Lawrence J. Korb's article be printed here.
A War of Choice or of Necessity?
(By Lawrence J. Korb)
Eight months after the Bush administration got us involved in a bloody war in Iraq, we are now told by one of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's closest advisers that Iraq was a war of choice after all. According to Richard Haass, director of policy planning at the State Department until June 2003 and still the Bush administration's special envoy to Northern Ireland, the administration ``did not have to go to war against Iraq, certainly not when we did. There were other options'' [op-ed, Nov. 23]. Really?
This is not what the administration told us before the war and continues to tell us to this day. On March 20, as he was sending troops into Iraq because the regime of Saddam Hussein allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to al Qaeda, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told them, ``We are at the point at which the risk of not acting is too great to wait longer. As you prepare, know that this war is necessary . . .'' Some three weeks into the war, Powell, who had made the case for war to the United Nations, stated: ``We do not seek war. We do not look for war. We don't want wars. But we will not be afraid to fight when these wars are necessary to protect the American people, to protect our interests, to protect friends.''
Even after it had become abundantly clear that the arguments the Bush administration advanced for going to war were specious, both Vice President Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz explicitly rebutted Haass's position. In an Oct. 10 speech to the Heritage Foundation in which he lashed out at those who said we had a choice about invading Iraq, the vice president said: ``Some claim we should not have acted because the threat from Saddam Hussein was not imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, policy putting us on notice before they strike? On Nov. 4 Wolfowitz stated: ``But one of the things that Sept. 11 changed was that it made it a war of necessity, not a war of choice.''
The president himself continues to proclaim how necessary the war was. On Nov. 22 he said at a press conference in London, ``Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary.
On Thanksgiving Day the president told the troops in Baghdad: ``You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so we don't have to face them in our own country.''
Even more surprising is Haass's contention that despite its public pronouncements, the Bush administration knows that, because this is a war of choice, Americans will not support it unless it is relatively short and cheap. This is why the administration has changed its policy and accelerated the timetable to hand over increasing political responsibility to Iraqis, even if it means reducing what it is trying to accomplish.
Haass weakens his own case by arguing that the first Persian Gulf War was a real war of necessity and Vietnam was only a war of choice. Even those who argued against the recent invasion of Iraq would not contend that it was less necessary than the first Persian Gulf War. As Secretary of State James Baker noted in 1990, that war was really about oil. And Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as such defense hawks as Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), wanted to give sanctions more time to work before invading Iraq. (If it was so necessary, why did the administration of the elder Bush not invade until it got other nations to fund the war?)
It is equally absurd to argue that the first Gulf War was more necessary than Vietnam. In the mid-1960s many Americans, including most of us who were in the armed forces, believed that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists all of Southeast Asia would soon follow and the containment policy would be undermined. This is why the American people supported that conflict through the Tet offensive of 1968, even though more than 30,000 Americans had died by then.
Ironically, while Haass is wrong about Vietnam and the first Gulf War, he is right about Iraq. It is a war of choice--a bad choice as it turns out. Unfortunately, he was unwilling to go public with his views, as did Gen. Eric Shinseki, while he could have made a difference. This article should have been written nine months ago when Congress and the American people had a choice. Now our only real choice is to continue to stay and absorb the casualties and the cost.
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