Need help for a friend please - Bush and reasons for invading Iraq

[Sydnie]

I work with a lot of young people. They have had to listen to me for months as I reached a fevered pitch about all of them registering and voting, as well as discussing more current issues surrounding the election. I would say that most of them listened, registered and voted (majority for Kerry!).

Now, one of the young guys has recently started back to college. We often discuss what he is studying and how current events fit in with his class work.

He came to me yesterday and asked if I could help him to gather some information (articles, editorials, etc.) to help him research a paper that he needed to write for a class.

I didn't save many links or document things as they developed prior to the Iraq invasion nor even after concerning the ever changing reasons for our actions though. It would have been helpful if I had.

Since I didn't, I thought maybe some of you might have your finger on some good articles that he could read to support his position for his paper.

The question that he must write about is:

"Describe the arguments made by the Bush Administration for going to war in Iraq. Do you think they were good arguments? Explain why. President Bush said that knowing what we know now he would still have gone to war. Do you agree or disagree? Defend your position."

He needs some articles about not only the changing reason but also statements made by Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice defending the invasion.

I would really appreciate any help you all could give him. He's a good kid and is trying to respond to the hardest question on the list that he could choose his topic from.

Anyone with any articles saved or bookmarked any to help him would be appreciated. Any sites that might help him would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance.

[tuvor]

1. Here's a couple I've saved

Hope they help!:

Mr. Bush and His 10 Ever-Changing Different Positions on Iraq: "A flip and a flop and now just a flop."


9/22/04

Dear Mr. Bush,

I am so confused. Where exactly do you stand on the issue of Iraq? You, your Dad, Rummy, Condi, Colin, and Wolfie -- you have all changed your minds so many times, I am out of breath just trying to keep up with you!

Which of these 10 positions that you, your family and your cabinet have taken over the years represents your CURRENT thinking:

1983-88: WE LOVE SADDAM. On December 19, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld was sent by your dad and Mr. Reagan to go and have a friendly meeting with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq. Rummy looked so happy in the picture. Just twelve days after this visit, Saddam gassed thousands of Iranian troops. Your dad and Rummy seemed pretty happy with the results because ‘The Donald R.’ went back to have another chummy hang-out with Saddam’s right-hand man, Tariq Aziz, just four months later. All of this resulted in the U.S. providing credits and loans to Iraq that enabled Saddam to buy billions of dollars worth of weapons and chemical agents. The Washington Post reported that your dad and Reagan let it be known to their Arab allies that the Reagan/Bush administration wanted Iraq to win its war with Iran and anyone who helped Saddam accomplish this was a friend of ours.

1990: WE HATE SADDAM. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, your dad and his defense secretary, Dick Cheney, decided they didn't like Saddam anymore so they attacked Iraq and returned Kuwait to its rightful dictators.

1991: WE WANT SADDAM TO LIVE. After the war, your dad and Cheney and Colin Powell told the Shiites to rise up against Saddam and we would support them. So they rose up. But then we changed our minds. When the Shiites rose up against Saddam, the Bush inner circle changed its mind and decided NOT to help the Shiites. Thus, they were massacred by Saddam.

1998: WE WANT SADDAM TO DIE. In 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, as part of the Project for the New American Century, wrote an open letter to President Clinton insisting he invade and topple Saddam Hussein.

2000: WE DON'T BELIEVE IN WAR AND NATION BUILDING. Just three years later, during your debate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, when asked by the moderator Jim Lehrer where you stood when it came to using force for regime change, you turned out to be a downright pacifist:


“I--I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I--I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place. And so I take my--I take my--my responsibility seriously.” --October 3, 2000

2001 (early): WE DON'T BELIEVE SADDAM IS A THREAT. When you took office in 2001, you sent your Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and your National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in front of the cameras to assure the American people they need not worry about Saddam Hussein. Here is what they said:


Powell: “We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they have directed that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.” --February 24, 2001


Rice: “But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” --July 29, 2001

2001 (late): WE BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US! Just a few months later, in the hours and days after the 9/11 tragedy, you had no interest in going after Osama bin Laden. You wanted only to bomb Iraq and kill Saddam and you then told all of America we were under imminent threat because weapons of mass destruction were coming our way. You led the American people to believe that Saddam had something to do with Osama and 9/11. Without the UN's sanction, you broke international law and invaded Iraq.

2003: WE DON’T BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US. After no WMDs were found, you changed your mind about why you said we needed to invade, coming up with a brand new after-the-fact reason -- we started this war so we could have regime change, liberate Iraq and give the Iraqis democracy!

2003: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!” Yes, everyone saw you say it -- in costume, no less!

2004: OOPS. MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED! Now you call the Iraq invasion a "catastrophic success." That's what you called it this month. Over a thousand U.S. soldiers have died, Iraq is in a state of total chaos where no one is safe, and you have no clue how to get us out of there.

Mr. Bush, please tell us -- when will you change your mind again?

I know you hate the words "flip" and "flop," so I won't use them both on you. In fact, I'll use just one: Flop. That is what you are. A huge, colossal flop. The war is a flop, your advisors and the "intelligence" they gave you is a flop, and now we are all a flop to the rest of the world. Flop. Flop. Flop.

And you have the audacity to criticize John Kerry with what you call the "many positions" he has taken on Iraq. By my count, he has taken only one: He believed you. That was his position. You told him and the rest of congress that Saddam had WMDs. So he -- and the vast majority of Americans, even those who didn't vote for you -- believed you. You see, Americans, like John Kerry, want to live in a country where they can believe their president.

That was the one, single position John Kerry took. He didn't support the war, he supported YOU. And YOU let him and this great country down. And that is why tens of millions can't wait to get to the polls on Election Day -- to remove a major, catastrophic flop from our dear, beloved White House -- to stop all the flipping you and your men have done, flipping us and the rest of the world off.

We can't take another minute of it.

Yours,

Michael Moore
[e-mail]
www.michaelmoore.com

---------------------------

Rice Unveils 24th Iraq War Rationale
by: delmas_19 <http://profiles.yahoo.com/delmas_19/> (36/M/Boulder) 11/15/04 10:47 pm
Msg: 5 of 5
When it comes to flip-flopping all over the place, the Bush Administration has REALLY excelled with the Iraq War. Just last month Condoleeza Rice announced BushCo's TWENTY-FOURTH rationale for the Iraq War: Saddam's "Insatiable Appetite"

Twenty-three rationales for invading Iraq were not enough for George Bush and his advisors: e:

"SADDAM HUSSEIN HAD AN INSATIABLE APPETITE FOR WMD"

"It's obviously a risk but I think to say that this was a greater risk now than before Saddam Hussein was out of power simply doesn't face the fact that Saddam Hussein had an insatiable appetite for weapons of mass destruction. He had an unflinching hatred for the United States. He had every reason to cooperate with
our enemies. This was a gathering and growing threat and it was time to take care of it."

The "Previous Reasons":
1. War On Terror
2. WMD
3. Denied Access to Inspectors
4. Regime Change
5. Saddam Hussein is Evil
6. Curry Favor with the Middle East
7. Set an Example for Nations that Sponsor Terrorism
8. Liberate Iraqis
9. Iraq's Broken Promises
10. Revenge
11. Threat To the Region
12. Because We Can
13. Unfinished Business
14. For the Sake of History
15. Disarmament
16. Commitment to Our Children
17. Imminent Threat
18. Preserve Peace
19. Threat To Freedom
20. Link to al Qaeda
21. Iraq is Unique
22. Relevance of the United Nations
23. International Law

[tuvor]

3. Actually this one's more thorough.

http://www.intellisearchnow.com/pwrpub_view.scml?ppa=6inngWZkjmvwsmTTfc%23Z%21Dbfej%5Bv

[CBHagman]

2. I don't know if you have a library handy, but...

...archives of the New York Times from early February 2003 will have Colin Powell's testimony before the United Nations.

Also, the White House website is bound to have Bush speeches, and though they do clean up the mistakes in them, they are bound to have a few embarrassing admissions there, too.

In a nutshell, Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein needed to be disarmed and that he was a gathering threat. As far as I recall, the claim that the Iraqi people needed to be liberated came later and the claim that establishing democracy in Iraq would make the entire Middle East democratize came later, too.

Check out Cheney, too, and his claims of Saddam-al Qaeda links, which were denied by others in the administration even as Cheney was making them!

On edit: Click on:

www.whitehouse.gov

[buddysmellgood]

4. Rather than explore the bullshit, your friend should write

about why he thinks Bush went to war. I think it could be done in the context of the question. That is much more interesting. For example. Research how at one point, Saddam threatened to value his oil in Euros. Oil is essentially gold. It is what all currency is valued against. If others decided to follow Saddam, a true domino effect would have devastating consequences for the U.S. Image if all those who hold our debt started asking for it in Euros.
Explore how Dubya and company would like a pipeline through Afghanistan. Explore how a private contractor working for Halliburton gets 600 dollars a day, while a marine gets maybe that much a month. Our tax dollars pay both, but for the contractor to get paid, the money must go to the company in Kuwait that hired the contractor. That business in turn is hired by a U.S. firm based in Germany that is in turn a subsidiary of a U.S. company. Each has to mark up the $600 in order to make their profit, so instead of $600, it actually cost $10,000 a day.

No look at the Carlyle group and who is on the board. What are they invested in?
War is very good business.

Don't explore Bush's bullshit. Maybe start off with a paragraph giving a bunch of his flip flopping reasons, but then explore what is much more likely the real reason.

[Sydnie]

5. I might do what you suggest

if I were the one writing the paper, but I can't write it for him. If I can get enough resources together for him, through discussion, I can steer him in that direction.

I would go even further back and site PNAC. Anybody know where I can locate some good info on the development of PNAC and it's history?

I agree about the oil/Euro point. I understand that he doesn't have that deep an understanding about Saddam's history as it applies to American history either. Not much time for him to research and write as the paper is due on Dec. 21.

He's young and he's interested. I think that is half the battle.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[buddysmellgood]

6. Well, here are a couple of links to get him thinking.

http://www.thinkandask.com/news/thedollar.html
There is interesting reading at lewrockwell.com as well.

[tuvor]

7. With all due respect...

It might make for a better paper, but it won't answer the question that "must" be answered, according to Sydnie's initial post.

Some college professors can be extremely pedantic.

[buddysmellgood]

11. Agreed. It would be a gutsy move. One would have to quickly address

the specific questions in order to move into what it thought to be the true reason for invading.
Easy for me to say. I'll give him an A.

[Sydnie]

8. Kicked for the morning people.

Thanks all for your help so far.

[snippy]

9. He might want to include the fact that Bush discussed invading Iraq at

his first National Security Council meeting which took place in February of 2001, seven months before 9/11. This was described in the book about Paul O'Neill as I recall.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

10. this link won't help, but it's pretty funny

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=38989

[never cry wolf]

12. Here ya go, 21 reasons for war

A thesis paper done by a student at my alma mater.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:OMxlSyGmTncJ:www.pol.uiuc.edu/news/largio_execsum.pdf+%22reasons+for+war%22+iraq+illinois&hl=en&lr=lang_en|lang_sv

Also you can google: "reasons for war" iraq illinois for many links on articles and commentary on the paper.

[bush_is_wacko]

13. "BIG BUSH LIES"...

Edited by Jerry "Politex" Barrett
Has many pages that can lead your freind in the right direction. There are many quotes from articles in the book. It might help him find what he is looking for. It contains 20 essays and the 50 most telling lies of GWB and all the sources used to verify or quote are listed as well. Barnes and Noble is where I got it.

[Sydnie]

14. Thanks to all of you

You're the best. I have sent him all the info and will report back to let you know how he does.

Thanks again!