Both Lloyd and I wrote about Kenneth Pollack's Threatening Storm some time ago in our blogs as a must-read book in assessing the case for an invasion of Iraq. Pollack's book made me think, "hey maybe there is a sound case to be made for war given how Iraq might become an even more terrible menace to the world". So as I mull the current post-Iraq war situation, as I wonder whether the Bush administration misled the American public about how much it knew about weapons of mass destruction -- indeed wonder what is really true and who I can really believe in such a complex morass of spin -- I've been wondering how Pollack now stands.
Salon.com | Joe Conason's Journal points to a recent NPR interview with Kenneth Pollack. Now is Pollack back-peddling or was he duped or did we misinterpret Pollack? He seemed to one of the more credible analysts on the scene, but I don't know what to think right now.
Face the facts already! There was NEVER (post ’98) evidence that Saddam had weapons. There was only unaccounted for materials. If Saddam was completely unhindered (which he wouldn’t be) he could have developed nuclear weapons in 5 years. “We can’t give the inspectors more time!” Some people were duped and chose to believe theories that suited their hopes (like Pollack’s belief since he was a CIA analyst in the first Gulf War that Bush I had gone all the way to Baghdad). Others more highly placed, Bush, Cheney and Rusfeld, chose to distort the truth (see the Office of Special Plans)in order to push beliefs they’ve held since the Reagan years (the US must project “total dominance” on the world). 9/11 gave them their chance to dupe us scared americans and our wimpy press into swallowing their theories whole. Why is their any questions left. Anyone who makes their politcial decisions based on intellectual honesty and moral clarity must admit that the evidence points to deception (and their only defense against deception is ignorance, just as bad)by Bush and must toss him out of office.
of course there was deception. The US public is not willing to ever go to war on humanitarian grounds, not after Somalia. So if we appeased Hussein, he was killing his own civilians at the rate of 3,000/year — and his sons would have probably been worse. How many Iraqis would have to die so that the international community could have its “moral clarity” based on arbitrary rules about sovereignty and the “right” of national boundary?