One side of the story

Submitted by Michael (United States), Jul 10, 2008 at 21:30

Amy-- I'm sure this book has galvanised your thinking in a lot of ways. It has apparently not had quite the same impact on everyone else, as I can see from the fact that Amazon is trying to get rid of remaindered copies for one cent apiece. The general consensus is that it was a polemic, and didn't stand the test of time.

Those instances you cite where Saddam has taken his country on a wrong course are certainly correct. He has been complicit in his downfall. But I would suggest you are reading one side of a very complex story and then placing your entire faith in it without looking further. Let us not forget that for most of his career, Saddam was America's client.

As Mark Russell once jested, we know Saddam has WMDs... we have the receipts. I'll bet you didn't know we supplied both the funding (through the Atlanta branch of the BNL) and the technology for his weapons programs back in the early 1980s. Don Rumsfeld, in fact, was the emissary between Saddam and the Reagan administration. It's a matter of record, so don't rush to Reagan's defense before looking this up. The story is very interesting. Let's assume that I am equally well read on the 2002 buildup and the 2003 war, and that in forming my opinions I have been giving strong preference to people who have actually been there.

George Packer is a good one, and I would recommend you read The Assassins' Gate if you have any interest in how pre-war dreams and plans have devolved into the famous mid-course debacles, and the current morass we are in. I can glean something of the flavor of The Threatening Storm through these two mostly favorable articles: http://www.slate.com/id/2079705/

http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz092602.asp And I can say many of us knew pretty much what Pollack should have known in the hiatus between 9/11 and March, 2003. It should have been apparent to all that there would be no way Saddam could possibly have pursued an active WMD program-- much less aggressive designs to wage another disastrous war against anyone-- in the face of crippling sanctions and an inspections regime that was keeping him perpetually off balance. Had he even had the elements of a program at that time (which it turns out he did not) it could not have progressed.

Because pursuit of such a program would have required freedom from interference-- a freedom he did not have. So then, with a bankrupt economy, a defeated, fifth rate army and no possibility of pursuing a weapons program, Saddam was well contained. And at quite a reasonable cost. This is not hindsight, but was apparent from any close analysis back in 2002. Instead, people who must have known better inflated preposterous, misleading claims and stampeded a fearful public into accepting a wrongly directed war. And both we and the Iraqi people have been paying for it ever since.

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