Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The decision had been made in July 2002 to invade Iraq. Everything that followed was a lie.
On September 24, 2002 the British government released an intelligence dossier on Iraq's purported programs of weapons of mass destruction development. On its release, British PM Tony Blair said it was now "beyond doubt" that "Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons." The information in that document, however, was"sexed up" as Dr. David Kelly charged, falsified to justify the invasion. Kelly later killed himself after being exposed as a whistleblower. (Read the entire dossier here.)
In September of 2002, George W. Bush told the UN General Assembly, “Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.” In his January 8, 2003 State of the Union address, he told the Congress and the nation, “Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.”
Colin Powell, when rehearsing the text of the presentation he was to deliver to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, threw it in the air and declared, "I'm not reading this--this is BULLSHIT!" Ever the good soldier, however, he did deliver a summary of intelligence "proving" that Iraq had chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons at hand and the ability to produce further weapons of mass destruction. “We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more,” he lied. And worse, most of the source of "intelligence" with which Powell justified an invasion of Iraq came from two British dossiers, the previously mentioned "sexed up" documents, and a second one which was largely plagiarized from an American graduate student's 1992 thesis paper which was posted on an internet site.
This was NOT a case of being misled by bad intelligence; this was a case of (as the Downing Street memo confirms) "the intelligence and facts being fixed around the policy" of an invasion.
On March 19, 2003, the United States of America invaded Iraq on the basis of its continued development of weapons of mass destruction. On April 9, 2003, Baghdad fell to US troops. On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush declared that major combat operations in the war in Iraq were over.
The nation rejoiced.
Since Bush declared the war was essentially over on May 1, 2003, 1520 US GIs have died in Iraq, 1657 since the invasion. An estimated 15,000-38,000 US GIs have been wounded. At least 21,834 Iraqi civilians have died in the war; perhaps as many as 100,000 civilians are dead.
On this Memorial Day, let us remember all of the Americans who have given their lives throughout our nation's history so that Democracy and freedom could prevail. But let us never forget that war is not necessarily a glorious duty to which we are called. War for the sake of economics, for the sake of global strategic interests, for the sake of anything but the preservation of life and liberty is a terrible thing. And war for no good reason is a sin on the souls of those who demand it be waged, who demand that young Americans fight and die for "policy" rather than for the good.
On this Memorial Day, I ask you to say a prayer for US soldiers everywhere, and for the United States of America.
Please, God; HELP US!
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