Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
In two parts, by Jeff Gannon of Talon News
Part 1 published October 28, 2003
Part 2 published October 29, 2003
Good on the whole, given some pretty blatant attempts to partisanize the controversy. Talon News is pretty right wing; they even weave in some fodder for the tinfoil-hat crowd by insinuating France may have been trying to supply Saddam Hussein with the yellowcake uranium.
My favorite bits:
Wilson: if we were going to use military force, it ought to be smart military force for the right reasons rather than something dumb, and frankly the invasion, conquest, and occupation of Iraq for the purpose of disarming Saddam struck me as the highest risk, lowest reward option.
[...]
TN: Did your wife suggest you for the mission?
Wilson: No.
[...]
TN: You have mentioned that you are not partisan. Doesn't that appear to be the case considering the candidates you've supported?
Wilson: Including Bush. When Ed Gillespie was running around doing his little schpiel, he knew that I contributed to the Bush campaign but decided he would selectively use information on candidates I have supported to bolster a case that simply cannot be made...I reserve the right to participate in the political process of my country just like any other citizen.
I was named ambassador to Gabon by George Herbert Walker Bush. One of the highlights of my professional career was serving a charges d'affair in Baghdad in the run up to the gulf war. When I came back to Washington and was introduced to the war cabinet, President Bush introduced me as a true American hero, and I take great pride in that.
[...]
Wilson: I think the administration is dominated by two groups in the foreign policy apparatus who have forged an alliance of convenience in the aftermath of 9/11. The one group, I call the whack-a-moles, and that group is championed principally by Vice President Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, and I think they are probably characterized as best I can see by an approach that says we see a threat, we whack it, we bring our boys home, the threat reemerges, we go whack it again. So that group is for aggressive military action without the subsequent devotion to reconstruction or nation-building in the aftermath.
The second group, I call the johnpur and pith helmet crowd, the ill-liberal imperialists and I think their names include people like Mr. Libby, Mr. Abrams, Mr. Wolfowitz, and the other signatories of the 1998 letter to President Clinton calling for the regime change to be translated into the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. I think their approach is articulated by people like Mac Boot who wants to establish a beachhead in Iraq for the purposes of redrawing the political map of the middle East.
[...]
(Wilson:)...I think the collateral damage and the consequences of that are not in our nation's interest. I think that at the end of the day we will find it has been a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda and other like-minded international terrorist organizations.
The great irony is that at a time when our military prowess is at its peak, our political and moral authority is at its lowest ebb. A year or two years after we had the sympathy of the world, we are looked upon as a real menace in the world by a large percentage of the population, and I don't think that bodes well for our future.
And then the kicker. It drives me nuts to see pea-brains even asking this:
TN: If we subsequently find weapons of mass destruction will that change your mind as to the validity of Operation Iraqi Freedom?
Go read Ambassador Wilson's response in section 2. This whole line of reasoning is insane. The administration even proffers it by talking about the "ongoing search" and sending David Kay back out there to keep looking for justification. They're like that Red Sox fan still sitting outside Fenway Park fully convinced they'll manage to pull it off; this is the year! The search for WMD as a justification for this war is over. Over. Anything found now - 6 months after toppling Saddam - simply confirms that invading Iraq unleashed a worst-case scenario. At this point all we can do is HOPE AND PRAY (if you're so inclined) that the bluff theory is right. If WMD existed in anything close to usable form in Iraq, invading was hands-down the dumbest thing we could do and subjects us or, more likely, a combination of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis, to that which I shudder to imagine.
Inspections were either 100% or 95%-and-improving effective.
Invasion and occupation were 0% effective and destroyed almost any chance of determining about the 5% implied above.
And gave us - and the 25 million Iraqis who just want to live something close to a normal life day to day - this godforsaken mess.
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