http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/08/ritter.iraq/ I don't think there is any way that an honest thinking person could possibly back Bush in the idea of invading Iraq after reading this, at least on the pretense that our reasons are based in weapons inspections. No person on Earth could possibly be in a better position to make the case that it would be a mistake. It also adds credibility that his career is as fucked as Frank Serpico's by blowing the whistle. I also find it frightening that he made his announcement from Bagdad. He is apparently an American and it doesn't say anything good about his confidence in the media that he had to go to Bagdad to say it and be sure he was heard.
It doesn't matter. This has been starring us in the Orwelian face since Bush got in power. His goal is not peace. It is not safety. It is not political stability or freedom. It it was, his stated objective would be "Peace/Safety/Political Stability/Freedom". But that's not. Because none of those are the focal point. The point is "A regime change in Iraq".
About three weeks ago on Australian TV I saw a news story which was quite interesting. Iraq invited in a bunch of European reporters, (they don't trust American reporters to report the truth) and took them on a tour of sites identified by the US as locations where bio and chem weapons were being produced. These were sites recently shown on US television, on satellite photos. Every site toured was NOT making bio or chem weapons. Iraq was quite happy to tour these reporters around, to get out their side of the story. Could they have mysteriously moved the production to sites the US doens't know about, away from these previously identified sites? Maybe. But if so, if the unknown facilities are in unknown locations and nobody knows about them, what is the US pretext for war? If they don't have any actual information about real weapon development sites, then...? Nice news story by the way, that article you linked.
Right after 9/11 around 76% of Americans supported invading Iraq (plus or minus the usual 4-7%). Earlier this summer, it was around %63 percent. Then the administration really started talking seriously about an invasion, and the poll numbers tanked the more they talked, down to %51 in just a month. (Kinda like how alot of things are supported in theory but they are about to become reality, people reject them, esp if they or someone close to them might be negatively affected - like raising taxes for schools, long prison sentences for first-time drug crimes, etc) That was a couple of months ago, so I would guess that it's far below 50% now. Bush's personal poll numbers are still in the upper 60s, but the American public is good at separating the man from the office - Clinton had low personal numbers but high marks for office performance. The last poll I heard in mid-summer said that 48% of Americans believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction and a similar amount said that they felt that the President's goals and values did not match their own. When that hits 50%, it spells doom for the party in the next election. Add the fact that the public, punditry, media and allies keep asking for solid proof that Iraq is doing something and the administration keeps refusing, saying that it's all too secret to let people know why we should go to war (plus launch a first strike, something the US has never done), and it looks like nothing good. The best reasons are put forth by the war hawks in a bit of reverse psychology: Bush Sr was too much of a wimp to finish the job, so how about you, W? The Navy also did some wargames recently in the Persian Gulf, for a mock scenario of war with Iran in 2007. The general who ran the "enemy" side kicked the US side's ass by using motorcycle couriers to relay orders instead of using radio/cell phones that could be tapped, and sank the US fleet before it could even make landfall. They reset the scenario as if they had landed, and he beat them again, until he was told not to use certain weapons or bases anymore and these (like chemical weapons bases) were handed over to the US side until they won. He complained publicly that their final assessments of combat readiness & tactics were far too optimistic and full of wishful thinking, and he compared the situation to the planning for Vietnam. One of the war hawks (can't remember - Rumsfeld, Rice or Tom Delay) is currently going around stating that the battle plan anticipates that a large proportion of the Iraqi army will immediately surrender if we invade, because of the better life, govt and leaders that we obviously will provide (and precisely how do the Iraqis know this when we start shooting and have been shooting/patroling for 12 years? ESP? Certainly not their own propaganda...)
