Critics express dissatisfaction with George Bush's answers to Tim Russert on Meet the Press about war in Iraq, intelligence and weapons of mass destruction.

Feb. 9, 2004 : PoliSat .Com's Political Satire/ Commentary* Daily Update # 01·· ™©·2004·(Home)·
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Critics express dissatisfaction with George Bush's answers to Tim Russert on Meet the Press about war in Iraq, intelligence and weapons of mass destruction.·

Many who vehemently disagree with Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom do so not on the merits but on the basis of conspiratorial notions (like those on the Far Right who view the world as putty in the hands of the Trilateral Commission). Such critics, who equate Bush with Hitler and equate Operation Iraqi Freedom with Hitler's invasion of Poland and/or contend Bush launched the invasion to secure profits for his financial supporters and/or contend Bush knew in advance about the terrorists' plans for 9-11 but chose to do nothing in order to galvanize public support for a war on Iraq and/or that Bush's real motive was to "get even" with Saddam Hussein for attempting to assassinate his father, are too ideologically blind to respond to any form of persuasion or logic. They're too intoxicated by drinking the intellectual kool-aid of the Michael Moore cult.

Should've, Would've, Could've or ShoudaWouldaCoulda.·

In contrast, many who vehemently disagree solely on the merits with Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom without being blinded by ideology and/or loathing for Bush, are guilty of no greater error than having succumbed to the ShouldaWouldaCoulda syndrome. Their narrow focus on flaws, errors, and misjudgments in the implementation of Operation Iraqi Freedom impairs a broader view and leads them to ignore, or repress, the need for critical analysis of what they tacitly assume could have been or would have been the results if Bush were to have declined to topple Saddam Hussein. All of us (including, of course, yours truly) commit this kind of flawed analysis on issues with reference to which our emotions and/or political preferences tend to cloud our judgment.

A number of events since commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom have distorted the thinking of many, if not most, fair-minded critics-- e.g,

    (a) that we are not universally perceived by Iraqis as "liberators" (even though numerous polls and anecdotal evidence from our military personnel and many visitors-- including a number of former skeptics-- have overwhelmingly shown that all but a small minority of Iraqis genuinely appreciate our having toppled Saddam);
    (b) that we have not yet found (and that David Kay predicts we will not find) stockpiles of chemical and/or biological weapons (even though David Kay explicitly and emphatically testified that other evidence we have found made it clear to him that Iraq was "more dangerous" than we had thought);
    (c) that nations with sizeable military capabilities outside our Coalition are still refusing to provide military support for our effort to eliminate the forces of destabilization in Iraq; and
   (d) that many nations outside the Coalition view Operation Iraqi Freedom as illegal aggression.

This is an illustrative, not exhaustive, list. Another factor is the costs. Even though analysis of the costs of maintaining a force sufficient to coerce "compliance" with sanctions and to "deter" aggression has shown that such costs (in dollars) would equal or exceed the short-term and long-term costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom, to focus on the dollar costs alone would be inimical to our values of life and liberty. The only point of raising this is to explain why I'm not bothering to refute the specious claims by critics that the war is costing us more in dollars than would have the alternative.

Much of the fair-minded critics' flawed analysis stems from their comparison of what "is" with what they think "ought" to be the current circumstances. Rarely does a worthy endeavor involving great complexity and high risks for unforeseen, as well as foreseen, dangers attain the degree of success as fully or as quickly as expected, predicted or hoped. Although it is certainly legitimate to compare shortcomings with expected results, such analysis is meaningless (other than as a basis for remediation of such shortcomings) as grounds for critical analysis of the wisdom of the goal itself unless such analysis is coupled with, or at least tempered by, a realistic assessment of what would have, or could have, been the results of having failed to pursue such goal.

Just as wisdom means getting the right answers, the beginning of wisdom requires asking the right questions. This is why many fair-minded critics are failing to reach the right answers-- i.e., they're failing to ask the right questions and instead are merely manifesting what I call the Shoulda/Coulda/Woulda Syndrome. Here are some of the questions unasked (and, hence, unanswered) by the Shouda/Coulda/Woulda critics: Assume, arguendo:

    (i) that the reason our Survey Team hasn't found stockpiles of chemical/biological weapons is that the Iraqis had destroyed them when they claimed to have done so (but without having sought supervision of such process by UN inspectors for purposes of verification and without having otherwise preserved any credible evidence of the date, time, place and process for doing so in order to minimize, rather than maximize, the believability of they claims of having done so);
    (ii) that even though Hussein had preserved the plans, means and resources to resume production to stockpile strategic (or merely tactical) quantities of such weapons, he had in fact refrained from resuming any such production;
    (iii) that Hussein had not tried to reconstitute his nuclear program or acquire weapons-grade radioactive material;
    (iv) that Blix would have been able to detect and destroy all plans, facilities and production activity for missiles with ranges exceeding the limits prescribed by UN resolutions;
    (v) that North Korea would have indefinitely postponed performance of its covert contractual obligation to furnish to Hussein a number of missiles with ranges and payload capabilities far in excess of those found by Blix to have violated UN prohibitions; and
    (vi) that leaving Hussein's police state in power in Iraq certainly would not improve out ability to develop human-intelligence sources in Iraq to keep abreast of his activities.

What, then, should we have done? What could we have done? What would have the critics done? What would likely have been the results? To answer these broad questions requires asking and realistically answering a series of subsidiary questions.

    (1) How long would Hussein have "cooperated" (these quotation marks connote sarcasm) with Blix without the U.S. continuing to maintain the 225,000 military strong force (plus carriers, submarines, destroyers, etc.), deployment of which was the only factor that persuaded him to "comply" with the Fall, 2002, UN resolution demanding that he readmit the inspectors? If your answer is "not long," proceed to the next question. (If your answer is "as long as the UN were to insist," your time might be more productively spent accepting an offer for the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge than in completing this analysis.)
    (2) How long would the UN have permitted Blix to complete his investigation? Since we're assuming Saddam destroyed the stockpiles and had not yet reconstituted his nuclear program, the longer his investigation would have proceeded without bearing the fruit of such discoveries, the greater would have become the pressure for the UN to repeal the sanctions. If your answer is "a few months," then go to question (6A), but if your answer is "a few years," go to question (6B).
    (3) During whatever may have been the duration of such "inspections," would the continuing presence of our massive military deployment in the Gulf region have increased or decreased the resentments and hatreds that substantially motivated the 9-11 terrorists to attack us? (If, like Howard Dean, you don't attribute much significance to what Usama bin Laden and his cohorts have said about what they did on 9-11 and why they did it, don't bother completing these questions-- instead, take two aspirins and resume watching MTV.) If your answer is that continuing such presence would have intensified such hatreds and motivations (as well as further fueling the propaganda that our enforcement of sanctions was killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies), go to question (4).
    (4) During such continuing presence, would Saddam Hussein have had incentives to covertly collaborate with terrorist fanatics (even those who were his natural enemies just as Hitler and Stalin collaborated with each other against the West before the outbreak of World War II) sharing Hussein's desire to force us to withdraw our coercive military presence? (If, like Howard Dean, you would not attribute much significance to Usama bin Laden's often stated reliance upon what he perceived as the lesson of Somalia-- i.e., that inflicting horrendous casualties on Americans makes them want to withdraw from places of potential conflict-- why are you still taking this test instead of watching MTV?) If you remember the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the U.S.S. Cole, the U.S. Embassies in Africa, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Hussein's attempt to assassinate a former President of the United States, go to question (5).
    (5) During such continuing presence of our coercive military force in the Gulf region, would Saddam's police state have attempted to covertly aid terrorist groups desiring to inflict massive casualties on our military forces if he were to delude himself into believing he could keep his fingerprints off the mission?   If you answer is "no," then you must surely be one who would likewise believe that even if we were to have discovered the "dots" on Moussaoui's hard-drive, we shouldn't have made a worst-case assumption about what pictures could be drawn by various ways of connecting them, and, of course, would have objected to the FBI violating pre-Patriot-Act law by "sharing" analysis of those dots with the CIA. If, instead, your answer is "yes," then you have embraced at least one of the principles articulated by Bush-- i.e., to not put our fate in having faith in the good sense and judgment of Saddam Hussein. Also, you have thereby demonstrated a willingness to value the lives of forces at risk by deployment to coerce compliance by Saddam at least as much as the ideologically anti-war critics claim to care about the more than 500 of our military personnel killed since commencement of the war. (A well-placed anti-ship missile or another incident like the U.S.S. Cole or the Marine Barracks in Lebanon could have caused many hundreds, rather than dozens, of casualties.)
    (6A) Upon repeal of sanctions (and the No-Fly Zones) in the Fall of 2003, we would have faced the choices of either reducing our military presence to the comparatively token size pre-dating the Fall, 2002, deployment of a quarter-million military personnel (plus carriers, submarines, destroyers, etc.) or maintaining such presence in hopes of deterring further future aggression by Hussein after repeal of sanctions would leave him free to resume all his weapons programs, fear of which would make it difficult for the Saudis and Kuwaitis to resist extortionate demands for large portions of their revenue to enable Saddam to resume not only his weapons production but also his acquisitions of long-range, heavy-payload rockets from North Korea. What would we have done? What should we have done? What could we have done? At what risks?
    (6B) During continuation of sanctions for several more years, we would face the choices of either reducing our military presence to the comparatively token size pre-dating the Fall, 2002, deployment of a quarter-million military personnel (plus carriers, submarines, destroyers, etc.) or maintaining such presence indefinitely to coerce Hussein into continuing to "cooperate" with Blix. If you think critics would have supported a deployment of that size indefinitely, go back to watching MTV. If you think we would have been politically and/or economically forced to reduce such presence, go to question (6C).
    (6C) If you think Hussein would not have construed such reduction in forces as an opportunity for him to lessen his "cooperation" and/or covertly resume production of some of his weapons programs, then you are determined to ignore what we now know about what he was then doing-- trying to covertly obtain from North Korea the missiles with ranges and payloads dramatically greater than the excessive-range missiles found by Blix. During such years-long continuation of sanctions, would the hatreds and motivations of Islamic fanatics have increased or decreased their desires to seek collaboration with Hussein to attack us here in the U.S. or inflict massive casualties on whatever level of forces we might be maintaining in the Gulf region?
    (7) By the time of (or soon after), expiration of sanctions, what would Hussein have done (or likely do)? If you answer is that he would foreswear his goals of regional domination through terror and WMD blackmail, go back to watching MTV. If your answer is that he would work "pedal to the metal" to reconstitute his WMD programs, go to question (8).
    (8) Assume it's now sometime between 2004 and 2008. We have token military forces in the Gulf region. Our severely limited intelligence on what's really going on inside Iraq have lulled us into the false sense of security in not having uncovered incontrovertible, "smoking gun" evidence of his reconstitution of his chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Expansion of trade by Iraq without sanctions has dramatically decreased our ability to detect transactions for dual-use materials and equipment in a way to incontrovertibly negate non-military intentions for such use. This expansion of trade enables Hussein to mask large sums of Saudi and Kuwaiti oil money paid to him as extortion money and to mask his use of large amounts of such funds to covertly acquire WMB material, technology and equipment. Some unexpected "dots" fall into our lap, connection of which reveals he's ready to test a nuclear weapon (with the cooperation of North Korea) and separately test long-range, heavy-payload rockets adapted from technology obtained from North Korea. What would we do? What should we do? What could we do? What would be the risks?.

What could we do? Very Little. What would we do? We'd curse ourselves for having listened to those who persuaded us to refrain from launching Operation Iraqi Freedom. History would remember Bush as Neville Chamberlain rather than Winston Churchill. --Jim Wrenn.

P.S., For those of you who have already played the animation (or stubbornly refused to do so), here is the text it illustrates:

Said Armey¹, "Those left and right beings
diverge on believing and seeing:
The right has to see
before it believes;
The left thinks believing is seeing."

For that I'm defining a corollary
to add to my word-smith hypothecary²·
explaining how "would've"
begets "should've/could've"
to second-guess choices of adversaries.

A critic equates what he "would've"
as equal to "could've" and "should've"
and views what he "wouldn't"
as "couldn't" and "shouldn't"
in stating political "should'ves."

Confronting the horror of "would'ves"
with wishes they weren't even "could'ves"
their wishes for "should'nts"
accepted as "wouldn'ts"
define what they "would've" as "could've"

Footnotes:

·¹·This is a reprise of part of an October 19, 2003, limerick describing in poetic form one of the "Axioms" in Dick Armey's book, Armey's Axioms-- i.e., that "conservatives believe it when they see it and liberals see it when they believe it." Here's an animated version of that limerick: ArmeyOfAnswers.

·²·Although "apothecary" means "pharmacist" or "pharmacy," ²·"hypothecary" is a term devised to define "half-baked" ideas.

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