The Crawford Transcript which was published by El Pais has attracted attention from news outlets all around the world (Reuters, among many others). I wrote about it here. While many have talked about the fact that George W. Bush planned to attack Iraq with or without a second Security Council resolution, it looks like a majority of journalists are focusing on the fact that Bush admitted that Saddam Hussein was willing to go into exile, thus, presumably, making the whole war unnecessary.
There’s another aspect of that transcript that I’d like to point out now, in light of a recent vote in Congress. In describing the kind of resolution they would seek from the United Nations Security Council, Bush said this:
Bush: ... We see the resolution written in such a way that it does not contain any mandatory elements, does not mention the use of force and that finds that Saddam Hussein has not been able to comply with his obligations. Many people could vote for a resolution like that. It would be something similar to the one they got for Kosovo [June 10, 1999].
OK, so he wanted to have a vague resolution. A lot of people could feel comfortable voting for it since it wouldn't even mention the use of force. So, then, why did he want it? If it wasn’t to be an authorization to use force, what was the purpose? And why not have any mandatory elements? Condoleeza Rice further explained that they didn’t want a bunch of "compliance details" because Saddam Hussein would just use them to buy time and fail to comply again later. That makes sense. If you put specific demands in the resolution, you would logically have to give some amount of time to comply. Bush wanted to avoid any specific timelines. He already had his own.
Spanish President Aznar made clear that he had ideas as to how to word the resolution so as to get the most countries to vote for it. He pushed for more involvement by Spain and other European countries in the writing of the resolution so as to get the most countries to vote for it. He suggested that if at least a majority of the Council would vote for it, it would be important - even if the resolution were actually vetoed by one country. At least a majority would have been on record as being in favor. [As it turns out, they never got more than the three sponsoring countries to support it.] As to the wording, Aznar suggested, and Bush responded:
Aznar: ...We believe that the content of the resolution should say, among other things, that Saddam Hussein has lost his opportunity.
Bush: Yes, of course. That would be better than to make a reference to "necessary measures" [Referring to the UN style resolution that authorizes the use of "all necessary measures"].
It’s ironic. This was a meeting held in advance of a planned invasion of Iraq. They were planning to get a resolution from the United Nations Security Council, but they didn’t want it to specifically say that it would authorize force. But it seems clear from the transcript that they wanted this resolution before they were going to use force. So this was to be a vague resolution which Bush could use (hide behind?) to validate the actions he was already planning to take.
Sound familiar??
This week in the US Senate, the Senate approved another such resolution: the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment. It was a resolution to set US policy toward Iran. It cites a long list of complaints regarding Iranian support for extremist groups in Iraq, providing training and even ammunition and weapons. The resolution does not specifically authorize the use of force against Iran, in so many words. But there were three paragraphs in the resolution that could be interpreted, by some, to do just that. In other words, it is language that Bush could point to (hide behind?) to justify actions which he might need (want) to take. Two of those paragraphs (#3 & #4) were removed, in part thanks to the intervention of Senator Jim Webb. Here’s an example of what they said, from paragraph 3:
(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;
Luckily, they didn’t approve this language. It seems pretty clearly to imply an authorization to use force, not only against Iran, but also against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Actually, it isn’t even that vague. It's a good thing they took that out. The Senate did approve the 5th paragraph, however, which states:
(5) that the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists..."
If we’re in the middle of a big War on Terror, presumably authorized by Congress in its resolutions authorizing force against Iraq, and terrorists in general after 9/11, and we designate the major branch of a country’s military to be terrorists... well, you do the math.
Josh Marshall, at TPM, points out that the paragraph seems moot, since the State Department had already made that designation. If it doesn’t matter, why do it at all?
It seems to me that the resolutions are, as I said, something to point at and hide behind - a safety shield. I see it as something to use in a court of law, for example, in defense of military type actions we might take without explicit congressional approval. It might provide cover in some hypothetical civil or criminal proceedings at some time in the distant future when the executive power might not be so willing to grant a pardon.
Note: TPM has posted a copy of the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment here. They have coverage of it here, here, and here. For more, see WaPo, MSNBC, and the Seattle Times. You might want to check in with Juan Cole, who says that GWB could (should?) be impeached as a result of the information in the transcript (as a result of his actions, really).