I wrote a long comment in the thread about Bushco denials that they portrayed Iraq's threat as imminent. I decided to adapt this for my diary because it covers several historical facts -- very damning to Bushco -- that seem to be forgotten these days, even by most progressives.
The time is mid-March 2003, when Bush dashed all hope for either a secure peace, or the use of legitimate force against Saddam Hussein...
In addition to the many direct statements Bush Administration officials have made, another completely damning line of evidence of just how imminent Bushco portrayed the threat of Iraqi WMD is their actions.
Specifically, they couldn't wait three stinking weeks.
The media and most Americans seem to have forgotten the exact diplomatic circumstances just prior to Bush's announcement of hostilities. Bush's deployment of invasion troops to Kuwait had made several "swing-vote" Security Council countries very eager to bargain with the US. They tried to give peace one last brief chance, and to pin Hussein to he wall with a set of highly specific ultimatums.
Around March 13th, based on intense consultations with several Security Council member countries, Chile presented a compromise plan containing very specific Iraqi compliance requirements and a three week deadline, else Iraq would face a Security Council resolution specifically authorizing an attack. Chile's requirements were very similar to ones Britain had proposed but then soon abandoned. (At about that time, even recalcitrant France indicated a willingness to support some kind of deadline arrangement.)
Here's some reporting from CNN.com at that time. The full article also outlines Chile's proposed ultimatums:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/14/sprj.irq.main/index.html
A proposal from Chile that would give Iraq three weeks to meet a series of conditions was quickly dismissed Friday by the United States.
Although the conditions in the Chilean proposal closely mirror those in the latest British draft, the three-week time frame would give Iraq much longer to comply -- an idea that Washington rejected out of hand. Fleischer called it a "non-starter."
A senior State Department official who rejected the Chilean initiative as a whole called it an "honest effort" but described it as being "like designing a horse [but] coming up with a camel."
New "benchmarks" suggested by Britain this week would require Iraq to meet six tests to prove that it was serious about complying with U.N. demands to disarm or face military action.
I felt a rush of hope back then when I first heard about Chile's proposal. Within a day my heart fell hollow with disappointment. Bush denied the chance for a secure peace, or at least legitimate force brought by the World to Hussein.
As if waiting three weeks would subject us to mortal danger, Bush rejected this diplomatic initiative out of hand. He had those "swing vote" Security Council members by the short hairs, and the timeframe to secure UNITED international force against Hussein if necessary had now compressed to mere weeks. Yet Bush refused Chile's offer, and refused to engage with the now pliant swing-members to tweak the ultimatums so that they would call all of Hussein's bluffs. In that craven, snarky dismissal -- Bush sacrificed legitimacy forever.
His meeting the following weekend in the Azores with Britain, Spain, and Portugal became the "imminent prelude" to the subsequent war.
Billions of dollars later, with 500+ American and thousands of Iraqi dead, a hyper-extended/weakened US military, international relations damaged, greater thirst for Jihad against us, and no easy way out of the morass he's made, it's galling to think Bush couldn't suppress his war lust for less than a month. And now they deny claiming Iraq presented an imminent threat?
Hah! When you think about their actions, Bush is damned either way. If PrancerCo didn't purport that the WMD threat was imminent, why couldn't they wait a mere three weeks? Instead they rejected an offer that was speedily improving to match their own stated terms.
Perhaps that's the real imminent threat they felt -- that the Security Council countries would soon show so much flexibility, reasonableness, and toughness towards Iraq that Little Junior couldn't be in charge of the war against Poppy's old enemy.
Democrats (at least those who don't feel themselves too conflicted about the war) need to talk up how desperately impatient Bush was to commit us to last-resort violence and gushing cash-bleed. His inability to wait even a few weeks gives the lie to all his claimed reasons for the war.
Vote the blood-lusters out!
