Responding to Plane:
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/0510war.htmlBush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says
Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
217-333-2177; andreal@uiuc.edu
5/10/04
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.
The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
In addition to what it says about the shifting sands of rationales and the unsteady path to war in Iraq, what is remarkable about the 212-page study is that its author is a student.
The study, “Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002,†is the senior honors thesis of Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study is the first of its kind.
For her analysis of all available public statements the Bush administration and selected members of Congress made pertaining to war with Iraq, Largio not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration’s shift in interest from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media’s response to that shift.
“The rationales that were used to justify the war with Iraq have been a major issue in the news since last year, and Devon’s study provides an especially thorough and wide-ranging analysis of it,†Althaus, a professor of political science, said.
“It is not the last word on the subject, but I believe it is the first to document systematically the case that the administration made for going to war during critical periods of the public debate.
“It is first-rate research,†Althaus said, “the best senior thesis I have ever seen – thoroughly documented and elaborately detailed. Her methodology is first-rate.â€
Largio mapped the road to war over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq.
She drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and stories.
The rationales Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners – war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s “because Saddam Hussein hates us,†Colin Powell’s “because it’s a violation of international law,†and Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.â€
With regard to the administration’s shift from bin Laden to Saddam, Largio found that Iraq was “part of the plan for the war on terror early in the game.â€
For example, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, President Bush declared that Iraq was part of the war against terrorism because it supported terrorists and continued to “flaunt its hostility toward America.†He also claimed that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors into the country and then threw them out, “fueling the belief that the nation did in fact plan to develop weapons of mass destruction,†Largio wrote.
In the same speech, the president called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil,†a phrase that would “ignite much criticism†and add “to the sense that the U.S. would embark on a war with the Hussein state,†Largio wrote.
“So, from February of 2002 on,†Largio said, “Iraq gets more hits than Osama bin Laden. For President Bush the switch occurs there and the gap grows over time.â€
Largio also discovered that it was the media that initiated discussions about Iraq, introducing ideas before the administration and congressional leaders did about the intentions of that country and its leader. The media also “brought the idea that Iraq may be connected to the 9-11 incident to the forefront, asking questions of the officials on the topic and printing articles about the possibility.â€
The media “seemed to offer a lot of opinion and speculation, as there had been no formal indication that Iraq would be a target in the war on terror,†Largio wrote. Oddly, though, the media didn’t switch its focus to Iraq and Saddam until July of 2002.
Yet, “Overall, the media was in tune with the major arguments of the administration and Congress, but not with every detail that emerged from the official sources.â€
“As always, hindsight is twenty-twenty,†Largio wrote in the conclusion to her thesis. “However, there are questions surrounding nearly every major rationale for the war.
“People may wonder, why are our men and women over there? Why did we go to war? Were we misled? In this election year, these questions deserve answers. And though this paper cannot answer these questions definitively, it can provide some insight into the thinking of the powers-that-be during the earliest stages of war preparation and give the American people a chance to answer these questions for themselves.â€
Because Largio’s thesis addresses questions of “great public importance,†Althaus said, and “does so in such a detailed manner,†he arranged to have it posted on a public Web site. Largio will graduate on May 16, and will attend law school at Vanderbilt University.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650198804,00.htmlBush's rationale for war shifting
By Tom Raum
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the United States is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.
Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.
But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive "struggle between good and evil."
Bush's changing rhetoric reflects increasing administration efforts to tie the war, increasingly unpopular at home, with the global fight against terrorism, still the president's strongest suit politically.
Republicans seized on North Korea's reported nuclear test last week as further evidence that strong U.S. leadership is needed.
"We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West," Bush said in a news conference last week in the Rose Garden.
When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Bush shifted his war justification to one of liberating Iraqis from a brutal ruler.
After Saddam's capture in December 2003, the rationale became helping to spread democracy through the Middle East. Then it was confronting terrorists in Iraq "so we do not have to face them here at home," and "making America safer," themes Bush pounds today.
"We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century," he told a California audience this month. "It's a struggle between good and evil."
Vice President Dick Cheney takes it even further: "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us," Cheney tells audiences.
Except for the weapons of mass destruction argument, there is some validity in each of Bush's shifting rationales, said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution who initially supported the war effort.
"And I don't have any big problems with any of them, analytically. The problem is they can't change the realities on the ground in Iraq, which is that we're in the process of beginning to lose," O'Hanlon said. "It is taking us a long time to realize that, but the war is not headed the way it should be."
Andrew Card, Bush's first chief of staff, said Bush's evolving rhetoric, including his insistence that Iraq is a crucial part of the fight against terror, is part of an attempt to put the war in better perspective for Americans.
The administration recently has been "doing a much better job" in explaining the stakes, Card said in an interview. "We never said it was going to be easy. The president always told us it would be long and tough."
"I'm trying to do everything I can to remind people that the war on terror has the war in Iraq as a subset. It's critical we succeed in Iraq as part of the war on terror," said Card, who left the White House in March.
Bush at first sought to explain increasing insurgent and sectarian violence as a lead-up to Iraqi elections. But elections came and went, and a democratically elected government took over, and the sectarian violence increased.
Bush has insisted U.S. soldiers will stand down as Iraqis stand up. He has likened the war to the 20th century struggles against fascism, Nazism and communism. He has called Iraq the "central front" in a global fight against radical jihadists.
Having jettisoned most of the earlier, upbeat claims of progress, Bush these days emphasizes consequences of setting even a limited withdrawal timetable: abandonment of the Iraqi people, destabilizing the Middle East and emboldening terrorists around the world.
The more ominous and determined his words, the more skeptical the American public appears, polls show, both on the war itself and over whether it is part of the larger fight against terrorism, as the administration insists.
Bush's approval rating, reflected by AP-Ipsos polls, has slid from the mid-60s at the outset of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to the high 30s now. There were light jumps upward after the December 2003 capture of Saddam, Bush's re-election in November 2004 and each of three series of aggressive speeches over the past year. Those gains tended to vanish quickly.
With the war intruding on the fall elections, both parties have stepped up their rhetoric.
Republicans, who are also reeling from the congressional page scandal, are casting Democrats as seeking to "cut and run" and appease terrorists.
Democrats accuse Bush of failed leadership with his "stay the course" strategy. They cite a government intelligence assessment suggesting the Iraq war has helped recruit more terrorists, and a book by journalist Bob Woodward that portrays Bush as intransigent in his defense of the Iraq war and his advisers as bitterly divided.
Democrats say Iraq has become a distraction from the war against terrorism — not a central front. But they are divided among themselves on what strategy to pursue.
Republicans, too, increasingly are growing divided as U.S. casualties rise.
"I struggle with the fact that President Bush said, 'As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.' But the fact is, this has not happened," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., a war supporter turned war skeptic.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, said after a recent visit to Iraq that Iraq was "drifting sideways." He urged consideration of a "change of course" if the Iraq government fails to restore order over the next two or three months.
More than 2,730 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war, most of them since Bush's May 2003 "mission accomplished" aircraft carrier speech. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died.
Recent events have been dispiriting.
The United States now has about 141,000 troops in Iraq, up from about 127,000 in July. Some military experts have suggested at least one additional U.S. division, or around 20,000 troops, is needed in western Iraq alone.
Dan Benjamin, a former Middle East specialist with the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said the administration is overemphasizing the nature of the threat in an effort to bolster support.
"I think the administration has oversold the case that Iraq could become a jihadist state," said Benjamin, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If the U.S. were to leave Iraq tomorrow, the result would be a bloodbath in which Sunnis and Shiites fight it out. But the jihadists would not be able to seek power."
Not all of Bush's rhetorical flourishes have had the intended consequences.
When the history of Iraq is finally written, the recent surge in sectarian violence is "going to be a comma," Bush said in several recent appearances.
Critics immediately complained that the remark appeared unsympathetic and dismissive of U.S. and Iraqi casualties, an assertion the White House disputed.
For a while last summer, Bush depicted the war as one against "Islamic fascism," borrowing a phrase from conservative commentators. The strategy backfired, further fanning anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.
The "fascism" phrase abruptly disappeared from Bush's speeches, reportedly after he was talked out of it by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidant now with the State Department.
Hughes said she would not disclose private conversations with the president. But, she told the AP, she did not use the "fascism" phrase herself. "I use 'violent extremist,"' she said.
