Reasons for war shift from originally cited

Brilliant Drivel

I would have said Tuesday morning with some level of certainty that I clearly could have visualized a day when President George W. Bush would board Air Force One and travel to Iraq to turn over the last rock in Iraq in order to be sure that a weapon of mass destruction was not hidden underneath.

Tuesday, Bush contradicted the comments made by David A. Kay, the former chief United States weapons inspector for Iraq, who said that no illicit weapons likely were to be found in the country, according to the Jan. 27 issue of The New York Times. Bush continued to entertain the idea that these WMDs did exist at the time of the United States invasion, and that they would be found over the course of continued investigation.

But, alas, that was Monday, and a day later Bush would avoid making reference to the statements made the day before and hinting at the possibility that weapons of mass destruction might never be found, according to a Jan. 28 issue of The New York Times.

This changes things quite a bit. For months preceding the war in Iraq and the subsequent months that have followed its official conclusion, Bush had characterized Saddam Hussein’s regime as an "imminent" threat to the United States. After all, the reason for entering Iraq, need we forget, was to discover these hidden illicit weapons and to disarm them.

Despite years of United Nations-led inspections, a three-month war in Iraq and subsequent investigations, no evidence of such nuclear, biological or chemical programs has been produced. In lieu of these thorough investigations preceding and following the United States-led invasion, Bush just has begun to admit that Hussein was not the threat to the United States that Bush had portrayed him as.

Bush was so convinced that when Hussein was captured in a spider hole, CNN reported that in addition to he was being tested for traces of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction on his skin and hair.

Behind the facade of confidence, Bush has begun to shift the focus about the intent of entering Iraq.

In the State of the Union Address Jan. 20, Bush only briefly mentioned WMDs and instead chose to address the war in Iraq in terms of a righteous effort to liberate a nation of the oppressed.

"The work of building a new Iraq is hard, and it is right," Bush said in the address. "And America has always been willing to do what it takes for what is right. Last January, Iraq’s only law was the whim of one brutal man."

These were not the terms that Congress had voted on in order to delegate soldiers and the billions of dollars spent on the war in Iraq.

Bush continued to say that the world is a safer place without Hussein. This is a topic with which few can argue, with the exception of radical Iraqis who continue to pose resistance to the United States-led occupation. Indeed, the world is a much safer place for some people — the Iraqi people.

Undoubtedly, the Iraqis have less to fear with the United States in control of their country compared to when Hussein was in power, but that was not the focus of the war when it was undertaken. To pass that off now on the American public as the reason for entering the war is a great injustice, but that is exactly the case.

This flip-flop over the issue of the existence of the Iraqi arms program brings into question the level of intelligence being received and quickly impressed upon the general public.

Only last year, during the State of the Union Address, Bush widely was criticized for his claims that there was intelligence that Hussein was trying to attain nuclear material from South Africa. Later, this information proved to be unsubstantiated.

Bush met with a delegation of leaders from both parties Tuesday where he characterized the war as a "worthy" undertaking, according to the Jan. 28 issue of The New York Times. These comments came amid Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s complaints that the war had been approved on the basis of the reassurance of Iraq’s arms program.

Stephen Atwell is a sophomore SMAD major.