In light of all those politicians and administrators shaking their heads in disbelief and resignation at the lack of information ó or the accessibility of wrong information ó regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there is at least one party who can claim that it had every reason to believe that there were no nuclear materials to be found. Mohamed El Baradei, head of the United Nations nuclear agency, issued a statement remarkably close to the situation known to be true today: there was “”no evidence of resumed nuclear activities … nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any related site.””
That statement was issued after El Baradei’s team had performed 247 inspections at 147 sites. The same goes for biological warfare technology: Hans Blix headed 731 inspections between November 2002 and March 2003, searching for evidence of biological weapons. His team found nothing. Confirmation of these results took hundreds of Iraqi and dozens of Allied lives. Perhaps we should have gone with what the United Nations told us to be true.
As President George W. Bush agrees to an investigative committee into the intelligence community and Prime Minister Tony Blair implements a similar program on his side of the Atlantic, confessions of inaccuracy abound throughout the Capital. Secretary of State Colin Powell has publicly stated in the New York Times that had he known about the lack of weapons of mass destruction, he wouldn’t have supported the war.
According to an online Web poll conducted by Newsweek, 75 percent of those polled believe that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney knowingly misrepresented intelligence on Iraq. In addition to the loss of life and property, there is a noted loss in respect for leaders, a loss that will prove difficult to replace.
Of course, none of this is to say that the invasion of Iraq didn’t have benefits. Idealists might point to the capture and removal of a terrible brutal dictator who had long abused his people and terrorized nearby nations. Cynics will say that the United States now has access to oil fields galore, that the war was one of financial motivations ó an argument that is perhaps weak in light of how much money was spent in military forces and reconstruction. But neither reason resolves a key pretense of this war with which everyone was supposed to agree.
Whether or not oil was a motivating factor and whether or not an individual sovereign nation should take it upon itself to punish the leader of a foreign country, ridding the world of a dangerous threat, is defensible.
The removal of biological and nuclear weapons was the key precept of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And now it turns out that that precept was false.
Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy to say that there’s no way we could have known that weapons weren’t there. It’s easy to say that we should have trusted the UN weapons inspectors, we should have waited for international approval, we should have made more of an effort to gather information before pressing ahead with an invasion that would cause devastating losses in both property and life.
Actions are only as good as their motivations and effects. It turns out that the motivations behind this action were not well-founded, at least as far as weapons of mass destruction go. The important thing now is to view this as an example of poor foresight, of not gathering enough information and of not relying on reliable sources.
The United Nations was created as a supra-national organization capable of monitoring and punishing another nation’s activity. The biggest mistake made in the war with Iraq, the one that will have the longest effects, is the lack of international involvement. Blame for this should neither fall on the United Nations nor countries we’ve come to antagonize for their decision not to join the campgain.
Rather, the blame should be placed on the United States for ignoring the UN inspectors, for not stressing international cooperation.
There is a distinction between anguish over what has happened and acceptance of what can be done in the future. A distinction between wanting an investigation in order to further a sense of self-righteousness and wanting an investigation to prevent future misinformation.
For the moment, it’s important for both hawks and doves to regulate their reactions. To those who never supported the war in Iraq, it might be easy to become further embittered, to consider themselves with the inalienable right to cry, “”Told you so!”” But that’s not an effective way of dealing with the situation at hand. And neither should the pro-war camp waste time blundering through excuses for why the misconceptions were so attractive, why the war was still necessary.
Protesters should be validated and the pro-war crowd should be reconciliatory. Certainly, an investigation should be launched as to how such a grave untruth came to dominate the military agenda. But more than all of this, it should be noted that this cavalier action with meditation on the facts only after action has been taken has set a dangerous precedent.
As for the investigation that Bush has sanctioned and many Democrats have long called for, it seems that regardless of where the information went wrong, perhaps the most noteworthy aspect is the admission that something went wrong. A huge impetus to the frustration regarding the investigation heretofore was the frightening implication of infallibility. Such an attitude can only lead to further invasion with the wrong motivation.
History repeats itself, or so the saying goes. This is one instance that demonstrates quite clearly why it’s important to understand what is happening in the policies and actions of the world in order to prevent them from reoccuring. This is one instance when history cannot be allowed to repeat itself.
