> After the years of discussion of this subject on the list, I still do > not have a handle on how Iraq was a credible threat to the US.
If you have not done so, you might want to read the "Duelfer" report http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/. It shows in detail how it could be both true that the presence of actual WMD's was overestimated, but at the same time the threat that Iraq, specifically Iraq under Saddam, posed to the US. The short summary is that Saddam was working to get sanctions lifted as fast as possible, while at the same time was working on ensuring that he could rebuild his weapon stocks as quickly as possible as soon as they were so he could deter any future actions against him. It was clear that the main lesson he learned after the first gulf war was the need for some trump card in the form of WMD's to hold of the US before he tried to further expand his power in the region. > > If Afghanistan was only an indirect threat (and only due to their > harboring of known terrorists), how was Iraq a direct and imminent > threat to the security of the US? It depends on how you define imminent. Sanctions were in imminent danger of being lifted which would have put in place a set of events that would have left Iraq mostly immune (or at least cause a much higher cost) to any future US action. So while the actual physical danger was not imminent in a literal sense, the possibility of taking permanent corrective action was in imminent danger of being removed. > > North Korea is a direct threat since they have nukes and a delivery > system that can reach, at the least, Alaska. But this is not the prime > focus of our foreign policy, it is a secondary focus. (Iraq is the > prime focus and it is where we direct most of our energy.) North Korea, being a direct threat, can not be the same kind of focus that Iraq is. The fact that they have two kinds of very real deterrence, Nukes + conventional shelling range of Soul, means that the US basically has no real military option there in the absence of a clear first first action on the part of North Korea. This is why events move rather slowly here. North Korea does not have much left to threaten with, and neither does the US. Thus it becomes a diplomatic game of trying to get China to take sides and force the issue. > > We have pretty much taken focus off the hunt for actual terrorists. > This really pisses me off. Osama Bin Laden runs free and taunts us > occasionally, and while it appears that Al Quaeda plans have been > greatly balked, Osama runs free and is not killed in battle or > suffering the humiliation of a truely fair and just trial. I think that the fact that al-Zarqawi is able to evade the US in an country that has a large amount of US military presence should put this in perspective. The most affective way to catch a single person is with small teams focused on intelligence gathering, not large scale occupation of a country. There is definitely at least one special task force still out looking for Osama Bin Laden. Beyond using our military to pressure possible countries of hiding (and that number is very large, Al Qaeda has cells in many different places), there is not much our conventional forces in Iraq could do to help. Until I see a clear "smoking gun" type study that clearly shows how the military has dropped the ball on looking for OBL I will grant them the benefit of the doubt. Finding one terrorist in the world with a group of fanatical followers willing to cover for him is a non-trivial task. Finally I will close with an appeal to Occam's Razor. Many people have written about the supposed brilliance of Karl Rove and the Republican Political Machine. While it is true that Bush won his 4 more years, it was still a close election. This was because of the War in Iraq. While it is true it did not go as well as they hoped, even if it had been perfect, it was still an extremely risky political move to make. It was a move that politically did not have to be made (I could see it as a "hail Mary" type play, but it was not). Thus the explanation is either that he had some secret motive (daddy envy, paying off the Royals, wants to be seen as a cowboy and Afghanistan was just not enough) or he actually believed that the real answer to the short term threat posed by Al Qaeda was to promote long term change so that after Al Qaeda was dealt with, there would be a reduced chance at another group taking their place. I have no problem when people think Bush is being naive, or that the democratization of the middle east will never happen, or that war is never the answer to anything (though I do think they are wrong). I do have a problem with people who ascribe all kinds of odd conspiracy theories to the war in Iraq, claiming that they can see no justification for it, thus there must be some crazy explanation. One person is seriously trying to come up with a better world, the other is just tossing rocks (not that you, or some on this list, were doing the second, just that I wanted to make this point). John _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
