crackmonkey said:
Oh, I don;t know... he makes a pretty compelling case for the war, and advocates the US taking action if the UN is unwilling to...
"the President’s clear determination to act if the United Nations can’t provides strong leverage undergirding further diplomatic efforts."
I don;t think it;s much of a stretch to say that his position has changed here... in this testimony he's clearly not saying that a preemptive attack would be wrong - in fact, he says that any attack on Saddam couldn;t be classified as preemption.
I disagree.
He makes a case that it could be valid as a last resort (which is not different from what he currently says), but his main point then and now was that it was not right to do it at that time:
The yellow light is flashing. We have a problem. We've got to muster the best judgment in this country. We've got to muster the will of the American people and we've got to be prepared to deal with this problem, but time is on our side in the near term and we should use it. Thank you.
And regarding what he said about preemption, it is clear when you look at the paragraph as a whole:
So, all that having been said, the option to use force must remain on the table. It should be used as the last resort after all diplomatic means have been exhausted unless there's information that indicates that a further delay would represent an immediate risk to the assembled forces and organizations. And, I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem.
As you can see, this is in the context of describing this option to use force but he makes it clear he thought even then it should have only been used as the last resort after all diplomatic means (unless there was specific information that would make delay a risk).
I think it is pretty clear, and what he said then was right on the money, and it is still true today.
And finally:
We have to work this problem in a way to gain worldwide legitimacy and understanding for the concerns that we rightly feel and for our leadership. This is what U.S. leadership in the world must be. We must bring others to share our views, not be too quick to rush to try to impose them even if we have the power to do so. I agree that there's a risk that the inspections would fail to provide evidence of the weapons program. They might fail, but I think we can deal with this problem as we move along, and I think the difficulties of dealing with this outcome are more than offset by the opportunities to gain allies, support and legitimacy in the campaign against Saddam Hussein.
His point here really was that we should have followed the path of working with the International community, and his criticism of the administration is for NOT following that path.
The places where he makes a case for war make sense, when taken in context for when he said force should be used, and more specifically his point that the threat of force would be one of the best ways to get Iraq to follow those resolutions.
You can of course continue to read the entire transcript of his testimony........ or choose to pick individual quotes out and make them reflect what you would like to think about his positions having changed.
But my personal opinion from reading through the entire transcript is that he was generally right on many of these things (and the points he was wrong on, such as the issue of Saddam having chemical and biological weapons, were based on him trusting at the time things like the presentations by Powell, and taking them at their word......... he's certainly not the only one that had believed some of this intelligence).
Either way, I think he had the right ideas back then in his testimony, and the things he cautioned against (the dangers of not using the time the US had wisely and not rushing in and ignoring the International community) have proven to be pretty much right on the money.
And finally, note that he was recommending back then in his testimony that IF the inspections process failed, that if force was going to be used it would HAVE to involve the broadest possible coalition:
If the efforts to resolve the problem by using the United Nations fail, either initially or ultimately, then we need to form the broadest possible coalition including our NATO allies and the North Atlantic Council if we're going to have to bring forces to bear. We should not be using force until the personnel, the organizations, the plans that will be required for post conflict Iraq, are prepared and ready. This includes dealing with requirements for humanitarian assistance, police and judicial capabilities, emergency medical and reconstruction assistance, and preparations for a transitional governing body and eventual elections, perhaps even including a new constitution.
Ideally, the international/multinational organizations will participate in the readying of such post-conflict operations -- the United Nations, NATO, other regional organizations, Islamic organizations -- but we have no idea how long this campaign could last, and if it were to go like the campaign against the Afghans, against the Taliban, in which suddenly the Taliban collapsed and there we were.
I see nothing in that that contradicts what he says now, and it frankly only reinforces his criticism of how the war was handled, and also how he thought a postwar process should have been handled.
His point here and the point he still makes today is that it was wrong to just go in full bore, to not exhaust diplomatic opportunities, to not
Nowhere in here does he support the notion that attacking Saddam by ourselves and without exhausting other opportunties was right, and the preemption he talks about is in reference to the general notion of dealing with Saddam before he acted...... he is not saying that means any preemptive attack on Saddam is OK, and reading the testimony in full especially shows that he had laid out what would have been a reasonable thing for the US to do, and his criticism then and now is that the US did NOT act that way, and the points he made about the consequences of not working with the UN process and our allies has been shown to be valid.
-Elektrix
