Gung-ho
In all the foofooraw over Paul O’Neill’s statements about the Bush administration drawing a bead on Iraq from day one, and the counter-claims and counter-counter-claims, that he’s full of shit, and we were never planning regime change until 9/11 changed everything, and anyway we were just following in the footsteps of Clinton’s policy, which wanted regime change, I mean, God, who didn’t, I’d just like to dredge up this quote again, from a September 10, 2001 profile of Secretary of State Colin Powell:
When the Secretary jumped out front on Iraq, pushing to “toughen” crumbling UN sanctions against old nemesis Saddam Hussein by making them “smarter,” conservatives scoffed that meant weaker. But Powell persuaded the President—because, say aides and rivals alike, he’s very effective when he “marshalls his facts.” The Administration—and Powell—was embarrassed later, when Russia rebuffed the plan.
And as soon as Wolfowitz, a zealous advocate of “regime change” in Baghdad—backing dissidents to overthrow Saddam—settled into his office, he told European parliamentarians that Powell was not the last word on sanctions or Iraq policy. Enthusiasm is building inside the Administration to take down Saddam once and for all. Powell too would love to see Saddam unhorsed, says an official at State. “But you need a serious plan that’s doable. The question is how many lives and resources you have to risk.” Powell’s unwillingness to fight any less-than-total war is legendary, and the particulars of launching a covert insurgency among the feuding Iraqi opposition factions would give any general pause. The proposition is still “hypothetical,” he told Time. But plenty of others on the Bush team are gung-ho.
To review:
- Senior administration officials were planning to take Saddam down once and for all before 9/11.
- This was seen as a deliberate break with previous policy.
So what’s wrong with what it was O’Neill said?
From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out…. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, “Fine. Go find me a way to do this.”
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