WH Official Admits WMD NOT Main Reason for Iraq War
By John Cochran
ABC News

Friday 25 April 2003

White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything  

W A S H I N G T O N, April 25
- To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration 
argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but 
some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another 
reason for war - a global show of American power and democracy.  

Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the 
administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the 
legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the 
danger at home to Americans. "We were not lying," said one official. 
"But it was just a matter of emphasis."   

Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and 
nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other 
toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday, 
President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any 
such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.  

If weapons of mass destruction were not the primary reason for war, 
what was? Here's the answer officials and advisers gave ABCNEWS.  

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed everything, including the Bush 
administration's thinking about the Middle East u and not just Saddam 
Hussein.  

Senior officials decided that unless action was taken, the Middle East 
would continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists. Officials feared 
that young Arabs, angry about their lives and without hope, would 
always looking for someone to hate u and that someone would always 
be Israel and the United States.  

Europeans thought the solution was to get a peace agreement between 
Israel and the Palestinians. But American officials felt a Middle East 
peace agreement would only be part of the solution.  

The Bush administration felt that a new start was needed in the Middle 
East and that Iraq was the place to show that it is democracy - not 
terrorism - that offers hope.  

Sending a Message

Beyond that, the Bush administration decided it must flex muscle to 
show it would fight terrorism, not just here at home and not just in 
Afghanistan against the Taliban, but in the Middle East, where it was 
thriving.  

Officials deny that Bush was captured by the aggressive views of 
neo-conservatives. But Bush did agree with some of their thinking.  

"We made it very public that we thought that one consequence the 
president should draw from 9/11 is that it was unacceptable to sit back 
and let either terrorist groups or dictators developing weapons of mass 
destruction strike first at us," conservative commentator Bill Kristol 
said on ABCNEWS' Nightline in March.  

The Bush administration wanted to make a statement about its 
determination to fight terrorism. And officials acknowledge that 
Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, 
the perfect target.  

Other countries have such weapons, yet the United States did not go 
to war with them. And though Saddam oppressed and tortured his own 
people, other tyrants have done the same without incurring U.S. 
military action. Finally, Saddam had ties to terrorists u but so 
have several countries that the United States did not fight.  

But Saddam was guilty of all these things and he met another 
requirement as well - a prime location, in the heart of the Middle East, 
between Syria and Iran, two countries the United States wanted to send 
a message to.  

That message: If you collaborate with terrorists, you do so at your 
own peril.  

Officials said that even if Saddam had backed down and avoided war by 
admitting to having weapons of mass destruction, the world would have 
received the same message; Don't mess with the United States.  

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said on Nightline this week that 
although he believed Saddam was a serious threat and had dangerous 
weapons, going to war to prove a point was wrong.  

"I don't think you should go to war to set examples or send messages," 
Woolsey said. Get the transcript of the Woolsey interview.  

Sept. 11, 2001

But what if Sept. 11 had never happened? Would the United States have 
gone to war with Iraq? Administration officials and others say no, at 
least not now.  

The Bush administration could probably have lived with the threat of 
Saddam and might have gone after him eventually if, for example, the 
Iraqi leader had become more aggressive in pursuing a nuclear program 
or in sponsoring terrorism.  

But again, Sept. 11 changed all that.

Listen closely, officials said, to what Bush was really saying to the 
American people before the war.  

"I hope they understand the lesson of September the 11th," Bush said 
on March 6. "The lesson is, is that we're vulnerable to attack, wherever 
it may occur, and we must take threats which gather overseas very 
seriously. We don't have to deal with them all militarily, but we have 
to deal with them."  

Has the war done what the officials ABCNEWS talked to wanted?

It seems to have improved the behavior of the Syrians and maybe the 
Iranians, they said, although there is still concern that Iran will 
meddle in Iraq. And it may have even put some fear in the North Koreans, 
they added. Plus, they said it probably has helped the Middle East peace 
process.  

But will Iraq be the model that can persuade young Arabs there is 
more to life than hatred? Too early to know, they said.  

Their point: We are deeply worried about the Shiites. It will be a 
tragedy if radical, anti-American elements gain control in post-Saddam 
Iraq.  

One official said that in the end, history and the American people will 
judge the United States not by whether U.S. officials find canisters of 
poison gas or vials of some biological agent.  

History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether this 
war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America. 
 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is 
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest 
in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

(c): t r u t h o u t 2003

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Source: Truthout - http://truthout.org/docs_03/042703H.shtml

Cheers, Steve..

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