worldbefree
10-11-2004, 02:02 PM
Should changing your justification for pre-emptive war from "the imminent threat of a mushroom cloud" to "that a military invasion is justified if an opponent is seeking to avoid United Nations sanctions - "gaming the system" in his words." be considered the ultimate flip-flop? I think so and hopefully in November the majority of the voting public will too.
A Doctrine Under Pressure: Pre-emption Is Redefined
By DAVID E. SANGER
RAWFORD, Tex., Oct. 10 - Under pressure to explain anew his decision to invade Iraq in light of a damaging report from the C.I.A.'s top weapons inspector, President Bush appears to be quietly redefining one of the signature philosophies of his administration - his doctrine of pre-emptive military action.
Traditionally, pre-empting an enemy is all about urgency, striking before the enemy strikes. In the prelude to the invasion in March of last year, Mr. Bush and his aides stopping short of saying Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent" threat. Still, they used urgent-sounding language at every turn to explain why they could not afford to wait for inspectors to complete their work, or for the United Nations Security Council to come to a consensus on authorizing military action. "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud," he said in a speech delivered Oct. 7, 2002.
But the C.I.A. report released last week, written by Charles A. Duelfer, described the evidence as anything but clear and the peril as far from urgent. Mr. Hussein's military power began waning after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the report concluded. While Mr. Hussein most probably wanted to rebuild his illicit weapons, there is no evidence he had started by the time Mr. Bush was delivering that speech.
So over the last five days, with some subtle changes of language and a new previously undiscussed justification for the war, Mr. Bush appears to have expanded the conditions for a pre-emptive military strike. He no longer talks about urgency. Instead, for the first time, he has begun to argue that a military invasion is justified if an opponent is seeking to avoid United Nations sanctions - "gaming the system" in his words.
"We did not find the stockpiles we thought were there," Mr. Bush told supporters in Waterloo, Iowa, on Saturday. "But I want you to remember what the Duelfer report said. It said that Saddam Hussein was gaming the oil-for-food program to get rid of sanctions. And why? Because he had the capability and knowledge to rebuild his weapon programs. And the great danger we face in the world today is that a terrorist organization could end up with weapons of mass destruction."
Then, returning to the line he has used in his debates with Senator John Kerry, and one that always elicits applause, he added: "Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. The world is safer with Saddam in a prison cell."
Taken at face value, Mr. Bush appears to be saying that under his new standard, a country merely has to be thinking about developing illicit weapons at some time. "He's saying intent is enough," said Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor who under the Clinton administration headed the National Intelligence Council, the group that assesses for the president when countries have trespassed that hard-to-define line.
"The classical definition for pre-emption was 'imminent threat,' " Mr. Nye said. Then, with the development of the president's "National Security Policy of the United States," that moved to something less than imminent, because, as Mr. Bush argued, it is often hard to know when a country is about to attack. Now, said Mr. Nye, "the Duelfer report pushed him into a box where capability is not the standard, but merely intention."
Of course, discerning changes of policy in the heat of a political campaign is always risky. Candidates will often push a policy or a doctrine to the breaking point to differentiate themselves from their opponents. So as the campaign has come down to its last three weeks, Mr. Bush has torqued his stump speech to make it clear that in a post-Sept. 11 world, he will strike quickly, while Mr. Kerry hesitates, negotiates or creates a "global test" for action.
The "global test" phrase comes from a statement by Mr. Kerry in the first presidential debate that Mr. Bush now regularly throws back at him. "Now he says he wants a global test before we take action to defend our security," Mr. Bush said on Saturday in Chanhassen, Minn., waiting for the crowd to yell "Boo!"
When the audience obliged, he added that "The problem is that the senator can never pass his own test," going on to list military action that Mr. Kerry has opposed, including in the Persian Gulf war.
In fact, Mr. Kerry has not done much to define when he would take pre-emptive action. He has said he would reserve the right, and criticized Mr. Bush for making pre-emption a doctrine. In the second debate on Friday, Mr. Kerry made it clear that Iraq did not meet his test: "Gut-check time," he said. "Was this really going to war as a last resort?"
But when the subject turned to Iran, Mr. Kerry tried to sound more hard-line than Mr. Bush, who he said had ignored nuclear developments in both Iran and North Korea. "If we have to get tough with Iran, believe me, we will get tough," he said, without describing how close he would let the country get to a nuclear weapon before acting. Mr. Bush, in an interview with The New York Times in August, declined to draw that line, either.
The result is that America's allies - and perhaps its voters - are more confused than ever about what will drive Washington to war. To listen to Mr. Bush in the last few days, a country that merely desires to obtain the world's worst weapons is a potential target - but he has clearly avoided threatening Iran and North Korea, the two nations racing fastest toward such weapons. To listen to Mr. Kerry, Iraq's intentions to rebuild its arsenal some day clearly did not meet the Kerry test: Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, he said the other day, "may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq."
It may be that the election must pass before Washington sends a clear signal. "If I had a piece of advice for America's allies," a senior foreign policy adviser to Mr. Bush said a few weeks ago, "it's this: Turn your television sets off until this is all over."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/11preempt.html?ei=5094&en=a3b0ac844d21255d&hp=&ex=1097553600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=
A Doctrine Under Pressure: Pre-emption Is Redefined
By DAVID E. SANGER
RAWFORD, Tex., Oct. 10 - Under pressure to explain anew his decision to invade Iraq in light of a damaging report from the C.I.A.'s top weapons inspector, President Bush appears to be quietly redefining one of the signature philosophies of his administration - his doctrine of pre-emptive military action.
Traditionally, pre-empting an enemy is all about urgency, striking before the enemy strikes. In the prelude to the invasion in March of last year, Mr. Bush and his aides stopping short of saying Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent" threat. Still, they used urgent-sounding language at every turn to explain why they could not afford to wait for inspectors to complete their work, or for the United Nations Security Council to come to a consensus on authorizing military action. "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud," he said in a speech delivered Oct. 7, 2002.
But the C.I.A. report released last week, written by Charles A. Duelfer, described the evidence as anything but clear and the peril as far from urgent. Mr. Hussein's military power began waning after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the report concluded. While Mr. Hussein most probably wanted to rebuild his illicit weapons, there is no evidence he had started by the time Mr. Bush was delivering that speech.
So over the last five days, with some subtle changes of language and a new previously undiscussed justification for the war, Mr. Bush appears to have expanded the conditions for a pre-emptive military strike. He no longer talks about urgency. Instead, for the first time, he has begun to argue that a military invasion is justified if an opponent is seeking to avoid United Nations sanctions - "gaming the system" in his words.
"We did not find the stockpiles we thought were there," Mr. Bush told supporters in Waterloo, Iowa, on Saturday. "But I want you to remember what the Duelfer report said. It said that Saddam Hussein was gaming the oil-for-food program to get rid of sanctions. And why? Because he had the capability and knowledge to rebuild his weapon programs. And the great danger we face in the world today is that a terrorist organization could end up with weapons of mass destruction."
Then, returning to the line he has used in his debates with Senator John Kerry, and one that always elicits applause, he added: "Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. The world is safer with Saddam in a prison cell."
Taken at face value, Mr. Bush appears to be saying that under his new standard, a country merely has to be thinking about developing illicit weapons at some time. "He's saying intent is enough," said Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor who under the Clinton administration headed the National Intelligence Council, the group that assesses for the president when countries have trespassed that hard-to-define line.
"The classical definition for pre-emption was 'imminent threat,' " Mr. Nye said. Then, with the development of the president's "National Security Policy of the United States," that moved to something less than imminent, because, as Mr. Bush argued, it is often hard to know when a country is about to attack. Now, said Mr. Nye, "the Duelfer report pushed him into a box where capability is not the standard, but merely intention."
Of course, discerning changes of policy in the heat of a political campaign is always risky. Candidates will often push a policy or a doctrine to the breaking point to differentiate themselves from their opponents. So as the campaign has come down to its last three weeks, Mr. Bush has torqued his stump speech to make it clear that in a post-Sept. 11 world, he will strike quickly, while Mr. Kerry hesitates, negotiates or creates a "global test" for action.
The "global test" phrase comes from a statement by Mr. Kerry in the first presidential debate that Mr. Bush now regularly throws back at him. "Now he says he wants a global test before we take action to defend our security," Mr. Bush said on Saturday in Chanhassen, Minn., waiting for the crowd to yell "Boo!"
When the audience obliged, he added that "The problem is that the senator can never pass his own test," going on to list military action that Mr. Kerry has opposed, including in the Persian Gulf war.
In fact, Mr. Kerry has not done much to define when he would take pre-emptive action. He has said he would reserve the right, and criticized Mr. Bush for making pre-emption a doctrine. In the second debate on Friday, Mr. Kerry made it clear that Iraq did not meet his test: "Gut-check time," he said. "Was this really going to war as a last resort?"
But when the subject turned to Iran, Mr. Kerry tried to sound more hard-line than Mr. Bush, who he said had ignored nuclear developments in both Iran and North Korea. "If we have to get tough with Iran, believe me, we will get tough," he said, without describing how close he would let the country get to a nuclear weapon before acting. Mr. Bush, in an interview with The New York Times in August, declined to draw that line, either.
The result is that America's allies - and perhaps its voters - are more confused than ever about what will drive Washington to war. To listen to Mr. Bush in the last few days, a country that merely desires to obtain the world's worst weapons is a potential target - but he has clearly avoided threatening Iran and North Korea, the two nations racing fastest toward such weapons. To listen to Mr. Kerry, Iraq's intentions to rebuild its arsenal some day clearly did not meet the Kerry test: Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, he said the other day, "may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq."
It may be that the election must pass before Washington sends a clear signal. "If I had a piece of advice for America's allies," a senior foreign policy adviser to Mr. Bush said a few weeks ago, "it's this: Turn your television sets off until this is all over."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/11preempt.html?ei=5094&en=a3b0ac844d21255d&hp=&ex=1097553600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=