Press Grasping At Straws — For The Final Time, We’re Going To Iraq

17 Dec, 2002 by John Hawkins

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Press Grasping At Straws — For The Final Time, We’re Going To Iraq: Every few weeks some member of the press reads ways to much into the Bush administration’s decidedly non-bellicose rhetoric about Iraq and tries to imply we’re probably not going in. This time it’s the Washington Post which headlines the story, “Powell: U.S. Not Trying to Oust Saddam.” The Post is apparently making too much of what I like to think of as the, “he can change” line of reasoning. I’ve heard the President himself go down this road but Powell is laying it out for the press this time…

“If he (Saddam) cooperates, then the basis of changed-regime policy has shifted because his regime has, in fact, changed its policy to one of cooperation….We came into office in 2001 and kept that policy because Saddam Hussein had not changed….We now believe it is appropriate for Saddam Hussein to be forced to change, either by the threat of war, and therefore that compels him to cooperate.”

You see if some wandering Middle-East Peace Fairy somehow managed to stick Jimmy Carter’s brain into Saddam Hussein’s body, we might have peace. That’s because Jimmy Hussein would get rid of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, he’s stop selling illegal oil, and he’d probably start personally building houses for all the Kurds. The problem with this is simply — Saddam hasn’t changed. He’s still firing at our planes enforcing the no-fly zone, he’s still selling illegal oil, he’s still supporting terrorists, he’s claiming to have no weapons of mass destruction.

Don’t worry, soon we’ll be bombing his palaces, sending Predators armed with hellfire missiles to assassinate his kids and if we’re really, really lucky, Donald Rumsfeld will personally blow Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz’s brains out in front of a live televised audience. We’re not moving 90,000 troops into Turkey because we like the food and the four aircraft carriers we’re sending over there aren’t going for the Iraqi cuisine. Some time in late Dec, Jan, or at the absolute latest Feb, we’re going to blow the Holy Hell out of Iraq. When we do, it wouldn’t surprise me if we had Bush administration officials still giving Saddam a chance to “change” even while the missile that sends him to Hell will still be in mid-air…

Thanks to Rachel Lucas for pointing this article out.