Paul Wolfowitz: prime example of everything wrong with the Bush administration

I concluded my lengthy post on George’s Aircraft Carrier Carnival by asserting that that one event exemplified characteristics typical of the Bush administration. Specifically, I said that “They look stupid, reckless, spineless, manipulative, clueless, or dishonest--or all of the above. If this was an isolated incident, it would be insignificant. However, it is far from isolated. It is typical...They have consistently been vague and dishonest.” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has provided much evidence of all of these qualities. It is difficult to know where to start, but I have chosen what he said about the reasons for going to war.

On May 9, 2003, Wolfowitz was interviewed by Sam Tannenhaus for Vanity Fair magazine. In order to prevent any Bush supporters from complaining about the “liberal media,” I am going to cite the official Defense Department transcript of the interview.

Wolfowitz told Tannenhaus that

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason[.]

Now that's just crystal clear, isn't it? Wolfowitz does not explain what the reasons were or why the government bureacracy caused everyone to settle on the core reason for war. Also, was there agreement because of the evidence on WMD or because everyone felt it was the best way to sell the war to the American public? Due to what I wrote in Franks on the absence of WMD, The NIE, generally speaking, The Air Force's position on Iraq's UAVs, and The DIA and chemical weapons, I think the likely answer is the sales point. Allow me to be crystal clear--Wolfowitz's statement is vague. Then Wolfowitz expounded on the other possible justifications for war:

[T]here have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two.

So the top reason for going to war was WMD, followed by support for terrorism, and then there was an overriding fourth reason--the connection between WMD and terrorism. That means that the last, least compelling reason according to Wolfowitz was freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam's rule. More on that in a moment...

O.K....WMD was the core reason for the war. That certainly was the Bush's administration's most strongly argued case before the war. I will detail this fact in another post for those of you in denial.

What was the second element in the Bush's administration's sales job leading up to the war? That would be the support for terrorism reason (this will also be addressed in a later post). So, if WMD was the core reason because everyone agreed on that issue, then surely the support for terrorism reason had the next highest degree of agreement. That seems reasonable, doesn't it? Well, it might be reasonable, but it is also wrong, according to Wolfowitz:

That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy[.]

I'm confused. Why did Bush decide to go with the reason on which there was the most disagreement over relieving the Iraqi people from Saddam's evil treatment? And why was the "fourth reason"--the (alleged) connection between WMD and terrorism--deemed to override freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam's cruelty? Wolfowitz offered this reasoning:

The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.

Wait a minute...Wasn't this war called "Operation Iraqi Freedom?" So the Bush Administration named this war for something that was not worth risking American lives? Now I'm really confused. Well, there is one thing about which I am not confused. Once no WMD were found, and once it became impossible to ignore the lack of evidence of Iraqi ties to 9-11 or Al Qaeda, the Bush administration decided to make this war all about liberating the Iraqi people. This is a prime example of how the Bush administration has been dishonest. As the other reasons for going to war were exposed as incorrect, these "leaders" increasingly claimed that the war was justified for a reason that they felt was never worth risking American lives.

Now I know what some of you Republicans are thinking. Wolfowitz was only expressing his own views and was not speaking on behalf of the entire Bush administration. I have several responses. Wolfowitz said the core reason was WMD because everyone agreed on that. No one in the Bush administration has contradicted that. Consequently, on that point it appears that Wolfowitz did speak for the entire administration. Also, there is no question that the administration based it sales job first and foremost on WMD. Furthermore, there is also no question that the administration repeatedly spoke of links between Iraq and terrorism and also tied this to the WMD issue. Thus, it appears that Wolfowitz once again was speaking on behalf of the administration when he said the fourth and overriding reason for war was the connection between WMD and terrorism. As a result of the foregoing, it appears that Wolfowitz did speak on behalf of the administration in listing as the last, least compelling reason for war as freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam's rule.

Yet just four days before the war started, Bush said this in his weekly radio address:

We know from human rights groups that dissidents in Iraq are tortured, imprisoned and sometimes just disappear; their hands, feet and tongues are cut off; their eyes are gouged out; and female relatives are raped in their presence.

As the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, said this week, "We have a moral obligation to intervene where evil is in control." Today, that place is Iraq.

We have a moral obligation, but that is not worth risking American lives--at least not until all other reasons for going to war appear shaky.