Jan 12, 2004

TAKING ANOTHER LOOK AT POLLACK

by Liberty and Power

Excellent post by Arthur Silber here at L&P. I really do appreciate Kenneth M. Pollack's new discussion of the Iraq situation. It's better than what one reads from most of those on the"pro-war" side of this debate who are still trying to justify the means by the end of Hussein's reign, as if Hussein's regime was, in itself, an imminent threat to the security of the United States.

And yet, I couldn't help but be amused by this comment of Pollack's:

What's more, we should not forget that containment was failing. The shameful performance of the United Nations Security Council members (particularly France and Germany) in 2002-2003 was final proof that containment would not have lasted much longer; Saddam would eventually have reconstituted his WMD programs, although further in the future than we had thought. (emphasis added)

"Containment was failing"??? What a splendid failure! Where are the nuclear weapons, Mr. Pollack? Where are the tons of chemical and biological agents, Mr. Pollack? Where are the ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda, Mr. Pollack? Is it possible, Mr. Pollack, that"the threatening storm" was not actually in Iraq, after all?

The only thing that was failing was the Bush administration's intelligence. An oxymoron if ever there were one.

More Comments:

Jeff Schmidt - 1/13/2004

While there's plenty surface level critique from pro and anti Iraq invasion camps in the blogoshere - the one thing many in the anti war camp ignore is the actual human devestation caused by sanctions as a means to achieve the much celebrated "containment".

The abject brutality of 13 years of sanctions did not harm Saddam or loosen his grip on power (he actually profited personally)- rather - most of the devastation was visited directly on the innocent citizens of Iraq.

If we are to look at this issue fairly - we cannot ignore the facts regarding the real effects of prolonged sanctions. By almost all accounts - they could not have been employed for much longer.

I believe it's well past time for those who maintain "containment" was the preferred policy towards Iraq to deal with the very real issues regarding the horrors manufactured by US and British hardline on Iraqi sanctions.