XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX WED MARCH 05, 2003 18:31:52 ET XXXXX BUSH MAKES THE CALL **Exclusive** President Bush on Wednesday night was to make the ultimate call whether to strike and invade Iraq with military force, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. A top White House source offered few details, but did reveal the president would make a "defining decision" by morning. The news comes just hours after Bush discussed top secret battle plans at the White House with his national security team and Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the man who would lead American forces in Iraq. Military officials said the president had been told that an attack against Iraq could be carried out within the next several days, the NEW YORK TIMES is reporting on Thursday. Plans for a major speech on Iraq next week by the president were under review. Bush might give Saddam a very short time period to disarm completely, perhaps as little as 72 hours, before military action. Officials said a number of options for fighting were now ready. Developing...
Bush and his inner circle made the call a long, long time ago. They're just going to make it official.
U.S. Diplomat Resigns In Protest By John Brady Kiesling The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan. Dear Mr. Secretary: I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal. It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to do to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo? We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead. We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has "oderint dum metuant" really become our motto? I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet? Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its interests. I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.
Let them hate, so long as they fear. Sounds a bit like Machiovelli: It is better to be feared than to be loved.
If anyone has the urge to snopes the Kiesling resignation letter as I did, don't bother; it is legit. http://www.snopes.com/politics/mideast/kiesling.asp
Here is a similar story. It basically says that troops have been told bombing will start on March 13, with a ground invasion on four days later. It also mentions the 72 hour ultimatum.
I've gotten to the point of having mixed feelings about this situation. Iraq is disarming some of its missiles, but I have to wonder if it is the proverbial "too little too late" scenario. I also wonder if they have actually turned up all their WMD. It is human nature not to trust Saddam since he had lied about the destruction of his WMD in the past. As far as the March 13th date...Once again, I heard it here first. Whatever happens, my prayers are going out to all of our troops and all of the innocent people in Iraq.
It's already been said that this news conference is not Bush announcing war. So, you can quit pretending that it is. I wish we could be a spectator of the world. Somebody has to keep the world from falling apart. If not us, then whom? Noone has the BALLS to make or implement a tough decision among most of the other nations. They would rather react when it's too late or spectate pretending there is no problem. It's okay if Iraq can hide what their doing...as long as they don't flaunt it in public. What I get from the UN is that it's okay to be manipulated by off-the-wall dictators. It's okay to be given the run around. It's okay to not cooperate much at all as long as there is a little progress no matter how irrelevant to the major disarmament tasks of weapons we know(or knew) existed but sufficient proof has not been presented to prove their destruction or dismantling. It's okay for any country to pretend to abide by UN resolution as long as there is no war. Are these the signals the UN should be sending for a brighter future? It's okay as long as there is no war started by us(America the superpower). Is it going to be okay if Saddam or some rogue country starts a war in the future because we did nothing now? Will there be someone to say the future is going to be a safer, brighter future with dictators and rogue countries having WoMD AND who also have been known to use them and/or start wars? Is Saddam going to go to the UN in the future to request a UN resolution to attack another country? HAH!!! So, the future is much brighter without a UN or big brother war. We will have a lot of rogue countries who proliferate and distribute WoMD at will with the UN unable or unwilling to enforce or ensure they don't have them as mandated by resolutions which may come. Ultimately, these WoMD fall in the wrong hands and the terrorists use them. But, that's not war, that's terrorism. Any time you cannot pin the cause directly to a country's legitimate leadership...that is terrorism. Countries without legitimate leadership are rogue, non-participants in the global economy, do not have strong ties with many other nations, and therefore fit into the category of a terrorist state because they make their own rules and play by nobody else's(e.g. Afghanistan). I look forward to no war and putting off the problems indefinitely until I'm gone. Then, we can let future Americans be boxed in and react to the WoMD-laden world around them. Let's not be proactive...let's be reactive. You nuke us...we nuke you. Good idea. Yeah! Don't be proactive when threatened...wait until your hit hard then react. That works for me. We can all just pretend that noone will never, ever attack anyone ever again with WoMD or any other weapons. We are all one big happy family around the world as long as we don't start wars but, instead, react to violence or other people's wars. No need to try to prevent anything from happening in the future by being proactive. All the people of the world come together and sign one big peace treaty. Then, we will have a huge ass barbeque. I'm bring the ribs and beer. What you bringing? Sarcasm off...
Yes but clearly he is some sort of naive idealist operating in a vacuum, and has no understanding of how diplomacy and foreign relations work in the real world.
"You criticize our President for asking the UN to uphold its mandates, I criticize Saddam for telling the UN to go to hell and forcing war, let's call the whole thing off."
So... We are not going to war. Man, this BBS is honored to learn this. Saddam-"Well, call Washington and tell them we need some action. Also, will you put on that War! cd I love?"
This is Saddam's call, and to pretend otherwise is lunacy. He can either disarm, or we will disarm him. It seems like a simple choice for Saddam, but he apparently is not a very bright man.
But we are going farther then that though. We are going to invade Iraq. If there is war, we will invade, what happens when there really aren't these invisible weapons?
You said we were going to disarm him. I said we were going to invade also. Then what will the outcome be if there aren't any WMD found or used?
Nope. I criticize your pResident for wanting to go to war over oil and masking it behind a mantra of "weapons of mass destruction". I have no idea what you do, nor do I care.
