“I Wish That I Knew What I Know Now, When I Was Younger”
They’re on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News everyday. Developing stories: “Unknown Package Found on Pennsylvania Avenue,” “This just in: A plane has been grounded in JFK International, little else is known but we’ll be bringing you up-to-date information as it comes in.”
That’s uninformative certainly, but misinformation is something entirely different. I remember watching the State of the Union Address in 2003. Portions of it were played back on network news for perpetuity. Famous are the passages mentioned concerning Iraq, consuming one-fourth of the speech, including introductions and the economy. These words later became the justification for a war with Iraq.
The U.S. invasion began March 20, 2003, with a campaign of “Shock and Awe,” which means obliterating everything military so quickly the enemy is unable to defend itself. The campaign was, by and large, a success. The reasons behind this can be summed up into two categories with one major theme: Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam Hussein had close ties to al-Qaida. President Bush put it best when he said, “Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans – this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.”
Two disparate, although threatening, enemies were solidified into the American consciousness, creating one massive threat.
President Bush was correct when he listed the many atrocities that Hussein was responsible for in the past decade. Bush was also right to list the former dictator’s possession of chemical weapons in the past; after all he has used them on his own citizens.
However, two new intolerable charges were made during Bush’s speech.
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”
The African nation referred to is Niger. It was reported that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium in the late 1990s. Although the original documents were not revealed to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson he went to Niger to investigate the claims for the Vice President Dick Cheney’s office.
What Wilson found was it was highly unlikely any uranium was sold to Iraq, given IAEA oversight and multi-national ownership of the mines. Likely, he said in an article for The New York Times, “As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors – they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government – and were probably forged.”
Joseph Wilson resurfaced publicly recently after an investigation indicting Lewis “Scooter” Libby, concerning the “outing” of his wife Valerie Plame Wilson who was, until that time, an undercover CIA agent. Since Wilson’s testimony, the account has been discounted.
According to the Washington Post, the aluminum tubes found were most likely intended for non-nuclear rockets instead of constructing a nuclear enrichment project. Then CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility for the intelligence failure expressed in Bush’s State of the Union Address.
The 9/11 Commission concluded there was no evidence Iraq and al-Qaida were collaborating in any efforts, especially the Sept. 11 attacks. No evidence al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein were working together towards a common cause has come to light yet.
It is known however that Saddam Hussein was a secular leader and often pitted different religious sects against each other to retain power, and disliked sharing power with anyone.
Most recently, The New York Times published excerpts of a memo from Jan. 31, 2003; detailing plans how the U.S. and Britain could justify invading Iraq. The article mentions that it was known that no illegal weapons were found in Iraq. The memo names President Bush, and offers three alternatives to urge an invasion anyway. The alternatives listed are: “The U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam’s WMD;” “The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours;” and a consideration of assassinating Saddam Hussein brought to the floor by Bush as well.
The memo was written by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Chief Foreign Policy Advisor, David Manning. Two other top British officials agreed on the memo’s authenticity, but were unable to talk about it due to British classification policy.
The Iraq war was justified on largely false grounds. Still, it may be good for the world that a cruel dictator is no longer in charge of millions of people.
However, it is no excuse to fund this war with $450 billion of debt and taxpayers’ money. It would be better spent saving social security, actually funding the “No Child Left Behind Act,” or going after the people who initially set the U.S. on the course of current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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