or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
January 31, 2009
"Some Ritual Bloodletting"
Here's an interesting passage from Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq by Charles Duelfer, the guy who ran the CIA's search for Iraq's non-existent WMD. Duelfer had previously worked for UNSCOM during the nineties. According to a Washington Post article, he confirms in the book that he "helped arrange a U.S.-backed spying operation that penetrated Hussein's inner circle." (I haven't gotten to that part.)
This section is about the immediate aftermath of the December, 1998 Desert Fox bombing campaign. Most significant is that Duelfer flatly says the real issue for the US was not WMD, but our unwillingness to allow Saddam to continue in power:
This bombing was the equivalent of some ritual bloodletting. It really would change nothing other than cause a recognition that the inspection process could not solve a political problem between Iraq and the Security Council and the United States. WMD and UNSCOM were surrogates for the real problem—Saddam. The possibly of dialogue after a bombing was a good thought, but reflected ignorance by Musawi on what was possible in Washington. A dialogue with the Saddam regime would be difficult for any administration, but especially one weakened by a pending impeachment trial."Maybe something will come of this," I said, but without hope.
As recently as a month before, both Hamdoon and Musawi had asked me if there could be a bilateral dialogue with Washington. I had passed these queries to the NSC and Ambassador Richardson. There was never any answer. The Clinton administration could not have a dialogue with Baghdad, even if it thought dialogue was a good idea. Clinton was in the midst of being impeached. A dialogue with the Saddam regime would have been used by the Republicans to shred the administration. I think Hamdoon understood this from his years in Washington, but he was instructed to ask, anyway. Each time I passed such entreaties to Washington, there was never any answer.
A decade later, now that we know the massive cost of removing Saddam, these options for dialogue—even with a tyrant—look much better. If nothing else, they were missed opportunities for Washington to gain more knowledge.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at January 31, 2009 11:06 AMWag the dog. I'll be darned.
Posted by: Donald Johnson at January 31, 2009 11:43 AMAnd the impeachment effort looks even more destructively sleazy than it did at the time. Nice work, everyone involved: Bill Clinton, robotically defensive Democrats, howler monkey Republicans, trash-wallowing media. Heckuva job. The constitutional instrument of accountability now made useless for the rest of my life and probably forever, and a handy excuse for failures of political and moral courage for the whole sorry Clinton crowd.
Is this the first time that Duelfer has confirmed the spying? "Respectable" media reported it in 1999.
If nothing else, they were missed opportunities for Washington to gain more knowledge.
Call me a cynic, but I don't think "more knowledge" was what Washington was looking for.
Posted by: SteveB at January 31, 2009 12:13 PMWas not December 1998 bombing operation called "Desert Fox"? "Desert Storm" was in 1991!
Posted by: Rupa Shah at January 31, 2009 12:57 PMRupa, thanks. Of course you're right; fixed it.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at January 31, 2009 01:00 PMHmm, I don't recall ever seeing confirmation of spying by any official source before - I've always seen it as alleged on the part of the Saddam regime. But I also don't follow that closely...
Posted by: saurabh at January 31, 2009 01:48 PMI saw this in Borders over the weekend, flipped through it for the interesting (WMD) parts. From what I recall, he believes that the threat of Saddam getting WMDs was good rationale for the invasion. That's point 1 against him for bias for Rethugs.
If you check out Gen (ret) Tony Zinni's account of Desert Fox (he was CENTCOM commander), he will say that Clinton told him to hit WMD sites to send Saddam a message about letting the inspectors into the country. Zinni responded that there really were no known WMD sites, but there were "associated WMD" regime sites such as security, headquarters, etc etc. So those were bombed. That's point 2 against Duelfer's bias against the Dems.
I put the book back on the shelf. No plans to buy it unless it's on the remainders table for less than 10 bucks.
Posted by: Jason at February 2, 2009 04:26 PMI saw this in Borders over the weekend, flipped through it for the interesting (WMD) parts. From what I recall, he believes that the threat of Saddam getting WMDs was good rationale for the invasion. That's point 1 against him for bias for Rethugs.
If you check out Gen (ret) Tony Zinni's account of Desert Fox (he was CENTCOM commander), he will say that Clinton told him to hit WMD sites to send Saddam a message about letting the inspectors into the country. Zinni responded that there really were no known WMD sites, but there were "associated WMD" regime sites such as security, headquarters, etc etc. So those were bombed. That's point 2 for Duelfer's bias against the Dems.
I put the book back on the shelf. No plans to buy it unless it's on the remainders table for less than 10 bucks.
Posted by: Jason at February 2, 2009 04:26 PM
