Hi again, Wolf --

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I've been trying to think if there's any good motive I can ascribe to George W. Well, I finally came up with one. It's an unlikely scenario, but here goes:

Let's imagine that the human rights abuses by Saddam and company really *are* Bush's motives. Saddam is a mess that a previous White House administration made, and Bush wants to mop it up. However, to justify invading a sovereign nation, he has to pretend that there's evidence linking Hussein to the 9/11 terrorists. Result: wildly inconsistent, borderline incoherent public statements trying to justify the war in the name of national defense and a War on Terrorism, with secondary allusions to the morally admirable (but legally harder to justify) reasons for the war.

There... my good deed for the day.

Not unilaterally (or nearly unilaterally).

During the 12 years after the 1991 Gulf War, the world diplomatic community paid little attention to what was going on in Iraq, with the result that Hussein had little incentive to comply with the terms of the cease-fire. Once the U.S. and Britain refocused attention on the Gulf and the threat of military action loomed large, Hussein's people began cooperating to some degree with the weapons inspectors. If the inspections had been allowed to go on, it seems likely that one of two things would have happened: either Hussein would have disarmed (unlikely), or a consensus in favor of military action would have grown.

One of the main problems in this affair is that the U.S. came off as a bully: we kept saying we wouldn't invade if Hussein met certain terms, and then we kept changing the terms. The impression that came across was that Bush wanted to invade no matter what, and that the offers of terms were lies.

Rightly or wrongly, Bush entered the White House with limited credibility for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the lingering question of whom the American electorate actually chose in 2000. Perhaps more than any other president, he needs to avoid being perceived as a blatant liar, and he has displayed a singular lack of caution on that count. In terms of Bush's public image, I don't think Ari Fleischer's penchant for evasiveness, obvious disdain for the press, and love of empty catch-phrases are helping very much, either.

Just my 2c worth.

Thanks! I appreciate hearing your POV as well.

Fortunately, MadridMan's bbs system lets me edit out the really choice bits from my messages before anyone sees them.

Saludos.