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Printable Version LOCAL VIEW: Going to war in Iraq was a mistake BY REP. DOUG BEREUTER It is a painful and disturbing process, but America and everyone involved in the decision-making and oversight process (the Executive Branch and Congress) must learn from the errors and failures related to waging a wa r against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the aftermath of that war. The toll in American military casualties and those of civilians, physical damages caused, financial resources spent, and the damage to the support and im age of the United States abroad, all demand such an assessment and accou nting. Certainly, all the facts and impacts are not yet apparent, and the violen ce and financial and diplomatic costs of the Iraqi aftermath continue to accumulate. However, I must give this account before I leave Congress o n Aug. The first, and most basic, conclusion is that it appears there was a mass ive failure or misinterpretation of intelligence concerning the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and supply stocks of Saddam, both by the US agencies and leading decision-makers, but also on the part of a llies and other leading countries. The fact that Saddam had used chemical weapons against Iran and Iraqi Kur ds, that chemical weapons and biological and nuclear development program s were discovered after the first Gulf War and that Saddam so strenuousl y resisted unfettered international inspection efforts in recent years a ll contributed to the general conclusion that he had reconstructed his c hemical weapons stock and was weaponizing biological agents. There was a lso the suspicion that his efforts to surreptitiously import certain dua l-use technology were part of an effort to reconstitute his nuclear deve lopment program. The conclusion generally reached was that he had at lea st some of these types of WMD and that he would use them again against c ountries of the neighborhood. Even more directly troubling to the United States was the concern that he would share them with terrorist groups. It was a combination of these conclusions and fears that were the primar y justification for pre-emptive military action against Iraq. Most impor tantly, however, it was the fear that his WMD would be shared with terro rists when it served his purposes. These concerns caused this member of Congress to vote to authorize the use of military force by the president , even pre-emptive military force, if the conditions specified in House Joint Resolution 114 of October 2002, were judged by the president to ha ve been met. That resolution, which authorized the use of military force , was passed by large majorities in both houses of Congress, and I belie ve that for most members the element of a WMD-terrorist link was a key f actor. Evidence that substantial Iraqi chemical and biological WMD stocks existe d at the time the war began or that they covertly had been destroyed jus t before the conflict began still may be discovered. Certainly, there we re such chaotic conditions after the "military war" ended, with huge wea pons dumps and laboratories left unguarded or undiscovered for months, t hat evidence and supplies could have been hidden or destroyed. However, revelations in the unredacted portions of reports recently relea sed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence point to a massive in telligence failure by the US and foreign intelligence agencies, and ev en more disturbingly, leave unresolved whether inadequate or questionabl e elements of intelligence and sources of intelligence were used to just ify military action. However, the inability of the administration to clearly establish a link between al-Qaida and Saddam, despite the in timations of various administration leaders such as Vice President Dick Cheney, is no surprise to me. Of course, one of the major controversies yet remaining is whether key in dividuals in the administration skewed the intelligence made available t o them to justify military action against Saddam's Iraq or, whether coer ced, intimidated or sympathetic US intelligence analysts and managers gave them the findings they seemed to want in order to justify military action. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee report finds no evidenc e of such pressure and I do not believe that individual members of the H ouse Committee have such evidence. Left unresolved for now is whether in telligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action. Th at would be difficult to determine definitively without "a smoking gun." I was very interested to read Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times on April 23, 2004, because his words, which follow, succinctly mirrored my own thoughts: "Just as experts on peacekeeping predicted before the war, the invading f orce was grossly inadequate to maintain postwar security. And this probl em was compounded by a chain of blunders: doing nothing to stop the post war looting, disbanding the Iraqi army, canceling local elections, appoi nting an interim council dominated by exiles with no political base and excluding important domestic groups. "The lessons of the last few weeks are that the occupation has never reco vered from those early errors. The insurgency, which began during those early months of chaos, has spread." Of course, that insurgency has grown dramatically since Krugman wrote tho se words in April. While the US military deaths have declined from the highest levels of April and May, which was during the US offensive ag ainst the terrorists, there still were an average of a tragic 50 US mi litary deaths per month at the time this is being written. It should be noted, too, that the administration received many warnings n ot to make those very errors. Perhaps the warning most frequently given by reputable sources was to avoid disbanding the Iraqi army, but to inst ead immediately reconstitute it. Many of those Iraqi army personnel beca me insurgents or, at best, disenchanted. Now that an army and police for ces are being trained and deployed, they are targets for the organized a nd increasingly motivated insurgency. The same is the case for the Iraqi s who have assumed leadership roles at the national or local level; that violence has intensified since the "hand-over" in late June. In my view, another fundamental and predictable failure was placing the r esponsibility for reconstruction and interim governance in the hands of the Department of Defense. The Department of State, and particularly its Agency for International Development, would no doubt have handled these responsibilities more expeditiously and economically, and with less que stionable procurement and contractual practices. These are responsibilit ies normally assigned to State, and it has a better experience base for such programs. Finally, I would reiterate the frequent criticism that the US and coali tion forces were inadequate in number to take effective control of Iraq when the initial military action was complete. This was a misjudgment fr om the top levels of the Defense Department and contrary to the estimate s of the former US Army Chief of Staff, who was sharply criticized by the DOD civilian leadership. Of course, that inadequacy was accentuated by both the unexpected rejection by Turkey for the movement of one US Army division across that country to enter northern Iraq and by the unwi llingness of a number of European countries to supply troops for the coa lition because of their opposition to the war. The Middle East neighborhood and the rest of the world is no doubt safer from attack and subversion now that Saddam has been removed from power. The oppressed Kurdish and Shiite Iraqis no longer have to fear for their lives from his government, and the same is true of other Iraqis he puni shed as enemies of the state. Was the pre-emptive military strike to remove Saddam in America's best in terest? That is a question that receives a sharply divided response in o ur country with the trend being against the pre-emptive military action we launched. I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, ...
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