Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was busy on April 13th defending the Iraq war and answering questions about Iran. (Excerpts and links below.) In two television interviews, amazingly enough, she once again linked Saddam Hussein and Iraq with 9/11. (It must not have been tempting for the reporters to ask, "Madame Secretary, have you no shame?") She also continued to rationalize our war based on the disingenuous claims that Saddam had invaded his neighbors (excuse me Secretary, but with our support in the case of Iran and with April Glaspie's (U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad at the time) uninterested opinion in the case of Kuwait). Ms. Rice also trotted out the tired issue of Saddam's chemical weapons, but curiously failed to mention that not only did the U.S. supply Saddam (in its de facto support of Iraq against the scarier Iranians) but when the Iranians brought up the issue at the U.N., the U.S. could have hardly been less supportive.
What's a little frightening about Ms. Rice's statements is that everything that she says about Iraq could be said about a war with Iran. Replace "Islamic Regime" with "Saddam Hussein" in the following statement: "You were not going to have a stable Middle East with Saddam Hussein in the middle of it. You most certainly were not going to have a more democratic Middle East with Saddam Hussein in the middle of it. And you need a more democratic and ultimately stable Middle East in order to counter the kind of ideology of hatred that produced the people who flew airplanes into our buildings on September 11th. So it was time to get rid of Saddam Hussein." By Bush administration logic, getting rid of the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime can also be linked to 9/11: there can't be a more democratic or stable Middle East with the Iranian theocracy in place, instability and lack of democracy produces "people who fly planes into our buildings"; ergo, a war against Iran is to prevent another 9/11.
Secretary Rice's linkage of the Iraq war to 9/11 is the worst kind of Goebbels-like propaganda. Firstly, the "ideology of hatred" she specifically refers to may have been born in the Middle East, but it is simplistic at best to argue that if democracy prevails in the region then no one will want to "fly planes into our buildings". Of the hundreds of millions of Muslims in the region, indeed of the 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, only a tiny percentage, statistically negligible, are members or strong supporters of Al Qaeda. An even smaller number within that organization or on its fringe will ever be insane enough to seek martyrdom and virgins in heaven by killing American innocents. Al Qaeda is a twisted criminal organization, not supported by any state since the fall of the Taliban (and certainly never supported by Iraq). Secondly, one way to help the organization, or indeed any organization born of an "ideology of hatred", is to provide reasons and excuses for their continued existence and incentives for their recruitment efforts. The Iraq war is one such reason, and a war against Iran would be another.
Interview on Cox Television with Scott MacFarlane
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
April 13, 2006
QUESTION: Local Congressman John Murtha has criticized the war effort,
indicates that the war effort is hurting our standing among other countries,
hurting America's image. Is he right?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I have great respect for Congressman Murtha, of course, but I simply disagree. The United States has taken a decision -- President Bush has taken a decision that it was finally time to remove Saddam Hussein who'd been a threat to the international community ever since he started invading his neighbors, using weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors and his own population and was just a general threat in the region. And now with Saddam Hussein gone, it is possible to develop an Iraq that is stable, an Iraq that is democratic. It's going to take awhile. It's tough. And the Iraqis are
struggling, but they're struggling toward a better future and that better
future was not going to be possible with Saddam Hussein in power. That better
future also was not going to be possible for the Middle East as a whole, a
region that after all had produced such an ideology of hatred that people flew
airplanes into our buildings on one September day. And so we had to take care
of this threat and produce conditions for a different kind of Middle East. That
is what has taken place.
...........
QUESTION: A final question. Communities near Seattle, like communities across
the country, have lost some of their young people in Iraq. What's one of the
errors -- tactical errors we've made in Iraq?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I've made very clear that when you're trying to assess
what errors you may have made or may not have made, you better let history
judge. Because as an historian, I can tell you that things that were considered
brilliant at the moment, turned out later on not to have been so smart and vice
versa. The one thing that is very clear is that it was time to remove Saddam
Hussein. Saddam Hussein was a threat to the international community. He'd used weapons of mass destruction. He was continuing acts of war against our forces that were trying to enforce the armistice that he signed after 1991 to end the war. He was producing mass graves: 300,000 Iraqis in mass graves. And he
continued to threaten his neighbors. You were not going to have a stable Middle
East with Saddam Hussein in the middle of it. You most certainly were not going
to have a more democratic Middle East with Saddam Hussein in the middle of it.
And you need a more democratic and ultimately stable Middle East in order to
counter the kind of ideology of hatred that produced the people who flew
airplanes into our buildings on September 11th. So it was time to get rid of
Saddam Hussein.
Interview on Hearst TV with Laurie Kinney
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
April 13, 2006
QUESTION: As an original architect of the Iraq policy, how do you feel when you
see the President's approval ratings sinking lower and many attributing it to
what has become an unpopular war?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I know that the President cares only about one thing, and that is that the Middle East is a place that is more secure, more democratic,
that's no longer producing the kind of ideology of hatred that led people to
fly airplanes into our buildings one fine September day, and that this is a
President who is always going to do what is right for the international system
and right for history.
Now, the fact of the matter is that you can't judge these things in daily
headlines or daily polls. You can only try and lay a foundation for a better
world. It takes bold, sometimes controversial and difficult decisions to do
that, and this President took the right decision in deciding that it was time
to deal with the threat of Saddam Hussein, time to give the people of Iraq a
chance for a better future. And in doing so, time to lay one of the pillars for
a different kind of Middle East which will not just make the Middle East better
but will make America more secure.