After watching the Bush/Blair press conference, it is evident that this daring duo has no tangible response to the Downing Street Minutes. Their weak, transparent response can be boiled down into three points:
- The DSM was written before they went to the UN, and since they went to the UN, they obviously had not decided to go to war.
- Saddam Hussein brought it all on himself. They did not want war, and would not have invaded if only Hussein had complied with UN resolution 1441.
- The world is better off without Saddam in power.
Let's take each point one at a time:
- Of course the DSM was written before they went to the UN. That is the whole point. Knowing that the case to invade was weak, Bush and Blair needed to create a justification. As the DSM states: "But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."
- Excuse #2 is contradicted by reality. The DSM states: "The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors." But Saddam Hussein did not refuse to let the inspectors in. The inspectors were allowed in, they were doing their job, and they were well on their way to proving that the WMD had been destroyed. Bush and Blair pulled them out so they could take the military action they were obviously planning all along.
- Excuse #3 is the great "ends justify the means" catch-all. They use it every time things get tough - "the world is better off without Saddam". The problem is that excuse #2 contradicts excuse #3. Bush and Blair claim they wanted to avoid war. They say military action would have been avoided if only Saddam had cooperated with UN resolution 1441. Since 1441 did not authorize regime change, by Bush and Blair's own logic, if Saddam had cooperated (disarmed), he would have remained in power, and that was acceptable to them. Since he did cooperate, they had no authorization to remove him from power. By their own admission, disarmament was the goal, by peaceful means. The "world being better off" (which is debatable) is not a justification for an illegal war, and they know it. As the DSM states: "The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case."
As Robert Parry states: "The clues are falling into place, pointing to the incontrovertible judgment that George W. Bush willfully misled the United States into invading Iraq, in part, by eliminating the possibility of the peaceful solution that he pretended to want."
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/060605.html