Cheney’s brief for war: a mass of lies and historical falsifications
By David Walsh and Barry Grey
2 September 2002
US Vice President Dick Cheney spoke on two occasions last week, opening a political offensive by the Bush administration to propel the US into war with Iraq. The two speeches, which were virtually identical, were aimed less at “making the case” to the American public than at rallying support within ruling circles for the administration’s war plans.
Over the past several weeks a ferocious conflict has been raging within the political elite, including the Bush administration itself, over plans for a US military assault in the coming weeks for the purpose of toppling Saddam Hussein and installing a puppet regime.
Prominent figures in the first Bush administration (1989-93) have come out openly against the present government’s plans for unilateral action. Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser, earlier this month argued that an immediate conflict with Iraq could destabilize the region and undermine the “war on terrorism.” He further suggested that the lack of evidence that the Baghdad regime represented an immediate threat would prevent the mobilization of an international coalition in support of a new war.
Former secretary of state James Baker, the man who two years ago directed the Bush campaign’s machinations to block the counting of votes in Florida, published an opinion piece in the New York Times on August 25 arguing that the current administration was not going about “regime change” in Iraq in “the right way.” Baker urged Bush to go to the United Nations Security Council and press for passage of a resolution requiring Iraq to submit to “intrusive, inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions.” If Iraq should refuse to accept such a resolution, or resist its implementation in any way, argued Baker, the US would “occupy the moral high ground” and could go to war with international support.
Cheney was directly responding to these critics in his addresses. He speaks for the most reckless and militaristic faction within the political establishment, which is intent on using American military superiority to impose—by force—a new division of the world, in which the US occupies a position of global hegemony.
The fact that it was left to Cheney, rather than President Bush, to make the case for a preemptive war against Iraq underscores the real relationship of forces within the administration. It is Cheney who calls the shots. Bush is little more than a front-man, held in well-earned contempt even by those who nominally serve under him.
The critics against whom Cheney is speaking do not oppose US aggression against Iraq in principle; rather, they argue for a somewhat more cautious approach to expanding American dominance of territory and resources in the Middle East. These elements are concerned that the Cheney faction is heedlessly pushing the US into a war without sufficient military or diplomatic preparation, without having adequately prepared public opinion in the US, and in a manner that will needlessly alienate Europe, undermine the Arab bourgeois regimes and destabilize international economic and political relations with incalculable consequences.
The venues for Cheney’s speeches—the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville, Tennessee on August 26 and a gathering of Korean War veterans in San Antonio, Texas three days later—have their own significance. Aside from assuring a receptive audience, the choice of veterans’ groups reflects the administration’s strategy of first overcoming resistance within the military itself to an imminent attack that could entail substantial casualties and a prolonged military occupation of Iraq.
Beyond that, it is entirely in the nature of this administration to begin a public relations campaign by turning to the military for support. Cheney is quite consciously appealing to the military as a counterweight against critics in Congress, the State Department and the foreign policy establishment, including those within his own party, as well as figures within Bush’s cabinet who are wary of a unilateral war in the Gulf.
The speeches were generally praised by the media, including its erstwhile liberal wing. They were treated as serious contributions to a political exchange. A Washington Post editorial (August 27), for example, termed Cheney’s first speech “the Bush administration’s most extensive and forceful statement about the danger posed by the regime of Saddam Hussein and the reasons for taking preventive action against it,” and described Cheney as “passionate and persuasive” in delivering his warmongering message.
In fact, Cheney’s remarks were composed of unsubstantiated allegations, historical falsifications and lies.
In making his case for war against Iraq, Cheney began by stressing that the war in Afghanistan and the proposed invasion of Iraq were merely the initial shots of an open-ended conflict. He told his Nashville audience, “But as Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld has put it, we are still closer to the beginning of this war than we are to its end. The United States has entered a struggle of years—a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy.” He went on to describe the military advantages possessed by the US that “will only become more vital in future campaigns.”
In terms of the geographical limits of this conflict, Cheney asserted, “There is a terrorist underworld out there, spread among more than 60 countries.” There are 189 members of the United Nations; according to Cheney, therefore, nearly one-third of the world is home to this “terrorist underworld” and presumably a legitimate target of US intervention.
Cheney’s message was unmistakable: the American people must get used to decades of continual warfare.
To justify this bloodthirsty perspective, Cheney resorted to the tactic favored by the Bush administration since September 11, i.e., to deliberately sow fear and panic in the population. He declared, “9/11and its aftermath awakened this nation to danger, to the true ambitions of the global terror network and to the reality that weapons of mass destruction are being sought by determined enemies who would not hesitate to use them against us.”
Such characterizations are intended to create a permanent state of anxiety among the American people. This has several purposes. It bolsters the effort to present the government, military and intelligence apparatus as the sole protectors of the population against impending destruction, thus facilitating the gutting of democratic rights and the implementation of authoritarian measures.
This incendiary language is calculated, moreover, to undermine any rational appraisal of the September 11 attacks and any effort to investigate them. The Bush administration has relentlessly opposed an investigation into the terrorist attacks because it has much to hide. A serious probe would demonstrate that the government was, at the very least, guilty of criminal negligence, and, more likely, a deliberate stand-down of intelligence and security agencies. It would establish that the Bush administration seized on the events of September 11 to implement war plans that had been drawn up well in advance.
In last week’s speeches, Cheney took his panic-mongering to absurd heights, warning of a new Pearl Harbor and comparing ravaged and impoverished Iraq to Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.
The core of Cheney’s brief for war against Iraq was based on several premises, none of which withstand scrutiny.
Preemptive war instead of “containment”
Reiterating the line advanced by Bush in his West Point speech last June, Cheney sought to drive home the idea that the “old doctrines of security do not apply” in the new world situation. “In the days of the Cold War,” the vice president remarked, “we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it’s a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend, and containment is not possible, when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to share them with terrorists, who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties.”
Leaving aside the unproven and apocalyptic assertions, Cheney’s argument is a series of non sequiturs. The notion that the US faced less of a threat when confronted by a highly developed society, the Soviet Union—which was armed with thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at every major American city—than it does today when faced by bands of guerrillas is a proposition that flies in the face of logic and common sense.
Moreover, the claim that preemptive war is a novel doctrine dictated by a new world situation is false, as is the attempt to present this policy as a defensive measure. In reality, the “Bush doctrine” is a revival of the strategy of “roll-back” advocated in the Cold War period by the most right-wing and bellicose faction of the American ruling elite. The “roll-back” proponents rejected the dominant policy of “containment” of Soviet influence. They advocated the aggressive use of military pressure and economic and political subversion to overthrow Soviet-backed regimes and isolate and destabilize the USSR. Now the ideological heirs of the “roll-back” zealots have become the dominant force in the political and military establishment.
Nor has a “preventive” war against Iraq or any other country been imposed on the US by the growth of terrorism, a phenomenon that is hardly new in the world. Rather, the collapse of the Soviet Union is seen within the American establishment to have created a “window of opportunity” for the US to exploit its military superiority to grab control of oil reserves and other vital resources, and impose American dominance over the entire planet.
By David Walsh and Barry Grey
2 September 2002
US Vice President Dick Cheney spoke on two occasions last week, opening a political offensive by the Bush administration to propel the US into war with Iraq. The two speeches, which were virtually identical, were aimed less at “making the case” to the American public than at rallying support within ruling circles for the administration’s war plans.
Over the past several weeks a ferocious conflict has been raging within the political elite, including the Bush administration itself, over plans for a US military assault in the coming weeks for the purpose of toppling Saddam Hussein and installing a puppet regime.
Prominent figures in the first Bush administration (1989-93) have come out openly against the present government’s plans for unilateral action. Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser, earlier this month argued that an immediate conflict with Iraq could destabilize the region and undermine the “war on terrorism.” He further suggested that the lack of evidence that the Baghdad regime represented an immediate threat would prevent the mobilization of an international coalition in support of a new war.
Former secretary of state James Baker, the man who two years ago directed the Bush campaign’s machinations to block the counting of votes in Florida, published an opinion piece in the New York Times on August 25 arguing that the current administration was not going about “regime change” in Iraq in “the right way.” Baker urged Bush to go to the United Nations Security Council and press for passage of a resolution requiring Iraq to submit to “intrusive, inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions.” If Iraq should refuse to accept such a resolution, or resist its implementation in any way, argued Baker, the US would “occupy the moral high ground” and could go to war with international support.
Cheney was directly responding to these critics in his addresses. He speaks for the most reckless and militaristic faction within the political establishment, which is intent on using American military superiority to impose—by force—a new division of the world, in which the US occupies a position of global hegemony.
The fact that it was left to Cheney, rather than President Bush, to make the case for a preemptive war against Iraq underscores the real relationship of forces within the administration. It is Cheney who calls the shots. Bush is little more than a front-man, held in well-earned contempt even by those who nominally serve under him.
The critics against whom Cheney is speaking do not oppose US aggression against Iraq in principle; rather, they argue for a somewhat more cautious approach to expanding American dominance of territory and resources in the Middle East. These elements are concerned that the Cheney faction is heedlessly pushing the US into a war without sufficient military or diplomatic preparation, without having adequately prepared public opinion in the US, and in a manner that will needlessly alienate Europe, undermine the Arab bourgeois regimes and destabilize international economic and political relations with incalculable consequences.
The venues for Cheney’s speeches—the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville, Tennessee on August 26 and a gathering of Korean War veterans in San Antonio, Texas three days later—have their own significance. Aside from assuring a receptive audience, the choice of veterans’ groups reflects the administration’s strategy of first overcoming resistance within the military itself to an imminent attack that could entail substantial casualties and a prolonged military occupation of Iraq.
Beyond that, it is entirely in the nature of this administration to begin a public relations campaign by turning to the military for support. Cheney is quite consciously appealing to the military as a counterweight against critics in Congress, the State Department and the foreign policy establishment, including those within his own party, as well as figures within Bush’s cabinet who are wary of a unilateral war in the Gulf.
The speeches were generally praised by the media, including its erstwhile liberal wing. They were treated as serious contributions to a political exchange. A Washington Post editorial (August 27), for example, termed Cheney’s first speech “the Bush administration’s most extensive and forceful statement about the danger posed by the regime of Saddam Hussein and the reasons for taking preventive action against it,” and described Cheney as “passionate and persuasive” in delivering his warmongering message.
In fact, Cheney’s remarks were composed of unsubstantiated allegations, historical falsifications and lies.
In making his case for war against Iraq, Cheney began by stressing that the war in Afghanistan and the proposed invasion of Iraq were merely the initial shots of an open-ended conflict. He told his Nashville audience, “But as Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld has put it, we are still closer to the beginning of this war than we are to its end. The United States has entered a struggle of years—a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy.” He went on to describe the military advantages possessed by the US that “will only become more vital in future campaigns.”
In terms of the geographical limits of this conflict, Cheney asserted, “There is a terrorist underworld out there, spread among more than 60 countries.” There are 189 members of the United Nations; according to Cheney, therefore, nearly one-third of the world is home to this “terrorist underworld” and presumably a legitimate target of US intervention.
Cheney’s message was unmistakable: the American people must get used to decades of continual warfare.
To justify this bloodthirsty perspective, Cheney resorted to the tactic favored by the Bush administration since September 11, i.e., to deliberately sow fear and panic in the population. He declared, “9/11and its aftermath awakened this nation to danger, to the true ambitions of the global terror network and to the reality that weapons of mass destruction are being sought by determined enemies who would not hesitate to use them against us.”
Such characterizations are intended to create a permanent state of anxiety among the American people. This has several purposes. It bolsters the effort to present the government, military and intelligence apparatus as the sole protectors of the population against impending destruction, thus facilitating the gutting of democratic rights and the implementation of authoritarian measures.
This incendiary language is calculated, moreover, to undermine any rational appraisal of the September 11 attacks and any effort to investigate them. The Bush administration has relentlessly opposed an investigation into the terrorist attacks because it has much to hide. A serious probe would demonstrate that the government was, at the very least, guilty of criminal negligence, and, more likely, a deliberate stand-down of intelligence and security agencies. It would establish that the Bush administration seized on the events of September 11 to implement war plans that had been drawn up well in advance.
In last week’s speeches, Cheney took his panic-mongering to absurd heights, warning of a new Pearl Harbor and comparing ravaged and impoverished Iraq to Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.
The core of Cheney’s brief for war against Iraq was based on several premises, none of which withstand scrutiny.
Preemptive war instead of “containment”
Reiterating the line advanced by Bush in his West Point speech last June, Cheney sought to drive home the idea that the “old doctrines of security do not apply” in the new world situation. “In the days of the Cold War,” the vice president remarked, “we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it’s a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend, and containment is not possible, when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to share them with terrorists, who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties.”
Leaving aside the unproven and apocalyptic assertions, Cheney’s argument is a series of non sequiturs. The notion that the US faced less of a threat when confronted by a highly developed society, the Soviet Union—which was armed with thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at every major American city—than it does today when faced by bands of guerrillas is a proposition that flies in the face of logic and common sense.
Moreover, the claim that preemptive war is a novel doctrine dictated by a new world situation is false, as is the attempt to present this policy as a defensive measure. In reality, the “Bush doctrine” is a revival of the strategy of “roll-back” advocated in the Cold War period by the most right-wing and bellicose faction of the American ruling elite. The “roll-back” proponents rejected the dominant policy of “containment” of Soviet influence. They advocated the aggressive use of military pressure and economic and political subversion to overthrow Soviet-backed regimes and isolate and destabilize the USSR. Now the ideological heirs of the “roll-back” zealots have become the dominant force in the political and military establishment.
Nor has a “preventive” war against Iraq or any other country been imposed on the US by the growth of terrorism, a phenomenon that is hardly new in the world. Rather, the collapse of the Soviet Union is seen within the American establishment to have created a “window of opportunity” for the US to exploit its military superiority to grab control of oil reserves and other vital resources, and impose American dominance over the entire planet.