-Caveat Lector-
http://www.msnbc.com/news/819768.asp
Pre-empting Saddam
Is the case for war not serious enough to interrupt a TV sitcom?
President Bush's speech Monday night outlining his case against Iraq was
not carried by the three major TV networks.
By Michael Kinsley
SLATE.COM
Oct. 10 � According to the Bush administration, the threat posed by Iraq
is serious enough to risk the lives of American soldiers, to end the lives
of what would undoubtedly be thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians,
and to risk a chemical or biological attack on the American homeland, but
not serious enough to interrupt prime-time television.
NONE OF THE big three broadcast networks carried Bush�s
case-for-war speech Monday night because, they say, the White House didn�t
ask. Pre-empting Saddam Hussein is one thing, apparently, but pre-empting
Drew Carey is another.
The Washington Post reports that �the White House said it did not
put in the usual formal request because it wanted to keep the American
public from thinking we were going to war.� As the hour for the speech
approached, the Post says, White House officials had second thoughts and
offered to �beef up� the speech to entice the networks, but it was too
late.
MIXED SIGNALS
This notion that a call to arms can be beefed up or beefed down at
will, like the idea that people should give their support for a war
without really thinking it�s going to happen, is characteristic of the
Bush sell job. Foreigners, The New York Times reports, read Bush�s speech
as backing down from an inexorable commitment to �regime change,� while
here in America it was seen as his toughest statement yet.
Whatever.
Ambiguity has its place in dealings among nations, and so does a
bit of studied irrationality. Sending mixed signals and leaving the enemy
uncertain what you might do next are valid tactics. But the cloud of
confusion that surrounds Bush�s Iraq policy is not tactical. It�s the real
thing. And the dissembling is aimed at the American citizenry, not at
Saddam Hussein. Saddam knows how close he is or isn�t to a usable nuclear
bomb � we�re the ones who are expected to take Bush�s word for it.
�Iraq could decide on any given day� to give biological or chemical
weapons to terrorists for use against the United States, Bush said Monday
night. The wording is cleverly designed to imply more than it actually
says. It doesn�t say an Iraq-sponsored biological attack could actually
happen tomorrow. But the only purpose of the phrase �on any given day� is
to suggest that it might.
BEHIND THE WORDS
So, the question then arises: If Saddam Hussein has the desire and
ability to attack the United States with chemical and biological weapons,
either directly or using surrogates, why hasn�t he done so? Possibly
because he fears reprisal. Bush�s emphasis on the danger of Saddam giving
these weapons to terrorists, rather than his using them himself, was
another bit of careful wording, intended to suggest that Saddam could
avoid reprisal by leaving no fingerprints. But Saddam surely realizes that
evidence will be found linking him to any terrorist act for the
foreseeable future, whether such evidence exists or not. Meanwhile,
though, if the United States is inexorably committed to �regime change� �
which, in any scenario, Saddam is unlikely to survive in one piece � any
reason for him to show restraint disappears.
The CIA makes this obvious point in a document made public this
week. The agency�s assessment is that Iraq is unlikely to use biological
or chemical weapons against the United States unless we attack Iraq and
Saddam concludes he has nothing to lose. The administration disagrees,
naturally. Whatever small basis either side may have for its conclusion,
we who must follow the dispute in the papers have even less. Who knows
who�s right? But Bush cannot have it both ways. He cannot insist that
Saddam Hussein is able and eager to do so much harm to the United States
that we must go to war to remove him, and at the same time refuse to
acknowledge the increased risk of such harm as one of the costs of going
to war.
DISHONEST AND UNSERIOUS
The Bush campaign for war against Iraq has been insulting to
American citizens, not just because it has been dishonest, but because it
has been unserious. A lie is insulting; an obvious lie is doubly
insulting. Arguments that stumble into each other like drunks are not
serious. Washington is abuzz with the �real reason� this or that subgroup
of the administration wants this war. A serious and respectful effort to
rally the citizenry would offer the real reasons, would base the
conclusion on the evidence rather than vice versa, would admit to the
ambiguities and uncertainties, would be frank about the potential cost. A
serious effort to take the nation into war would not hesitate to interrupt
people while they�re watching a sitcom.
But citizens ought to be more serious, too. They tell pollsters
they favor the Bush policy, then they say they favor conditions like U.N.
approval that are not part of the Bush policy. Many, in polls, seem to
make a distinction between war, which they favor, and casualties, which
they don�t. Neither side in this argument has an open-and-shut case, and
certainly agreeing with the president�s case doesn�t make you a fool.
Agreeing with the president even though you didn�t hear his case � because
he apparently didn�t much care if you heard it � is a different story.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kinsley is Slate's founding editor.
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