Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

For those who say the US went to war for a lie

The Chicago Tribune reports the real reason the US sent to war. The first quote is from President Bush's speeech to the UN:

...

"In 1991 Iraq promised UN inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq's commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading and harassing UN inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. ...

"The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence?

...

As the Tribune reported Nov. 9, 2002: "... Minutes after the measure won the support of even last-minute holdouts Russia and Syria, President Bush warned Hussein that it was up to him whether war erupts in the Persian Gulf. `The outcome of the current crisis is already determined,' Bush said in a hastily arranged appearance. `The full disarmament of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq will occur. The only question for the Iraqi regime is to decide how.'"

The UN then dispatched weapons inspectors to resume the search suspended in 1998. But rather than open itself to complete scrutiny--a necessary act even if it no longer possessed illicit arms--Iraq's regime feinted and dodged.

Colin Powell, during his Feb. 5, 2003, presentation to the Security Council, increased U.S. pressure on the UN to enforce its demands: "... This council placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm, and not on the inspectors to find that which Iraq has gone out of its way to conceal for so long. Inspectors are inspectors; they are not detectives. ...

"[T]he information and intelligence we have gathered point to an active and systematic effort on the part of the Iraqi regime to keep key materials and people from the inspectors, in direct violation of Resolution 1441. The pattern is not just one of reluctant cooperation, nor is it merely a lack of cooperation. What we see is a deliberate campaign to prevent any meaningful inspection work."

...

- Resolution 1441, the last of 17 such broad directives to Iraq, was adopted by a 15-0 vote on Nov. 8, 2002. It said the Security Council:

"... Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 ..." and gives Iraq a final 30 days to provide "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material. ..."

Iraq was to give inspectors "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access" to verify its compliance. The decree concluded with its admonition that the Security Council "has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations."

...

On March 17, 2003, Bush primarily cited Iraq's failure to obey UN orders as the reason for the impending launch of the war. He spoke of Iraq's weapons programs but pivoted his speech on Hussein's intransigence:

"My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

"Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned. ...

"The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours," Bush said.

...

Reasonable minds profoundly disagree on whether Saddam Hussein's flouting of UN resolutions and sanctions justified the launch of war. But there can be no credible assertion that either Iraq or the UN met its responsibility to the world. If anything, the Bush administration's citations of cunning chicanery--both in Baghdad and at UN headquarters on the East River--were gravely understated.

...

Did the White House mislead Americans, or the world, about Iraq's rebuffs to the UN? No. The truthfulness of the administration's basic case, like Iraq's hubris, is as self-evident in retrospect as it was at the time:

For whatever reason, and none is acceptable, Hussein didn't disclose what weapons programs he had, or no longer had, or schemed to have. He did not have the option--refusal--that he chose.

Rather than confront that refusal, the UN averted its eyes--not only from Hussein but from its own complicity in his bad acts. Even as Hussein ignored the resolutions, widespread corruption of an important UN effort to help the people of Iraq empowered him to continue abusing them. That corruption allegedly funded Hussein's purchase of influential friends in nations that, year after year, did not press the Security Council to enforce its edicts against him.

There is much more. It confirms what I said here often. The war was about Saddam's failure to account for his WMD. Even after the war it is still unaccounted for in several respects. That should be everyones real concern instead of the "Bush Lied" lie.