Simon, I agree. I read with some disbelief on another thread as many posters insisted that the US rationale for war never changed. I think it's clear that it did. I can recall quite clearly the urgent speeches before the UN claiming that the US had irrefutable evidence of Iraq's weapons. I listened with intense interest as Colin Powell made the speech that many expected to be a Cuban Misile Crisis -type revelation of knockout, hard evidence. All he could come up with was an obtuse claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from an African country, which claim has now been shown to be false.
I watched incredulously (even in my "politically neutral" Witness days) as the administration marched inexorably to war, never having presented any evidence for its charges. Even as Iraq softened its position toward the weapons inspectors, allowing them into palaces that had previously been off-limits, the US changed from its increasingly unbelievable WoMD charge to the adament complaint that Iraq was not complying with UN resolutions. It seemed beyond clear to me that the US didn't want to allow the UN body to do its work - it wanted war, now.
Now that the war is started and ongoing, the rationale continues to change. The US never said it wanted to go to war to capture Saddam Hussein, but now that it has, it uses this as justification for the war, as if it had done what it set out to do. To me, this entire episode smacks of the respinning of history that we have grown to hate so well from the Society. None of the original claims for Iraq have held up, so the administration switches to other goals and claims that it is a mission accomplished. 1914, anyone?
SNG
