Richard Perle, one of Rummy's main advisers and one of the most influential hawks on the Iraq War, was nicknamed by his admirers "the Prince of Darkness." It's kind of scary when the people who admire you give you a nickname like that!
This interview with Perle gives an indication why (my emphasis):
<< The justification [for the Iraq War] was never restricted to weapons of mass destruction. The president talked about regime change very early on. The regime change argument was eclipsed by the weapons of mass destruction argument partly because the Department of State was always uncomfortable talking about regime change… [because] that it is outside what is today the accepted notion of legitimacy in international terms…. But weapons of mass destruction and violations of UN resolutions are a solid basis for reaction and the State Department gravitated toward the legally correct view. >>
One would hope that every official employed by the United States Government would "gravitate toward the legally correct view." But apparently not everyone involved thought that was an adequate perspective.
2 comments:
It's interesting that when Gov. Bush was campaigning to be president he specifically stated that "regime change" was not something the United States should be involved in. If you go to the Daily Show video page on comedycentral.com they have a "debate" between Bush the candidate and Bush the president that makes this distinction very clear.
Yeah, I watched that. It's pretty funny. He really did start pulling some strange things out of his foreign policy hat once he became President! He and his defenders try to blame "9/11" for anything they do now. But the Iraq War policy really had little or nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, except that it gave them an excuse to promote war fever against Iraq. - Bruce
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