A “Town Hall” meeting is held at Ohio State University on Iraq, attended by an all-star cast from the Clinton administration: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. The intent is to rally support for action against Saddam Hussein, the three arguing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had used them. The three surprisingly are met by jeers and catcalls, completely disrupting the event. The Clinton administration gets a vivid message that the U.S. public opposes deeper military engagement against Saddam.
In his prepared remarks, Cohen says: “Saddam Hussein has developed an arsenal of deadly chemical and biological weapons. He has used these weapons repeatedly against his own people as well as Iran. I have a picture which I believe CNN can show on its cameras, but here’s a picture taken of an Iraqi mother and child killed by Iraqi nerve gas. This is what I would call Madonna and child Saddam Hussein-style.”
Berger says that “in the 21st century, the community of nations may see more and more of this very kind of threat that Iraq poses now, a rogue state with biological and chemical weapons.”
The “record will show that Saddam Hussein has produced weapons of mass destruction,” Albright stated, “which he’s clearly not collecting for his own personal pleasure, but in order to use.” She continues: “Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.”
The event takes place four years before the Bush administration seeks military action against Saddam Hussein for still possessing WMD, and after U.N. inspectors had been ejected from the country. Yes, the intelligence community completely failed in accurately assessing Iraq’s actual capabilities and arsenal, but the idea that the Bush administration invented WMD as a pretext for war is completely wrong.
Day: February 18, 2021