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June 04, 2003

Contexts

Earlier today, I posted an entry about an article in the Guardian that claimed Paul Wolfowitz was, in essence, saying that the war was about oil, and the potential implications that had, in particular, for Tony Blair. As part of that entry, I'd noted that I'd also run into some questions about another statement of Wolfowitz' that appeared to have been taken out of context. Reuters had published a story stating that Wolfowitz had said that being able to remove our troops from Saudi Arabia was an "unnoticed but huge" reason we attacked Iraq, but a review of the DOD transcript puts the comment in a slighly different light.

I had used the Reuters article as a basis for an even earlier post, which - after discovering the problems with their representation of the statement - I had added a couple of "update" notices to, to try and clarify the situation. In light of the problem with the Guardian's representation of Wolfowitz' statement about Iraq's oil, I've decided to post the information on the other statement here as well, just so it's all in one basic area of the blog.

Here is the original paragraph from the Reuters story:

Wolfowitz said another reason for the invasion had been "almost unnoticed but huge" -- namely that the ousting of Saddam would allow the United States to remove its troops from Saudi Arabia, where their presence had long been a major al Qaeda grievance.

And here is the passage from the DOD transcript of Tannenhaus interview:

I think the two most important things next are the two most obvious. One is getting post-Saddam Iraq right. Getting it right may take years, but setting the conditions for getting it right in the next six months. The next six months are going to be very important.

The other thing is trying to get some progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I do think we have a better atmosphere for working on it now than we did before in all kinds of ways. Whether that's enough to make a difference is not certain, but I will be happy to go back and dig up the things I said a long time ago which is, while it undoubtedly was true that if we could make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue we would provide a better set of circumstances to deal with Saddam Hussein, but that it was equally true the other way around that if we could deal with Saddam Hussein it would provide a better set of circumstances for dealing with the Arab-Israeli issue. That you had to move on both of them as best you could when you could, but --

There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed--but it's huge--is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things.

I don't want to speak in messianic terms. It's not going to change things overnight, but it's a huge improvement.

Initially, I had read this as Wolfowitz saying that, contrary to the Reuters implication that the removal of troops from Saudi Arabia was part of the justification for the war, Wolfowitz was actually saying that removing the troops was something that had come about as a result of the war. Because I know Spinsanity is a place a lot of people can go to check for problems like this, I sent them a note about what I'd found - or, rather, what I thought I'd found. I received a reply from Brent with Spinsanity shortly after I wrote him, pointing out that, while Reuters appears to have mischaracterized the importance of removing troops from Saudi Arabia as a "huge" part of why we went to war, a bit of the conversation that took place after an interruption shows that Tannenhaus went back to clarify what Wolfowitz was saying, and that it was, in fact, part of the pre-war justification, though how important it was isn't clear. Here's the message I got from Spinsanity in response to my letter.

Thanks for passing this on. I've been following this debate and wanted to let you know that Tannenhaus did follow up on this pointand confirm that the situation in Saudi Arabia was part of the strategic equation going into the decision to go to war, rather than just a post facto benefit. See Josh Marshall's post making this point at talkingpointsmemo.com. It's farther down in the conversation due to an interruption. I do think the Reuters quote is probably unfair, though, in saying Wolfowitz was specifically calling it an "unnoticed but huge" reason to go to war. Here's the passage in question:

Tannenhaus: So this notion then that the strategic question was really a part of the equation, that you were looking at Saudi Arabia --

Wolfowitz: I was. It's one of the reasons why I took a very different view of what the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would destabilize the Middle East. I said on the record, I don't understand how people can really believe that removing this huge source of instability is going to be a cause of instability in the Middle East.

In addition, the quote from the Tannenhaus interview that's generated the most interest also appears to have been presented somewhat out of context. According to the Vanity Fair article, Wolfowitz reportedly said "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.''

The DOD transcript presents it a bit differently:

Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into --

Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --

(Pause)

Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.

Another interesting tidbit about the Tannenhaus interview was brought up by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. He noted that, to him, the most "eye-popping" part of the article was a section where

Tanenhaus discusses the portion of the interview in which he and Wolfowitz discussed the possibility that Saddam may have played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. According to Tanenhaus' article, Wolfowitz is "confident" Saddam played some role in the 1993 incident and has "entertained" the theory that he played a role in the Oklahoma City bombing as well. In the interview, according to Tanenhaus, Wolfowitz declined comment on the 1995 bombing.

Marshall then tells of how he went to the DOD transcript of the interview to read what Wolfowitz had actually said - but there were no references to either the 1993 or 1995 bombings anywhere in the transcript. He also notes that the Pentagon claims that the transcript is complete, while Vanity Fair maintains that the discussion did take place during the Tannenhaus interview.

It's certainly an interesting mess, and one I plan to keep watching to see what else comes out of it, if anything.

Posted by thorswitch at June 4, 2003 07:45 PM

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