By Michael Collins
Was the failure to prevent 9/11 the core motivation for invading Iraq?
Immediately following the 9/11 attack, retired General Wesley Clark talked with the late Tim Russert of NBC about a call he’d received just after the 9/11 attack. A member of a foreign think tank called Clark on his cell phone. He wanted Clark to claim that the attack originated in Iraq at the direction of Saddam Hussein. Clark isn’t used to taking orders from strangers or anyone else. But he was curious about this call to his private cell phone number. He asked the caller to provide some evidence to support his claim. The call ended quickly without the required evidence and that was that.
Apparently Gen. Clark gave the motivation for the Iraq war a great deal of thought over the years. At a major speech in Texas in 2006 the general said:
“Now why am I going back over ancient history? Because it’s not ancient, because we went to war in Iraq to cover up the command negligence that led to 9/11, and it was a war we didn’t have to fight. That’s the truth …
I’ve been in war, I don’t believe in it, and you don’t do it unless there is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no alternative.”[1]
Command: (DOD) 1. Command includes the authority and responsibility for effectively using available resources and for planning the employment of, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling military forces for the accomplishment of assigned missions. It also includes responsibility for health, welfare, morale, and discipline of assigned personnel.[2]
Negligence: failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances.[3]
In March 2003, there were alternatives to invading Iraq. These included peace offers by the government of Iraq. They’d felt the lash of the United States military in the first Gulf War and had no desire for a rematch. Read the rest of this entry »
