20 reasons to overthrow Saddam: the media say the Bush team hasn't made its case for invading Iraq. But statements by Dick Cheney make clear why the U.S. will invade Iraq and finish off Saddam

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 30, 2002 | by J. Michael Waller

President George W. Bush intends to finish off Saddam Hussein once and for all. A spectrum of options is at his disposal, from covert operations against the Iraqi leader to a range of military actions that include outright invasion in partnership with Iraqi resistance. Leaving Saddam Hussein in power, Bush told reporters as Washington officialdom reassembled after Labor Day, is "not an option."

Yet the American public, united in the view that Saddam presents a terrorist danger, was divided about what to do. As the administration's end-of-summer public-relations offensive against the Baghdad regime began, support for U.S. action was declining--with the liberal press searching for Republican defectors.

"A bare majority of Americans, 53 percent, say they would favor sending American ground troops to the Persian Gulf area in an attempt to remove Hussein from power, while 41 percent say they would oppose such action," the Gallup polling organization reported in late August. That was down from 74 percent backing action against Saddam 10 months ago. Meanwhile, the public overwhelmingly believed the Iraqi dictator is "supporting terrorist groups that have plans to attack the United States" according to Gallup.

At home and abroad, according to the media, the common complaint among Bush's supporters and adversaries is that the administration has not stated its case well against Saddam Hussein. That complaint bugs the White House press office, which says with a trace of annoyance that top officials, including the president himself, time and again have advanced their reasons in public statements and speeches. But critics say the administration position has been muddled, reflecting bitter policy battles that pit Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, advocating decisive action on one side, and Secretary of State Colin Powell and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board chief Brent Scowcroft preaching caution on the other.

To the delight of those thinking to embarrass Bush a few senior Republican figures appeared to break ranks even before the president had made a decision about how to remove Saddam. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) joined Scowcroft, who served as national-security adviser in the administration of George H.W. Bush, openly expressing reservations about going after the Iraqi regime. A few more Republican critics followed, creating fissures that liberal media reported as erosion of the president's base.

But as with so many national-security issues, senior Bush supporters in Washington say, the message was fumbled. "The president has decided that Saddam must go, but he hadn't yet decided how" a Pentagon insider tells INSIGHT. "That didn't mean the administration shouldn't have been clearly explaining to the public exactly why Saddam had to be removed and why it must be done so urgently."

So whether the White House press office believed it had a message problem, a lot of people who matter thought it did. Even after Vice President Cheney launched the president's anti-Saddam drive with two hard-hitting speeches in late August followed by Bush meeting with congressional leaders and the press the following week, the White House still didn't have a clear set of points packaged in a way the public readily could understand. After the president announced definitively Sept. 3 that Saddam had to go, INSIGHT called the White House press office for a fact sheet or talking points outlining why the president viewed the threat so serious as to require immediate forceful action. "I don't think we need a fact sheet," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius responded, adding that the administration "takes umbrage" at those who say that there's no clear message and pointing to the two Cheney speeches and the president's remarks that morning.

The spokesman could not provide a point-by-point paper that clearly and fully explained the president's views.

While there were official statements that reflected the president's views--Bush is reported to have read the drafts of Cheney's speeches and personally added his own comments--the reader first had to navigate through paragraph after paragraph of Cheney remarks on health care for veterans and a recounting of the Korean war to get to the main points. And the presidential quotes of Sept. 3 were strong but general: "For 11 long years, Saddam Hussein has sidestepped, crawfished, wheedled out of any agreements he had made not to develop weapons of mass destruction."

Bush stuck to the broad message: "Saddam Hussein is a serious threat. He is a significant problem and something the country must deal with." Why? No details. "Doing nothing about that serious threat is not an option for the United States." He told reporters, "This is a debate the American people must hear, must understand."

They're not understanding it yet. Senior administration officials still don't have talking points. After the president met with top lawmakers, senior Bush deputies visited Capitol Hill to speak with them one-on-one. A senior administration official succeeded only in angering a prominent senator by offering no new details, saying he didn't have anything to brief the senator about because he had been out of town.