I guess I’m committing DailyKos/left-wing credential suicide here in admitting this, but it’s the truth: in October, 2002, had I been a US Senator, I would very likely have voted in favor of the AUMF.
I only say “very likely” because I might have known some things I didn’t know as a civilian which would have changed my mind.
i also say this as someone who wanted nothing to do with a war against Iraq in 2002, and whose heart broke on the night of Shock and Awe.
So why?
I knew in early 2002 that President Bush was going to war with Iraq. At first I was confused about it all — late 2001 was when the US failed to get Bin Laden (perhaps) and many other Al Qaeda operatives at Tora Bora. I couldn’t understand why we were in there half-heartedly. It wasn’t until early 2002 that I began to hear the whispers of equipment moving into position for Iraq.
I watched Phil Donahue and Chris Matthews religiously at that time — Matthews was the first I heard to raise a specter I hadn’t thought about in years: PNAC. I remembered them...their idiocy in the mid-90’s had made for some great conversations with my military history writer friends. Only then did I fully grasp what was going on in Afghanistan, — or better, what wasn’t going on. Bush was going to do it. He had turned his guns on Iraq and going after Saddam, period.
2002 was a very uncomfortable year for me, professionally and personally precisely because I was not quiet about my belief that we absolutely should not go into Iraq. I had many readers complaining to me in pms through my message board, saying they would never again read my books because of my opposition to that war.
It hurt a lot when this came from servicemen — I’ve always maintained a great relationship with the military, as they make up a significant portion of my readership. I sign books at military bases every year — I insisted on it with my publisher; I wouldn’t agree to a book tour unless they put me at a base. My Dad was wounded in France in WWII. Several of my uncles bore the scars of the Pacific theater — these were the men I grew up around at the lake camp in the summers. My brother-in-law came back from Vietnam broken, and died in a horrific car crash soon after — one that surprised no one who noted his emotional scars. My brother, who had been an anti-war protester earlier on, was in the first group of Marines leaving Paris Island boot camp who didn’t go to Vietnam.
My wife’s family was even more military, with several of her uncles being lifers, and her Dad killed in active duty in Germany when she was very young (not in the war, but in a Jeep accident in the early 60’s). I know how this loss has affected her for her entire life. I saw what war did to my brother-in-law. I saw how trying to make some sense of war tore my brother apart.
So when I heard from military members in 2002 that they were swearing off my books, and were basically turning their backs on me, it hurt. A lot.
I live in Central Massachusetts, which, despite our liberal reputation, skews Republican (Scott Brown won my town 55-45), and my wife, also fiercely anti-Iraq War and I found ourselves no longer invited to the neighborhood gatherings because we were honest (and yeah, I’m loud — Italian, youngest of 7 loud) and unafraid to explain why we thought Iraq might be the biggest foreign policy mistake in our lifetime, to say nothing of horrific suffering it would cause.
Still, despite the consequences, I felt I had to speak up, and so I did, personally, openly under my own name on the internet, and anonymously on other message boards. I knew President Bush was greatly exaggerating the threat. I understood the psyops games they were playing conflating Hussein with 9-11 in every sentence.
I knew it was a mistake. I knew all about PNAC. And most of all, I knew we were going to war with Iraq — in the spring of 2002.
But I also knew what I didn’t know. I didn’t know if Saddam Hussein had a WMD program. I didn’t know if there were ties behind the scenes between Hussein and Bin Laden.
I didn’t know these things because the US didn’t know these things, and anyone claiming with certainty that they knew differently was going as far in that direction as President Bush was going in the other direction.
I absolutely agreed with Scott Ritter that President Bush had not made the case for war. Absolutely. I also absolutely believed that it didn’t matter, that President Bush was going to invade Iraq, and was going to do so before the end of the year, likely, to get that winter weather opening. And no amount of fiery speeches by Democrats (thank you Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd) were going to stop him.
So why would I have voted for the AUMF?
Precisely because of the above. A Pew Poll in October, 2002 showed:
As in previous surveys, a solid majority (62%) of Americans say they support military action to "end Saddam Hussein’s rule," about the same percentage indicating support for military action last month.
The Pew results indicate that the imputation of an Iraq-9/11 link strongly resonates with a majority of Americans, even though most analysts inside and outside government have disputed the suggestion of a direct link, and earlier suggestions by administration officials asserting such a link have been muted. Two-thirds of those surveyed (66%) say they believe "Saddam Hussein helped the terrorists in the September 11 attacks."
But that same poll also said:
Of those questioned, most (56%) say they believe "war still might be avoided." Moreover, of those who support military action, 43% say they would oppose "using military force against Iraq," if Saddam cooperates with "full and complete weapons inspections."
Conversely, 39% of those who say they now oppose military action to oust Saddam say they would change their minds if the Iraqi leader refuses to cooperation.
With those numbers behind him, after a horrific attack on the US, with Bin Laden still on the run, President Bush didn’t need any AUMF on Iraq to wage his war. He wouldn’t have been impeached for overstepping his bounds and the subsequent fiery speeches against him would not even have been as bad as they were afterwards. He had uncertainty on his side, and despite what revisionist historians here and in other places might assert, there was plenty of uncertainty.
Joe Wilson’s editorial about Niger came out in July, 2003.
Robert Greenwald’s film and Richard Clarke’s book came out in 2004.
As did Michael Scheuer’s (head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit, who later admitted in his subsequent book:
For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files—seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials.... There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book.
So even Scheuer, the head of the Bin Laden Unit, a vocal critic of the Iraq War, was surprised to find out that there were no connections — and this was AFTER the AUMF vote.
In the speech Bernie Sanders gave opposing the AUMF, he quoted the Washington Post from that morning, stating: “should Saddam conclude that a US attack could no longer be deterred, he might, at that point, launch a chemical or biological counter-attack.” Sanders restates that position and owned it. It was a logical and common theme.
I’m not criticizing him for that. But it is important to note that even the main-stream newspapers, even Bernie Sanders, believed that Saddam might have chemical and biological weapons, something most Americans (see the poll) simply would not tolerate after 9-11.
We just didn’t know, and that uncertainty gave President Bush all the ammo he needed to launch his war.
And the Bush White was convinced that Saddam had some weapons — or programs, or something. They exaggerated and flat-out lied about their certainty and about the possible extent, but in reading all the books reporting about that time period, the White House was very confident that their invasion, which was never about those weapons, would nonetheless find something damning — all you have to look at is the push to get inspectors in see that; they were trying to gain a casus belli with the UN for removing Saddam.
President Bush sold his speech as a way to avoid war, even though he obviously had no intention of avoiding the invasion. In his Cincinnati speech right before the vote, he explicitly hit on this:
By taking these steps, and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict. Taking these steps would also change the nature of the Iraqi regime itself. America hopes the regime will make that choice. Unfortunately, at least so far, we have little reason to expect it. And that's why two administrations -- mine and President Clinton's -- have stated that regime change in Iraq is the only certain means of removing a great danger to our nation.
*****
Later this week, the United States Congress will vote on this matter. I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America's military, if it proves necessary, to enforce U.N. Security Council demands. Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something. Congress will also be sending a message to the dictator in Iraq: that his only chance -- his only choice is full compliance, and the time remaining for that choice is limited.
There was no doubt: absent the inspectors, President Bush was going to war with Iraq. He wasn’t even denying it. “By taking these steps, and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict.”
He knew he had the power to wage war under the clarifications the earlier AUMF had made regarding the War Powers Act, and with the support of a large majority of Americans.
And so I believed in October, 2002, that the only way to slow down and perhaps halt the march to war with Iraq was through coercive diplomacy. I held out one last hope that we would avoid war because inspectors would either find nothing (all they found in violation were some missiles), or would be able to disarm Iraqi WMD programs without an invasion (as they destroyed the missiles).
If you doubt that President Bush would have gone into Iraq consequence-free absent that AUMF, read the text of the resolution:
SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
- (a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--
- (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
- (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
- (b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--
- (1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
- (2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
- (c) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
- (1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
- (2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
So this was my thinking, as someone who desperately did not want war with Iraq, in October, 2002. All through the end of that year and early, 2003, I was breathing a sigh of relief that President Bush’s casus belli for attacking Iraq was disappearing before our eyes.
He did it anyway.
I struggled with whether I should publicly admit this or not, with so many people bumper-stickering that time to “Voted for the WAR!!!!!!” I thought it unfair when candidate Obama tried to hang Iraq around candidate Clinton’s neck in 2002. Though I supported Obama, this wasn’t a determining factor for me. he wasn’t in the Senate at that time. He didn’t have to cast that vote.
Why wasn’t it an issue for me? I ran into Barney Frank at Logan airport a couple of months ago — I didn’t know him or anything, but I nearly ran into him with my luggage as he was coming down the escalator and I blurted out his name and extended my hand. He was cordial and I got to tell him that I loved to use a quote he once used on Ralph Nader — he laughed heartily and told me that was his favorite quote:
“You get to luxuriate in the purity of your irrelevance.”
We all do. I’m a writer. We can scream and yell out truths with certainty consequence free!
My books involve political games and machinations (even if those are sometimes applied to elves and dwarves). I try to view political fights and important decisions through the eyes of the combatants. Even though I get to luxuriate in my irrelevance, I try to put myself in the place of the actors on the great stage.
In that place, I, who hated the thought of invading Iraq, would very likely have voted for the AUMF because I saw it as the best chance to force inspectors back into Iraq (it did, and even Saddam’s allies told him to comply or he was going to get invaded), and that those inspectors were the only chance we had to avoid war.
I grow very tired of people pretending that nothing happened between October, 2002 and March, 2003, and very tired of that vote being used as a bludgeon against the Democrats who voted for it. Other than Joe Lieberman, I think you’d be very hard-pressed to find a Democrat who would have voted to invade Iraq in February, 2003.