But what about the Americans—the Republicans, in fact—who helped Saddam remain in power all those years and then, changing their minds when the monster proved beyond their control, launched the ill-planned and shamefully executed war to eliminate him that continues to this day? The dictator killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, it is true. According to the most recent study by the British journal The Lancet hundreds of thousands more have died from combat, terror, crime and pestilence since the Bush administration brought him down.
It’s hard to imagine a more striking example of two wrongs making for a worse—horribly worse—outcome. Is there a moral equivalency? Actually, there is. The Republicans asked to be judged for their intentions. They wanted … what was it they wanted to do? Find weapons of mass destruction? Stop terrorism? Assure oil supplies? Ah, yes. They said when they launched the war that petroleum played no part in their judgment. “Nonsense,” was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissive retort. But President George W. Bush himself said last week that oil was one of the main reasons now to stay the course, or hang around, or whatever it is the administration says it’s doing in Iraq these days—until victory, of course.
Well, Saddam Hussein asked to be judged by his intentions, too. He had a tough country to rule, and he found that only fear could do the job for him. (Is that so different from what American commanders are discovering now? In their dreams, they’d love to see a new Iraqi strongman deliver them from this quagmire.) Saddam wanted to keep the Iraqi state together, with well-defended borders, in the face of a growing threat from the wild-eyed mullahs in Iran. He would kill anybody who threatened that design. And in the 1980s the Reagan administration (with a little token handwringing) thought that was just fine.
The Democrats, while they may be feckless, are largely blameless in this drama. President Jimmy Carter was too busy bungling the Iran hostage crisis to pay much attention to Saddam, and probably was thankful, for a minute or two, when Iraq launched its war on Iran in 1980. By the time Bill Clinton came to office in 1993—after Saddam had invaded Kuwait, been driven out, and been allowed to survive—there wasn’t that much left for an American president to do, unless he wanted to invade the country, topple the dictator, occupy Baghdad and … well, the Clinton administration had other priorities.
No, the Saddam psychodrama, and the cost to the United States, has always been a very Republican project, whether for accommodation, rehabilitation or annihilation.
I keep thinking about that video of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in Baghdad. Yes, that was a long time ago: Dec. 20, 1983. But not as long ago as the massacre in the town of Dujail, in July 1982, for which Saddam was just condemned to death. And not so long ago that the Reagan administration did not know full well Saddam was using chemical weapons. A State Department memo written on Nov. 1, 1983, talked about “what now appears to be Iraq’s almost daily use of CW.” That was more than six weeks before Rumsfeld’s trip to Baghdad as a special envoy of Ronald Reagan.
That memo is one of several documented in a detailed chronology about those Reagan administration contacts compiled by the investigative National Security Archive at George Washington University before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (Was anybody paying attention?) As the summary notes with damning blandness, “Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.’s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq’s oil … Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting.” Nor to Dujail, for that matter.
I also think back on the report prepared by U.S. military lawyers in 1991 documenting Saddam Hussein’s crimes against his people and against U.S. soldiers in the war that had just ended. The Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, classified it into oblivion. An unnamed official from that administration subsequently told The Washington Post: “Some people were concerned that if we released it during the [1992 presidential] campaign, people would say, ‘Why don’t you bring this guy to justice?’”
Well, now that they have, the Republicans would like us to believe that holding Saddam responsible for what he did means, for some reason, they should escape responsibility for what they’ve done. Perhaps they believe Americans are just suckers for sagas of redemption. All you have to do is turn your eyes toward the sky, pray for forgiveness, and rake in the votes.
Certainly they’ve made it clear that the only jury they listen to is the electorate. You remember President George W. Bush smugly telling The Washington Post in January 2005, “We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections.”
Another accountability moment is coming. Sunday was judgment day for Saddam , who probably will hang. Tuesday will be judgment day for Republicans. What will happen to them afterward, well, we’ll have to wait and see.
