THE COST OF INACTION

You've seen it all over the place. Two examples:

ABC/the A.P.:

Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated into only hopes and dreams by the time of the U.S.-led invasion last year, a decline wrought by the first Gulf War and years of international sanctions, the chief U.S. weapons hunter found. . .

And the BBC:

Iraq had no stockpiles of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons before last year's US-led invasion, the chief US weapons inspector has concluded. . .

Yet this report will settle nothing, of course. Those who favored leaving him in power, will find parts they like and continue to shout the "war was wrong!":

. . ."George Bush refuses to come clean about the ways he misled our country into war," Kerry spokesman David Wade added.

"In short, we invaded a country, thousands of people have died, and Iraq never posed a grave or growing danger," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. . .

While those who believe unseating Hussein was right will point how it also supports their view, as ABC/and the A.P. were willing to find space for:

. . . President Bush's spokesman said the report justified the decision to go to war. Campaigning in Pennsylvania, Bush defended the decision to invade.

"There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," the president said in a speech in Wilkes Barre, Pa. "In the world after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take.". . .

So, what we had here was a mess involving one of the worst human rights abusing regimes on the planet -- a regime not trusted by most as far as most could throw it, but which was messing around in all sorts of ways, the details of which will probably take years to learn, or may never be known fully. But the context had changed dramatically after September 11, 2001, when suddenly, the machinations of that regime were magnified many times over. And, of course, the regime itself did NOTHING to allay fears of it. Indeed, it played on them.

As for the specific WMD question. The Saddamist regime didn't have them at the ready, as was the concern (and a reasonable one, one would think, especially post-September 11, 2001), but apparently could have had undertaken to produce them again, once the sanctions were lifted. Yet, even with the Saddamist history, we were supposed to "trust" that regime implicitly, according to the likes of Rockefeller. We were supposed to stand back, and wait . . . wait for the sanctions to collapse completely (as they were bound to eventually) . . . and wait . . .

Instead, a decisive decision was taken, which Rockefeller and others vehemently opposed -- to bring the 1991 Gulf War to a conclusion. You know, it's sad, I noted some time ago that:

. . . Historians have created a cottage industry decrying the French for not challenging Hitler in 1936 (But isn't peace always the way?), when cinq hommes waving stale baguettes could have stopped the Wehrmacht's re-militarization of the Rhineland, and ended his quest for world power then and there. (Oh, the advantages of six decades of hindsight!). . .

In too many respects, that's where we are now. After all, if the French had enforced the Versailles Treaty and marched in to oppose Hitler's move into the Rhineland, and in the course of such overthrew the Hitlerite regime, there would not have been WWII.

That move could have been done at RELATIVELY small cost, for in early 1936 Hitler was of small consequence militarily -- the Nazi regime was still mostly bluster. (As we learned after the war, the troops moving in had been ordered to retreat, if the French confronted them.) To use today's terminology, in March 1936, Nazi Germany WAS NOT AN "IMMINENT" THREAT. Hitler gambled on the free world's (especially France's) unwillingness to confront him, and he gambled correctly: Paris did nothing.

But a scant four years later, France discovered to its horror that the Hitlerite regime that had been able to send only several understrength battalions into the Rhineland was easily able to send over 100 DIVISIONS on a dramatic offensive into the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France itself, an offensive that crushed the French army in only 43 days of actual battle. And the war that plunged Europe and much of the rest of the world -- for Japan was especially emboldened by Hitler's success in Europe -- moved into "high gear".

Yet it all came about because a "small problem" that at first glance looked "contained" was allowed to get completely out of hand. So, before berating action, we need to remember what is often the cost of inaction -- especially when dealing with (or ducking) unpredictable dictators/megalomaniacs who have expansionist tendencies, and/or dream of imposing a global "caliphate". . .  ¶ by Robert, Thursday, October 07, 2004