Bush and Blair skulk

Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Says:

The Times: In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times. ...

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Those proposals were first reported last month in the British press, but the memo does not make clear whether they reflected Mr. Bush's extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government's plan.

Ah, yes, this is what we what in our leaders--hanging out on the eve of war brainstorming ways of provoking a confrontatation.

I actually did support invading Iraq, but not for any of the reasons Bush professed. Just wish the U.S. had been upfront about it, that public opinion post-9/11 made possible something that should've been done long before. The means actually do matter, for hard-nosed political reasons as well as in a moral sense. If you have a good argument, put in the time and energy to convince people--don't use any shortcuts, it's cheap and indefensible to have people die for a straw man cause.

The parellels aren't exact, but the kind of duplicity Bush and Blair were throwing around made me think of what the Germans did on the eve of WWII. As the Wikipedia entry on the Gleiwitz incident says:

The Gleiwitz incident was a simulated attack against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz (Polish: Radiostacja Gliwicka) in Gliwice, Poland on the eve of World War II in Europe. It was one component of Operation Himmler, a German project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which would be used to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland.

On the night of August 31, 1939 a small group of German operatives led by Naujocks seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcasted a message in Polish that urged the Poles living in Silesia to strike against Germans. The Germans' goal was to make the attack and broadcast look like the work of anti-German Polish insurgents.

In order to make the attack scene more convincing, the Germans brought in Franciszek Honiok, a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles, who had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. Honiok was dressed to look like an insurgent; he was then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene, so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was subsequently presented as proof of the attack to the police and press.

In addition to Honiok, several other convicts were kept available for this purpose. The Germans referred to them by the code phrase "Konserve" ("canned goods"). For this reason some sources incorrectly refer to the incident as "Operation Canned Goods".

In that case, Nazi Germany displayed their penchant for adding perfidy to evil; better if they had just invaded Poland straight-up, because they wanted it and could.

The U.S., and Britain too, is better than that. We didn't invade Iraq for evil reasons; we shouldn't have skulked around acting like we did.

Photo of Tony Blair and George Bush arriving for a White House news conference on Jan. 31, 2003 by Doug Mills for The New York Times.