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Bush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says
Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
217-333-2177; andreal@illinois.edu
5/10/2004
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —
If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to
war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few –
27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002,
according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of
President George W. Bush.
The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus
from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only five months
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
In addition to what it says about the shifting sands of rationales and
the unsteady path to war in Iraq, what is remarkable about the 212-page
study is that its author is a student.
The study, “Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The
Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September
12, 2001, to October 11, 2002,” is the senior honors thesis of
Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study
is the first of its kind.
For her analysis of all available public statements the Bush administration
and selected members of Congress made pertaining to war with Iraq, Largio
not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also
established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted
the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam
Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration’s shift in interest
from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media’s
response to that shift.
“The rationales that were used to justify the war with Iraq have
been a major issue in the news since last year, and Devon’s study
provides an especially thorough and wide-ranging analysis of it,”
Althaus, a professor of political
science, said.
“It is not the last word on the subject, but I believe it is the
first to document systematically the case that the administration made
for going to war during critical periods of the public debate.
“It is first-rate research,” Althaus said, “the best
senior thesis I have ever seen – thoroughly documented and elaborately
detailed. Her methodology is first-rate.”
Largio mapped the road to war over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to
December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address,
to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from
Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval
of the resolution to use force in Iraq.
She drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney,
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser
Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott
and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New
York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and
stories.
The rationales Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners
– war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s
regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s
“because Saddam Hussein hates us,” Colin Powell’s
“because it’s a violation of international law,” and
Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and
gain favor within the Middle East.”
With regard to the administration’s shift from bin Laden to Saddam,
Largio found that Iraq was “part of the plan for the war on terror
early in the game.”
For example, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, President
Bush declared that Iraq was part of the war against terrorism because
it supported terrorists and continued to “flaunt its hostility
toward America.” He also claimed that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors
into the country and then threw them out, “fueling the belief
that the nation did in fact plan to develop weapons of mass destruction,”
Largio wrote.
In the same speech, the president called Iraq, Iran and North Korea
an “axis of evil,” a phrase that would “ignite much
criticism” and add “to the sense that the U.S. would embark
on a war with the Hussein state,” Largio wrote.
“So, from February of 2002 on,” Largio said, “Iraq
gets more hits than Osama bin Laden. For President Bush the switch occurs
there and the gap grows over time.”
Largio also discovered that it was the media that initiated discussions
about Iraq, introducing ideas before the administration and congressional
leaders did about the intentions of that country and its leader. The
media also “brought the idea that Iraq may be connected to the
9-11 incident to the forefront, asking questions of the officials on
the topic and printing articles about the possibility.”
The media “seemed to offer a lot of opinion and speculation, as
there had been no formal indication that Iraq would be a target in the
war on terror,” Largio wrote. Oddly, though, the media didn’t
switch its focus to Iraq and Saddam until July of 2002.
Yet, “Overall, the media was in tune with the major arguments
of the administration and Congress, but not with every detail that emerged
from the official sources.”
“As always, hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Largio wrote in
the conclusion to her thesis. “However, there are questions surrounding
nearly every major rationale for the war.
“People may wonder, why are our men and women over there? Why
did we go to war? Were we misled? In this election year, these questions
deserve answers. And though this paper cannot answer these questions
definitively, it can provide some insight into the thinking of the powers-that-be
during the earliest stages of war preparation and give the American
people a chance to answer these questions for themselves.”
Because Largio’s thesis addresses questions of “great public
importance,” Althaus said, and “does so in such a detailed
manner,” he arranged to have it posted on a public Web
site. Largio will graduate on May 16, and will attend law school
at Vanderbilt University.
