Day 30 in continued blog series on the lead-up to invading Iraq.
          March, 2002, continued:

March 13, 2002 – Bush gives a press conference, clearly showing he has not given up his Iraq agenda:

“Q    Vice President Cheney is on the road now trying to build support for possible action against Iraq.  If you don't get that, down the road you decide you want to take action, would you take action against Iraq unilaterally?

THE PRESIDENT:  One of the things I've said to our friends is that we will consult, that we will share our views of how to make the world more safe.  In regards to Iraq, we're doing just that.  Every world leader that comes to see me, I explain our concerns about a nation which is not conforming to agreements that it made in the past; a nation which has gassed her people in the past; a nation which has weapons of mass destruction and apparently is not afraid to use them.

And so one of the  --  what the Vice President is doing is he's reminding people about this danger, and that we need to work in concert to confront this danger.  Again, all options are on the table, and  --  but one thing I will not allow is a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future by developing weapons of mass destruction.  They've agreed not to have those weapons; they ought to conform to their agreement, comply with their agreement.  Yes, John.

Q    It seems to me  --  you seem to be saying, yes, you would consult with the allies and others, including in the Mideast, but if you had to, you'd go ahead and take action yourself.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, you're answering the question for me.  If I can remember the exact words, I'll say it exactly the way I said it before.  We are going to consult.  I am deeply concerned about Iraq.  And so should the American people be concerned about Iraq.  And so should people who love freedom be concerned about Iraq.

This is a nation run by a man who is willing to kill his own people by using chemical weapons; a man who won't let inspectors into the country; a man who's obviously got something to hide.  And he is a problem, and we're going to deal with him.  But the first stage is to consult with our allies and friends, and that's exactly what we're doing.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

 
As ever, Bush emphasizes WMD as a danger posed by Saddam, does not mention that the U.S. is still Iraq’s biggest customer for oil, implies reluctance to go to war, and insists that he is seeking cooperation with other nations.

March 16-19, 2002 – Vice President Cheney goes on a whirlwind tour of Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey and Israel to try to drum up support for war against Saddam Hussein, with limited success. The U.S. news media focus almost entirely on apparent government efforts to broker peace between the Palestinians and Israel rather than on efforts to generate or cement Arab support for war on Iraq.

March 20, 2002 – Judith Miller relays what is in effect a message from the administration in the New York Times:

“After the failure of weeks of quiet diplomacy, the Bush administration called today for the resignation of the director of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international organization charged with stopping the spread of chemical weapons. 

Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said the administration had lost confidence in Jose Bustani, the organization's director general, a Brazilian, accusing him of "mismanagement" of the 145-member organization, "ill-considered initiatives" and the "demoralization" of its technical staff.

"The United States and others don't believe the organization can continue to fulfill its primary mission of eliminating chemical weapons under its current leadership," Mr. Boucher said. "We and others have urged the director general to resign for the good of the organization."

(“A NATION CHALLENGED: LEADERSHIP; White House Wants Chief of Chemical Arms Group to Resign,” A15)

 
Much of the administration’s effort to push war with Iraq was conducted through international relations in a sense. While one could hardly call these gestures ‘diplomacy,’ they serve a two-fold purpose of intimidating opposition abroad and creating a backdrop of urgency and statesmanship for Americans dimly aware of them at home, where they are channeled by sympathetic media contacts.

March 21, 2002 – According to the Energy Information Administration, “U.N. Security Council permanent member Russia blocks attempts by other members of the U.N. Sanctions Committee to either set out a stricter pricing mechanism or eliminate middlemen from Iraq's oil trade. The U.N. suspects that many middlemen pay surcharges to the Iraqi government, in violation of U.N. rules. Russian companies have been the largest lifters of Iraqi crude oil since the start of the U.N. ""Oil-for-Food"" program.”

Regardless of the fact that some of the middlemen for Iraqi oil either are American or are engaged in commerce with U.S. companies, this move by Russia has the effect of diminishing control by the administration over commerce in Iraqi oil.