68th in continuing blog series on the Bush administration push to war with Iraq. At the beginning of March 2003, the bombing and invasion of Iraq will commence in seventeen days. Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride: A barrage of statements for public consumption by the White House intensifies the only-too-easy propaganda attack on Saddam Hussein. Behind the scenes, preparations for invasion are more than completed, obviating the public claims that Saddam can and must ‘disarm’. The nearly hysterical public relations campaign includes in its wake measures taken by the White House and the Office of the Vice President in the CIA leak matter, see later. Regrettably, Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame later try to pursue redress against Bush and Cheney through civil litigation, a non-case in which the news media take little interest. The courts seldom award damages against officeholders for actions committed as part of the official job, a fact that the litigants’ attorneys had an obligation to tell their clients. The remedy for official offenses is impeachment and removal. If Wilson and Plame had joined a broad-based effort for impeachment, they might have helped protect 2007 from being devoured by an elongated presidential pre-campaign. They might even have helped bring about Part II of the congressional investigation into the origins of the war.
March 1-6, 2003:

 

March 1, 2003 – As usual, Bush discusses Iraq in his weekly radio address to the nation:

 
“THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. America is determined to enforce the demands of the United Nations Security Council by confronting the grave and growing danger of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. This dictator will not be allowed to intimidate and blackmail the civilized world, or to supply his terrible weapons to terrorist groups, who would not hesitate to use them against us. The safety of the American people depends on ending this threat.

       But America's cause is always larger than America's security. We also stand for the advance of freedom and opportunity and hope. The lives and freedom of the Iraqi people matter little to Saddam Hussein, but they matter greatly to us.”
 

If a manufacturer made equally false claims in a national television or radio broadcast, the company could be prosecuted for fraud. In our system of government, the founders left officeholders—“civil officer” in the constitutional phrase—mostly free from litigation over offenses committed in the discharge of their duties. But they also included the remedy of impeachment and removal from office, and they zealously protected impeachment.

 
As of 2008, it is regrettable in hindsight that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame tried to pursue redress against Bush and Cheney through civil litigation. The courts seldom award damages against officeholders for actions committed as part of the official job. The remedy for official offenses is impeachment and removal.

 

March 3, 2003 – The United Nations’ INVO produces an analysis of the documents provided by the U.S. and concludes that these documents are forgeries and do not substantiate the Niger uranium story. INVO also notes contacts in Iraq and Niger. (Libby trial document DX64.9)

 

Same day -- The capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, now named as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is announced.

 
The attacks of September 11, 2001, are now conveniently treated as off the White House’s plate, so it can turn its full attention to the purportedly apocalyptic threat represented by Saddam Hussein.

 

March 4, 2003 – The U.S. government learns that the French had based their initial, unsubstantiated assessment of an Iraq purchase of Niger uranium on the same documents that the U.S. had provided to INVO.

 
Same day -- The U.S. Mission to the IAEA in Vienna reports that “Baute explained that the French based their initial assessment on the same documents that the US provided and that after further review by the French, they appeared to be ‘embarrassed’ by their initial assessment.” (Libby trial document DX64.10)

 

Same day -- In remarks to the American Medical Association, Bush discusses Iraq: 

“It is important for our fellow citizens to recognize life changed on September the 11th, 2001. Obviously, it changed in a tragic way for those who lost loved ones as a result of the cold-blooded attacks on our people. But we learned a harsh lesson, and that is, oceans can no longer protect us from those who hate American and what we stand for. And therefore, it's important for the United States to take every threat which may gather overseas seriously, that we can no longer pick or choose whether a threat requires our involvement. If we see gathering threats which can harm the American people, we must deal with them.

       We're dealing with Iraq because the dictator of Iraq has got weapons of mass destruction; he's used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. He can't stand America, he can't stand our friends, he can't stand our allies. He's got connections to terrorist networks. The first war of the 21st century requires the United States to work with international bodies to deal with these threats, and we will continue to do so.”

 
March 6, 2003 – Bush gives a primetime press conference devoted entirely to Iraq, focused only on questions pertaining to Iraq, from journalists called upon by preapproval, 8:02-8:54 p.m.

 
This is the press conference in which Bush at one point jokes about accidentally calling on the wrong reporter–out of order on his prepared list. Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, who is shown by Secret Service access logs to be at the White House two times on this day (the logs show his second exit registered but not his second entry) does not speak at the press conference. Regrettably, neither does Helen Thomas, who is not called upon, even to give her traditional “Thank you, Mr. President,” at the end. Obviously the White House is unwilling to give her any chance to speak at all.

 
President Bush is aided mightily by the national political reporters in the national capital, none of whom report that the ‘press conference’ is restricted to questions on Iraq. Thus the American public is led to believe that these reporters are all asking about Iraq because of some Iraq crisis. People do not know that the reporters asking the questions are the reporters that the White House has lined up beforehand. Remarkably, on a matter of such moment as war and peace, neither the networks nor the major papers reveal this orchestration.

[Frustrating for a journalist—at the time of these events, I was writing a column each week for a small community newspaper, the Prince George’s Journal, now defunct. This transparently Iraq-focused White House press conference struck me as so remarkable that I wrote a column about it—but the editor mistakenly picked up a different column of mine, about Pakistan and terrorism, that I had already rewritten and that had been published, and ran that instead. So the Washington media went unchallenged, as well as offering no challenge, in the avalanche of propaganda about “Iraq.” I had to plead with the editor to insert the press conference column afterward, and she did, but a couple of days made it much less timely.]

 

March 6, 2003 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair says in London that the U.N. should run Iraq after regime change. Blair says that U.N. control would be the best way to dispel “conspiracy theories” that the U.S. and the U.K. want to control Iraq’s oil reserves. “A simple way out,” Blair says, “would make sure if there is a conflict that in any post-conflict Iraq there is a proper UN mandate for Iraq, and the oil goes into a trust fund. We don’t touch it and the Americans don’t touch it without UN authority.” (M.E.E.S. March 10, 2003)

 
Needless to say, this recommendation is not implemented by the White House.