EEE会議（イラク戦争後の大量破壊兵器未発見問題）
2003/6/25

各位殿

イラク戦争の後遺症に１つとして、開戦の口実となった大量破壊兵器の存在が未だに
はっきりしないという問題があり、この点についてブッシュ大統領やブレア首相の政
治責任を問う声が米英両国内で上がっております。とくに米国では当初から開戦に反
対だった民主党系の政治家、学者等は、この点をクローズアップさせることによっ
て、来年のブッシュ大統領再選の芽を摘んでおこうという政治的な配慮も働いている
ようです。例えば、New York Timesの辛口のコラムニストと著名なポール・クルーグ
マン（プリンストン大教授）は、そもそもサダム・フセインとアルカイダをリンクす
るものは何もなかったし、イラクが核兵器を開発しているという確たる証拠もなかっ
た、にもかかわらず、ブッシュ政権は、そのことを知りながら終始一貫して情報操作
を行い、米国民を欺き、国家を戦争にミスリードしてしまった云々と激烈な政権批判
を展開しています。同紙(６月２４日付け）に掲載されたクルーグマン論文は以下の
とおり。ご参考まで。
--KK

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Denial and Deception

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Politics is full of ironies. On the White House Web site, George W. Bush's
speech from Oct. 7, 2002 ・in which he made the case for war with Iraq ・
bears the headline "Denial and Deception." Indeed.

There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials
deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential people
are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious.

About the deception: Leaks from professional intelligence analysts, who are
furious over the way their work was abused, have given us a far more
complete picture of how America went to war. Thanks to reporting by my
colleague Nicholas Kristof, other reports in The New York Times and The
Washington Post, and a magisterial article by John Judis and Spencer
Ackerman in The New Republic, we now know that top officials, including Mr.
Bush, sought to convey an impression about the Iraqi threat that was not
supported by actual intelligence reports.

In particular, there was never any evidence linking Saddam Hussein to Al
Qaeda; yet administration officials repeatedly suggested the existence of a
link. Supposed evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program was thoroughly
debunked by the administration's own experts; yet administration officials
continued to cite that evidence and warn of Iraq's nuclear threat.

And yet the political and media establishment is in denial, finding excuses
for the administration's efforts to mislead both Congress and the public.

For example, some commentators have suggested that Mr. Bush should be let
off the hook as long as there is some interpretation of his prewar
statements that is technically true. Really? We're not talking about a
business dispute that hinges on the fine print of the contract; we're
talking about the most solemn decision a nation can make. If Mr. Bush's
speeches gave the nation a misleading impression about the case for war,
close textual analysis showing that he didn't literally say what he seemed
to be saying is no excuse. On the contrary, it suggests that he knew that
his case couldn't stand close scrutiny.

Consider, for example, what Mr. Bush said in his "denial and deception"
speech about the supposed Saddam-Osama link: that there were "high-level
contacts that go back a decade." In fact, intelligence agencies knew of
tentative contacts between Saddam and an infant Al Qaeda in the early
1990's, but found no good evidence of a continuing relationship. So Mr. Bush
made what sounded like an assertion of an ongoing relationship between Iraq
and Al Qaeda, but phrased it cagily ・suggesting that he or his speechwriter
knew full well that his case was shaky.

Other commentators suggest that Mr. Bush may have sincerely believed,
despite the lack of evidence, that Saddam was working with Osama and
developing nuclear weapons. Actually, that's unlikely: why did he use such
evasive wording if he didn't know that he was improving on the truth? In any
case, however, somebody was at fault. If top administration officials
somehow failed to apprise Mr. Bush of intelligence reports refuting key
pieces of his case against Iraq, they weren't doing their jobs. And Mr. Bush
should be the first person to demand their resignations.

So why are so many people making excuses for Mr. Bush and his officials?

Part of the answer, of course, is raw partisanship. One important difference
between our current scandal and the Watergate affair is that it's almost
impossible now to imagine a Republican senator asking, "What did the
president know, and when did he know it?"

But even people who aren't partisan Republicans shy away from confronting
the administration's dishonest case for war, because they don't want to face
the implications.

After all, suppose that a politician ・or a journalist ・admits to himself
that Mr. Bush bamboozled the nation into war. Well, launching a war on false
pretenses is, to say the least, a breach of trust. So if you admit to
yourself that such a thing happened, you have a moral obligation to demand
accountability ・and to do so in the face not only of a powerful, ruthless
political machine but in the face of a country not yet ready to believe that
its leaders have exploited 9/11 for political gain. It's a scary prospect.

Yet if we can't find people willing to take the risk ・to face the truth and
act on it ・what will happen to our democracy? �