Newly disclosed document: Bush rushed to war on fear of "looking weak" on Iraq

From Consortiumnews.com:
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Less than two months before invading Iraq, George W. Bush fretted that his war plans could be disrupted if United Nations weapons inspectors succeeded in gaining Saddam Hussein’s full cooperation, possibly leaving Bush “looking weak,” according to notes written by a secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The notes, taken by Blair’s personal secretary Matthew Rycroft, were included in a new edition of Lawless World, a book by University College professor Philippe Sands. The notes on the Jan. 30, 2003, phone call between Bush and Blair were reviewed by the New York Times, which said they were marked secret and personal. [NYT, Oct. 14, 2005]

At the time, Blair wanted Bush to seek a second resolution from the U.N. Security Council that would have judged Iraq to be in violation of U.N. disarmament demands and would have authorized military action. According to the notes, Bush agreed that “it made sense to try for a second resolution, which he would love to have.”

But Bush’s deeper worry was that chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix would conclude that Hussein’s government was cooperating in the search for weapons of mass destruction, thus delaying or blocking U.S.-led military action. Bush’s “biggest concern was looking weak,” the British document said.

Blix indeed did judge that Iraq was cooperating with the inspectors, who weren’t finding any WMD even at sites pinpointed by U.S. intelligence.

With the U.N. inspectors coming up empty and other U.S. claims about Iraq’s WMD falling apart, Bush ditched the idea of seeking a second U.N. resolution authorizing use of military force. Instead, Bush began to pressure the U.N. inspectors to leave Iraq and Blix’s team prepared to withdraw.

“Although the inspection organization was now operating at full strength and Iraq seemed determined to give it prompt access everywhere, the United States appeared as determined to replace our inspection force with an invasion army,” Blix wrote in his memoir, Disarming Iraq.
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