Scowcroft Was Right—Bush Was Dead Wrong

Scowcroft conceded that Saddam might well be a despot and untrustworthy, but he noted that it wasn’t because of terrorism that the Iraqi leader was a problem. He predicted that if the United States went in, it would turn the Middle East into a “cauldron.” Given the United States’ priorities and the costs and benefits of any invasion, he warned that an attack on Iraq would be “premature” and “counterproductive” in the absence of genuine progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and without the establishment of a UN inspection regime that could review Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons systems. Saddam Hussein was “not a man who will risk everything on the roll of a dice,” consistent with the fact that “during the Gulf War, he didn’t do everything he could have done,” Scowcroft noted, such as planting chemical weapons in New York or releasing nerve gas.” Later that Sunday, the CBS Evening News showed clips of the interview, and a story in Monday’s London Times repeated Scowcroft’s arguments.

Curiously, no one in the Bush White House responded to Scowcroft’s comments (although on the evening of Monday, August 5, Powell had a long—and what he regarded as a very successful—conversation with the president at the Residence, Bob Woodward reports in Plan of Attack). Neither Rice nor any other White House official released any statements or try to contact Scowcroft once the media picked up the story. Perhaps they thought the story would simply disappear. Scowcroft explained their inaction by pointing out that they already knew of his position, so there was no reason for them to contact him or respond to his criticisms. (Hadley recalls that in early 2002 when he stopped by the Scowcroft Group’s offices for lunch, Scowcroft joked that the deputy national security advisor was meeting with “the infidels.”)