The downfall of a Stuy grad brings to mind the tragic, albeit very different, story of another Stuy grad, Eric Bellucci.
Eric
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Miami face-eating victim is a Stuyvesant graduate
The homeless man who had his face eaten in Miami by a younger homeless man has been identified as Ronald Poppo, Stuyvesant class of 1964. More here and here.
The downfall of a Stuy grad brings to mind the tragic, albeit very different, story of another Stuy grad, Eric Bellucci.
Eric
The downfall of a Stuy grad brings to mind the tragic, albeit very different, story of another Stuy grad, Eric Bellucci.
Eric
Saturday, 26 May 2012
A problem of definition in the Iraq controversy: Was the issue Saddam's regime or Iraq's demonstrable WMD?
* This post is the companion piece to Regime Change in Iraq From Clinton to Bush.
Immediately following the Gulf War, the international community agreed that the burden was on Iraq to cure the presumption of guilt on Iraq's WMD stocks, programs, and intentions. By the late 1990s, however, the US's Iraq mission was opposed by UNSC members Russia, China, and France, perhaps influenced by desire for Iraqi favor and the Oil-for-Food scandal, dedication to a realist rather than a liberal world order, and/or the desire to avoid brinkmanship with Iraq. They advocated for negotiating a settlement with Saddam Hussein that would allow Iraq to reintegrate into the international community in spite of Iraq's continued noncompliance. On the other side, the US continued to conduct the post-Gulf War mission of disarming and rehabilitating Iraq to a high standard.
The obvious and known stocks of Iraqi WMD had been eliminated within the 1st years after the Gulf War, but due to the 2 successive wars instigated by Iraq and the continued malfeasant behavior of Saddam Hussein, the ceasefire following the Gulf War was conditioned upon Iraq rehabilitating its behavior to a degree that would satisfy the doubts of a very cautious international community led by the US and UN.
With Saddam Hussein in charge, we had to be sure.
Despite the elimination of the obvious and known stocks of Iraqi WMD, the continued Iraqi deception and resistance to the inspections meant Iraq's behavior failed to comply with the standard imposed by the US and UN. The threat of Iraq was based less on what we knew about Iraq's weapons and intentions, but rather what we didn't know about them. In addition, repression within Iraq following the Gulf War generated more humanitarian UNSC resolutions that expanded the standard of compliance imposed on Iraq to prove its rehabilitation.
Then in 1995, WMD stocks Iraq had hidden from inspectors were uncovered due to a defector. While the defector (Saddam's son-in-law, General Hussein Kamel al-Majid) claimed they were the last stockpiles, the hitherto successful deception by itself increased the burden of proof imposed on Iraq. Whether or not Iraq was actually cleansed of WMD after the 1995 revelation, Iraq's deception demonstrated the intent to harbor NBC capability and resist the verification and compliance process necessary to validate Iraq's rehabilitation. With a heightened focus on the behavior of Saddam's regime, distinct from its demonstrable possession of weapons, the trigger for military enforcement was Iraq's continued failure to meet the standard of compliance, which qualified as proof that Saddam's regime was a "clear and present" danger.
President Clinton linked the "clear and present danger" label to the behavior of Saddam's regime and only indirectly to Iraq's weapons. He carried his argument for military intervention in Iraq from Operation Desert Fox through his support of President Bush's decisions on Iraq, before his public support for Bush became politically untenable. The casus belli for Operation Desert Fox was not based on what we knew Iraq possessed, but rather it was based on what we did not know as a result of Iraq's failure to provide a complete account and its active efforts to disallow us from knowing.
The regime change mandate in Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act was based on the premise that the issue was Saddam's regime. The humanitarian requirements imposed upon Saddam's regime were strict. The primary threat of Iraq was the noncompliant behavior, presumed guilt, and intentions of Saddam's regime regarding WMD and other matters, apart from Iraq's actual or demonstrable possession of WMD. Therefore, the standard for Iraq's compliance was based not on American and UN demonstration of Iraqi WMD, which was impossible to do reliably due to Iraqi resistance to both the inspections and foreign intelligence efforts to assist the inspections, but based instead on the behavior of Saddam's regime judged by the standard determined by the US and UN.
In December 1998, UNSCOM ended and the US and UK bombed suspected weapons sites in Iraq, while Iraq remained noncompliant. In 1999, UNMOVIC replaced UNSCOM, and in 2002, the US and UN aggressively moved to reintroduce weapons inspectors into Iraq under UNMOVIC. However, by 2002, there was a profound split in how the US and UN's Iraq mission was interpreted. Opponents of the continued sanctioning and military-enforced containment of Iraq abandoned the harsh duties, burdens, and standard for rehabilitation imposed on Iraq since the 1990s - the standard by which President Clinton had defined the casus belli of Operation Desert Fox. They believed that negotiating a settlement with Saddam to end the sanctions and containment mission was the way to peace, whereas the threatened introduction of ground troops and regime change in Iraq to enforce the UNSC resolutions was unacceptable short of 'smoking gun' proof of an imminent threat by Iraq.
To disarm the looming confrontation with Saddam's regime, opponents argued Iraq should no longer be required to prove compliance by the 1990s standard, but rather the lower burden of demonstrating the absence of WMD stocks. They sought to remove both Iraq's burden to 'prove a negative' (ie, prove WMD programs and intent were permanently ended) and, more importantly, the presumption of guilt for Iraq that was the foundation of the Gulf War ceasefire and subsequent UNSC resolutions. UNMOVIC director Hans Blix even explicitly rejected the presumption of guilt against Iraq in his leadership of UNMOVIC and framed the US and Iraq positions as equivalent, even implicitly accepting the Iraqi argument that foreign intelligence efforts to aid the thwarted inspections were a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. By 2002, opponents of OIF had in effect adopted the standard of compliance preferred by Saddam Hussein, by which Iraq would have satisfied its burdens and obligations to the UN by 1994, in other words, before Saddam's son-in-law revealed Iraq's hidden WMD stocks.
In the public discourse, opponents of OIF downplayed or ignored altogether the humanitarian grounds and shifted the burden of proof from Iraq proving compliance to the US proving Iraqi WMD. Opponents of the US-led UN mission blamed the US, not Iraq, for the continued sanctioning and containment of Iraq. They pushed for a standard that was fundamentally revised from the standard that had been imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990s in order to make the case against war match the situation on the ground in Iraq that had been shaped by Saddam.
Opponents claimed the purpose of the inspections was to determine the status of Iraqi WMD. In contrast, President Bush continued to use the same standard of compliance in 2002-03 that President Clinton had used for Iraq in 1998, which was based on judging the proscribed behavior of Saddam's regime and what we were kept from knowing due to Iraq's noncompliance. The standard of compliance for Iraq was not based on what the US could demonstrate about Iraqi WMD stocks and programs. For Presidents Clinton and Bush, the inspections tested and sufficiently proved Iraq's noncompliant behavior. President Clinton bombed Iraq based on UNSCOM reports of Iraqi noncompliance with 3 weeks of inspections; President Bush invaded Iraq based on UNMOVIC reports of Iraqi noncompliance with 4 months of inspections.
However, where President Clinton's rhetoric had been carefully consistent with the policy standard for military intervention, based on Iraq's behavior, President Bush fell into the opponents' rhetorical trap by making a claim of affirmative knowledge of Iraqi WMD stockpiles and programs (ie, what we knew and could demonstrate) despite that he approved Operation Iraqi Freedom following the same standard used by President Clinton for Operation Desert Fox (ie, behavior of Saddam's regime and its failure to cure what we did not know). Rather than resting his case on affirmative knowledge, President Bush should have utilized President Clinton's lower bar of lack of knowledge of Iraqi WMD.
President Bush should be faulted for confusing the public and empowering opponents by making a public argument that deviated from the controlling US policy on Iraq. However, the US led by President Bush followed the same policy course with Iraq that had evolved from the 1991 Gulf War through his father's and President Clinton's administrations. President Bush held Iraq to the same standard of compliance and rehabilitation with the same trigger for military intervention that President Clinton had applied in 1998.
The vitriolic disagreements over Operation Iraqi Freedom were caused by opponents who sought to make peace with Iraq by changing the issue from the behavior of Saddam's regime to demonstrable WMD, shifting the burden of proof from Iraq to the US, changing the standard of compliance to fit Saddam's strategy to defeat the UNSC resolutions, and eliminating the foundational presumption of guilt on Iraq.
This is the counter to the criticism from Bush detractors – specifically from President Clinton – that President Bush did not allow the UNMOVIC inspectors enough time to finish their work:
UNMOVIC was in Iraq for 4 months (Nov 02 – Mar 03) before the start of OIF. President Bush decided on OIF based on Hans Blix’s report to the UN in Feb 03, or the 3 month mark, that showed Iraq remained noncompliant.
Why did Bush conclude UNMOVIC had finished its job with Blix’s report at the same time Blix was requesting an indefinite number of additional “months” in Iraq for UNMOVIC?
Because Bush understood UNMOVIC was a compliance test for Saddam’s regime and Blix’s report to the UN was conclusive proof that Iraq remained noncompliant. That was the trigger. In opposition, Blix either was trying to delay the invasion of Iraq, trying to change the standard for testing Iraq's compliance, and/or reinterpreting UNMOVIC’s function away from compliance to an investigation of Iraq’s possession of WMD.
Clinton’s criticism of Bush implies that Clinton disagrees with Bush’s understanding of UNMOVIC and instead supports Blix’s interpretation of UNMOVIC’s function. However, Bush’s understanding of UNMOVIC followed Clinton’s precedent with UNSCOM: Clinton decided to bomb Iraq in Operation Desert Fox in 1998 based on a 3 week compliance test by UNSCOM. Just as Clinton understood UNSCOM's function to be a standardized compliance test for Saddam’s regime – not an investigation of Iraq’s WMD - Bush correctly understood UNMOVIC's function.
From Clinton's announcement of Operation Desert Fox, 16DEC98:
In addition, as a former Commander in Chief, Clinton knew or should have known the temporal and other practical limits of the invasion force that was providing the credible military threat, and understood why Bush had set a time limit for Saddam to prove Iraq was in compliance.
The Blix alternative was flawed on its face for two reasons: Hans Blix's assumption of an indefinite sufficiently credible military threat and the unreliability of Blix's ad hoc replacement standard of compliance.
Blix agrees that the credible military threat presented by the build-up of the invasion force was necessary to compel Iraqi cooperation. Blix also agrees that once the force build-up surpassed a certain mass that it could no longer be sustained as an indefinite presence. In other words, Blix understood that once it surpassed a certain size, the credible military threat required for the inspections would either need to be used on schedule or lost altogether. To paper over this fatal flaw in his proposed alternative, Blix observed that Iraq has started to cooperate at the 50,000 point, so he claimed that freezing the size at 50,000 indefinitely would ensure an indefinite Iraqi cooperation. However, 50,000 was by itself an insufficient size to pose a credible military threat to Iraq. The Blix alternative relies on the unreasonable conclusion that Iraq was compelled to begin cooperation with UNMOVIC by the unthreatening size of 50,000 rather than the passing of the 50,000 point on the developing trajectory of the invasion force build-up. Blix, perhaps deliberately, conflated the context and signal communicated by 50,000 with the number itself.
The particular standard of compliance imposed on Iraq was a consequence of Iraq's history, especially the record of deception and defiance towards Iraq's post-war and subsequent obligations in the period between the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet while relying on the faulty assumption of an indefinitely sustained, sufficiently credible military threat, Blix also proposed to alter and lower the standard of compliance for Iraq during an indefinitely extended trial period.
President Bush rightly recognized that the Blix alternative was impractical in its military requirements and substituted an unreliable standard of compliance that was insufficient to resolve Iraq's - as President Clinton had determined - "clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere."
08SEP12 Add: My comment at the Belmont Club in response to criticism of the CIA's record on Iraqi WMD. In a better world, the CIA would have provided better intel on Iraq to President Bush and, before him, President Clinton. However, the CIA should not have been placed in the position where a claim based on CIA intel was the cornerstone of President Bush’s case for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Clinton is open that he did not know the actual state of Iraq’s WMD when he bombed Iraq. As we’ve since learned, Bush knew the same as Clinton about Iraq’s WMD. But Iraq – not the CIA – was responsible to make us know about Iraq’s WMD stocks, programs, and intentions. Therefore, Clinton’s case for Operation Desert Fox and the US policy on Iraq enforced by both Presidents were based on Iraq’s failure to make us know. Iraq’s noncompliant behavior constituted material breach of the UNSC resolutions and was demonstrable without CIA intel. Bush’s case for Operation Iraqi Freedom should have followed Clinton’s case precedent with Operation Desert Fox.
11SEP12 Add: At the Belmont Club, I dive into the Iraq debate with multiple comments here.
15MAR13 Add: At bigWOWO, I attempt to correct misconceptions of the Iraq mission in the comments here.
Eric
Immediately following the Gulf War, the international community agreed that the burden was on Iraq to cure the presumption of guilt on Iraq's WMD stocks, programs, and intentions. By the late 1990s, however, the US's Iraq mission was opposed by UNSC members Russia, China, and France, perhaps influenced by desire for Iraqi favor and the Oil-for-Food scandal, dedication to a realist rather than a liberal world order, and/or the desire to avoid brinkmanship with Iraq. They advocated for negotiating a settlement with Saddam Hussein that would allow Iraq to reintegrate into the international community in spite of Iraq's continued noncompliance. On the other side, the US continued to conduct the post-Gulf War mission of disarming and rehabilitating Iraq to a high standard.
The obvious and known stocks of Iraqi WMD had been eliminated within the 1st years after the Gulf War, but due to the 2 successive wars instigated by Iraq and the continued malfeasant behavior of Saddam Hussein, the ceasefire following the Gulf War was conditioned upon Iraq rehabilitating its behavior to a degree that would satisfy the doubts of a very cautious international community led by the US and UN.
With Saddam Hussein in charge, we had to be sure.
Despite the elimination of the obvious and known stocks of Iraqi WMD, the continued Iraqi deception and resistance to the inspections meant Iraq's behavior failed to comply with the standard imposed by the US and UN. The threat of Iraq was based less on what we knew about Iraq's weapons and intentions, but rather what we didn't know about them. In addition, repression within Iraq following the Gulf War generated more humanitarian UNSC resolutions that expanded the standard of compliance imposed on Iraq to prove its rehabilitation.
Then in 1995, WMD stocks Iraq had hidden from inspectors were uncovered due to a defector. While the defector (Saddam's son-in-law, General Hussein Kamel al-Majid) claimed they were the last stockpiles, the hitherto successful deception by itself increased the burden of proof imposed on Iraq. Whether or not Iraq was actually cleansed of WMD after the 1995 revelation, Iraq's deception demonstrated the intent to harbor NBC capability and resist the verification and compliance process necessary to validate Iraq's rehabilitation. With a heightened focus on the behavior of Saddam's regime, distinct from its demonstrable possession of weapons, the trigger for military enforcement was Iraq's continued failure to meet the standard of compliance, which qualified as proof that Saddam's regime was a "clear and present" danger.
President Clinton linked the "clear and present danger" label to the behavior of Saddam's regime and only indirectly to Iraq's weapons. He carried his argument for military intervention in Iraq from Operation Desert Fox through his support of President Bush's decisions on Iraq, before his public support for Bush became politically untenable. The casus belli for Operation Desert Fox was not based on what we knew Iraq possessed, but rather it was based on what we did not know as a result of Iraq's failure to provide a complete account and its active efforts to disallow us from knowing.
The regime change mandate in Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act was based on the premise that the issue was Saddam's regime. The humanitarian requirements imposed upon Saddam's regime were strict. The primary threat of Iraq was the noncompliant behavior, presumed guilt, and intentions of Saddam's regime regarding WMD and other matters, apart from Iraq's actual or demonstrable possession of WMD. Therefore, the standard for Iraq's compliance was based not on American and UN demonstration of Iraqi WMD, which was impossible to do reliably due to Iraqi resistance to both the inspections and foreign intelligence efforts to assist the inspections, but based instead on the behavior of Saddam's regime judged by the standard determined by the US and UN.
In December 1998, UNSCOM ended and the US and UK bombed suspected weapons sites in Iraq, while Iraq remained noncompliant. In 1999, UNMOVIC replaced UNSCOM, and in 2002, the US and UN aggressively moved to reintroduce weapons inspectors into Iraq under UNMOVIC. However, by 2002, there was a profound split in how the US and UN's Iraq mission was interpreted. Opponents of the continued sanctioning and military-enforced containment of Iraq abandoned the harsh duties, burdens, and standard for rehabilitation imposed on Iraq since the 1990s - the standard by which President Clinton had defined the casus belli of Operation Desert Fox. They believed that negotiating a settlement with Saddam to end the sanctions and containment mission was the way to peace, whereas the threatened introduction of ground troops and regime change in Iraq to enforce the UNSC resolutions was unacceptable short of 'smoking gun' proof of an imminent threat by Iraq.
To disarm the looming confrontation with Saddam's regime, opponents argued Iraq should no longer be required to prove compliance by the 1990s standard, but rather the lower burden of demonstrating the absence of WMD stocks. They sought to remove both Iraq's burden to 'prove a negative' (ie, prove WMD programs and intent were permanently ended) and, more importantly, the presumption of guilt for Iraq that was the foundation of the Gulf War ceasefire and subsequent UNSC resolutions. UNMOVIC director Hans Blix even explicitly rejected the presumption of guilt against Iraq in his leadership of UNMOVIC and framed the US and Iraq positions as equivalent, even implicitly accepting the Iraqi argument that foreign intelligence efforts to aid the thwarted inspections were a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. By 2002, opponents of OIF had in effect adopted the standard of compliance preferred by Saddam Hussein, by which Iraq would have satisfied its burdens and obligations to the UN by 1994, in other words, before Saddam's son-in-law revealed Iraq's hidden WMD stocks.
In the public discourse, opponents of OIF downplayed or ignored altogether the humanitarian grounds and shifted the burden of proof from Iraq proving compliance to the US proving Iraqi WMD. Opponents of the US-led UN mission blamed the US, not Iraq, for the continued sanctioning and containment of Iraq. They pushed for a standard that was fundamentally revised from the standard that had been imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990s in order to make the case against war match the situation on the ground in Iraq that had been shaped by Saddam.
Opponents claimed the purpose of the inspections was to determine the status of Iraqi WMD. In contrast, President Bush continued to use the same standard of compliance in 2002-03 that President Clinton had used for Iraq in 1998, which was based on judging the proscribed behavior of Saddam's regime and what we were kept from knowing due to Iraq's noncompliance. The standard of compliance for Iraq was not based on what the US could demonstrate about Iraqi WMD stocks and programs. For Presidents Clinton and Bush, the inspections tested and sufficiently proved Iraq's noncompliant behavior. President Clinton bombed Iraq based on UNSCOM reports of Iraqi noncompliance with 3 weeks of inspections; President Bush invaded Iraq based on UNMOVIC reports of Iraqi noncompliance with 4 months of inspections.
However, where President Clinton's rhetoric had been carefully consistent with the policy standard for military intervention, based on Iraq's behavior, President Bush fell into the opponents' rhetorical trap by making a claim of affirmative knowledge of Iraqi WMD stockpiles and programs (ie, what we knew and could demonstrate) despite that he approved Operation Iraqi Freedom following the same standard used by President Clinton for Operation Desert Fox (ie, behavior of Saddam's regime and its failure to cure what we did not know). Rather than resting his case on affirmative knowledge, President Bush should have utilized President Clinton's lower bar of lack of knowledge of Iraqi WMD.
President Bush should be faulted for confusing the public and empowering opponents by making a public argument that deviated from the controlling US policy on Iraq. However, the US led by President Bush followed the same policy course with Iraq that had evolved from the 1991 Gulf War through his father's and President Clinton's administrations. President Bush held Iraq to the same standard of compliance and rehabilitation with the same trigger for military intervention that President Clinton had applied in 1998.
The vitriolic disagreements over Operation Iraqi Freedom were caused by opponents who sought to make peace with Iraq by changing the issue from the behavior of Saddam's regime to demonstrable WMD, shifting the burden of proof from Iraq to the US, changing the standard of compliance to fit Saddam's strategy to defeat the UNSC resolutions, and eliminating the foundational presumption of guilt on Iraq.
This is the counter to the criticism from Bush detractors – specifically from President Clinton – that President Bush did not allow the UNMOVIC inspectors enough time to finish their work:
UNMOVIC was in Iraq for 4 months (Nov 02 – Mar 03) before the start of OIF. President Bush decided on OIF based on Hans Blix’s report to the UN in Feb 03, or the 3 month mark, that showed Iraq remained noncompliant.
Why did Bush conclude UNMOVIC had finished its job with Blix’s report at the same time Blix was requesting an indefinite number of additional “months” in Iraq for UNMOVIC?
Because Bush understood UNMOVIC was a compliance test for Saddam’s regime and Blix’s report to the UN was conclusive proof that Iraq remained noncompliant. That was the trigger. In opposition, Blix either was trying to delay the invasion of Iraq, trying to change the standard for testing Iraq's compliance, and/or reinterpreting UNMOVIC’s function away from compliance to an investigation of Iraq’s possession of WMD.
Clinton’s criticism of Bush implies that Clinton disagrees with Bush’s understanding of UNMOVIC and instead supports Blix’s interpretation of UNMOVIC’s function. However, Bush’s understanding of UNMOVIC followed Clinton’s precedent with UNSCOM: Clinton decided to bomb Iraq in Operation Desert Fox in 1998 based on a 3 week compliance test by UNSCOM. Just as Clinton understood UNSCOM's function to be a standardized compliance test for Saddam’s regime – not an investigation of Iraq’s WMD - Bush correctly understood UNMOVIC's function.
From Clinton's announcement of Operation Desert Fox, 16DEC98:
“Now over the past three weeks, the UN weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq’s cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM’s chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to UN Secretary-General Annan. . . . If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler’s report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.”In 1998, not only did Clinton deem 3 weeks were sufficient for UNSCOM to prove Iraq’s conclusive noncompliance, Clinton declared it was urgently necessary to bomb Iraq as soon as possible upon receiving Butler's report in order to disallow Saddam time to “disperse his forces and protect his weapons”. Clinton contradicts his own precedent by criticizing Bush for granting 3 (really 4) months for UNMOVIC’s standardized compliance test and not allowing the indefinite number of additional “months” requested by Blix. Yet Bush used the same compliance test for Iraq as Clinton did, when Clinton also determined as President that rapid military action was necessary as soon as Iraq was shown to be noncompliant.
In addition, as a former Commander in Chief, Clinton knew or should have known the temporal and other practical limits of the invasion force that was providing the credible military threat, and understood why Bush had set a time limit for Saddam to prove Iraq was in compliance.
The Blix alternative was flawed on its face for two reasons: Hans Blix's assumption of an indefinite sufficiently credible military threat and the unreliability of Blix's ad hoc replacement standard of compliance.
Blix agrees that the credible military threat presented by the build-up of the invasion force was necessary to compel Iraqi cooperation. Blix also agrees that once the force build-up surpassed a certain mass that it could no longer be sustained as an indefinite presence. In other words, Blix understood that once it surpassed a certain size, the credible military threat required for the inspections would either need to be used on schedule or lost altogether. To paper over this fatal flaw in his proposed alternative, Blix observed that Iraq has started to cooperate at the 50,000 point, so he claimed that freezing the size at 50,000 indefinitely would ensure an indefinite Iraqi cooperation. However, 50,000 was by itself an insufficient size to pose a credible military threat to Iraq. The Blix alternative relies on the unreasonable conclusion that Iraq was compelled to begin cooperation with UNMOVIC by the unthreatening size of 50,000 rather than the passing of the 50,000 point on the developing trajectory of the invasion force build-up. Blix, perhaps deliberately, conflated the context and signal communicated by 50,000 with the number itself.
The particular standard of compliance imposed on Iraq was a consequence of Iraq's history, especially the record of deception and defiance towards Iraq's post-war and subsequent obligations in the period between the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet while relying on the faulty assumption of an indefinitely sustained, sufficiently credible military threat, Blix also proposed to alter and lower the standard of compliance for Iraq during an indefinitely extended trial period.
President Bush rightly recognized that the Blix alternative was impractical in its military requirements and substituted an unreliable standard of compliance that was insufficient to resolve Iraq's - as President Clinton had determined - "clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere."
08SEP12 Add: My comment at the Belmont Club in response to criticism of the CIA's record on Iraqi WMD. In a better world, the CIA would have provided better intel on Iraq to President Bush and, before him, President Clinton. However, the CIA should not have been placed in the position where a claim based on CIA intel was the cornerstone of President Bush’s case for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Clinton is open that he did not know the actual state of Iraq’s WMD when he bombed Iraq. As we’ve since learned, Bush knew the same as Clinton about Iraq’s WMD. But Iraq – not the CIA – was responsible to make us know about Iraq’s WMD stocks, programs, and intentions. Therefore, Clinton’s case for Operation Desert Fox and the US policy on Iraq enforced by both Presidents were based on Iraq’s failure to make us know. Iraq’s noncompliant behavior constituted material breach of the UNSC resolutions and was demonstrable without CIA intel. Bush’s case for Operation Iraqi Freedom should have followed Clinton’s case precedent with Operation Desert Fox.
11SEP12 Add: At the Belmont Club, I dive into the Iraq debate with multiple comments here.
15MAR13 Add: At bigWOWO, I attempt to correct misconceptions of the Iraq mission in the comments here.
Eric
Monday, 21 May 2012
Can Jeremy Lin make the senior national team for the London Olympics?
It's finally official that Jeremy Lin will be a member of the select team that scrimmages against the senior national USA basketball team to help them prepare for the London Olympics. It's an honor and at the least, inclusion on the select team places Lin in the system to possibly one day join the senior team. The experience training with the best American players at the highest level of USA basketball should help Lin especially after his NBA season was cut short by injury.
While unlikely, I don't think it's implausible that Lin makes the senior national team for the London Olympics, provided he shines during the practices and some roster decisions that are out of his control fall his way.
First, Mike D'Antoni is Team USA's main offensive assistant coach and he's a Lin fan. I suspect his input played a role in Lin's inclusion on the select team.
Second, Lin's game as a bigger versatile playmaking scoring PG fits the international game.
Third, the PG candidates for the senior team are Paul, Billups, Rose, Westbrook, and Williams. Pencil in Williams and probably Westbrook. After Williams and Westbrook, though, Billups and Rose are out, and Paul was playing hurt in the play-offs. Paul may opt out of the Olympics. If that happens, Lin will have an opening. Westbrook was a very dynamic and effective Barbosa-type for Team USA in the WCs, but he doesn't have a PG mentality. For the 3rd PG, the coaches - especially D'Antoni - may want a more versatile, reliable, and coachable guard, a role which suits Lin.
Of course, if Paul opts out, Lin would still have to stand out in the practices by outplaying Irving and Wall with the select team while showing off the specific skills the coaches are looking for in the 3rd PG. Irving is stiff competition and Wall may see Team USA as his opportunity to wash off the Wizards losing stench.
Update: The Team USA Olympics roster must be finalized by July 7. The select team will get together for the first time on July 5, which will give Lin only 2 days to make an extraordinary impression on the coaches. That means it's more unlikely Lin makes it to the Olympics this year, but still not impossible. Late extended senior team roster addition James Harden, who's the next Manu Ginobili, may also be in the running to be Team USA's 3rd PG, especially if the coaches believe a larger backcourt can make up for a smaller frontcourt. Another likely option is that Lebron James will carry back-up PG duties so that an extra big man or shooter can be added. Select team members (ie, the senior team's sparring partners) are far less likely than senior team members to join the Olympics team, but there's no rule set in stone saying it can't happen.
Eric
While unlikely, I don't think it's implausible that Lin makes the senior national team for the London Olympics, provided he shines during the practices and some roster decisions that are out of his control fall his way.
First, Mike D'Antoni is Team USA's main offensive assistant coach and he's a Lin fan. I suspect his input played a role in Lin's inclusion on the select team.
Second, Lin's game as a bigger versatile playmaking scoring PG fits the international game.
Third, the PG candidates for the senior team are Paul, Billups, Rose, Westbrook, and Williams. Pencil in Williams and probably Westbrook. After Williams and Westbrook, though, Billups and Rose are out, and Paul was playing hurt in the play-offs. Paul may opt out of the Olympics. If that happens, Lin will have an opening. Westbrook was a very dynamic and effective Barbosa-type for Team USA in the WCs, but he doesn't have a PG mentality. For the 3rd PG, the coaches - especially D'Antoni - may want a more versatile, reliable, and coachable guard, a role which suits Lin.
Of course, if Paul opts out, Lin would still have to stand out in the practices by outplaying Irving and Wall with the select team while showing off the specific skills the coaches are looking for in the 3rd PG. Irving is stiff competition and Wall may see Team USA as his opportunity to wash off the Wizards losing stench.
Update: The Team USA Olympics roster must be finalized by July 7. The select team will get together for the first time on July 5, which will give Lin only 2 days to make an extraordinary impression on the coaches. That means it's more unlikely Lin makes it to the Olympics this year, but still not impossible. Late extended senior team roster addition James Harden, who's the next Manu Ginobili, may also be in the running to be Team USA's 3rd PG, especially if the coaches believe a larger backcourt can make up for a smaller frontcourt. Another likely option is that Lebron James will carry back-up PG duties so that an extra big man or shooter can be added. Select team members (ie, the senior team's sparring partners) are far less likely than senior team members to join the Olympics team, but there's no rule set in stone saying it can't happen.
Eric
Friday, 18 May 2012
Brooklyn Nets logo is sad
Brooklyn is one of the most vibrant, diverse, artistic and colorful communities in the country. Brooklynites have a strong borough-identity, love sports, and I expect they will eventually embrace the Nets. The new flat, plain, black-and-white logo, however, really missed an opportunity to represent Brooklyn with a fresh representative look. I don't see anything about it that reminds me of Brooklyn except the name itself. Maybe, hopefully, the uniform is nicer than the logo.
I still think Jeremy Lin would be a perfect face of the franchise for the Brooklyn Nets, but I'm less enthusiastic about Lin wearing a Brooklyn Nets uniform that looks xeroxed.
Off-topic add: Video taken in the players lounge by a Taiwanese celebrity and family friend after the January 31 game against the Pistons at MSG and Lin's 1st minutes played at home, days before Linsanity blew up.
Eric
I still think Jeremy Lin would be a perfect face of the franchise for the Brooklyn Nets, but I'm less enthusiastic about Lin wearing a Brooklyn Nets uniform that looks xeroxed.
Off-topic add: Video taken in the players lounge by a Taiwanese celebrity and family friend after the January 31 game against the Pistons at MSG and Lin's 1st minutes played at home, days before Linsanity blew up.
Eric
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Regime Change in Iraq from Clinton to Bush
PREFACE: Below is my National Security Law seminar term paper, which was my final assignment in law school. The footnotes from my term paper are incorporated as hyperlinked text and parenthetical statements. My paper addresses the legality of Operation Iraqi Freedom under American law only, specifically the case and precedent for Operation Iraqi Freedom established by President Clinton and inherited by President Bush. My paper does not address the international legal controversy, ie, the episodic view that demanded UNSC authorization for each US military action and erased (for some critics) Iraq's presumption of guilt, versus the American progressive view that a priori and de facto authority for the US-led military enforcement of the UNSC resolutions carried over the legal authority of the 1991 UNSC resolutions for the Gulf War to the Gulf War ceasefire terms and subsequent UNSC resolutions.
Go here if you would like my opinion on the post-war doctrinal flaws. Go here for my explanation of the divergences in the public controversy over Operation Iraqi Freedom. Go here for an academic paper summarizing the continuity of counter-terror policy from Clinton to Bush.
Enjoy:
From: Eric
To: Eric's National Security Law professor
Re: Regime Change in Iraq from Clinton to Bush
Date: May 11, 2012
“We will never lower our heads as long as we live, even if we have to destroy everybody."
-- Saddam Husayn [sic], January 1991
PROLOGUE:
President Bush erred by deviating from President Clinton’s carefully hewn strategy on Iraq. Substantively, Bush’s Iraq policy was grounded in the same legal bases for military action that had been developed and utilized by Clinton. Indeed, the circumstances within Iraq that had compelled President Clinton to green-light Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 were not substantially different than the circumstances that compelled President Bush to green-light Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. Iraq defied the ultimatums of both American presidents in the same manner, thus twice failing its “final chance” to comply with multiple United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions with verification by UNSCOM inspectors in 1998 and UNMOVIC inspectors in 2002-03.
The Duelfer report findings of 2004, largely ignored within a toxic political discourse, corroborated President Clinton's contentions that Saddam Hussein intended to rebuild his proscribed weapons programs once the sanctions had been defeated, retained his long-term interest in a nuclear program in order to make Iraq a great regional power and to protect Iraq’s interests from foreign interference, and had continued to develop long-range delivery systems.
However, President Bush, while relying on the same legal framework for military action used by President Clinton, presented to the public a different case for military action against Iraq than President Clinton had used in 1998. President Clinton, notwithstanding his failure to resolve the Iraq problem, deserves credit for resting his public case for military action on Iraq’s failure to meet its burden of proof, irrespective of Iraq’s store of weaponry, thus ensuring his Iraq policy matched the legal framework of the UNSC resolutions and the matching Congressional acts. Under President Clinton, the burden of proof stayed with the intended and proper party: Iraq.
The foundational premises of the UNSC resolutions were Iraq’s unconditional cooperation and the burden of proof belonged solely to Iraq - not to the United Nations, nor to the United States and her allies. Iraq’s regular failure to cooperate unconditionally was, by itself, an ongoing material breach of the UNSC resolutions. President Bush, however, shifted the burden of proof in the political discourse to the United States with his warnings about existing stockpiles and active programs in Iraq when he should have followed President Clinton’s lead and rested his case for military action on Iraq’s demonstrated noncompliance with the UNSC resolutions. (Note: In other respects, the linked speech echoes President Clinton’s positions on Iraq.)
President Bush may have believed the argument was politically necessary to rally the international community (for example, since the late 1990s, UNSC permanent members France, Russia, and China, possibly influenced by the Oil-for-Food scandal, had protested the U.S.-led enforcement of the UNSC resolutions), and he may have sincerely believed Iraq had used the unsupervised years in between inspections to rebuild its proscribed weapons programs, but Bush’s decision was legally imprudent.
In the political discourse, President Bush’s claim of affirmative knowledge of stockpiles and active programs allowed critics to relieve Iraq’s burden to prove compliance and shifted the burden onto the United States to prove the existence of those stockpiles and active programs in Iraq.
If President Bush had simply followed President Clinton's case for military action and added the weight of the broad mandate provided by the Authorization of the Use of Military Forces of September 25, 2001 (Public Law 107-40), Bush could have achieved the same result without losing the essential thread of the legal case for military action. President Bush’s historic error in judgment notwithstanding, the legal tripwire to start Operation Iraqi Freedom remained unchanged from the trigger for President Clinton to order Operation Desert Fox: Iraq’s material breach of the UNSC resolutions on multiple fronts.
CLINTON:
Excerpts from the Statement by the President from the Oval Office, December 16, 1998:
President Clinton established that the failure of Iraq to cooperate with the weapons inspectors and meet its burden of proof, irrespective of Iraq’s actual possession of proscribed weapons, compelled military action due to “a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere.” Moreover, President Clinton defined the continued existence of Saddam Hussein’s regime, irrespective of its compliance with the UNSC resolutions or actual possession of proscribed weapons, as a humanitarian crisis and collective security threat.
President Clinton’s announcement of Operation Desert Fox from the Oval Office is the best statement of authority for the deployment of the nation’s strongest military option against Iraq in December 1998, short of introducing ground forces or deploying a nuclear weapon, because Clinton did not seek additional authorization from Congress or the UNSC. His view was that the legal authority to conduct military action against Iraq was fully vested in his office.
In a comprehensive letter informing Congress of the situation in Iraq on November 5, 1998, President Clinton clarified both his legal authority and the limit of his duty to Congress with the first sentence following the salutation: “Consistent with the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) and as part of my effort to keep the Congress fully informed, I am reporting on the status of efforts to obtain Iraq's compliance with the resolutions adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).”
P.L. 102-1, passed on January 12, 1991, stated, “The President is authorized, subject to subsection (b), to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678.”
UNSC Resolution 678, adopted on November 29, 1990, stated, “[a]cting under Chapter VII of the Charter . . . [a]uthorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the above-mentioned resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area.”
Finally, Article 42 of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter states, “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.”
In other words, President Clinton recognized that the legal authority to deploy the United States military to enforce the UNSC resolutions on Iraq had been bestowed on his office by statute before he had been elected the President of the United States.
President Clinton’s November 5 letter and, indeed, his December 16 speech from the Oval Office seemed deliberately calculated to convey in wording and imagery that the authority for enforcing the UNSC resolutions and confronting Iraq belonged entirely to the office of the President. The letter to Congress merely fulfilled the reporting requirement in P.L. 102-1. No additional permission was requested or needed by the President to order Operation Desert Fox’s extensive bombing of Iraq.
Unfortunately, Operation Desert Fox’s exclusive reliance on airpower, the penultimate enforcement measure before deploying ground forces, utterly failed to convince Saddam Hussein to acquiesce to the UNSC resolutions or cause permanent damage to Iraq’s military infrastructure. (Note: Recall military historian T.R. Fehrenbach’s famous quote, “You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud.”)
According to a New York Times report from August 13, 1999, “the Iraqis have proved more resilient than expected. They have quickly repaired damage done to air-defense weapons, forcing the Americans to bomb some targets over and over. They have even rebuilt some of the factories, barracks and other sites destroyed in December's raids, including buildings at the Al Taji missile complex, one of the critical targets, according to Defense officials.”
Perhaps sensing the limit of American resolve, Saddam Hussein’s belligerence increased after Operation Desert Fox. According to a Congressional issue brief on October 16, 2002, “[o]fficial Iraqi media reported on January 3, 1999 that President Saddam Hussein condemned the no-fly zones and said his people would resist them with “bravery and courage.” The Iraqi President followed up by offering a $14,000 bounty to any unit that shot down an allied plane and an additional $2,800 reward for capturing an allied pilot.”
Since the no-fly zones had been established in 1991 to enforce UNSC resolution 688, which demanded an immediate end to the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, Iraq had not stopped firing on the allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones. However, as the threat to allied aircraft increased after Operation Desert Fox, including radar locks and surface-to-air missiles, the allied counter-fire also increased against Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses. In response, the allied rules of engagement were relaxed to include all Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses, not only the specific unit that had fired at an allied plane. Saddam Hussein took advantage of the heightened allied self-defense measures by co-locating his anti-aircraft systems with civilian populations in order to produce casualties for international propaganda use.
President Clinton continued bombing in Iraq after Operation Desert Fox in order to enforce the no-fly zone. The airpower operation in Iraq carried over into the Bush administration. In the waning months of the Clinton administration, it seemed that the United States had played its trump card, failed, and the endgame favored Saddam Hussein’s brinkmanship.
The New York Times report of August 13, 1999 captured the Clinton administration’s frustration over the drifting and ineffective, yet also destructive, costly in funding and military commitment, and vilified enforcement mission in Iraq, and its concern over the greater danger that would result from failing to contain Saddam Hussein:
The Clinton White House had more than “openly called for the overthrow of [Saddam Hussein’s] government.” Under President Clinton, the objective of regime change in Iraq had become American law.
On October 31, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-338, known as the Iraq Liberation Act. The purpose of the Iraq Liberation Act was to “establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq.” The law also stated that the “sense of the Congress regarding United States policy toward Iraq” is “[i]t should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
On the same day President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, he issued a statement expanding upon the new legal mandate for regime change in Iraq:
Furthermore, although the Iraq Liberation Act stated, “[n]othing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces,” also embedded in the law was the finding that “[o]n August 14, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-235, which declared that `the Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.'.”
P.L. 105-235, called Iraqi Breach of International Obligations, detailed the long history of Iraq’s resistance to the UNSC resolutions and reinforced the Congressional mandate for the President to bring Iraq into compliance. Where the UNSC had stopped formally declaring Iraq in material breach in 1993 despite continued provocations by Iraq, Congress set the judgment condition necessary for the President to deploy the military against Iraq. While the law did not explicitly define “appropriate action” as military action, “relevant laws” included P.L. 102-1, which authorized use of the military to bring about Iraq’s compliance with international obligations.
President Bush relied on the Iraq Liberation Act to form his Iraq policy.
BUSH:
President Bush took office in January 2001 and inherited from President Clinton an unresolved Iraq problem in which Saddam Hussein’s noncompliance presented a clear and present danger, sanctions were failing, and the United States was bombing Iraq. The choice President Clinton passed onto President Bush was bearing indefinitely the onerous burden of a provocative sanctions and containment regimen that was viewed as eroding, or ending the costly mission and risking the greater danger of a triumphant Saddam Hussein. President Bush also inherited his predecessor’s unwillingness to move beyond bombing and containment in order to press Iraq with the only remaining option to escalate enforcement: the deployment of ground troops in Iraq. (Note: I do not believe the nuclear option was ever seriously considered.)
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda was using the American mission in Iraq as a founding reason and rallying cry.
The attacks of 9/11 caused a seismic shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East and forced President Bush to assess America’s most threatening engagement in the region, Iraq.
While Saddam Hussein was not linked to the 9/11 attacks, it had been established during the Clinton administration that Saddam Hussein’s regime constituted a clear and present danger, U.S. and Iraqi military forces were engaged in hostile military action, Iraq had relations with terrorist groups if not Al Qaeda, an assassination attempt on former President Bush in 1993 had demonstrated Iraq’s willingness to use its own capability to unconventionally attack the U.S., and the material breach of the UNSC resolutions amounted to Iraq’s implied intent to use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.
At the point of Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, President Clinton had established the legal conditions, reasons, and precedent to use military action in Iraq, and made into law the objective of regime change in Iraq. The attacks of 9/11 only supplied the political will for President Bush to finally resolve America’s intractable Iraq problem. President Bush’s foreign-policy outlook after 9/11 can be summarized as follows:
At the Air Force Academy commencement in 2004, President Bush described the liberal underpinnings of the War on Terror:
President Bush chose to seek new authorizations on Iraq from Congress and the UNSC rather than rely on the UNSC resolutions and American laws used by President Clinton. UNSC resolution 1441 and Public Law 107-243 (note: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002) summarized and restated the existing resolutions and policies on Iraq with firmer language and provided Iraq with a (second) final chance to correct its material breach of multiple UNSC resolutions.
UNSC resolution 1441 and P.L. 107-243 established Iraq’s guilt of material breach and, as with previous resolutions and statutes, placed the burden on Iraq to prove its rehabilitation. Iraq’s rehabilitation depended on unconditionally, completely, and immediately cooperating with the weapons inspectors and fulfilling all the obligations imposed by the UNSC resolutions, including humanitarian conditions. Once again, the legal burden was not placed on the United Nations nor the United States to prove Iraq possessed stockpiles or active programs.
In December 1998, President Clinton had given Iraq three weeks to forestall Operation Desert Fox in its first “final chance.” President Bush’s second final chance for Iraq stretched to four months before he ordered Operation Iraqi Freedom. From November 22, 2002 until March 18, 2003, UNMOVIC provided ample opportunity for Iraq to rehabilitate itself under the UNSC resolutions and Iraq failed again to comply. The reasons President Clinton gave for Operation Desert Fox in 1998 applied equally well to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
In a July 22, 2003 interview on CNN, President Clinton cited his presidential experience with Iraq to justify President Bush’s decisions on Iraq:
CARTER DOCTRINE and REAGAN COROLLARY:
By taking military action in Iraq, President Clinton and President Bush moved to honor not only international obligations but also defend a longstanding principal national security interest. Before the Clinton and Bush administrations deployed the military in Iraq, the need to maintain security and stability in the vital oil-producing region had compelled Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush (the father) to take an active role in Middle Eastern affairs. As President Carter stated in his 1980 State of the Union Address, “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
President Reagan expanded President Carter’s security guarantee from repelling outside forces to also include internal regional stability when Reagan extended a security guarantee to Saudi Arabia due to concern over the Iran-Iraq war. The Reagan corollary to the Carter doctrine paved the way for President Bush to intervene when Iraq occupied Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia in 1990.
Some Constitutional scholars, such as Professor Frank Askin of Rutgers School of Law-Newark, have argued that P.L. 107-243 did not rise to a declaration of war by Congress or that Congress improperly delegated the power to declare war to President Bush.
Unless the Executive's foreign powers and obligations are rolled back to the 19th century and the need and form of a legislative declaration of war are far more narrowly defined, any attempt to have Operation Iraqi Freedom declared unconstitutional has little hope of succeeding. Under President Clinton, Congress had made clear the President was authorized to use military action to bring Iraq into compliance with the UNSC resolutions. Operation Iraqi Freedom was well grounded in the national interest, multiple statutes, as well as modern foreign-policy precedent. For example, P.L. 107-243 and UNSC resolution 1441 included strong humanitarian grounds. In 1999, while still bombing Iraq in the wake of Operation Desert Fox, President Clinton used humanitarian grounds to bypass Congress and the UNSC altogether when he deployed airpower and ground forces against Serbia. (Note: Over a decade later, President Obama cited humanitarian grounds, specifically Responsibility to Protect, to deploy airpower in Libya without Congressional authorization.)
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
When the cease-fire ended the 1991 Gulf War, the United Nations mission in Iraq was designed to be a strictly enforced and quickly achieved disarmament mission. It was not intended to be an indefinitely prolonged sanctions and containment regimen that cast the U.N. and U.S. as villains, severely undermined American credibility around the world and in a region with a vital national security interest, and made the U.S. complicit with Saddam Hussein’s oppression of the Iraqi people.
The attacks of 9/11 forced the United States to evaluate its relationships with the Muslim world, with the Iraq problem at the top of the list. President Bush faced the same three options on Iraq faced by President Clinton:
President Bush started his presidency where President Clinton had ended his presidency: following Option-A. However, President Clinton had set the stage for Option-C by deploying the military in Iraq (and the Balkans) without applying for additional authorization, making the objective of regime change a legal mandate, and moving the United States to the brink of the ultimate enforcement measure in Iraq.
In 2002-03, with the political will to resolve the Iraq problem thrust upon him by the 9/11 attacks, President Bush followed President Clinton by offering Iraq its final chance to comply with the UNSC resolutions, thus placing the United States on the path to finally conclude the long, damaging American mission in Iraq.
“In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace. Tonight, the United States is doing just that.”
-- President William J. Clinton announcing Operation Desert Fox, December 16, 1998
Go here if you would like my opinion on the post-war doctrinal flaws. Go here for my explanation of the divergences in the public controversy over Operation Iraqi Freedom. Go here for an academic paper summarizing the continuity of counter-terror policy from Clinton to Bush.
Enjoy:
From: Eric
To: Eric's National Security Law professor
Re: Regime Change in Iraq from Clinton to Bush
Date: May 11, 2012
“We will never lower our heads as long as we live, even if we have to destroy everybody."
-- Saddam Husayn [sic], January 1991
PROLOGUE:
President Bush erred by deviating from President Clinton’s carefully hewn strategy on Iraq. Substantively, Bush’s Iraq policy was grounded in the same legal bases for military action that had been developed and utilized by Clinton. Indeed, the circumstances within Iraq that had compelled President Clinton to green-light Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 were not substantially different than the circumstances that compelled President Bush to green-light Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. Iraq defied the ultimatums of both American presidents in the same manner, thus twice failing its “final chance” to comply with multiple United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions with verification by UNSCOM inspectors in 1998 and UNMOVIC inspectors in 2002-03.
The Duelfer report findings of 2004, largely ignored within a toxic political discourse, corroborated President Clinton's contentions that Saddam Hussein intended to rebuild his proscribed weapons programs once the sanctions had been defeated, retained his long-term interest in a nuclear program in order to make Iraq a great regional power and to protect Iraq’s interests from foreign interference, and had continued to develop long-range delivery systems.
However, President Bush, while relying on the same legal framework for military action used by President Clinton, presented to the public a different case for military action against Iraq than President Clinton had used in 1998. President Clinton, notwithstanding his failure to resolve the Iraq problem, deserves credit for resting his public case for military action on Iraq’s failure to meet its burden of proof, irrespective of Iraq’s store of weaponry, thus ensuring his Iraq policy matched the legal framework of the UNSC resolutions and the matching Congressional acts. Under President Clinton, the burden of proof stayed with the intended and proper party: Iraq.
The foundational premises of the UNSC resolutions were Iraq’s unconditional cooperation and the burden of proof belonged solely to Iraq - not to the United Nations, nor to the United States and her allies. Iraq’s regular failure to cooperate unconditionally was, by itself, an ongoing material breach of the UNSC resolutions. President Bush, however, shifted the burden of proof in the political discourse to the United States with his warnings about existing stockpiles and active programs in Iraq when he should have followed President Clinton’s lead and rested his case for military action on Iraq’s demonstrated noncompliance with the UNSC resolutions. (Note: In other respects, the linked speech echoes President Clinton’s positions on Iraq.)
President Bush may have believed the argument was politically necessary to rally the international community (for example, since the late 1990s, UNSC permanent members France, Russia, and China, possibly influenced by the Oil-for-Food scandal, had protested the U.S.-led enforcement of the UNSC resolutions), and he may have sincerely believed Iraq had used the unsupervised years in between inspections to rebuild its proscribed weapons programs, but Bush’s decision was legally imprudent.
In the political discourse, President Bush’s claim of affirmative knowledge of stockpiles and active programs allowed critics to relieve Iraq’s burden to prove compliance and shifted the burden onto the United States to prove the existence of those stockpiles and active programs in Iraq.
If President Bush had simply followed President Clinton's case for military action and added the weight of the broad mandate provided by the Authorization of the Use of Military Forces of September 25, 2001 (Public Law 107-40), Bush could have achieved the same result without losing the essential thread of the legal case for military action. President Bush’s historic error in judgment notwithstanding, the legal tripwire to start Operation Iraqi Freedom remained unchanged from the trigger for President Clinton to order Operation Desert Fox: Iraq’s material breach of the UNSC resolutions on multiple fronts.
CLINTON:
Excerpts from the Statement by the President from the Oval Office, December 16, 1998:
I concluded then that the right thing to do was to use restraint and give Saddam one last chance to prove his willingness to cooperate. I made it very clear at that time what "unconditional cooperation" meant, based on existing U.N. resolutions and Iraq's own commitments.
. . .
Now, over the past three weeks, the U.N. weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq's cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM's Chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to U.N. Secretary General Annan. The conclusions are stark, sobering and profoundly disturbing. In four out of the five categories set forth, Iraq has failed to cooperate.
. . .
So Iraq has abused its final chance.
. . .
[T]he inspectors are saying that, even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham. Saddam's deception has defeated their effectiveness.
. . .
This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance.
. . .
We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisors, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare. If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse forces and protect his weapons.
. . .
[W]e must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging allied aircraft over Iraq, or moving against his own Kurdish citizens. The credible threat to use force and, when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.
. . .
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with the new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.
. . .
Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.
. . .
In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace. Tonight, the United States is doing just that.
President Clinton established that the failure of Iraq to cooperate with the weapons inspectors and meet its burden of proof, irrespective of Iraq’s actual possession of proscribed weapons, compelled military action due to “a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere.” Moreover, President Clinton defined the continued existence of Saddam Hussein’s regime, irrespective of its compliance with the UNSC resolutions or actual possession of proscribed weapons, as a humanitarian crisis and collective security threat.
President Clinton’s announcement of Operation Desert Fox from the Oval Office is the best statement of authority for the deployment of the nation’s strongest military option against Iraq in December 1998, short of introducing ground forces or deploying a nuclear weapon, because Clinton did not seek additional authorization from Congress or the UNSC. His view was that the legal authority to conduct military action against Iraq was fully vested in his office.
In a comprehensive letter informing Congress of the situation in Iraq on November 5, 1998, President Clinton clarified both his legal authority and the limit of his duty to Congress with the first sentence following the salutation: “Consistent with the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) and as part of my effort to keep the Congress fully informed, I am reporting on the status of efforts to obtain Iraq's compliance with the resolutions adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).”
P.L. 102-1, passed on January 12, 1991, stated, “The President is authorized, subject to subsection (b), to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678.”
UNSC Resolution 678, adopted on November 29, 1990, stated, “[a]cting under Chapter VII of the Charter . . . [a]uthorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the above-mentioned resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area.”
Finally, Article 42 of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter states, “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.”
In other words, President Clinton recognized that the legal authority to deploy the United States military to enforce the UNSC resolutions on Iraq had been bestowed on his office by statute before he had been elected the President of the United States.
President Clinton’s November 5 letter and, indeed, his December 16 speech from the Oval Office seemed deliberately calculated to convey in wording and imagery that the authority for enforcing the UNSC resolutions and confronting Iraq belonged entirely to the office of the President. The letter to Congress merely fulfilled the reporting requirement in P.L. 102-1. No additional permission was requested or needed by the President to order Operation Desert Fox’s extensive bombing of Iraq.
Unfortunately, Operation Desert Fox’s exclusive reliance on airpower, the penultimate enforcement measure before deploying ground forces, utterly failed to convince Saddam Hussein to acquiesce to the UNSC resolutions or cause permanent damage to Iraq’s military infrastructure. (Note: Recall military historian T.R. Fehrenbach’s famous quote, “You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud.”)
According to a New York Times report from August 13, 1999, “the Iraqis have proved more resilient than expected. They have quickly repaired damage done to air-defense weapons, forcing the Americans to bomb some targets over and over. They have even rebuilt some of the factories, barracks and other sites destroyed in December's raids, including buildings at the Al Taji missile complex, one of the critical targets, according to Defense officials.”
Perhaps sensing the limit of American resolve, Saddam Hussein’s belligerence increased after Operation Desert Fox. According to a Congressional issue brief on October 16, 2002, “[o]fficial Iraqi media reported on January 3, 1999 that President Saddam Hussein condemned the no-fly zones and said his people would resist them with “bravery and courage.” The Iraqi President followed up by offering a $14,000 bounty to any unit that shot down an allied plane and an additional $2,800 reward for capturing an allied pilot.”
Since the no-fly zones had been established in 1991 to enforce UNSC resolution 688, which demanded an immediate end to the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, Iraq had not stopped firing on the allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones. However, as the threat to allied aircraft increased after Operation Desert Fox, including radar locks and surface-to-air missiles, the allied counter-fire also increased against Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses. In response, the allied rules of engagement were relaxed to include all Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses, not only the specific unit that had fired at an allied plane. Saddam Hussein took advantage of the heightened allied self-defense measures by co-locating his anti-aircraft systems with civilian populations in order to produce casualties for international propaganda use.
President Clinton continued bombing in Iraq after Operation Desert Fox in order to enforce the no-fly zone. The airpower operation in Iraq carried over into the Bush administration. In the waning months of the Clinton administration, it seemed that the United States had played its trump card, failed, and the endgame favored Saddam Hussein’s brinkmanship.
The New York Times report of August 13, 1999 captured the Clinton administration’s frustration over the drifting and ineffective, yet also destructive, costly in funding and military commitment, and vilified enforcement mission in Iraq, and its concern over the greater danger that would result from failing to contain Saddam Hussein:
Of greater concern is Iraq's ability to rebuild its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, programs that Saddam pledged to halt as part of the cease-fire that ended the Persian Gulf war in 1991. In their letter, the lawmakers said there was "considerable evidence" that Iraq continued to pursue those weapons, though neither they nor their aides elaborated. The administration and Pentagon officials maintain there is no evidence of that, but without international inspections, some acknowledged, there is little to stop Saddam's government from doing so.
. . .
"I've very concerned," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who served as the chief American representative at the United Nations during last year's confrontation, told reporters on Wednesday. "My experience with the Iraqis is if you give them an inch, they take a mile."
With the increase in tempo, the fighting over the zones is costing upwards of $1 billion a year, though Pentagon officials say it is difficult to fix an exact cost. More than 200 aircraft, 19 warships and 22,000 American troops are devoted to the effort.
The officials acknowledge that the strikes alone will not topple Saddam, even though the White House has openly called for the overthrow of his government and promised nominal support to opposition figures. That has led to frustration.
"He has been kept in check," one Defense official said. "But the question is: Have you met any of your long-term goals? I don't think so."
A senior administration official said that until a change in government occurs, containment was the only viable policy at this time, politically and diplomatically.
"Neither this administration, nor this Congress, nor any other country is prepared to take the measures that would be truly necessary to ensure there was a change of regime," the official said. "If you want to go beyond containment, you have to put your money where your mouth is. And that means ground troops."
The Clinton White House had more than “openly called for the overthrow of [Saddam Hussein’s] government.” Under President Clinton, the objective of regime change in Iraq had become American law.
On October 31, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-338, known as the Iraq Liberation Act. The purpose of the Iraq Liberation Act was to “establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq.” The law also stated that the “sense of the Congress regarding United States policy toward Iraq” is “[i]t should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
On the same day President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, he issued a statement expanding upon the new legal mandate for regime change in Iraq:
Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are:
The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and lawabiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian makeup. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.
The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.
My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.
Furthermore, although the Iraq Liberation Act stated, “[n]othing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces,” also embedded in the law was the finding that “[o]n August 14, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-235, which declared that `the Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.'.”
P.L. 105-235, called Iraqi Breach of International Obligations, detailed the long history of Iraq’s resistance to the UNSC resolutions and reinforced the Congressional mandate for the President to bring Iraq into compliance. Where the UNSC had stopped formally declaring Iraq in material breach in 1993 despite continued provocations by Iraq, Congress set the judgment condition necessary for the President to deploy the military against Iraq. While the law did not explicitly define “appropriate action” as military action, “relevant laws” included P.L. 102-1, which authorized use of the military to bring about Iraq’s compliance with international obligations.
President Bush relied on the Iraq Liberation Act to form his Iraq policy.
BUSH:
President Bush took office in January 2001 and inherited from President Clinton an unresolved Iraq problem in which Saddam Hussein’s noncompliance presented a clear and present danger, sanctions were failing, and the United States was bombing Iraq. The choice President Clinton passed onto President Bush was bearing indefinitely the onerous burden of a provocative sanctions and containment regimen that was viewed as eroding, or ending the costly mission and risking the greater danger of a triumphant Saddam Hussein. President Bush also inherited his predecessor’s unwillingness to move beyond bombing and containment in order to press Iraq with the only remaining option to escalate enforcement: the deployment of ground troops in Iraq. (Note: I do not believe the nuclear option was ever seriously considered.)
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda was using the American mission in Iraq as a founding reason and rallying cry.
The attacks of 9/11 caused a seismic shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East and forced President Bush to assess America’s most threatening engagement in the region, Iraq.
While Saddam Hussein was not linked to the 9/11 attacks, it had been established during the Clinton administration that Saddam Hussein’s regime constituted a clear and present danger, U.S. and Iraqi military forces were engaged in hostile military action, Iraq had relations with terrorist groups if not Al Qaeda, an assassination attempt on former President Bush in 1993 had demonstrated Iraq’s willingness to use its own capability to unconventionally attack the U.S., and the material breach of the UNSC resolutions amounted to Iraq’s implied intent to use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.
At the point of Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, President Clinton had established the legal conditions, reasons, and precedent to use military action in Iraq, and made into law the objective of regime change in Iraq. The attacks of 9/11 only supplied the political will for President Bush to finally resolve America’s intractable Iraq problem. President Bush’s foreign-policy outlook after 9/11 can be summarized as follows:
Among the momentous effects of Al-Qaeda's violent strikes against the United States on September 11, 2001, was a re-orientation of American policy toward the Middle East. The new paradigm adopted in Washington viewed much of the world as being divided into opponents versus supporters of terrorism. Furthermore, the roots of terrorism were ascribed to Mideast regimes that caused social and economic failures while pursuing the interests of small groups of ruling elites.(Note: From the author’s personal writings as an undergraduate student in 2003; original source unknown.)
At the Air Force Academy commencement in 2004, President Bush described the liberal underpinnings of the War on Terror:
For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability, and much oppression. So I have changed this policy. In the short-term, we will work with every government in the Middle East dedicated to destroying the terrorist networks. In the longer-term, we will expect a higher standard of reform and democracy from our friends in the region. Democracy and reform will make those nations stronger and more stable, and make the world more secure by undermining terrorism at it source. Democratic institutions in the Middle East will not grow overnight; in America, they grew over generations. Yet the nations of the Middle East will find, as we have found, the only path to true progress is the path of freedom and justice and democracy.
President Bush chose to seek new authorizations on Iraq from Congress and the UNSC rather than rely on the UNSC resolutions and American laws used by President Clinton. UNSC resolution 1441 and Public Law 107-243 (note: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002) summarized and restated the existing resolutions and policies on Iraq with firmer language and provided Iraq with a (second) final chance to correct its material breach of multiple UNSC resolutions.
UNSC resolution 1441 and P.L. 107-243 established Iraq’s guilt of material breach and, as with previous resolutions and statutes, placed the burden on Iraq to prove its rehabilitation. Iraq’s rehabilitation depended on unconditionally, completely, and immediately cooperating with the weapons inspectors and fulfilling all the obligations imposed by the UNSC resolutions, including humanitarian conditions. Once again, the legal burden was not placed on the United Nations nor the United States to prove Iraq possessed stockpiles or active programs.
In December 1998, President Clinton had given Iraq three weeks to forestall Operation Desert Fox in its first “final chance.” President Bush’s second final chance for Iraq stretched to four months before he ordered Operation Iraqi Freedom. From November 22, 2002 until March 18, 2003, UNMOVIC provided ample opportunity for Iraq to rehabilitate itself under the UNSC resolutions and Iraq failed again to comply. The reasons President Clinton gave for Operation Desert Fox in 1998 applied equally well to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
In a July 22, 2003 interview on CNN, President Clinton cited his presidential experience with Iraq to justify President Bush’s decisions on Iraq:
Let me tell you what I know. When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions. I mean, we're all more sensitive to any possible stocks of chemical and biological weapons.
. . .
I think the main thing I want to say to you is, people can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons. We might have destroyed them in '98. We tried to, but we sure as heck didn't know it because we never got to go back in there. And what I think -- again, I would say the most important thing is we should focus on what's the best way to build Iraq as a democracy? How is the president going to do that and deal with continuing problems in Afghanistan and North Korea? We should be pulling for America on this. We should be pulling for the people of Iraq.
CARTER DOCTRINE and REAGAN COROLLARY:
By taking military action in Iraq, President Clinton and President Bush moved to honor not only international obligations but also defend a longstanding principal national security interest. Before the Clinton and Bush administrations deployed the military in Iraq, the need to maintain security and stability in the vital oil-producing region had compelled Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush (the father) to take an active role in Middle Eastern affairs. As President Carter stated in his 1980 State of the Union Address, “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
President Reagan expanded President Carter’s security guarantee from repelling outside forces to also include internal regional stability when Reagan extended a security guarantee to Saudi Arabia due to concern over the Iran-Iraq war. The Reagan corollary to the Carter doctrine paved the way for President Bush to intervene when Iraq occupied Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia in 1990.
Some Constitutional scholars, such as Professor Frank Askin of Rutgers School of Law-Newark, have argued that P.L. 107-243 did not rise to a declaration of war by Congress or that Congress improperly delegated the power to declare war to President Bush.
Unless the Executive's foreign powers and obligations are rolled back to the 19th century and the need and form of a legislative declaration of war are far more narrowly defined, any attempt to have Operation Iraqi Freedom declared unconstitutional has little hope of succeeding. Under President Clinton, Congress had made clear the President was authorized to use military action to bring Iraq into compliance with the UNSC resolutions. Operation Iraqi Freedom was well grounded in the national interest, multiple statutes, as well as modern foreign-policy precedent. For example, P.L. 107-243 and UNSC resolution 1441 included strong humanitarian grounds. In 1999, while still bombing Iraq in the wake of Operation Desert Fox, President Clinton used humanitarian grounds to bypass Congress and the UNSC altogether when he deployed airpower and ground forces against Serbia. (Note: Over a decade later, President Obama cited humanitarian grounds, specifically Responsibility to Protect, to deploy airpower in Libya without Congressional authorization.)
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
When the cease-fire ended the 1991 Gulf War, the United Nations mission in Iraq was designed to be a strictly enforced and quickly achieved disarmament mission. It was not intended to be an indefinitely prolonged sanctions and containment regimen that cast the U.N. and U.S. as villains, severely undermined American credibility around the world and in a region with a vital national security interest, and made the U.S. complicit with Saddam Hussein’s oppression of the Iraqi people.
The attacks of 9/11 forced the United States to evaluate its relationships with the Muslim world, with the Iraq problem at the top of the list. President Bush faced the same three options on Iraq faced by President Clinton:
A. Head-line and maintain indefinitely the provocative, harmful, and failing sanctions and containment regimen.
B. End the mission and release Saddam from constraint, in power and triumphant.
C. Offer Saddam Hussein a final chance to comply with the UNSC resolutions, and if Iraq triggered the ultimate enforcement measure, then move ahead with regime change.
President Bush started his presidency where President Clinton had ended his presidency: following Option-A. However, President Clinton had set the stage for Option-C by deploying the military in Iraq (and the Balkans) without applying for additional authorization, making the objective of regime change a legal mandate, and moving the United States to the brink of the ultimate enforcement measure in Iraq.
In 2002-03, with the political will to resolve the Iraq problem thrust upon him by the 9/11 attacks, President Bush followed President Clinton by offering Iraq its final chance to comply with the UNSC resolutions, thus placing the United States on the path to finally conclude the long, damaging American mission in Iraq.
“In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace. Tonight, the United States is doing just that.”
-- President William J. Clinton announcing Operation Desert Fox, December 16, 1998
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
Real-life chimpanzee, Santino, uses sophisticated tactics to attack zoo visitors, reminding of Caesar from 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Eric
Eric
US Military Veterans of Columbia University (MilVets) star rising
On Sunday, retired Army Chief of Staff George Casey spoke at GS's 2012 commencement day to honor the 95 milvets graduating this year, the largest number since the World War 2 veterans came through.
The coverage has been impressive. I'm proud. Columbia's official news has a fantastic article and video, NY Daily News' article, Columbia Spectator article by milvet Stephen Snowder, and an AmVets article.
The pipeline of veterans into Columbia is becoming comfortably secure and stable. The next step is to organize the pipeline of milvets graduates into civil society to harness alumni.
Eric
The coverage has been impressive. I'm proud. Columbia's official news has a fantastic article and video, NY Daily News' article, Columbia Spectator article by milvet Stephen Snowder, and an AmVets article.
The pipeline of veterans into Columbia is becoming comfortably secure and stable. The next step is to organize the pipeline of milvets graduates into civil society to harness alumni.
Eric
Monday, 14 May 2012
Rumor: Jeremy Lin added to US Select Team
Jeremy Lin was added is rumored to be added to Team USA's select team, which will scrimmage against the senior team starting on July 6 before they defend their Redeem Team Beijing games gold medal in the London Olympics. The other PGs on the select team are Kyrie Irving and John Wall.
The entire rumored select team roster:
DeMarcus Cousins — Kings
Jeremy Lin — Knicks
Klay Thompson — Warriors
Kyrie Irving — Cavaliers
John Wall — Wizards
DeMar DeRozan — Toronto
Paul George — Pacers
Gordon Hayward — Jazz
Kawhi Leonard — Spurs
DeJuan Blair — Spurs
Ryan Anderson — Magic
Taj Gibson — Bulls
Derrick Favors — Jazz
If true, this opportunity will be good for Lin. While not play-off experience, competing with the select team against Team USA will give Lin high-level practice to catch up on some of the season and post-season he missed with his knee injury. Joining the select team is the first step to joining the senior national team.
Eric
The entire rumored select team roster:
DeMarcus Cousins — Kings
Jeremy Lin — Knicks
Klay Thompson — Warriors
Kyrie Irving — Cavaliers
John Wall — Wizards
DeMar DeRozan — Toronto
Paul George — Pacers
Gordon Hayward — Jazz
Kawhi Leonard — Spurs
DeJuan Blair — Spurs
Ryan Anderson — Magic
Taj Gibson — Bulls
Derrick Favors — Jazz
If true, this opportunity will be good for Lin. While not play-off experience, competing with the select team against Team USA will give Lin high-level practice to catch up on some of the season and post-season he missed with his knee injury. Joining the select team is the first step to joining the senior national team.
Eric
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Knicks win Game 4, Baron Davis hurt
The Knicks pulled out the Game 4 win today against the Heat. Game 5 is on Wednesday, May 9, in Miami, which will be 37 days or 5 weeks and 2 days since Jeremy Lin's knee surgery. The projected recovery time for Lin has been, of course, 6 weeks. The Knicks lost Baron Davis to a dislocated knee in the 3rd quarter and it looks like he's done for the season.
With Shumpert and Davis now out, and Lin close to his projected return date, the pressure is on Lin to suit up. Bibby will start, but he's an older guard like Davis and can't be overextended. Smith is erratic and will have his hands full matching up with Wade and James at SG and SF. Toney Douglas has played as many minutes as Lin has in the series. The Knicks need a PG. Will he or won't he return for Game 5? Lin's team needs him.
Update: Lin didn't come back for emergency duty in Game 5. I'm disappointed. Lin's leadership reputation took a hit, and his absence in Game 5 raised concerns that his knee injury is more serious than the team revealed.
Eric
With Shumpert and Davis now out, and Lin close to his projected return date, the pressure is on Lin to suit up. Bibby will start, but he's an older guard like Davis and can't be overextended. Smith is erratic and will have his hands full matching up with Wade and James at SG and SF. Toney Douglas has played as many minutes as Lin has in the series. The Knicks need a PG. Will he or won't he return for Game 5? Lin's team needs him.
Update: Lin didn't come back for emergency duty in Game 5. I'm disappointed. Lin's leadership reputation took a hit, and his absence in Game 5 raised concerns that his knee injury is more serious than the team revealed.
Eric
Friday, 4 May 2012
RIP MCA
The Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch AKA MCA died today. He had cancer. Rest In Peace. 1964-2012.
Eric
Eric
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