94.9 KUOW: Seattle’s NPR News and Information Station:
We chat with Michael Ignatieff, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University about his early support for the war in Iraq and his subsequent questioning of the ongoing U.S. presence in Iraq.
from an email I sent the station:
I heard a little of this in my car and I was struck by his assertions, even knowing what we know now, that Saddam Hussein would have dangerous weapons in 5-10 years. All accounts I’ve read make it clear that Saddam had dismissed all his clueful scientists and was only listening to sycophants. Given the tight constraints he was operating under (even plundering the oil for food program wouldn’t fund a serious weapons program) and with a timeline of 5-10 years, does he seriously think that an invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the only course of action?
I guess I’m still surprised that there are true believers outside the Bush coterie. What struck me as even more alarming was the idea that, if the Iraq war justified, then any invasion of any country that could develop WMDs in the next 5-10 years could be similarly justified.
What’s going on here is a conflation of purposes: Ignatieff’s real interest is human rights and his animus against Saddam Hussein was rooted in the brutal tyranny he exerted in Iraq. But realizing no one was going to take action on the human rights argument, he signed onto the war to root out WMDs as a way of getting there a different way.
Perhaps I do him a disservice by not listening to the program again, but he was trying to serve two purposes and it was clear he only really believed in one of them.