Decision Points

topic. General Dick Myers talked through the options: Tomahawk missiles, a B-2 bomber strike, or a covert ground raid. Dick Cheney and Don saw Zarqawi as a clear threat and argued that taking him out would reinforce the doctrine that America would not tolerate safe havens for terror.
    Colin and Condi felt a strike on the lab would create an international firestorm and disrupt our efforts to build a coalition to confront Saddam—especially our attempt to recruit Turkey, which was highly sensitive about any activity in northeastern Iraq. “This would be viewed as a unilateral start to the war in Iraq,” Colin said.
    I faced a dilemma. If America was hit with a biological attack from Iraq, I would be responsible for not having taken out the threat when we had the chance. On the other hand, bombing the camp could undermine diplomacy and trigger a military conflict.
    I told the intelligence community to keep a close eye on the facility. For the time being, I decided to continue on the diplomatic track. But one thing was clear to me: Iraq was a serious threat growing more dangerous by the day.

    I spent much of August 2002 in Crawford, a good place to reflect on the next decision I faced: how to move forward on the diplomatic track.
    One option was to seek a UN resolution calling on Saddam to readmit weapons inspectors. The other was to issue an ultimatum demanding that he disarm—and rally a coalition to remove him if he did not comply.
    From a legal standpoint, a resolution was unnecessary. Three years earlier, President Clinton and our NATO allies had removed the dictator Slobodan Milosevic from power in Serbia without an explicit UN resolution. Dick and Don argued we didn’t need one for Iraq, either. After all, we already had sixteen. They believed that going to the UN would trigger a long bureaucratic process that would leave Saddam even more dangerous.
    I shared that concern. On the other hand, almost every ally I consulted—even staunch advocates of confronting Saddam like PrimeMinister John Howard of Australia—told me a UN resolution was essential to win public support in their countries.
    Colin agreed. The day before I left for Crawford, I asked him to meet with me privately in the Treaty Room. Colin was more passionate than I had seen him at any NSC meeting. He told me a UN resolution was the only way to get any support from the rest of the world. He went on to say that if we did take out Saddam, the military strike would be the easy part. Then, as Colin put it, America would “own” Iraq. We would be responsible for helping a fractured country rebuild. I listened carefully and shared Colin’s concern. It was another reason I hoped that diplomacy would work.
    That summer, the possibility of war had become an all-consuming news story in Washington. Reporters asked frequently whether I had a war plan on my desk.
    On August 15, I opened the
Wall Street Journal
to find a column by Brent Scowcroft , Dad’s national security adviser. It was headlined “Don’t Attack Saddam.” Brent argued that war with Iraq would distract from the war on terror and could unleash “an Armageddon in the Middle East.” His conclusion was that we should “be pressing the United Nations Security Council to insist on an effective no-notice inspection regime for Iraq.”
    That was a fair recommendation. But I was angry that Brent had chosen to publish his advice in the newspaper instead of sharing it with me. I called Dad. “Son, Brent is a friend,” he assured me. That might be true. But I knew critics would later exploit Brent’s article if the diplomatic track failed.
    Some in Washington speculated that Brent’s op-ed was Dad’s way of sending me a message on Iraq. That was ridiculous. Of all people, Dad understood the stakes. If he thought I was handling Iraq wrong, he damn sure would have told me himself.

    On Saturday, September 7, 2002, I convened a meeting of the national security team at Camp David to finalize my decision on the resolution. Fifty-one weeks earlier, we had gathered in Laurel Lodge to plan the war in Afghanistan. Now we sat in the same room trying to find a way to remove the threat in Iraq without war.
    I gave everyone on the team a chance to make their arguments. DickCheney recommended that we restate the case against Saddam, give him thirty to sixty days to come clean, and then disarm him by force if he refused to comply. “It is time to act,” Dick said. “We can’t delay for another