Decision Points

year. … An inspection regime does not solve our problem.”
    Colin pushed for the UN resolution. “If we take the case to the UN, we can get allies to join. If not, it will be hard to act unilaterally. We won’t have the international support we need to execute the military plan.”
    After listening to the options one last time, I made a decision: We would seek a resolution. “There’s ambiguity in the international community’s view of Saddam,” I said, “and we need to clear it up. Either he will come clean about his weapons, or there will be war.”
    I told the team I would deliver that message in a speech to the United Nations the following week. I would remind the UN that Saddam’s defiance was a threat to the credibility of the institution. Either the words of the Security Council would be enforced, or the UN would exist only as a useless international body like the League of Nations.
    Tony Blair came to dinner that night at Camp David. He was pleased when I told him I was planning to ask the UN for the resolution. “Many opponents wish we would just be unilateral—then they could complain,” he said. “But you are calling their bluff.”
    We both understood what the decision meant. Once we laid out our position at the UN, we had to be willing to follow through with the consequences. If diplomacy failed, there would be only one option left. “I don’t want to go to war,” I told Tony, “but I will do it.”
    Tony agreed. After the meeting, I told Alastair Campbell , one of Tony’s top aides, “Your man has got
cojones
.” I’m not sure how that translated to the refined ears of 10 Downing Street. But to anyone from Texas, its meaning was clear.

    “All the world now faces a test,” I told UN delegates on September 12, 2002, “and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?”
    Delivering the speech was a surreal experience. The delegates sat silent, almost frozen in place. It was like speaking to a wax museum.

    Speaking before the UN on Iraq.
White House/Paul Morse
    The response outside the chamber was encouraging. Allies thanked me for respecting the UN and accepting their advice to seek a resolution. Many at home appreciated that I had challenged the UN. An editorial in the
Washington Post
read: “If the United Nations remains passive in the face of this long-standing and flagrant violation of its authority in a matter involving weapons of mass destruction, it certainly will risk the irrelevance of which Mr. Bush warned.”

    While the UN debate unfolded, we went to work on another resolution, a congressional war authorization . As part of the debate, leaders on Capitol Hill asked the intelligence community to prepare a National Intelligence Estimate analyzing Saddam’s WMD programs. The CIA compiled the NIE using much of the same intelligence it had been showing to me for the past eighteen months. In a summary sentence later declassified, the NIE concluded, “Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.”
    The intelligence had an impact on members of Congress. Senator John Kerry said, “When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat.”
    Senator Jay Rockefeller , a respected Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, followed up: “Saddam’s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose real threats to America today, tomorrow. … He could make these weapons available to many terrorist groups, third parties, which have contact with his government. Those groups, in turn, could bring those weapons into the United States and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly.”
    Senator Chuck Hagel , a Nebraska Republican, supported the resolution. He said, “The risks of inaction are too high. We are elected to solveproblems, not just debate them. The time has come to chart a new course in Iraq and in the Middle East.”
    On October 11, 2002, the Senate passed the resolution 77 to 23. The House passed it 296 to 133. Both