Advocacy of Iraq Invasion
In his second book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (pub. 2002), Pollack details the history of United States actions against Iraq since the Persian Gulf War of 1991. He discusses the need to invade Iraq, and the possible ways of going about it. Pollack argued that Saddam Hussein was simply too volatile and aggressive in his policies to be trusted not to begin another conflict in a volatile region. In The Threatening Storm, Pollack argued "the only prudent and realistic course of action left to the United States is to mount a full-scale invasion of Iraq to smash the Iraqi armed forces, depose Saddam’s regime, and rid the country of weapons of mass destruction.” Pollack predicted, “It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars.” Likewise, he wrote, “we should not exaggerate the danger of casualties among American troops. U.S. forces in Bosnia have not suffered a single casualty from hostile action because they have become so attentive and skillful at force protection.”
Pollack is credited with persuading liberals of the case for the Iraq war. New York Times columnist Bill Keller, in supporting the Iraq war in 2003, wrote “Kenneth Pollack, the Clinton National Security Council expert whose argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr. Bush.” Liberal writer Matthew Yglesias in the LA Times also attested to Pollack’s influence:
| “ | Of course, those of us who read Pollack's celebrated 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq," and became convinced as a result that the United States needed to, well, invade Iraq in order to dismantle Saddam Hussein's advanced nuclear weapons program (the one he didn't actually have) might feel a little too bitter to once again defer to our betters. | ” |
Many have criticized his support for the Invasion of Iraq, including war reporter Robert Fisk.
Many critics, as well as many of those who used the book to justify their support of the invasion, overlooked the more balanced presentation on the pros and cons of war to be found in The Threatening Storm. As Chris Suellentrop of Slate pointed out before the invasion on March 5, 2003:
| “ | Six months after The Threatening Storm's publication, however, Pollack's book reads as much like an indictment of the Bush administration's overeagerness to go to war as it does an endorsement of it. A more appropriate subtitle for the book would have been The Case for Rebuilding Afghanistan, Destroying al-Qaida, Setting Israel and Palestine on the Road to Peace, and Then, a Year or Two Down the Road After Some Diplomacy, Invading Iraq. In interviews and op-ed articles, Pollack himself still supports the war, saying that now is better than never. But it's fair to say that his book does not—or at least not Bush's path to it. | ” |
Pollack responded to the Suellentrop article by saying that he was unhappy that many people seemed to have read only the subtitle of his book, which had not been his choice. He also said:
| “ | "given how far down the road the Bush Administration has taken us, I think that we have no realistic choice but to go to war this year. And yet I think the Administration has handled the diplomacy and public diplomacy of coalition building very poorly, and I am deeply concerned about the impact this will have both on postwar reconstruction and on our ability to garner allies for the inevitable next crisis." | ” |
Pollack later was a strong supporter of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 advocated by General David Petraeus, which entailed a buildup of US ground forces to improve the security of the Iraqi population and help Iraq increase its governmental capacity, develop employment programs, and improve daily life for its citizens. He laid out some of his arguments in support of the surge in the June 2007 NY Times article "A War We Just Might Win," which was co-authored with Michael O'Hanlon of Brookings.
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Famous quotes containing the word invasion:
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)