Is the United States trying to disarm Iraq's Saddam Hussein, or trying to remove him from power? The simple answer: both. Washington believes that the only way to make sure he disarms is to oust him. That is why it is preparing to fight. But somewhere on the road to Baghdad, that message has become clouded, confusing U.S. allies and undermining the case for war.
Consider what happened just last Friday. In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the U.S. aim in Iraq was "disarmament and regime change." When asked about the remark in Mexico the same day, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien seemed surprised, even outraged.
"If you start changing regimes, where do you stop?" Mr. Chrétien said. "This is the problem: Who is next? Give me the list, the priority list."
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was just as passionate. "Any action aiming for regime change would contradict the rules of international law," he wrote in Le Monde. "The international community cannot accept this."
The surprise about "regime change" is in itself a little surprising. Washington has never made any bones about its desire to oust the Iraqi dictator. After stopping short of overthrowing him in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the United States immediately began urging Iraqis to rise up against him. When that failed, it began supporting Iraqi rebel groups.
In 1998, after Iraq forced United Nations weapons inspectors to leave, Washington stepped up the effort. The bipartisan Iraq Liberation Act, passed by wide margins in both houses of Congress, made it "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."
After Sept. 11, 2001, that policy became even more explicit. Last April, standing side by side with Britain's Tony Blair, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "I explained to the Prime Minister that the policy of my government is the removal of Saddam."
Moments later, Mr. Bush added: "Maybe I should be a little less direct and be a little more nuanced, and say we support 'regime change.'"
Either way, the message was pretty clear. But last fall, as Mr. Bush's administration tried to win international support for a campaign against the Iraqi regime, it began watering down the rhetoric.
In his speech to the UN in September, Mr. Bush made no mention of regime change, instead emphasizing the goal of disarmament.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell seemed to suggest that Saddam could stay in power if he disarmed. "All we are interested in is getting rid of those weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Powell said.
Dana Millbank, a diplomatic reporter for The Washington Post, has nicely described Washington's "geopolitical Catch-22."
"Bush and his aides are pretty much convinced that Iraq will never disarm with Hussein in power. But to oust him, the administration would like to have international support. And Bush can only get such support if he makes his goal the disarmament of Iraq, not the ouster of its leader. The administration therefore must embrace a new goal — Iraq's peaceful disarmament — that it regards as nearly impossible to achieve, so it can build support for its original goal of replacing Hussein."
Got that? It's hardly surprising that the White House message has caused some head scratching. At one point, Mr. Bush even seemed to be arguing that regime change didn't necessarily mean removing Mr. Hussein's regime, just improving it.
"If he were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations," the President said, "that in itself would signal the regime has changed."
That was a bit too cute for most people. When Mr. Bush says he is going to change his socks, he presumably means he will take them off and put on another pair, not dye them purple.
Despite all the confusion in the wider world about regime change, the U.S. administration is quite clear in its own mind about its war aims, which have not changed a jot since the beginning. Disarmament is the goal and ousting Saddam Hussein the method. But by muddying the message, it has hurt its case.
