A senior Washington correspondent and war editor for the Christian Science Monitor offered a sobering look at the possibility of a war with Iraq last night to an audience of citizens at the Christian Science Monitor.
Peter Grier, who has ‘covered war, diplomacy and everything in between,’ drew from a well of 25 years of political reporting to answer questions about the Bush administration and its stance against Iraq.
‘The administration feels that it has made its case very often to go to war with Iraq,’ Grier said. ‘They may say nothing new, but they continue to emphasize their position.’
Grier said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been gaining strength over the last few years and many in the Bush administration hoped to go after Iraq well before Sept. 11.
‘Sept. 11 has just given them the context to it,’ he said.
The opposition to war expressed by some members of the European Union stems from a difference between ‘old Europe politics and a new United States’ that developed after the terrorist attacks, he said.
‘They see Iraq as it was 10 years ago, a poor country with many sanctions,’ Grier said. ‘We see the situation differently because we are vulnerable and we feel we need to defend ourselves.’
While the attack may have given the administration the impetus to justify an aggressive investigation of Hussein’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, the national skepticism that has evolved simultaneously makes the present situation different from others in the past, he said.
‘It isn’t Saddam Hussein who has changed,’ he said, ‘it’s us.’
‘Everyone wants to know what’s going on now,’ Grier said. ‘There is a new need to be informed and no one feels sure of what Washington is doing.’
This doubt explains why people continue to say they do not understand the motivation behind the recent push for war, he said.
‘People still really don’t get the logic behind Bush’s decisions,’ he said. ‘They’re queasy with the case that’s been given, but the case has been made and that’s it.’
The first of a series of ‘chats’ with Monitor correspondents hosted by the nearly 100-year-old newspaper drew a crowd of supporters to the discussion.
Jean Bear, who came from Woburn with her husband, said she has always been impressed with the Monitor because it tells the news in a non-sensational way.
When asked if the United States has reached a point of no return with Iraq, Grier replied that he agrees with the Hussein barometer on Slate.com that points to a 98 percent chance for war.
‘Up to this point the administration has carried out its predictions, meaning if they say they will attack Iraq, past instances indicate that it is likely to happen,’ he said.
‘When President Bush said he was going to withdraw from the Kyoto contract, I said ‘no way, let’s just wait and see what happens,” he said. ‘When he did, it completely rocked my entire world view so I don’t underestimate his administration.’
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