284 e lusive v ictories
International audiences, as suggested, proved much less receptive to
Bush administration arguments. Apart from a few of Saddam Hussein’s
neighbors, foreign leaders did not regard him as an immediate threat.
Some nations, such as France, benefi ted from trade with Iraq under the
oil-for-food program, as well as more illicit dealings. Moreover, if
al-Qaeda terrorism prompted concern, so did unchecked American bel-
licosity, and the Bush Doctrine justifying preventive war stirred fears of
the destabilizing eff ects when one nation acquires disproportionate
power in the international system.
Th e administration struggled to reassemble the kind of broad multi-
national coalition that stood against Saddam Hussein when he had
invaded Kuwait a decade before. Erstwhile American allies such as
France declined to participate; Turkey held back, complicating any
invasion plan that would have involved entering Iraq from the north.
Colin Powell urged Bush to build international support for military
action by seeking a UN resolution to demand that Iraq submit to
inspections of its suspected WMD programs. Although this would
mean putting the invasion plans on hold, the president agreed, and
Powell led a diplomatic effort that secured unanimous support for
Security Council Resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002. Later, the
secretary of state would put his prestige on the line when he returned to
the United Nations in early 2003 to present the administration’s evi-
dence that Saddam had continued his WMD programs in violation of
UN resolutions. But the intelligence that seemed to the Bush adminis-
tration to confi rm its worst assumptions about the Iraqi dictator failed
to sway other nations. (In time, the shoddy basis for Powell’s assertions
became public and badly tarnished his reputation.) If the president
decided to move against Iraq, he would do so with many fewer allies
than his father’s administration had recruited in 1990–1991.
McNamara Redux
Th e invasion of Iraq occurred against a backdrop of civil-military ten-
sions strikingly similar to those that marked the Vietnam era. As we saw
in the previous chapter, Robert McNamara took up his position as sec-
retary of defense determined to reform the Pentagon from top to
bottom, and he clashed fi ercely with the military leadership throughout