Saturday, October 4, 2003
(Note: Some of the following amounts to a reminder of where we've been, but it feels important at this point, as we get caught up in the headlines, to render such a reminder.)
Roger L. Simon points to this CNN article which says that:
And asks:
I hope for all those ambitious politicians now screaming at the top of their lungs that those weapons don't end up in Chicago. I hope that for all our sakes.
Every major headline I've seen so far has trumpeted that "Weapons Inspector Says No Weapons of Mass Destruction Found in Iraq..." Is that really what they're coming away with as the main theme of Kay's report?
The CNN article also goes on:
"We have taken senior Iraqi leaders in detention to them," Kay said. The leaders were those who evidence indicated had been involved in the experiments.
"They were clearly shaken up by being taken there," he said, adding they were afraid that "we would make them face a lineup" of victims.
Get that? These guys are afraid they're going to have to face some of the people they conducted biological experiments on.
That's the kind of enemy we had all those years we were at war with them. Remember, the end of Gulf War I was only a cease fire, and hostilities were ongoing to a greater or lesser extent all the way through to the run-up to 2003. That's the kind of enemy that was agitating against us and our allies all those years. That's the kind of enemy some of the President's political opponents have been running around saying we had nothing to fear from - that we should have bet our lives that a religious fanatic like Bin Laden would never cooperate with a secular leader like Saddam. But, of course, no one thought a Commie-hater like Hitler would ever make a secret deal with Stalin, either. Would you bet your life that no partnership of convenience would ever crop up between the two? I wouldn't. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' as they say...
Would you bet that Saddam himself would never do anything rash with those weapons once he got his hands on them? Given the nature of Saddam and his regime, that would be a sucker's bet. In his book, The Theatening Storm, Ken Pollack writes of Saddam:
Kay's report is making clear that Saddam had never given up his dream of becoming the Middle East's hegemon by force. This unpredictable monster with unconventional weapons in his hands and a view of the United States as the nation standing between him and his continuing quest for power is a nightmare scenario - a nightmare scenario the world need no longer face due to the leadership of Messrs. Bush and Blair.
Most of the news outlets and Democratic partisans presently doing anything in their power to discredit this President now that the battle has been fought and won - a battle none of them would have had the leadership or character to see through - would have truly, deep down, wanted to take the risk of facing that scenario. Most Americans certainly didn't, hence the widespread support for the war.
But now they'll feign agony over the aftermath since the danger has passed. They'll bend and clutch their backs in pretended pain as they weild their mops to sponge up the water left behind now that the fire is put out - a fire they didn't have the guts to fight.
Read through the report. It's obvious that Sadam had a long-term ongoing program in a spectrum of weapons procurement and research. The War in Iraq removed one of the most insidious regimes extant at the turn of the 21st century - both in the evil it committed to its own citizenry and the infection it spread throughout the region. It should be viewed as the great success it has been so far on a number of levels - both in the humanitarian realm and by removing a physical threat, as well as the political virus a totalitarian demagogue like Saddam embodies.
Instead, the President's enemies would rather blatantly mischaracterize the findings of this report (and it is still interim!) and score petty political points. They'd rather put the entire project at risk and undermine the public's willingness to see the effort through to the end. They'd rather handcuff this President from being able to face the ongoing problems in Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Look, if it were true, that would be one thing. If Kay truly had nothing of interest to report, if they found nothing - no programs, no weapons, no materials, then that would be one thing. Sadly, for the sake of partisan politics, and worse, for selfish "I told you so" reasons, the petty back-biters, the nit-pickers and non-leaders will do what they often did to Bill Clinton (yes, that's right) - find any rhetorical cudgel they can heft to cripple the ability of our President to conduct his foreign policy properly. It's self-defeating and sad. It's sophistry at best and harms us all. There were weapons...there were weapons programs...and yes, there were mass graves.
The spin's the thing, and it's a disgrace.
Update: Roger also points to this excellent Andrew Apostalou piece at NRO.
Kay has actually done more than simply justify the war to oust Saddam by demonstrating a past history of Iraqi violations. Kay has shown that Iraq never had any intention of complying with the demands of the U.N. inspectors....
