Posted on 10/22/2003 9:09:23 AM PDT by knighthawk
The most recent U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq, passed unanimously last week, provides international authorization of the American-led multinational force and supports Iraq's creation of a constitution and a democratic government. Passage of this resolution was a good thing, but it is only a step toward the goal of a free, reconstructed and democratic Iraq, which will provide stability in the Middle East as it stands as an outpost against the global terrorist threat.
Much has been achieved in Iraq, but a great deal remains to be done. This week in Madrid there is an international donors conference where nations can come forward with help.
Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, with its genocidal gassing of Kurds, poisoning of 100,000 Sunni, indiscriminate torture of Iraqis, and armed invasions of neighboring states, is over. Twenty-five million Iraqi people have been liberated and the region is no longer threatened by that dangerous dictator.
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs have been stopped. In just three short months, the inspection teams led by David Kay have discovered a lot, although their work so far only has reached 10 percent of the sites to be inspected. To quote from his report. ''We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.'' Irrefutable evidence was found that Saddam Hussein continued to flagrantly violate U.N. resolutions, that he had WMD programs, right up to the time that President Bush led the coalition of the willing to enforce those resolutions.
Kay's team has discovered a clandestine network of biological labs and safehouses maintained by Saddam's Intelligence Service. ''Reference strains'' of biological organisms concealed in scientists' homes, including a live strain of deadly botulinum and new research on brucella, Congo Crimean hemorrhagic fever, ricin, and aflatoxin were discovered. Advance design work on prohibited longer range missiles was found. Work on nuclear weapons program was going on. And inspectors uncovered Saddam's systematic efforts to sanitize or destroy documents, computers, equipment, and other materials related to WMD work.
Yet to be inspected and secured are 110 Iraqi munitions sites, some covering over 50 square miles. They will be. But thanks to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam's WMD programs to develop even more deadly weapons and more effective ways to deliver them have been stopped. The world is a safer place.
And the long, hard work of Iraqi reconstruction has just begun, but it has begun well. Throughout Iraq, schools and hospitals have been built. Electricity has been turned on. Banks have been opened. New currency is in circulation.
The conditions are difficult. American soldiers, other coalition members and humanitarian workers are showing undaunted courage in helping the Iraqi people. And even in Baghdad, site of the worst terrorist violence against U.S. soldiers and international humanitarian workers, a recent poll revealed that over two-thirds of the Iraqi people continue to want us there for the long haul to help them rebuild.
At the Madrid donors conference, countries will be asked to lend a hand, provide manpower, supplies and money to help the Iraqi people.
Many of those countries who criticize us for acting alone share our values of individual liberty and opportunity and share our vision of a more stable Middle East and a world where terror is shunned. Last week's U.N. resolution makes it even easier for them to join in helping the Iraqi people and in making the world a better place. More should join this campaign. The issue is not helping the United States but helping the Iraqi people.
The United States did not create the mess in Iraq; Saddam did. America has a strategic interest and a moral commitment to rebuild Iraq. Others share that strategic interest and should step forward to meet their responsibilities.
If the United States is forced to act unilaterally or to lead a coalition of the willing to secure Iraq, rebuild that tattered country, and confront the terrorist threat, we will. We must. That will happen not because the United States wants to act alone, but because many of our friends who embrace our values and share our interests are failing to help those in need, are content to be ''security free riders'' on the back of the United States and American taxpayers, and are proving themselves unfit to lead.
At the Iraq donors conference in Madrid, the world will see which countries are willing to meet their responsibilities, and which are not.
Richard S. Williamson is former U.S. ambassador and alternate representative to the United Nations.
No, we blew up palaces, government buildings, and a few(very few) collateral damage structures. We are not "rebuilding Iraq".
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