Overzealous enemies help Bush, Blair

Aberdeen News.com ^ | 02-14-04 | Kenneth C. Blanchard Jr.

[veronica]

In politics the next best thing to a true friend is an overzealous enemy, for which reason British Prime Minister Tony Blair and George W. Bush are doubly blessed. They became friends indeed when they joined together to topple Saddam Hussein and both are better off for a domestic opposition that always reaches for too much.

In Blair's case, that opposition includes the once prestigious British Broadcasting Corporation. During the Iraq war, BBC reporting was jaundiced and sometimes vehemently anti-American. That's OK, provided the "Beeb" didn't mind sacrificing its reputation as an honest broker of information. But it is a public corporation, and when it makes charges against the PM and his cabinet, they'd better stick.

Last month an official inquiry led by Lord Hutton cleared Blair's government of charges that it sexed up its report on Iraq's weapon's programs, and found the BBC guilty of making unsubstantiated charges and of shoddy editorial practices. Within days two senior officials and a

At the same time David Kay, former head of the U.S. weapons inspection team, was testifying before the Senate. To the misfortune of Senate Democrats, Kay began by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. When the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq last year, Hussein possessed no significant stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, let alone the makings of an atomic bomb. It is still too early to know if Kay is right, but it does seem as though the same army that found a tyrant hiding in a hole the size of a Geo Metro could find a cache of weapons ready to deploy.

The Democrats reacted predictably by trying to turn a question of competence into a scandal. Sen. Daschle called for an investigation of Bush's pre-war claims, and Sen. Kennedy pronounced the administration guilty of manipulating the evidence.

On NPR Sen. Levin repeatedly attributed to Bush the word "imminent," a word Bush never used. Most Democrats are not quite brave enough yet to say what they really want to say, that Bush deliberately lied to us and so sold us an unnecessary war. But it's perfectly clear where their fingers are pointing.

This charge makes little sense. It would mean that Bush deliberately set himself up to be embarrassed, and that just before an election. Moreover nearly everyone believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The French and Russians believed it, and they had their own intelligence. John Kerry and Howard Dean can say they were misled into believing by the Bush people, but what about Al Gore and Bill Clinton? They also believed it, and they knew about as much as Bush knew. Surely Bush believed it, and if he did then he can't have been lying.

The charge of dishonesty is too easy to escape, and besides, it hides rather than exposes the most serious flaw in the Administration's Iraq policy. In late 2002 Bush and Blair argued for going to war, while many others argued the contrary. But this was the wrong question. For at that moment we were already at war with Iraq, and had been for 12 years. When Bush took office coalition fighters were still patrolling the airspace above northern and southern Iraq. Frequently the Iraqis would take a shot at our planes, and we would return the favor. This is war, even if most of us managed to ignore it.

The real question was whether or how to bring that war to a close. The job of our spymasters in this business was not to find out whether Iraq had WMD, but to make very sure that he didn't. Otherwise there could be no reasonable way to finally make peace with Iraq. But this could only have been achieved with the full cooperation of Baghdad, and that was never forthcoming.

Bush did a bad job of framing the question and laying out the alternatives, and that's why he is in some trouble now. The Democrats should stop trying to nail him on a technical error, and instead show that they can offer a coherent alternative to his policies. For that, I wouldn't hold my breath

[TheGeezer]

In Blair's case, that opposition includes the once prestigious British Broadcasting Corporation. [emphasis added]

Heh heh heh