Not that I disapprove, but that's kind of ironic given your freeper name.
Posted on 06/06/2004 9:37:14 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
As the interim Iraqi government takes office, it is worth looking back, with the help of two recently published books, at the arguments on whether the United States should have taken military action to remove Saddam Hussein.
The "BUSH LIED" crowd keeps trumpeting that we have found no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (We did find sarin in one shell lobbed at occupation forces.) But Bob Woodward in "Plan of Attack" informs us that George Tenet, who announced his resignation as CIA director on June 3, told George W. Bush that the case for Iraqi possession of WMDs was a "slam dunk." That was the conclusion as well of every other competent intelligence agency in the world.
Tenet was right. Given that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction, indeed was developing nuclear weapons before the 1991 Gulf War, and given that Saddam's regime had not accounted for WMDs he had possessed, any prudent intelligence agency would have to have concluded that he still had them. Moreover, there was no evidence that could have been obtained which would have convinced a prudent intelligence agency that Saddam did not possess them. This argument wasn't made in the run-up to the war because Colin Powell and Tony Blair convinced George W. Bush to agree to a round of United Nations inspections. But the U.N. inspectors couldn't prove that Saddam didn't have WMDs. Given his past behavior, we had no basis for concluding he didn't.
And we had no way of being sure that he would not arm Al Qaeda with them. That is the conclusion of Stephen Hayes's "The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America." It is conventional wisdom around Washington, retailed by Richard Clarke, Sen. Carl Levin and Newsweek. But, as Hayes demonstrates, this conventional wisdom is wrong.
As George Tenet testified in October 2002, there were contacts going back to the early 1990s between agents of Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Clarke, when he served in the Clinton administration, said the same thing, as did many others in the Clinton administration. Czech officials believe that Sept. 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in August 2001. Hayes also reveals that in January 2000 Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, acting under orders from Iraqi intelligence, accompanied two of the Sept. 11 hijackers to a meeting in Malaysia that the CIA has concluded was a planning session for the assault on the U.S.S. Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks.
As Hayes is careful to note, some of the evidence of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties is questionable. Intelligence evidence often is. But it is interesting that many who criticize Bush for not "connecting the dots" before Sept. 11 are also criticizing those who connect the dots on Iraq-Al Qaeda ties. These critics seem to believe that Saddam Hussein's regime should have been considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But foreign policy is not bound by the rules of a criminal court, and Saddam's previous behavior entitled us to regard him as guilty until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.
So put yourself in the position of George W. Bush in late 2002 and early 2003. You must assume that Hussein has or can produce weapons of mass destruction. And you know that Iraqi agents have met with Al Qaeda operatives. You know that both Iraq and Al Qaeda want to inflict maximum damage on the United States. You have had great success in eliminating Al Qaeda operatives, but you know that you haven't got them all. So the only way to protect the United States is to eliminate the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was, as Hayes said at an American Enterprise Institute panel last week, a "no brainer."
It is interesting to ponder what those who continue to insist that "BUSH LIED" and that there was no danger from collusion between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein would have said if Bill Clinton had done what George W. Bush did in Iraq -- which is consistent with much of Clinton's rhetoric. Almost certainly they would have agreed, as some of them did in the Clinton years, that there was a danger from Iraqi WMDs and Iraqi collaboration with Al Qaeda. That they take the opposite view now is evidence not that they are right but that they are filled with partisan venom.
btttt
Finally .. I thought I'd never see this in print.
What places me in both amazement and profound anger is that the "Bush lied" crowd distinctly separates Iraq from the larger Islamic fundamentalist (Jihad/Holy War/Crusade) campaign. They shout Iraq was/is secular, which really means a dictatorship but wishing to convey non-fundamentalist regime. They fail to note that the "secular democratically elected government" befriended and rewarded terrorists. The flag is Islamic and has the religious inscription invoking Allah. This was attempted to be removed in discussion for a new flag and was loudly challenged by the people. Secular does not mean non-fundamentalist.
Nail on the head.
Moreover, the idiotcy of the 'Ba'ath-Party-was-secular, ergo, Ba'ath Party-had-no-dealings-with-radical-fundamentalism' 'argument' is shown by the fact that Syria's Ba'ath Party both harbors and supports radical fundamentalist groups.
MY friend and I had some fun tonight going to 2 different Barnes and Noble stores and moving all the vile Noam Chomsky books to other sections where they will never be discovered. If we can save even one young mind full of mush from this demonic bastard it was worth it.
No, Clinton lied. The same people who twisted themselves into all sorts of contortionist illogic to defend their perjuring president are determined to brand Bush with the Liar label. They are projecting, big time.
Hope you didnt move them to the kiddie section.
Makes me want to project...my lunch, big time!
read later
I would pray an angel of the Lord would stand between those books and any redeemable soul that would venture to pick one up..ya know...a divine-shield-kinda-request.
:)
(my best friend got sucked into his evil by reading his worthless books)
LOL!
I have done the equivalent many times at Costco, covering the top of a stack of Hitlery books or other left-wing tripe with a layer of the most conservative books available nearby. If it just avoided one or two mush-brained impulse purchases it will have been worth it.
Not that I disapprove, but that's kind of ironic given your freeper name.
The quiet from the biased media around Hayes' book is deafening.
Exactly. They're jealous President Bush, not Clinton, got credit for eliminating Saddam Hussein. And all the evidence told us the Iraqi dictator was hell-bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. President Bush was not prepared to wait to allow them to be used against us first. Its not a crime to save your country from danger and President Bush did his duty. No defense is needed in the face of such an obvious obligation that comes with being President Of The United States.
You are very perceptive. My compliments. Good point. I did not burn any books, just kept the intellectual equivalent of a bomb-making manual away from young minds who are being perverted and distorted every day the writings of the vile Chomsky.
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