Posted on 01/17/2003 7:54:51 AM PST by shortstop
Of course, the temptation is to gloat.
To quietly sit and wait for the various Iraq defenders to come up with some explanation for the smoking gun. The dozen chemical warheads which Iraq and its friends assured us didnt exist.
The busloads of protesters headed to Washington, the leadership of the Democratic Party, dancing monkeys like Cheryl Crowe.
It would be fun to stick a microphone in their faces and wait for them to stammer out a response.
Because, admit it or not, they have all been shown to be idiots. The whole menagerie of them. With their resolutions and grown-up talk, pretending to have a clue while motivated by nothing more than partisanship and a smoldering dislike of the American mainstream.
Thats the temptation.
But its not useful.
Better to focus on what those warheads were and werent.
What they werent is a surprise. If you have listened to the president, or the secretary of state, or the secretary of defense, or the national security advisor, or the White House spokesman, you knew they were there.
It has been the policy of the United States for a dozen years that Iraq has weapons of mass destructions. That position has been repeated over and over in recent months.
The United States knew those weapons were there. Only Americas enemies doubted that fact.
The warheads werent a surprise.
What there were is, good news.
Saddam Hussein has been caught in a lie. A lie made not only to the United States, but to the United Nations and the Arab countries. Iraq assured its friends as well as its enemies that it had no weapons of mass destruction, that it hadnt dealt at all in chemical weapons.
But that was a lie. Patent dishonesty.
Iraq has embarrassed the various leaders and nations which have come to its defense.
And that, believe it or not, makes war less likely.
Having been shown to be both dishonest and a threat to its neighbors, pressure on Saddam Hussein to leave his country, and for the nation to be effectively disarmed, is going to grow. All of a sudden, his beef is not with the United States and Great Britain, but with a variety of people far closer to home.
Now that the United Nations has proof Saddam Hussein is lying about his weapons programs, entreaties for his departure are going to dramatically increase.
While every day American might in his neighborhood becomes bigger and badder.
And the prospects of war with Iraq become smaller and smaller.
The ironic thing is that, while President Bush prepares for war, he is also taking the best steps to preserve the peace. It is his massive display of American military strength which is most advancing the cause of peace.
It is the nation best prepared for war which is the nation most assured of tranquility. And it is the pacifism of the dancing monkeys, activists and Democrats which invites war and hostility.
Weve got Iraq dead to rights.
Weve got their nuts in a vise.
And thats the best place to have them.
Because we win either way, with or without firing a shot. And all this talk about the inevitably of war with Iraq is nonsense. We may go to war with Iraq, and we may not.
Right now it seems to be even money.
But yesterday was good news.
It quieted the defenders of our enemy abroad and at home. It improved our position.
And it spelled the end of Saddam Hussein. Sooner or later, hes done. He can go easy or he can go hard, but hes going to go.
And the anti-American protesters and politicians and entertainers will be proven wrong once again. They will have defended another of Americas enemies, mocked again Americas interests, spit once more in the face of Americas military.
And fundamentally have misunderstood the purpose and uses of military power.
It was this same ilk and often the same individuals who attacked U.S. military might during the Cold War, while that might was, without being used, tearing down the tyranny of the Soviet Union.
But we beat the Soviets, and freed a nation.
And we will beat Saddam Hussein, and free a nation.
And those Iraqi warheads are going to help us.
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But, but, but, they're only 12 warheads. and they're EMPTY. What possible harm could they do? Anyway, Ronald Reagan planted them there, that's what happened.
(end sarcasm)
These types of warheads are designed to be filled with chemical or biological or smoke agents prior to their deployement to a tactical combat theater. It is no surprise that they are empty at this time, as that is the doctrine of weapon employement commonly used for this class of weapon.
The larger problem is the fact that the Iraqi's claim that this is merely an accounting error. These weapons were imported into Iraq in 1988. Iraq claims that these weapons were lost during Desert Storm, when their storage unit was bombed. These warheads, however, were found in a new building, built in 1998. Now, one must have found these weapons at some point in the past between 1991 and 1998, and then moved them to a new building between 1998 and 2003. Further, these weapons were sealed - meaning that they were unopened and undamaged. All indications point to a fact that they did not lie in an open field for any period or length of time. One must conclude, therefore, that someone at some point, in some official capacity, located these weapons, identified these weapons, and moved these weapons into a storage facility that was built to store such weapons.
Further, one must also state that these weapons were not declared in the original 1991 declaration - because the Iraqi's claim that they were destroyed. These weapons were not declared in their recent december 2002 declaration - because the Iraqi's claim that they were destoyed. Iraq has in excess of 15,000 such weapons - claimed to have been destoyed, and possibly "lost" due to accounting errors. How convienent. Wouldn't you say?
End of Rummy imitation.
Ah . . . remember the good old days before we had a president and first lady about whom the most logical judgement was, "They're lying!" I clearly remember when Rush had to screw his courage up to state the obvious on nationwide TV about Hillary's "Pretty in Pink" news conference.
Nicely put.
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