Critics of the War -- And Their False Charges

Wall Street Journal thru FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE.com ^ | August 13, 2003 | Vin Weber

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Critics of the War -- And Their

False Charges

By Vin Weber
Wall Street Journal | August 13, 2003

Critics of the war are back in business. The Bush administration, they say, decided to go to war regardless of the facts. Having made that decision, it then amassed as much evidence to support its case as it could, to the point of intentionally exaggerating (or worse) the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. The charge is false -- demonstrably so.

The Bush case for going into Iraq was based largely on findings of U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors, as well as those of other governments. The case for war was nearly identical to the one made by Democrats like President Clinton and Sens. Daschle and Kerry. In case the critics suffer from amnesia, here are just a few of their judgments that pre-date the Bush administration:

• When President Clinton addressed the nation on Dec. 16, 1998 -- after ordering a strike on military and security targets in Iraq -- he said: "[The] mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. [The] purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons."
 
• On the same day, Vice President Gore made this statement: "If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world."
 
• Sen. Tom Daschle said a 1998 use-of-force resolution would "send as clear a message as possible that we are going to force, one way or another, diplomatically or militarily, Iraq to comply with international law." And he vigorously defended President Clinton's inclination to use military force in Iraq. Summing up the Clinton administration's argument, Mr. Daschle said, "We have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so? That's what they're saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we don't have another option. We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily."
 
• On Feb. 23, 1998, Sen. John Kerry agreed. "If there is not unfettered, unrestricted, unlimited access per the U.N. resolution for inspections, and Unscom cannot in our judgment appropriately perform its functions, then we obviously reserve the rights to press that case internationally and to do what we need to do as a nation in order to be able to enforce those rights. . . . Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis. It is a threat even to regions near but not exactly in the Middle East."
 
• Richard Butler, who headed the U.N. team investigating Iraq's weapons programs, said: "The fundamental problem with Iraq remains the nature of the regime itself: Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction." Mr. Butler also wrote in his book, "The Greatest Threat," "[I]t would be foolish in the extreme not to assume that [Saddam] is developing long-range missile capabilities, at work again on building nuclear weapons; and adding to the chemical and biological warfare weapons he concealed during the UNSCOM inspection period."
 
• According to the New Yorker, in March 2002 August Hanning, the chief of German intelligence, said this: "It is our estimate that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years."
 
• Salman Yassin Zweir, a design engineer employed by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission for 13 years, said that in August 1998 -- four months before U.N. weapons inspectors were expelled from Iraq -- Saddam ordered his scientists to resume work on a program aimed at making a nuclear bomb. When Mr. Zweir refused to rejoin the nuclear-weapons program, he was beaten with iron bars for three weeks. He fled to Jordan in October 1998. Saddam "is very proud of his nuclear team," according to Mr. Zweir. "He will never give up the dream of being the first Arab leader to have a nuclear bomb."
 
• In August 1995, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel -- who had been in charge of Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons program -- defected to Jordan. (He was later killed on Saddam's orders.) He provided information to Unscom, IAEA, and foreign intelligence agencies about Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities. These revelations badly damaged Iraq's credibility and Iraqi officials eventually admitted to Unscom officials that their previously hidden arsenal included (according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies) more than 100,000 gallons of botulinum toxin; more than 22,000 gallons of anthrax; more than 900 gallons of gas gangrene; more than 500 gallons of aflatoxin; four metric tons of VX nerve gas; and 2.7 gallons of ricin.
 
• Last October the director of Central Intelligence issued a National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's continuing programs of weapons of mass destruction. That document contained the consensus judgments of the intelligence community, based upon the best information available about the Iraqi threat. The NIE reported, "We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of UN Resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."
 

The media has focused enormous attention on the State Department's dissent on whether Iraq pursued natural uranium in Africa. The department also said that "the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research believes that Saddam continues to want nuclear weapons and that available evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities."

That Iraq posed a threat to America's security and world peace was a view shared by Democrats as well as Republicans; by the U.N. as well as the U.S.; by American intelligence agencies and by intelligence agencies of almost every nation that looked into this matter. Facts are stubborn things. Even the passage of time doesn't erode them.

Mr. Weber is a former Republican congressman from Minnesota.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

8 Unapologetically Pro-Coalition News Links and Articles

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

If you want off or on my pro-Coalition/anti-wanker ping ling, just ping.

[facedown]

BTTT

[ex-snook]

"The Bush case for going into Iraq was based largely on findings of U.N. and International Atomic Energy "

Revisionist? The UN did not approve of war.

[Old Sarge]

Thank you, RC, for the ping.

It all comes down to one simple thing: Democrats Hate George W. Bush.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

No, but the more reasonable Bush Admin used UN reports along with "reams and reams and reams" of documented evidence of Saddam's evildoing to remove him from power for once and for all.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Bingo.

The Dems do things like releasing a brand new terrorist report 10 days before a new President is inaugerated and publishing the article 2 days after he's in office.

Iraq Rebuilt Weapons Factories, Officials Say - New York Times - 1/22/01

---

  ...One morning at the nub end of Bill Clinton's presidency, Clinton chief of staff John Podesta walked into a senior staff meeting in the Roosevelt Room waving a copy of USA Today. Holding the paper aloft, Podesta read the headline out loud, "Clinton actions annoy Bush." The article detailed the new rules and Executive Orders the outgoing President was issuing in his final days, actions aimed in equal measure at locking in Clinton's legacy...and bedeviling his successor. "What's Bush so annoyed about?" Podesta asked with a devilish smile. "He's got four years to try to undo all the stuff we've done." ~  Link.

"We laid a few traps," chirps a happy Clinton aide.....

[Political Junkie Too]

Being a Democrat means never having to remember what you said yesterday.

-PJ

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Excellent Read PING

Thanks Ragtime Cowgirl !

[HISSKGB]

That is good.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Read this early this AM....great post for a good article.

[alloysteel]

Start from one premise, and reason all your arguments backward. The premise: Bush is not the legitimate President. Therefore, every action he takes is without any mandate, and must be resisted in any manner possible. Any rationalization that Bush uses to justify his actions, can only be lies, by definition.

For a certain minority of persons born in this country, claiming citizenship as a birthright, and a smaller minority of those who have established residency here, and eventually gained citizenship, this is their sincere belief, and no amount of logical argument will dislodge this fixed idea.

Never mind that the reasons enumerated for taking up arms and marching to Baghdad included humanitarian and strategic considerations, relating to the very nature of the Saddam Hussein regime. These critics have latched onto one of the less important reasons cited for making a pre-emptive strike, that Saddam had in his possession weapons that could render extreme harm upon civilian populations, not for military advantage, but purely to spread terror in the target area. As it happened, these weapons were not deployed in the course of hostilities, but were apparently hidden for later use by guerrilla fighters. Because these terror weapons were NOT found, the argument goes, the whole invasion of Iraq was totally illegitimate. And if the invasion was illegitimate, then Bush's Presidency is illegitimate.

Maybe the US as a whole could do a recall election on the Presidency like they are doing in California.

[SAMWolf]

Bump!

[rdb3]

Revisionist? The UN did not approve of war.

How on earth did you read the article and come up with this statement? It did not say that the U.N. approved the war. U.N. findings and U.N. approval are two entirely different things.

[Radix]

I do not care 1 bit about what the UN, Democrats, or the liberal media have to say about anything. They are about as reliable as the PLO and the absurd promises that are always made concerning the peace process.

I often wonder just who these institutions think that they are talking to. Anyone who would listen to or heed them is obviously too stupid in the first place to be taken seriously.

[CWOJackson]

Excellent story...thanks much.

[meenie]

Seems to me both sides fought to a draw. They need to share the liars cup and get ready for the competition next year.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[driftless]

The hilarious thing about it (tragic though for the country) is that Dems like Kerry etal are such stinking hypocrites. They all enthusiastically supported Clinton when he passed the bill to dethrone Hussein in '98. Of course they all (except for Lieberman) have a case of political amnesia. They should do what Lieberman does which is just to say that he can do what Bush is doing much better. Kerry and Lieberman know that to follow the paths of Dean and Gephardt would be sheer disaster. Clinton knew that in "92 which is why he ran his campaign of ostensibly trying to out-Republcan the Republicans. His stealth campaign of creeping liberalism was well camouflaged. They should do the same to have a chance. But at least quit being such unbelievable hypocrites.

[VOA]

bump