If the administration could do so without compromising sensitive sources and methods, I am confident they would do so. I have been involved on the secrecy side of such matters in a prior professional life. I well understand the need for absolute discretion when dealing with deadly serpents such as Saddam Hussein.
If you do not trust Bush, fine. I do. I do not trust Saddam Hussein. I believe I am on far more solid ground than you are. I do not expect Bush to stupidly compromise intelligence sources just to satisfy some motley squad of libertarians--who likely wouldn't be persuaded in any event.
I'm sure you do, else you wouldn't be arguing from your side. You must admit, though, that your post has not given me anything. You've essentially asked me to trust the Bush administration because I should, because you've seen these things before, because it would be hard for them to divulge their sources etc.
So now I have to debate hypotheticals.
Bush would not divulge sources to satisfy a "motley squad of libertarians". I'm quite sure our numbers are small enough that the Bush adm. couldn't care less about that - I don't think you'll disagree there.
Rather, they build the case for war because they need general public support for it. And they've been doing their damnedest with moderate success (though this is not to suggest at all that truth is found in public consensus). They've come out with so many accusations and "justifications", which suggests that none of the pretexts have any weight. They are so desperate to convince the public at large, that if they had to the means to do so, and if we were all risking armageddon if we failed to act, they would do so. They need to build a case and they know it. This same "trust us" line is put forth by all kinds of government agencies, from the ATF to the TSA.
I must go into a bit of a lengthy explanation as to why I say this - why it is that I don't buy the "we can't tell you" bit.
Yes, the benefits of public oversight will occasionally be outweighed by security concerns, without question — the sailing times of troop transports, etc. But the underlying assertion here, that "We've got it all under control; we just can't tell you about it," would instill a lot more confidence were it not for the fact that all governments, including ours, routinely lie about circumstances to build the case for war or any other cause they're trying to control. Let's talk about our government's track record for the truth.
The Bush administration tells us we need to go to war not against Saudi Arabia (very suspected of having Al-Qaeda connections), but against Iraq, because Saddam Hussein now has "weapons of mass destruction," that he's a cynical liar and mass murderer, and we can't allow sovereign nations headed up by cynical liars and mass murderers to possess weapons of mass destruction. The only nation that's ever used one of those in time of war (quite effectively and justifiably, let me state for the record) is the United States, and the nuclear superpower known as the United States on several occasions since 1945 has been headed up by cynical, lying felons, with Lyndon Baines Johnson and that congenital liar William Jefferson Clinton surely sitting quite near the top of the list.
Lyndon Johnson murdered hundreds of thousands in an undeclared and thus illegal war in Southeast Asia. If Bill Clinton — who sold missile and satellite defense secrets to the Communist Chinese for campaign cash over the objections of his own cabinet — didn't personally murder Vince Foster and several former CIA chiefs who happened to die in canoeing accidents on the same stretch of the Anacostia River and all those folks who perished trying to find out what the heck was going on out at Mena Airport ... not to mention dozens of innocent women and children in that Christian church at Waco ... he certainly made sure no one would ever find out who did. The Parks Police?
The US lied about the Iraqis amassing troops on the Saudi border prior to the Gulf War, and they lied about the circumstances of the ship being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin that led to the "police action" in Vietnam. Nearly the entire "Balkan Conflict" in '98 was a total lie, with gross overstatements of Serb atrocities (while ignoring atrocities committed by the muslims) and fabricated damage assessments to keep the American public assured that we were doing the right thing, and that were were also being effective. Our government lies when it fabricates budget surpluses, tells us we voluntarily pay our income tax (and that we are liable for a federal income tax). It lies about firearms ownership and the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, and it totally lied about the Waco raid, imprisoning the ones who were lucky enough not be be burned or machine-gunned by the helicopters that "had no guns". The ATF claimed the Davidians had a meth lab in order to get funding that was ear-marked for the drug war - and it was a total, complete, utter fabrication. Miraculously, no one cares.
So would it have been morally acceptable for some foreign power to have conquered the United States, imposed a new government upon us, and taken away our most effective weapons, during the periods 1964-1968, or 1993-2000?
The standard being applied here, when you come right down to it, is "We're the new Rome; we run the world; we get to decide who has nuclear and biological weapons and who doesn't."
Which is a rather big chaw to bite off, when you stop to think about it. Especially when it clearly implies that we believe Israel, the Ukraine, India, freedom-loving Pakistan, and the communist governments of Russia and South Africa (yes, both those governments are currently communist — I have yet to see anyone in charge of either "post-communist" Russia or "post-apartheid" South Africa publicly burning his or her "old" Communist Party membership card and disavowing Marx's manifesto, while embracing Ayn Rand, John Locke, P.J. O'Rourke and Adam Smith) are fine with nukes.
And how about the French?
This rant may seem off topic, with unrelated circumstances, but the idea is, government lies - why do you trust politicians? It's not like they don't have a history of constant lies and deceit. When power is involved, the facts don't always prevail. I can understand that you think that this is a worthy cause, but for just as well as unjust wars, power is at play - always. Like it or not, war is always the health of the state, even for justifiable wars. That is a fact that needs to be acknowledged.
The burden of proof is on the side of those who hold the reigns of power, so as to prevent them from taking total control. This is not paranoia, nor is it anti-patriotic government hate - this is the basic concept of a government of limited powers in action. The burden of proof is the very same principle on which the justice system is founded. The government cannot simply say, "This man is a murderer, but we cannot come forth with our sources, as this will put the witnesses in danger. Therefore, the alleged murderer is a murderer. Trust us."
Will we really be attacking Iraq in direct response to the events of Sept. 11? Not even the Bush administration makes that claim. As a matter of fact, Saudi Arabia and Yasser Arafat's Palestinians and the mullahs of Iran look like much better candidates than Iraq. There's surely evidence there that has been divulged. Why didn't we start with them?