Friday, September 24, 2004

Legitimate War

Many people in the media and on the Left attempt to paint the battle in Iraq as a "red herring" in the War on Terror. Depending on how partisan the person is, they may charge Bush with anything from fabricating reasons to initiate a war in Iraq to relying on faulty documents that he used to make arguments to the American people so as to gain approval for a war. They tend to believe that the war in Iraq is either nothing more than a personal vendetta or a way to line the pockets of his friends. No matter what they use as the reason for Bush wanting to go to war with Iraq or how he got there, they have an underlying position that the war in Iraq is illegitimate.

There are several misleading statements that they use to justify this position and they repeatedly state them as if they are fact. I heard Jesse Jackson making these same misstatements on the Sean Hannity Radio Show yesterday and was surprised the Hannity did not rebut them. However, I have been working on a long blog to counter each of these arguments but have not posted it because all of my research was not done. However, my brother called me yesterday seeking some information and I thought he could use this post. So, I will make a feeble attempt to fill the role of both Adam and Jamie and bust these myths.

Myth # 1: The Battle in Iraq is part of a Republican Agenda
The official foreign policy of the US concerning Iraq has been "transition to democracy" since 1998 when President Clinton signed the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act. This policy did not change with the Bush Administration. Prior to election year politics the necessity of regime change in Iraq was a rare point of agreement between the two parties, as made clear by the October 2002 vote authorizing the president to use force against Iraq (supported by 29 Democratic Senators and 126 Democratic Representatives).

Myth #2: Iraq was billed as an imminent threat to U.S. security
In the President's 2003 State of the Union Address he actually makes it very clear that the threat from Iraq is not imminent:
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."
The President did not say the threat was imminent, but instead made a case that to wait until the threat was imminent was to wait too long. This is wise thinking that agrees with such proverbs as "A stitch in time saves nine" and "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Myth #3: Bush lied about Saddam seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger
While I am talking about the President's 2003 State of the Union Address I best deal with this myth. First, let me be clear about what I call a lie. A lie is a statement that one knows to be false at the time the statement is made. It is not, for instance, a lie to wake up in the morning, roll over and say to your spouse, "It is sunny today," when in fact it is overcast. However, if you wake up, open the backdoor, see that it is overcast and then go say to your spouse, "It is sunny today," you have lied. A careful examination of those words show that they were indeed true at the time Bush spoke them.
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
In July 2003 (after the controversy erupted) British intelligence services and Tony Blair were firmly standing by their assertion of the Iraq-Niger connection. In case that is not enough, it is important to note that the bipartisan-prepared 9/11 Commission Report cites several credible pieces of intelligence affirming the link, including reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger headed for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

Myth #4: There is no tie between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda
Before I get started debunking this myth it is important to note that the Bush administration never claimed Saddam Hussein had any hand in planning the 9/11 attacks. However, we are not in a war against those who attacked us on 9/11; we are in a War against Terror. The attacks on the WTC were just an excursion from one company of terrorists.

Just saying that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq does not make it so. When one looks at the facts, one must draw the conclusion that Saddam engaged in the supporting of terrorist. Here are just a very few documented examples of Saddam's terroristic efforts:

Stephen Hayes, the author of a book called The Connection makes a very convincing case for connections between Saddam and terrorists. The book is overflowing with footnotes and references to his sources that include Iraqi intelligence documents, confessions of Iraqi intelligence personnel, intercepted telephone conversations, allegations of counterterrorism officials in the Clinton administration, and even satellite photographs. It is my opinion that only partisans can outright dismiss the al-Qaeda/Saddam link after reading his book.

Myth #5: No WMDs have been found
This is pretty easy to disprove, either weapons have been found or they haven't. If this debate were not so partisan, then a few news articles showing the discovery of WMDs would put this to argument down. Before we look at articles, it is imperative that an agreement on what constitutes a WMD is reached. This report by FoxNews provides a concise overview. Now, here is a summary of what has been discovered in Iraq:

  1. Chemical and biological weapon systems plans and equipment
  2. Reference strains of biological weapons agents
  3. New research on brucella and congo-crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin
  4. A biological weapons lab
  5. Polish troops in Iraq uncovered warheads containing Cyclosarin, an agent far more toxic than Sarin. (These were old and degraded and probably would not have been a threat, but were still illegal under the terms of Kuwait Surrender for Saddam to have)
  6. Prohibited long-range missiles suitable for delivering WMDs
  7. Documents showing Saddam tried to obtain long-range ballistic missiles from North Korea
  8. 10 to 12 sarin and mustard gas shells have been found in various locations in Iraq
  9. Gas centrifuge elements for enriching uranium, parts of a nuclear weapons program, buried in the back yard of Mahdi Obeidi, a nuclear scientist. Obeidi also gave up nuclear development documents and said there were other pieces of the puzzle hidden elsewhere.
  10. A barrel of enriched uranium found near Mosul.
  11. Iraq was 3 years from a building a nuclear weapon, according to top nuclear scientists quoted by CNN.
  12. In May 2004, the Iraq Survey Group, the people who are searching for WMD, confirmed that a roadside bomb detonated was also packed with Sarin nerve agent. That bomb was one 550, for which Saddam Hussein failed to account prior to the war. The article also points out that Hans Blix reported that his inspection team found 16 empty, Iraqi warheads marked for use with Sarin prior to the start of the war.
  13. In October 2003, Kuwaiti security forces intercepted Iraqis attempting to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads to an unnamed European country
  14. On January 16, 2003, UN weapons inspectors discovered 11 rocket warheads designed to deliver chemical weapons in a bunker 75 miles south of Baghdad.
  15. Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay reported "dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002," including vials of live botulinum bacteria that were found hidden at the home of an Iraqi scientist. Botulinum is the single most poisonous substance known to mankind.
  16. Kay's final report reveals Iraq's attempt to "revive its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2000 and 2001," and that "Baghdad was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin."
  17. Kay successor Charles Duelfer reported on March 30, 2004: "Iraq did have facilities suitable for the production of biological and chemical agents needed for weapons. It had plans to improve and expand and even build new facilities." Iraq was also working up to March 2003 to construct new facilities for the large-scale production of dual-use chemicals.
  18. According to former Justice Dept prosecutor John Loftus, "The CIA has found 41 different material breaches where Saddam did have a weapons of mass destruction program."
  19. "We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD" - David Kay, who also told the Associated Press that satellites showed "a lot of traffic" from Iraq to Syria
  20. A Syrian journalist who defected to Paris in January has named three sites in Syria where Iraqi WMDs are buried, based on contacts of his in Syrian Intelligence. Israeli intelligence has confirmed his account
  21. An Iraqi scientist told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria just before the war, according to the New York Times
  22. Jordan recently seized 20 tons of chemicals trucked in by confessed al Qaeda members who brought the stuff in from Syria. The chemicals included VX, Sarin and 70 others

When Saddam surrendered and signed the papers he agreed to surrender all chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to UN monitors. But inspector David Kay has testified that the Iraqi regime violated UN Resolution 1441, by finding new ways to sidestep its provisions. Saddam's enduring evasiveness, coupled with an aggressive last-ditch bid to cover up its militaristic aims by barring international inspectors from sensitive sites, kept inspectors from discovering Iraq's illegal missile programs.

Myth 6: America is fighting the war in Iraq alone
Three-dozen countries are currently contributing military forces to the country, and several creditor nations have forgiven Iraqi debt and pledged reconstruction funds. President Bush listed out many of our allies in this war in State of the Union Speech.

"Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This
particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia,
Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark,
Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands -- (applause) -- Norway, El
Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq.
(Applause.) As we debate at home, we must never ignore the vital contributions
of our international partners, or dismiss their sacrifices."

So, we have allies but it is an illegitimate coalition because the UN did not give us permission to fight this war is the follow-up argument. I don't buy this argument because getting permission from the UN would put our ability to defend ourselves in the hands of Kofi Annan and an organization where "free" countries can be paid off, the voice of a dictator is equal to the voice of freedom, and our enemies have a vote. This does not make sense.

Myth 7: We are more susceptible to terrorism today because of the War in Iraq
I wrote a blog entry about this back April about the fact that we are winning the war on Terror and are safer than ever. No use rewriting that one.

Conclusion
Wow! This is long. I figure most people won't get this far. However, I think I've made some compelling arguments and rebuttals for the myths. My brother used to be against the war in Iraq but has become convinced otherwise because of entries on my blog. Something in my chain of thoughts changed his mind, so I've included a little index of all my entries dealing with the war Iraq in chronological order just as he would have read them.

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