Ample justification for war in Iraq
By Carol Devine-Molin
web posted February 16, 2004
Is it just me, or is anyone else compelled to review the testimony of long-time
arms inspector David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, who triggered
a firestorm when he indicated in a variety of venues, both official and media
venues, that "we were all wrong", no large stockpiles of WMDs were
found in Iraq and were unlikely to be found in Iraq. The liberal press is
up to their usual tricks of twisting the truth – in this case taking
Kay's partial statements and spinning them into the "big lie" that
there was no justification for war in Iraq. In fact, David Kay said quite
the opposite before the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 28, 2004: "Senator
Warner, I think the world is far safer with the disappearance and the removal
of Saddam Hussein. I have said I actually think this may be one of those
cases where it (the Iraqi regime) was even more dangerous than we thought."
Kay further espoused before the Senate:" Well, it's not that they (the
Iraqis) don't have a weapons program – didn't have a weapons program.
It is that they had a weapons program but it was a program activity designed
to allow future production at some time. And that the missile program was
actually moving ahead." Moreover, Kay described the vital Iraqi weapons-infrastructure
that was in effect: "So they kept the scientists and they kept the technology,
but they came to what I think is a fair conclusion. Why keep the stockpiles
of weapons that are vulnerable to inspectors when you've lost your delivery
capability? Wait till you have your delivery capability, and then it's a
relatively short order." In other words, the Iraqis were poised to promptly
move forward in the development of WMDs once they got rid of the inspectors
and had their delivery systems in play.
Bush welcomes Kay to the Oval Office of the White
House on February 2 |
In this election year, clearly the Democrats have been biting-at-the-bit
to club President George W. Bush, and, unfortunately some of David Kay's
statements, albeit select statements plucked from the larger context, provided
Democrats with a powerful political weapon. As a matter of expediency, the
Democrats supported the Iraq War, but in their little Left-leaning hearts
you have to believe that they resented Bush's war proclivities from the get-go.
Now, in the face of mounting criticism from Democrats enraged that no significant
stockpiles of WMDs have been found, President Bush continues to defend his
decision to liberate Iraq by asserting that Saddam Hussein's outlaw regime:
Refused to abide by numerous UN resolutions, perpetrated atrocious crimes
against humanity including the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens,
funded terrorists and suicide bombers, destabilized the entire region with
its aggression toward neighboring countries, and possessed a dangerous weapons
program that had the capacity to produce WMD's. The latter involving a "weapons
program" has been particularly difficult for the American public to
sort out. What the heck constitutes a "weapons program"?
Let's review a portion of David Kay's Interim Progress Report on the activities
of the Iraq Survey Group before Senate committees on October 2, 2003, as
Kay delineated aspects of Iraq's weapons program:
- A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi
Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring
and suitable for continuing CBW research.
- A prison laboratory complex, possibly
used in human testing of BW agents
that Iraqi officials, working to prepare for UN inspections, were
explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
- Reference strains of biological
organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to
produce biological weapons.
- New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella
and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin
and aflatoxin
were not declared
to the UN.
- Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles
with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range
limit imposed by the UN.
Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten
targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo,
and Abu Dhabi.
- Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002
to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic
missiles
--probably
the No
Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other
prohibited military equipment.
Mind you, this is just a sampling from David Kay's interim report, which
is quite informative as to what comprises a weapons program. It's also notable
that Kay and his Iraq Survey Group were stymied in their search by "Ali
Baba looting" and intentional destruction of records.
Frankly, I'm tired of the Democratic Party and their elite media cohorts
falsely accusing the Republicans of having bamboozled the nation regarding
Iraq. If the Bush administration was corrupt, it would have had a ready supply
of "throw down" evidence to back up a claim of WMDs in Iraq. In
truth, the administration consistently acted with integrity -- It sought
honest, unvarnished intel for the purpose of making sound decisions. Although
President Bush is loath to cast aspersions upon CIA Director George Tenet,
there must be some public accountability regarding this current intelligence
failure. In the opinion of many, it's time for Tenet to fall on his sword
so that the nation can move forward with new and untainted CIA leadership
at the helm. Furthermore, President Bush's commission to investigate pre-war
intelligence problems will undoubtedly be cast by Democrats as a delaying
ploy, so that the issue can be placed on a backburner until after the election.
And we can all be assured that Democratic candidate John Kerry will continue
to excoriate Bush on pre-war intelligence that ostensibly jettisoned us into
war under "false pretenses", positioning himself as the Vietnam
hero who truly grasps the horrors of combat. Oh my!
The Leftists find it convenient to fiercely disregard the pertinent facts:
former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations, and many foreign intelligence
agencies were singing from the same hymnbook on the WMDs matter, which is
certainly indicative of lousy pre-war intel across the globe. Presently we
are being told that Saddam's own scientists were deceiving him, which is
actually understandable considering they were fearful of being slapped with "war
crimes" pursuant to WMDs production. These scientists had every reason
to want to destroy evidence of a weapons program and to eschew active development
and deployment of WMDs. Did any CIA analysts take this into account? And
can someone please tell me whatever happened to the "precursor elements" for
WMDs, which were reportedly obtained by Iraq from the likes of France, Germany,
Russia and China?
It appears that both human intelligence and analysis were inadequate to
the task in Iraq. Conservatives particularly should have abided by the warnings
of investigative journalist Bill Gertz of the Washington Times who made it
known that the intelligence community had been rendered somewhat ineffective
over the past thirty years. In his book Breakdown, Gertz espoused, "(It's)
a system hamstrung by bad politics, poor leadership, and bureaucratic ineptitude.
But the most important problem facing US intelligence agencies today is the
lack of accountability."
Moreover, it's vital to acknowledge that the Bush administration, and the
GOP for that matter, made a strategic blunder by hyping the WMDs issue in
making its case for the Iraq War. Simply put, WMDs should not have been the
centerpiece of the arguments for military action. With the benefit of hindsight
(yes, hindsight is twenty-twenty as the old adage goes), we can see that
equal footing should have been afforded: a) the heinous "crimes against
humanity" being perpetrated by the madman Saddam Hussein (including
the systematic torture and mass killings of Iraqi citizens with entire villages
of men, women and children slaughtered, the use of rape-rooms, and the incarceration
of children), b) the thorough enmeshment of Saddam Hussein with a variety
of terror groups, as he provided funding, safe harbor and training for terrorists
that actively planned to target the West, and, c) the tremendous monies and
efforts being expended by the US and Great Britain to contain the lawless
regime over a period of more than a decade. The truth is that not only was
Saddam Hussein failing to abide by the agreements that halted the 1991 Gulf
War and the ongoing UN resolutions, but he was having his soldiers regularly
shoot at US and British aircraft. In fact, there was ample legal and moral
justification to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Carol Devine-Molin is a regular contributor to several online magazines.
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