The View from the Meadow
Observations of the Passing Scene
Political and Social Commentary by Dave Satre
The Truth about Saddam and the Lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction
The fact that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction is now indisputable. There was no reasonable excuse for the Bush Regime to push America into an ill-planned war in Iraq. The continuing push by Bush and Cheney to justify the war is irrational and untruthful. This administration believes it can continue to lie to the American public and still win the election in November. In reality, this is the strongest argument for throwing the Regime out of the White House.
In a message to the Congress on Wed Oct. 6th the top US arms inspector reported that Saddam had ended his nuclear weapons program in 1991, destroyed his chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, there was no evidence that Iraq had any plans for biological warfare beyond 1995 and the country had no missiles after the Iraq-Iran war.
This means the Bush Regime inexcusably rushed the US into the Iraq war with no viable excuse. This is the reason that over 1,000 of our people have died in this misguided effort and why we are finding it difficult to extract ourselves from this situation. We are now in a position where we can’t pull out of the country until the conflict is ended and its people are safe. Our military personnel are continuing to die and the hostilities in the country are increasing. Bush created this situation, is solely responsible for it and deserves to bear the consequences.
Bush has refused to take the blame for a single mistake during his term of office. His excuses are flimsy --- he has attempted to blame poor intelligence for the decision to go to war. The problem is intelligence, alright, his intelligence!
He continues, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, to contend that the Iraq war was a good idea and that he has a “plan” to bring out troops back. Any plan the administration has formed was forced by the irrefutable failure of the original plan to invade Iraq. It was so poorly planned that Bush promised Americans the military effort would take 20 days or less, the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms, plentiful supplies of WMDs would be found and our troops would be out of the country within four months. None of these things happened.
Intelligent, perceptive people who believe in investigating all sides of an issue before leaping to a decision were aware that the administration was pushing too hard and too quickly for the invasion of Iraq. The Bush Regime ignored all advice that conflicted with their personal goals, including that of our top intelligence agencies. When proven wrong they then attempted to shift the blame by pointing fingers at their critics, but the effort has been almost childish. It’s almost like school children on a playground calling each other names when they can’t think of a solid retort to an argument.
This entire situation was avoidable. Simply put, the only thing that was needed was a thorough investigation by the UN. This was lawful --- this was the plan. Saddam had shown some bravado and made it difficult for the UN investigators to carry out their duties, but it was all bluster.
What should have happened is, the investigators should have carried out their duties. If Saddam had actually attempted to stop them the UN should have sent troops to guard the investigators and enable them to continue their searches. If this had occurred, we would have known Iraq had no WMDs and we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The report by the US’ chief arms inspector in Iraq also confirmed what I have suspected all along --- Saddam’s threats of WMDs were a bluff. At a time when he had no WMDs, his military was severely weakened and the country was in economic difficulties as a result of the embargo imposed after the Gulf War, Saddam attempted to keep up appearances in order to keep the countries on his border, particularly Iran, from overrunning him. His sword rattling was intended to frighten Iran, not the US or Great Britain.
The report also said that Saddam felt safe in this pretense because he did not believe the US would attack him.
Saddam may not be a nice guy, but neither is our president. Taking him out because he posed a possible threat is the poorest of reasons to take this country to war. There are leaders in many other countries that are evil doers, as the president likes to call them, but America cannot be in the business of policing all of the nations of the world. Iraq was simply a case of bad judgment. America cannot tolerate such poor thinking in the White House.
Americans need to stand up and Dump Bush in November.