Alan W. Dowd has a piece in NRO on what Bush should be saying after the inevitable Iraqi deception on December 8. (Other than we’re now bombing Iraq.) Part of the reason that there’s many Americans still sitting on the fence over this threat is that there hasn’t been a clear and strong statement of why this war is likely to be a necessity, and why we simply must remove Saddam Hussein from power. So far there have been fragments of justification, but nothing that has the clarity and purpose of Bush’s September 11 anniversary speech at the UN.
It looks like the course of the next few days is inevitable. Saddam will obfuscate or outright lie to the UN about his weapons capabilities, the Security Council will continue to waffle on what a "material breach" entails, and the US will continue to prime for action. It’s clear that the only way to prevent the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction from killing millions is to remove Saddam Hussein – and remove him we shall.
“Saddam is the only leader on earth who has used weapons of mass destruction.”
I believe I could make quite a strong argument to the contrary…
Anyway, you could have stopped at the ‘he has murdered and maimed thousands of his own people’, or ‘used our gift of oil revenue to fund palaces, military, ect instead of feeding his own people’; added a viable reconstruction plan, and you’ve then convinced a liberal democrat to join you.
Instead, you try and argue remote possibilities; he has the bomb, he has massive stores of chemical and biological weapons, he’ll give both to terrorists; all of which are either gross over-estimations of his abilities, or complete misinterpretations of his character. Give away his weapons of mass-destruction? Never. He wouldn’t be the hero, al Qaeda or one of its syndicates would be. That would be unacceptable to him. Now once he gets them (if he ever does) he’ll start threatening the world. We say do your worst. He then does nothing, knowing Iraq would be wiped off the map if he did. Again nothing for him to gain there. Now you want us to approve an invasion, with no end-game plan (or at least one that is public), that will very likely destabilize a lot of Iraq’s neighbors and start a frenzy of activity amogst every terror cell in the world on such improbabilities? Nice try.
At least neutralize al Qaeda first. If he is actively pursuing a weapons of mass destruction program of the scale required to either attack us or hold the world hostage I would certainly hope we would have proof, or at least solid evidence thereof.
At the very least show me a viable end game plan for the attack that wouldn’t result in a major backlash of terror attacks and middle east destabilization.
If nothing else argue for it with the points I gave up top. You’ll win more people over.
Ditto, Alex.
There is no solid evidence linking al-Qaeda to the Iraqi regime. In fact, there’s quite a bit more linking them to our “friends” in the House of Saud.
Taking on Iraq is essentially, when it comes right down to it, a glorified mob hit. Saddam called out a hit on our President’s daddy, so he needs to send out one of his own. Perhaps Bush needs to go read the New Testament again (or just listen to what leaders in HIS church, the United Methodists, have been saying about attacking Iraq…)