Infinite MonkeysThe Adults of the Northern Alliance have done a better job of commenting on the Duelfer/Iraq Survey Report than I could do. It seems now we are in the spin phase of the report. For Kerry, it is simple: Bush Lied. People Died. Or some such variant. The wrong war, blah, blah, bah.
But what do we know?
We know that Saddam started two wars of aggression against his neighbors.
We know that Saddam provided a safe-haven for terrorists.
We know that during the first Gulf War (Kerry voted "No.") Saddam launched unprovoked missile attacks on Israel.
We know he had a financia "reward" program for the families of terrorists who murdered Israelis.
We know that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons programs in the past.
We know that he used them on several occasions.
Mass graves.
Rape rooms.
Children's prisons.
Uday and Qusay.
We know that the CIA and other international intelligence agencies, and at least two Presidential Administrations knew/believed that Iraq had weapons or a weapons program.
We know that Saddam violated and flaunted over one dozen UN resolutions.
We know that Saddam played games with the inspections for over ten years. (Why? If there was nothing to hide....)
(So far, I don't think there is too much controversy here.)
We know that Saddam was violating the sanctions and that the oil-for-food program was a corrupt joke, and was not working. (other than to starve and kill his own people)
We know that Saddam was bribing the Kerry "allies" to bring about the eventual end of the sanctions. (Aside: Is this the "Coalition of the Bribed"?)
We know that Saddam's oil-for-bribes plan was to bring about the eventual termination of the sanctions.
We know that Saddam would then have started his WMD programs up again, once he was out from under the sanctions.
So is the World better off without Saddam?
Should we have waited until the sanctions were lifted as a consequence of his bribery and corruption?
Should we have waited for Saddam to reconstitute his WMD programs?
Maybe our intelligence agencies failed us. Maybe Saddam shipped everything to Syria. Maybe there is still stuff buried in the Iraq desert. But Saddam is gone, and I think we're all better off.
Posted by JamesPh. at October 7, 2004 06:04 PMGreat post, James. I was impresed by this one there too.
Posted by: Monkey Brad at October 7, 2004 06:53 PMThat's a great post for why the Iraquis are better off without Saddam. And possibly the Israelis. And MAYBE the mideast.
But I didn't see a single item on the list that justified the sacrificing of a single American soldier's life.
On another note, does bringing up the U.S. funded war with Iran make us one of the good guys or one of the bad guys?
Posted by: RobbL Monkey at October 7, 2004 09:07 PMFor a quick glance at a slightly wider focus, check the quotations cited in today's "top story" (first piece) on Best of the Web Today. And not to sound like Joshua Micah Marshall, or anything, but I think that Syria (and possibly Libya) will come up as a surrogate as more and more of the Oil-for-Food materials see the light of day. Developing per Claudia Rosett on the radio (no link yet).
Posted by: Monkey Brad at October 7, 2004 10:09 PM1. My point of view is that the "list" indicates a gathering future threat to our security. Eventually, WE would have had to pay that price.
2. As to the Iraq-Iran War, the ethics of our involvement makes for a good debate. For now, if I have to murderous regimes locked in a steel-cage death match, I'll hand them the chairs to hit each other with.
Posted by: JamesPh at October 7, 2004 10:28 PMMickey Kaus had one of the best characterizations of Saddam's behavior (via Polipundit):
"If a man says he has a gun, acts like he has a gun, and convinces everyone around him he has a gun, and starts waving it around and behaving recklessly, the police are justified in shooting him (even if it turns out later he just had a black bar of soap). Similarly, according to the Duelfer report, Saddam seems to have intentionally convinced other countries, and his own generals, that he had WMDs. He also convinced much of the U.S. government. If we reacted accordingly and he turns out not to have had WMDs, whose fault is that?"
Posted by: JamesPh at October 8, 2004 08:01 AM