Posted on 07/22/2008 6:22:14 PM PDT by Doctor Raoul
TRENTONIAN EDITORIAL: Iraq no threat? Trailing a massive, adulatory retinue of media, rookie Sen. Barack Obama is on a fact-finding trip to learn about terrorism. He seems, however, to be doing more talking than listening. Speechmaking - talking - is of course his specialty. He has already announced his conclusion that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is "the central front of our battle against terrorism." America's involvement in Iraq - never much of a threat - was a "strategic mistake," a distraction, he says. Maybe he should inform Al Qaeda that it has been investing resources - namely, jihadists - in the wrong place. Obama might likewise inform the Islamic Republic of Iran that it, too, has been investing its resources - materials for IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and training for personnel in how to position and detonate them - in the wrong country. Was Iraq really never much of threat? Obama states the proposition as indisputable truth, and there are shouts of "Amen!" from the Democratic Party pews these days despite previous positions to the contrary (see "Threat footnote" below). Certainly it's a legitimately debatable issue whether the the U.S.-led effort to topple the Saddam Hussein regime was the right course to take in the matter. But to pooh-pooh Saddam's Iraq as never having posed a significant threat, and to suggest that Iraq was always irrelevant to Islamist terrorism, is far from the open-and-shut case Obama and others now try to make it out to be. Facts keep getting in the way of the proposition. There were many grounds for viewing the regime as a serious threat, including the following: - That it had provoked wars in the region resulting in a million casualties. - That it had used chemical weapons repeatedly, and not just against military foes but against civilian populations inside Iraq itself. - That it had maintained contacts with Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders through much of the 1990s (as detailed in the bipartisan 9/11 Commission's report). - That it had hosted conferences of Islamist extremists from around the globe. - That it had given refuge to leading terrorist figures, including the Al Qaeda mastermind of the 1993 bombing of one of the World Trade Center towers. - That it had openly provided financial aid to the families of Palestinian suicide terrorists. - That it had filled mass graves with thousands of summarily executed Iraqis - including their children - who had fallen under the regime's suspicion. - That it had engaged in torture reflecting barbaric depravity (as detailed by the reports of various U.N. and human rights organizations). Even the never-found WMD comes with unreassuring asterisks. Although the Iraq Survey Group found no stockpiles of WMD, it reported after the fall of Saddam: - "With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told ISG that Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons." - "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in 2002....A clandestine network of laboratories...contained equipment...suitable for chemical and biological weapons research." THREAT FOOTNOTE: Al Gore today: "History will surely judge America's decision to invade and occupy a fragile and unstable nation that did not attack us and posed no threat to us as a decision that was not only tragic but absurd." Al Gore back then: "Remember...(Saddam) is a man who has used poison gas on his own people and on his neighbors repeatedly. He's trying to get ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons. He could be a mass murderer of the first order of magnitude." So declared Gore in 1998. In 2002, he added that Iraq is "a virulent threat in a class by itself." He said America "must be prepared to go the limit" in addressing that threat.
More than enough logic here to make any liberal’s head explode...
“America’s involvement in Iraq - never much of a threat - was a “strategic mistake,” a distraction,”
This “spin” is discusting and dispicable.
Logic?
Then the Left will never read it. Neither will the Sheep.
Is the Trentonian somehow related to the Waterbury Journal-American. It sure as hell ain't the Madison Capital Journal.
I don’t know why everybody always seems to have expected massive stockpiles of chem/bio weapons in Iraq. It’s the ~programs~ that matter, not the stockpiles.
Chemical and Bio weapons are not the sort of thing that anybody would ever create a very large peacetime inventory. They’re a logistics and custodial nightmare, and they have a relatively short shelf-life compared to ordinary ordnance. They’re very much in the make-it-as-you-need-it department.
The Duelfer (sp?) report was VERY clear that they had found clandestine facilities and personnel for these programs. Game, set, match. That’s what mattered. That there weren’t massive stockpiles was that only thing the media picked up from the report, but it’s also the thing that doesn’t matter very much.
Whatever stockpiles they had went to Syria. Some things may have been quietly disposed in desert ammo depots in order to keep Al Queda from searching for them. But it was Saddam’s programs, and his willingness to use them— and share them with terror groups that made this war not only necessary but the ONLY moral choice.
America’s win is Black Oblack’s loss. Iraq is the biggest win in most of our lifetime.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Good observation.
Dave Neese is the editorial writer. He’s very good about backing up his opinions with facts. In fact, I’d love to see reporters provide as many facts as he does in their reporting.
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