Here we go again with the liberal lobotomy brigade declaring everything
written or broadcast that does not agree with their aganda as false and
without merit... if it's not the publication. its the writer, if it's not
the writer, it's the printer... etc...etc! :-))
Will they ever get a clue?


"Dickmcb" <mcburney.r@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:FbqdncZdrdBrWIfd4p2dnA@comcast.com...

"HOD" <sh@att.net> wrote in message
news:101lge470n7r81d@corp.supernews.com...

Posted on Fri, Jan. 30, 2004
IRAQ WAR
Bush made the right choice

BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

***************************************

Charles Krauthammer is so far right and such a Bush lover that he will
excuse or attempt to excuse anything and I mean anything Bush does

including

taking us to an unnecessary war. Iraq's Army folded before the "war"

began,

their Air Force never got off the ground, they had no Navy, they had

nothing

to do with 9/11, they are 3,000 miles away from our closest shores and

they

Damm sure didn't have any WMD so tell us again all you Bush supporters,

why

did we go to war with them? Bush lied and our troops continue to die.

************************************************

Before the great hunt for scapegoats begins, let's look at what David

Kay

has actually said about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

First, and most trumpeted, he did not find ''large stockpiles of newly
produced weapons of mass destruction.'' He did find, as he reported

October, WMD-related activities, from a very active illegal missile

program

to research and development (''right up until the end'') on

the

deadly poison ricin (the stuff found by London police on terrorists

year). He discovered ''hundreds of cases'' of U.N.-prohibited and

illegally

concealed activities.

Significant findings, but still a far cry from what the administration

had

claimed last March. Kay has now offered the most novel and convincing
explanation for why U.S. intelligence -- and, for that matter, U.N.
inspectors and the intelligence agencies of every country that

mattered --

had misjudged what Iraq possessed.

It was a combination of Iraqi bluff, deceit and corruption far more

bizarre

than heretofore suspected. Kay discovered that an increasingly erratic
Saddam Hussein had taken over personal direction of WMD programs. But
because there was no real oversight, the scientists would go to him

money, exaggerate or invent their activities, then pocket the funds.

Scientists were bluffing Hussein. He was bluffing the world. The

were

all bluffing each other. Special Republican Guard commanders had no

WMDs,

but they told investigators that they were sure that other guard units

did.

It was this internal disinformation that the outside world missed.

Congress needs to find out why, with all our resources, we had not a

clue

that this was going on. But Kay makes clear that Bush was relying on

what

the intelligence agencies were telling him. Kay contradicts the

Democratic charges that Bush cooked the books. ''All the analysts I

talked to said they never felt pressured on WMD,'' says Kay.

believed that (Iraq) had WMD.''

Including the Clinton administration. Kay told The Washington Post

he

had found evidence that Hussein had quietly destroyed some biological

and

chemical weapons in the mid-1990s -- but never reported it to the

Nations. Which was why Clinton in 1998 declared with alarm and

confidence

that Iraq had huge stockpiles of biological and chemical arms -- ``and

some

day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal.''

The intelligence failure is spectacular, but its history is quite

prosaic.

When the U.N. inspectors left in 1998, they assumed that the huge

stockpiles

of unaccounted-for weapons still existed. What other assumption could

they

make? That Hussein had destroyed them and not even reported that to

very

agency that could have then vindicated him and gotten sanctions

State Secretary Colin Powell correctly makes the case that this very

fact --

the concealment of both the weapons and their possible destruction --
clearly justifies the legality of the Iraq war, because the terms of

1991 cease-fire placed the positive obligation on Iraq to demonstrate

its

own disarmament. And that it clearly and repeatedly failed to do.

But beyond the legal question is the security question. People forget

that

when the Bush administration came into office, Iraq was a very

situation. Thousands of Iraqis were dying as a result of sanctions.
Containment necessitated the garrisoning of Saudi Arabia with

of

''infidel'' U.S. troops -- in the eyes of many Muslims, a desecration

(cited

by Osama bin Laden as his No. 1 reason for his 1996 Declaration of War

on

America). The no-fly zones were slow-motion war, and the embargo was

costly

and dangerous -- the sailors who died on the USS Cole were on embargo

duty.

Until Bush got serious, threatened war and massed troops in Kuwait.

United Nations was headed toward loosening and ultimately lifting

sanctions,

which would have given Hussein carte blanche to regroup and rebuild

WMDs.

Bush reversed that slide with his threat to go to war. But that kind

aggressive posture is impossible to maintain indefinitely. A regime of
inspections, embargo, sanctions, no-fly zones and thousands of combat

troops

in Kuwait was an unstable equilibrium. The United States could have

either

retreated and allowed Hussein free rein, or gone to war and removed

Those were the only two ways to go.

Under the circumstances, and given what every intelligence agency on

planet agreed about was going on in Iraq, the president made the right
choice -- indeed the only choice.

©2004 Washington Post Writers Group

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