The case for war.

This is going to be long, and I think I'm going to manage to offend everyone but here goes...

The last two days have revealed to the world some startling revelations about our intelligence, what we knew, and when we knew it. The 9/11 commission report revealed that we were unprepared and that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda (with regard to 9/11 but we'll get to that in a moment). Finally, we find out today that Russia has been informing us about Iraqi planned terrorist attacks.

First, I want you to read the 2nd link that goes to a USA Today article. It's hard to tell whether or not the author is colossally ignorant or whether he thinks we are. The story tries very to imply that the administration used 9/11 as a cause for going to war with Iraq.

Let's examine some facts first. For months we've been plastered with news of no WMD being found. When the case for war was originally being made we were inundated with the policy shift of using preemption vs. imminent threat. Now we're expected to believe that the administration claimed or implied some kind of Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. I want to be very clear about this. The fact that Iraq and Al-Qaeda had some kind of links in no way implies that they ever utilized those links to attack us (9/11 attacks or otherwise). However, there have been cited incidents of training and refuge being provided by Iraqi officials. There have been numerous incidents of contact being made at relatively high levels of both organizations (though there is no published knowledge of what occurred at those meetings). Finally, if you take nothing else away from this post realize this. If Bush and the administration had told us that Iraq was involved with 9/11 this would no longer have been a test of the doctrine of pre-emption. It would have been retaliatory in the same way that Afghanistan was retaliatory. Lost in all this is the contents of the rest of the report. A report which clearly outlines the many contacts between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. But all we're hearing about is the one line, "no credible evidence that Iraq and Al-Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

Moving on to the story about Putin and the terrorist plans they tipped us off to. I'm shocked to learn that the Russian President does not feel that planning attacks against another country is, at the very least, a contributor to a war declaration. While we're on the subject of media mis-representation let's focus on something else. Putin's actual quote (found here) was that Russian intelligence had unearthed "Information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing [emphasis mine] terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations." Yet the headlines read planning. I don't know about you but I find planning and preparing to be completely different things. We probably have plans to invade Russia. I'm sure somewhere there are actively updated plans for the attack of several countries. I wouldn't be suprised if there were plans that involved operations against "friendly" countries. But preparing, is an entirely different animal. Preparation is getting ready to do something. Preparation is what you do when you anticipate actually doing something. The notion that the preparation of an attack is not a cause for war is laughable. Let's send some armored battalions to the Russian border. We'll move a carrier fleet off the coast of Russia and start forming amphibious units in Japan. Let's see if Russia doesn't get a little antsy and start talking about war. And let's not kid ourselves. The only reason they wouldn't declare war is that they wouldn't win. Imagine Kazakhstan doing all of that. Do you think for a minute that the Russian army wouldn't pound them into the ground first?

Here's the facts as we now know them:

1) The world community at large was fairly confident that Saddam retained some WMD's.
2) The world community at large was fairly confident that Saddam was attempting to expand his WMD stockpiles.
3) Russia and the US knew of multiple instances in which Iraq had planned and prepared operations against the US (both military and civilian targets)
4) The prepared attacks never materialized for reasons unclear.
5) Iraq had a history of torture, genocide and WMD usage against its own populace
6) Iraq had kicked out UN arms inspectors on at least two occasions.
7) Iraq had a stockpile of non-WMD weapons that were forbidden by the terms of the cease-fire.
8) Iraq had a history of friendly relations with terrorist organizations. On some instances they provided logistical though never operational (as far as we know) aid to these organization.
9) Iraq and its established leadership had previously led an undeclared occupation attempt against Kuwait.

Now tell me honestly that you don't think we should have gone to war. What more do you need other then an actual attack? Should we only declare war in response to an actual attack? How many US deaths does it take for a war declaration to be needed then?

I submit to you that the world is a better place without a Saddam-led Iraq. I suggest to you that a government that is hostile in word and action, a government that supports others who are hostile in word and action, a government that kills, tortures and rapes its own people is a government that has no right to be in power.

Now for the Bush-bashing part of the post. I wish Bush would admit that it appears Iraq did not have WMDs. I wish he'd come out and say, "How could we have known that he would destroy everything but not have any kind of evidence that he complied." I wish the administration wouldn't continue to cling to the political hope that they find the WMDs and instead just say, "Look we were wrong, but we still believe the world and the US are better and safer without a Saddam led Iraq." I wish Kerry would say, "I believe that we should have gone to war based on what was known at the time and I still believe that. However, I believe that the administration has dropped the ball with regards to exiting in a safe and timely manner."

But it's an election year and you just can't tell the truth.