President Bush delivered one bomb of a Veterans Day address today at Tobyhanna Army Depot. Oh, the speech had some good flourishes, but then he did it again.
The president basically said the only reason the U.S. invaded Iraq was that we stupidly believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The stupid reason.
Blame it on the speech writer. Blame it on tunnel vision. Bush was trying to remind his Democratic Party critics that their leaders had seen the same Iraq intelligence reports he had seen, and they also believed Saddam had the WMDs. As Bush put it:
[M]any of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: “When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.” That’s why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.
“That’s why” they voted for the invasion. Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like “That’s the only reason” they voted that way? They authorized military action for no other reason than Saddam’s possession of WMDs?
The president forgot to say it was never the obligation of the United States, or of the world, to prove Saddam had WMDs. Since 1991, it had been Saddam’s duty to prove he had none, and he hadn’t cooperated in providing the proof the world required.
The best reason. And then Bush forgot to say that there was even a better justification for Saddam’s removal: the end of repression in Iraq and the beginning of freedom. Liberation. Why didn’t the president mention that reason? Is there something wrong with liberation for liberation’s sake?
Has Bush forgotten what he said to the United Nations, on Sept. 12, 2002, as his first argument for action against Saddam? He cited Saddam’s continuing violation of U.N. Resolution 688, which required that Saddam end his repression and end his mistreatment of the Iraqi people.
That moral argument was the first and highest argument. Iraq urgently needed liberation, the end of repression. And action toward that end happened to be authorized by international law.
Liberation undermined. Today Bush mentioned liberation four times, but he didn’t remind us that liberation itself justified military action. Why not? Senselessly omitting that kind of basic information regularly weakens the case for ousting Saddam and building a democracy in Iraq.
It also is a rewriting of history, exactly what Bush himself today accused others of. He shouldn’t let his speeches cut corners so recklessly. I know this wasn’t the point today, but the liberation of Iraq had more than one reason.
Mr. President, too often you throw out the best reasons. You embrace the stupid reason. Stop it.
Frank Warner
I hadn't caught that. You have a good point.
Posted by: Gary Aminoff | November 12, 2005 at 02:09 AM