January 9, 2004

What He Said

The Left is in a happy froth over news about a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace alleging the Bush administration exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program.

The Left's general meme: the report proves there was no imminent threat, Bush said the threat was imminent, ergo, Bush Lied, People Died.

Problem: Bush said the threat was NOT imminent. Here's the key quote from his 2003 State of the Union speech...

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

And, you know what? Bush was right.

Secretary of State Colin Powell mounts a good defense of administration policy in the wake of the release of the report.

Meanwhile, I find it rather interesting that the media largely ignored reports that Saddam's regime had secreted some weapons of mass destruction in Syria before the war, but is trumpeting the Carnegie report.

And former President Bill Clinton says he believes - based on the intel he saw while President - that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction even right up to before the U.S. invasion last year. And of course the United Nations said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

The thing is, it doesn't matter if he did or didn't. Saddam was required by a slew of U.N. resolutions to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction and his WMD programs - and to prove to the UN that he had done so, by a set deadline. When that deadline passed, Saddam still had his WMD program, and still had not proven to have complied. Casus belli.