BUSH LIED, IRAQ WAS LIBERATED:

My Biggest Mistake in the White House: Failing to refute charges that Bush lied us into war has hurt our country. (KARL ROVE, 7/15/10, WSJ)

Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham organized a bipartisan letter in December 2001 warning Mr. Bush that Saddam's "biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs . . . may be back to pre-Gulf War status," and enhanced by "longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Yet two years later, he called for Mr. Bush's impeachment for having said Saddam had WMD.

On July 9, 2004, Mr. Graham's fellow Democrat on Senate Intelligence, Jay Rockefeller, charged that the Bush administration "at all levels . . . used bad information to bolster the case for war." But in his remarks on Oct. 10, 2002, supporting the war resolution, he said that "Saddam's existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose real threats to America."

Even Kennedy, who opposed the war resolution, nonetheless said the month before the vote that Saddam's "pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated." But he warned if force were employed, the Iraqi dictator "may decide he has nothing to lose by using weapons of mass destruction himself or by sharing them with terrorists."

Then there was Al Gore, who charged on June 24, 2004, that Mr. Bush spent "prodigious amounts of energy convincing people of lies" and accused him of treason, bellowing that Mr. Bush "betrayed his country." Yet just a month before the war resolution debate, the former vice president said, "We know that [Saddam] has stored away secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Top Democrats led their party in making the "Bush lied, people died" charge because they wanted to defeat him in 2004. That didn't happen.

Despite being the main focus of our entire national security apparatus for ten years, we had no idea what actually went on in Iraq and could have no idea what weapons he had, wanted to buy, or was developing. In the end, we took his word that he still had WMD hidden, in violation of UN Resolutions,and would use them against innocents.

Meanwhile, no one disputes that he was a brutal, even genocidal, dictator who oppressed the Shi'ite majority in Iraq, again in contravention of UN Resolutions he accepted in order to end the first Gulf War.

All Saddam had to do to avoid war was follow the Resolutions. All we did was enforce them. As a result the people of Iraq (and Kurdistan) now govern themselves. What's the downside here?

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 16, 2010 6:06 AM