I've thought a bit about this over the last few days. Assuming there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I still support the invasion, and I still think it was the right thing to do. I think we should stay the course, and go the distance. Here are a few reasons why I still feel the way I do.
One of the biggest objections to the Iraq War is the civilian body count; people claim, erroneously, that there have been one hundred thousand civilians killed. The real count, at this point (in spite of the fact that they've been using the one hundred thousand count for like, two years now) is around thirty thousand; also, opponents to the war tend to count Iraqi security forces as well as the terrorists themselves in that body count.
Let's break it down to the brass tacks, though: would the body count over the last three years have been higher under a continued Saddam Hussein regime? All indications, including the numerous mass graves that have been discovered, indicate in the affirmative. Would the Iraqis have had shorter life spans due to the continued abuse, by both U.N. officials and the Hussein regime, of the Oil-for-Food program? Yes. So as far as humanitarianism goes, I'm of the opinion that there would have been more suffering and a higher body count if we
hadn't gone to Iraq.
Another claim, which is erroneous and worthy of clarification, is that Saddam Hussein had no connection to al Qaeda. Hussein may have had no direct connection to 9/11, but there's rather strong evidence that he had connections to al Qaeda. The possibility that Saddam was connected to 9/11 was explored, and there wasn't much evidence to support it. That's a pretty big distinction. Opponents of the Bush Administration frequently claim that those who voted for President Bush still think that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11; the Bush Administration has been careful not to make that connection, and I've not met anyone who claimed that Saddam was involved, save for one guy that I talked to
on 9/11, who I corrected and said "It's probably Usama bin Laden, this isn't the kind of attack that's carried out by a country; it's terrorism."
Even if one assumes that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, Hussein openly supported terrorist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Directly preceding the invasion of Iraq, Hussein was still giving $25,000 to the family of each and every terrorist suicide bomber who stepped onto a bus, or into a border checkpoint, or cafe, or pizzeria, and blew themselves up. So, if one were to incorrectly assume that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al Qaeda, they still couldn't excuse the open and undeniable connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. These groups, like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, et cetera, have been on the State Department's list of international terrorist organizations that are hostile to the United States since Madeline Albright was Secretary of State, and possibly earlier than that. They hate the United States, they carry out criminal operations on American soil to finance terrorist operations abroad, and Saddam Hussein gave them money.
Saddam Hussein frequently violated the terms of the ceasefire treaty that he authorized in 1991, ending Gulf War I. He regularly shot surface-to-air missiles at coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones. This is only one example. Another example is the deception of U.N. weapons inspectors; whether the weapons were there or not, the Iraqi officials frequently and systematically worked to deceive weapons inspectors, making the inspections themselves pretty much pointless.
And the weapons themselves? They've been found, at least in bits and pieces. Mustard and sarin gas artillery rounds have been found, buried; they were supposed to have been destroyed, documented, and verified by weapons inspectors as having been destroyed. And remember the al Qaqaa depot, that Senator Kerry claimed during the election to have been robbed of high explosives used to make atomic weapons? Those were illegal under the provisions of the 1991 treaty. And remember when Senator Kerry criticized President Bush for sending troops to guard the oil infrastructure, instead of guarding the Nuclear Ministry offices? If Saddam Hussein wasn't trying to get nuclear technology, then why did he have a Nuclear Ministry?
The war against international Islamofascist terrorism goes beyond al Qaeda, and it goes beyond Usama bin Laden. He's a figurehead for a much bigger movement, and people who are uninformed about the issue often forget that. Saddam Hussein was killing his own people, he was diverting money and supplies from the Oil-for-Food program into his own coffers (most of which was American money to begin with), and he was funneling money to terrorist organizations. Assuming there were no weapons of mass destruction, assuming there were no ties to al Qaeda, he was still violating the 1991 treaty and intrnational law. He was still supporting terrorists, he was still killing his citizens, he was still stealing American money in the Oil-for-Food debacle. He was a destabilizing force in the region, he had a track record of acquiring illegal weapons, and he had a track record of using them against Iran, Israel, and the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq.
Given these things, I supported then, and continue to support the invasion of Iraq. Has the invasion gone precisely according to plan? No, of course not. Has it still been one of the most successful military campaigns in history? Yes, it has; as a military historian, I can assure you of that.
So, if people want to argue the legitimacy or justification for the war with me, they're welcome to do so; but as far as I'm concerned, the same old arguments that I keep hearing are tired, ill-informed, and inaccurate. I'm still convinced that the criticism of the war has more to do with people not liking Republicans than it has to do with people actually caring about Iraq or the deployment of American military personnel. If those critics want me to go back to paying attention to them, they're going to have to come up with something a little more tangible than "There were no weapons of mass destruction!" or "Bush lied, people died!"
Thus saith the Fly.
