TruthNews Commentary, January 15, 2003

Fired Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said this week that President Bush had planned to invade Iraq even before 9/11. To which, we say "Good -- we’re glad he was planning ahead."

Contrary to accusations by Ted Kennedy and other Democrats, Bush

• Never linked Saddam Hussein to 9/11

• Never said that Hussein posed an imminent threat

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.

The reason for attacking Iraq was thus, not because the threat was imminent, but to prevent the threat from becoming imminent. Intelligence with these countries is not sufficient to be able accurately predict when the threat is imminent (this should be pretty obvious by now), so the "Bush Doctrine" calls for taking action before these terrorist countries are able to threaten America.

The idea of regime change in Iraq predated Bush’s presidency. It was actually codified into law by Congress in the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" and signed by then-President Bill Clinton. This followed Hussein’s ejection of the UN weapons inspectors. "Mark my words," Clinton said at the time, "(Hussein) will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them and he will use them." Obviously, Clinton was lying, because everyone knows that we have been unable to find any weapons of mass destruction (other than missiles, chemical weapon warheads, and chemical weapon labs).

Clinton retaliated to the ejection of UN weapons inspectors by dropping a few bombs on Iraq, in effect saying, "There, that’ll teach him." Of course, it didn’t teach him, and Hussein didn't let the inspectors back in until after Congress declared war on him in 2002, with the votes, it should be pointed out, of Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman, all vying to oppose Bush in the 2004 election. Wesley Clark, the fired supreme commander of NATO and now presidential contender a la George McClellan, can’t make up his mind whether he’s for the war or not. Prior to the war, he was for it, and after the war (and after he threw his hat in the ring), he decided he was against the war, all of which calls in question his judgment if he can’t make up his mind what to do until after the event. But, as Bush’s former speechwriter David Frum points out, "Just about every candidate for the presidency in 2000 agreed that Saddam would someday have to be removed by force, with John McCain and Al Gore making the point even more emphatically than George W. Bush."

Beyond the pre-emptive strike argument advanced by Bush, an equally compelling case for invading Iraq can be made simply because of the suffering of the Iraqi people. Some have argued that sanctions should have been continued in order to compel Hussein to give up. But sanctions work primarily by making the people suffer. The leader then feels sorry for the people and gives up. That’s why sanctions worked against the apartheid South African government (don’t laugh, the whites were losing money and they figured they could make more money by allowing a black government to take charge so the sanctions would be removed).

But to a leader who’s indifferent to the suffering of his people, sanctions can take a long time. The Bible actually mentions such a situation in the book of Revelation, where a voice is heard saying "A measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny: and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine" (Rev. 6:9). This is a prophecy of a time when basic food (wheat and barley) would be very expensive (a penny represented a day’s wages) but the rich could still live in luxury (oil and wine). This is exactly what happens in a country under sanctions -- the poor suffer, but the rich and the leaders can steal and smuggle in enough stuff to live in luxury.

Forty-five years of sanctions have yet to remove Castro from power in Cuba, and 12 years of sanctions and bombing were not enough to remove Hussein from power or even make him cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. In addition, unlike with South Africa, countries like France and Germany were perfectly willing to provide weapons to Hussein in defiance of UN sanctions. Meanwhile, the suffering of the Iraqi people continued, both from the sanctions and Hussein’s depredations.

Those like Howard Dean and Teddy Kennedy who argue that we should not have invaded Iraq would have left America with two options: 1) continue the sanctions and the suffering indefinitely in order to prevent Hussein from restarting his development of nerve gas, germs, nukes, and missiles (a.k.a. WMD) or 2) giving up and letting Hussein run amok in the Middle East, an area of vital strategic importance to us because they have lots of oil. We, of course, also have lots of oil, but we don’t want to befoul the frozen Alaskan tundra known as the Artic National Wildlife Reserve by drilling.

So, we’re glad to hear that Bush was already thinking about invading Iraq before 9/11 occurred. At least he wasn’t fiddling while Rome burned like his predecessor did. But according to other accounts, O’Neill didn’t get it exactly right. The White House discussions that O’Neill was privy to did not revolve around invading Iraq but rather what to do about Hussein’s continued defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. America, after all, had been involved in a low-level war with Iraq ever since the end of major combat operations in 1991. First, we set up the northern no-fly zone to protect the Kurds, then we set up the southern no-fly zone to protect the Shiites, while Hussein continued to try to shoot down American planes, and we continued to bomb Iraq. And let’s not forget that Hussein invaded Iran and Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, tried to assassinate ex-president George Herbert Walker Bush (e.g., George Bush, Sr.), sponsored Palestinian suicide bombers, harbored terrorist Abu Abbas (who hijacked the Achille Lauro and murdered American citizen Leon Klinghoffer), fired Scud missiles into the major cities of Israel (with whom he was not at war), heavily damaged and nearly sank the USS Stark (during a time when we were not at war with Iraq), and murdered 300,000 Iraqis.

Oddly enough, the book that fired-Treasury Secretary O’Neill cooperated in writing is entitled "The Price of Loyalty." In addition to accusing Bush of pre-planning the invasion of Iraq, O’Neill also accuses Bush of being bored by economic discussions (this is hardly surprising -- even economists are bored by economic discussions), and plotting to lower taxes. These are hardly serious accusations, but O’Neill thinks they are. If O’Neill’s attack on Bush is loyalty, we wonder what betrayal is. Perhaps the book should have been entitled "30 Pieces of Silver" -- the price that Judas received for betraying Jesus.