COLUMN: Bush created weapons of mass distraction
By Michael Duff
University Daily (Texas Tech U.)
06/13/2003

(U-WIRE) LUBBOCK, Texas — We haven't found the chemical weapons yet, and the usual suspects are up in arms. Paul Krugman is wetting his pants over at the New York Times. Some of the more radical Democrats are talking impeachment.

Can we impeach a president for lying about the reasons we went to war? What constitutes a lie in this situation? We know Saddam had chemical weapons in 1991. We know he had a nuclear program. And we've found a ton of circumstantial evidence that points to biochem weapons development within the past five years.

It's kind of like detectives looking for a murder weapon. We haven't found a smoking gun. We've found tools for making the gun and tools for making the bullets. We've found a stockpile of bulletproof vests, and we've found trace amounts of gunpowder. But we haven't found the gun yet, so people say the gun does not exist.

But as John McCain said on the Imus program Wednesday, "If he didn't have anything to hide, why did Saddam work so hard to deceive those inspectors?"

Republicans are split into two camps now. People who believe we will eventually find Saddam's weapons, and people who say it doesn't matter. Saddam was throwing children in jail and shoveling their parents into mass graves. His human rights abuses are so severe our actions are justified, even if our pretext turns out to be false.

I think Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Inspectors found massive quantities of anthrax and chemical agents after the first Gulf War. Clearly Saddam knew he would lose this war, and he was basically willing to sacrifice his government, as long as he could embarrass the United States in the process.

I think his chemical weapons are safe and sound, hidden somewhere in the Middle East. Smart money says they're in Syria, being stored in a bunker somewhere, while Saddam and his sons plot their return to power.

But the question remains, can we claim a legitimate right to invade Iraq if we never find those Weapons of Mass Destruction?

I think President Bush has made two major foreign policy mistakes since he took office. His first mistake was that "Axis of Evil" speech. We declared war on half the world, when we should have confined our efforts, and our rhetoric, to the Al Qaeda organization.

His second mistake was using the evidence of WMD as justification for the invasion of Iraq. He tried to spin this war as a kind of "extended self-defense ploy," when he should have just stepped up to the plate and talked about Saddam's human rights record.

Saddam's crimes against humanity were so obvious, so sweeping, and so clearly in violation of international treaties, Bush could have made a moral case against Iraq that even the left would have been forced to accept.

He should have taken a page from the Democrats' playbook — set up a series of television interviews with victims of Saddam's regime and pulled on the nation's heart strings a bit.

Could the left really say no to an intervention in Iraq, when Bill Clinton took similar action in Haiti and Somalia?

Republicans had the moral high ground, and they gave it up.

I don't like interventionist foreign policy as a rule; but if you're going to have an interventionist foreign policy, you should at least have the guts to stand behind it.

Bush used WMD as an excuse for military action because ultimately, he didn't have the courage of his convictions.

Don't give us some flimsy argument about terrorism and self-defense. Tell us the truth. We didn't take out Saddam because we expected an attack on New York. We took out Saddam because it was the right thing to do.

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