What Did The President Know And Who Cares?

July 23, 2003

Although I shouldn’t be, I’m dumbfounded by the left’s relentless pursuit of the political mother lode via a mere 16 words uttered in President Bush’s State of the Union address back in January.   Here are those 16 words:

 

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

 

Let’s examine these words for a moment.   The media have focused on the fact that the CIA had debunked some documents supporting the Iraq/Africa connection; documents that we now know were planted by the French.   However, independent British intelligence sources confirm, irrespective of the French forgeries, that such a deal was being forged by Saddam Hussein.   The CIA, which was supposed to vet the speech before it was ever made, failed to do so.   Given the circumstances around which that one sentence was included in the speech, can anyone seriously say that the President intended to defraud the American people?   It’s absolute hogwash.

 

Instead, let’s look at some of the other reasons the President gave in his speech for dusting Saddam and his evil regime.

 

“U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.”

 

Or how about this?

 

“From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.”

 

You see, this is the crux of the problem we had with Saddam.   If you don’t believe Saddam ever had weapons of mass destruction did the Kurds just spontaneously combust?   It is totally irrelevant whether or not we find weapons of mass destruction.   We know they existed and the onus was on Saddam to either turn them over or show us when, where and how he destroyed them.   He chose to do neither.

 

And what about all the innocent lives we saved?   These same so-called compassionate, do-good Americans who insist we spend every last dime to find a cure for promiscuous homosexuals with AIDS don’t give a rat’s rump about the Kurds and the hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis brutalized, tortured and killed by Saddam Hussein.   Why?   Because the president who finally has the you-know-whats to deal with him is a Republican.   It’s no more difficult to figure out than that.

 

The liberals and their complicit news media smell blood in the water and the sharks are circling.   Even though the blood may be coming from nothing more than a paper cut.

 

Take another look at those sixteen words and tell me if they, alone, would tip the scales in favor of invading Iraq.   Of course, they wouldn’t.   Had they been absent from that speech, the impact would’ve been the same.  

 

It’s like going for a test drive with a car salesman who tells you all about the car you’re thinking about buying.   It’s got leather interior, bumper-to-bumper warranty, does zero to sixty in eight seconds, has electric everything and comes with zero-percent interest.   What’s that?   It only does zero to sixty in nine seconds?   The information the salesman quoted was from the last brochure.   That info was found to be incorrect.   Would the liberals want his head on a platter?  

 

Only if he was selling an SUV.