[Rhodes22-list] More on WMD - Politics

[Brad Haslett]

The editorial pages have been slow on the uptake over the NYT's lead story,
but here is one from New Hampshire.  There will be more.

Brad

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 Iraq's weapon: Oh, that nuclear bomb




At last, the New York Times has proven Sen. John Kerry right about Iraq.

The Times reported on Friday that Iraqi nuclear weapons documents placed on
a U.S. government Web site might have inadvertently spread highly detailed
nuclear weapon designs, potentially to hostile nations. But wait, there's
more.

The documents in question were nuclear weapons plans captured in Iraq. The
Times reported on Friday that the papers were so advanced and so detailed
that they could significantly advance nuclear programs in nations such as
Iran.

To quote the a paragraph buried in the Times story, "Among the dozens of
documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for
United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its
unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war.

Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the verge of
building an atom bomb, as little as a year away."

Saddam was "this close" to obtaining a nuclear weapon? What vindication for
Sen. Kerry!

Remember, it was in 2002 -- the very year stamped on some of these documents
-- that Kerry said, "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear
weapons when most nations don't even try. . . It would be naive to the point
of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein
will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous
confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it."

Alas, had President Gore only listened to his hawkish comrade from
Massachusetts and not refused to invade Iraq back in 2003. We might have
stopped the Butcher of Baghdad from acquiring his nuclear arsenal and
selling bombs to terrorists while we had the chance.

Had Texas Gov. George W. Bush won the 2000 election, maybe things would be
different. Maybe Manhattan and Los Angeles would still exist.

Maybe we would have lost thousands of American troops in a war to take out a
rogue dictator and establish a non-hostile regime but not lost hundreds of
thousands of American civilians after pretending that diplomacy with maniacs
was a sound strategy.

Oh, wait. What were we thinking? Bush did win. We did invade Iraq. New York
and L.A. are still there. The American people, Democrats and Republicans
alike, did have the stomach for standing up to rogue regimes that were
seeking nuclear material and blatantly threatening the United States.

Alas, it looks like the American people have now lost their will to stand up
to thugs who want to kill us. They appear on the verge of choosing retreat
when the going gets tough, just as Osama bin Laden long ago predicted we
would do.

At least, before we gave up the fight, we stopped one-third of the Axis of
Evil from going nuclear.