Michelle Dubert: Hypocrital allegations on Iraqi WMD

Liberals probably jumped for joy when they heard former top weapons inspector David Kay tell Congress that "we were almost all wrong" in our weapons of mass destruction intelligence. Bush-haters are having a field day preaching how the president "misled" America into war, how he lied to the people for his own political gain and to ensure victory in November.

I don't buy that.

Let me see if I can follow the logic of leading Democrats. The following persons and entities all stated on numerous occasions that Iraq had WMD: Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, Kofi Annan, the United Nations, Tony Blair, British MI6, the CIA, numerous Iraqi generals and officials and President Bush. Yet to the Democrats, the fact that no WMD stockpiles exist proves that President Bush "lied" about the WMD issue. Admittedly, intelligence errors occurred over the past decade. But to conclude that Bush is a liar is unreasonable.

Kerry had some choice words on Fox News Sunday last week when he said, "I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."

Let's not forget how Kerry voted for the war, after viewing the same intelligence as President Bush. He must have been convinced, because in October of 2002, Kerry said, "I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Kerry wasn't the only one -- the Senate voted 77-23 in favor of a pre-emptive strike.

Believing Saddam had weapons is not an irrational assumption. Since the first Gulf War, the U.N. compiled a hefty record of WMD in Iraq, requiring inspections over many years. The U.N. also passed 17 resolutions demanding full disarmament, culminating in Resolution 1441 in the days preceding the war. Saddam defied every one of those resolutions. In 1998, he kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors and forbade their return. That amounts to 12 years where Saddam enjoyed carte blanche to construct and advance biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

It might be difficult, or nearly impossible, but disregard politics for a moment; if Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, why wouldn't he comply with the U.N.? If he truly had nothing to hide, despite a track record for using such weapons, why did he kick inspectors out of Iraq? Isn't that just a little suspicious?

Even former President Clinton contended that Iraq retained illegal weapons. He left office doing little more than launching cruise missiles, but in February of 1998, he declared, "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." Where were the Dems complaining then? And where was the outcry when Clinton launched those missiles without U.N. approval?

While testifying before Congress, Kay cited shortcomings in our intelligence gathering capabilities. But receiving substantially less media coverage is Kay's admitting that even without stockpiles, Saddam's behavior wasn't kosher. He emphasized the danger of keeping Saddam in power, and also that the Iraqi documents, interviews with Iraqi scientists and tangible evidence uncovered that Saddam had prohibited weapons programs under way. In fact, after Kay returned from Iraq, he told National Public Radio, "I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than in fact we thought it was even before the war."

Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, agrees. He told Bill Gertz of The Washington Times that Saddam disbanded chemical, biological and nuclear weapons from the country a few weeks before the war. According to Clapper, this scattering of equipment, weapons and documents ensued before U.N. arms inspections began last fall. He added, "What we saw with the avoidance of inspections, there was clearly an effort to disperse, bury, conceal certain equipment prior to inspections." He also emphasized how there was "no question" that Syria now houses people and material in regard to transporting weapons from Iraq -- especially considering convoys of commercial trucks seen going into Syria from Iraq at the cusp of the conflict.

The option was to accept or reject Iraq's possession of WMD. Taking no action would have insinuated that Saddam posed no threat to his people, his neighbors (i.e. Israel) and the United States. But Sept. 11 stripped President Bush of the luxury of waiting -- he couldn't wait to thwart "imminent" threats moments before they crashed or detonated. An imminent threat is still imminent even in a plot's earliest stages; allowing Saddam to remain at the helm would have been dangerously myopic.

So when the Democrats deliver future diatribes about President Bush's "failure," do they suspect audiences won't see any political axes to grind? And when they speak of Saddam's alleged innocence, do they really believe it? Do we want to believe it?

Michelle Dubert is a College freshman from Closter, N.J. Department of Strategery appears on Mondays.

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