I'd like to re-write the final sentence before we begin.
Original "As Mr. Bush said yesterday, "today the process starts." It shouldn't stop
until Iraq's people and the world are liberated from Saddam's terror threat."
Editored copy "As Neal said today, "today the process starts." It shouldn't stop
until The American people and The World are liberated from The Bush terror threat.
Now that's better isn't it? (o)))
Neal
Making the Iraq Case A rationale for regime change.
(The Wall Street Journal)
Thursday, September 5, 2002 1201 a.m. EDT
http//www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002216
The critics urging President Bush to "make the case" for regime change in Iraq
began to get their wish yesterday, perhaps with more vigor than they bargained
for. Mr. Bush emerged from a meeting with Congressional leaders to declare
that "Saddam is a serious threat," and that "doing nothing about that serious
threat is not an option for the United States."
The President has also begun to aggressively shape political and diplomatic
events. He declared that he will ask Congress for a resolution of support,
before the November elections, and he will make his case in person to the
United Nations in New York next week.
He has invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Camp David on Saturday,
a meeting that follows Mr. Blair's pointed support for the U.S. stance on
Iraq yesterday. The Prime Minister echoed Mr. Bush's point that "doing
nothing . . . is not an option for the United States" and that much European
criticism is "just straightforward anti-Americanism." So much for the
rgument that the U.S. will have to "go it alone."
No doubt Mr. Bush's argument in coming days will include Saddam's well known
litany of offenses--trying to assassinate a former U.S. President, stockpiling
biological and chemical weapons and using the latter against the Kurds,
violating multiple U.N. resolutions, and of course trying to accumulate
nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said more details
on those weapons will be forthcoming as the Iraq debate unfolds.
If the Administration is serious, and it looks to be, then we also hope its
case includes some recognition of the story reported by Micah Morrison in
The Wall Street Journal today. It distills the facts collected by two dogged
investigators about the role Iraq and Saddam may have played both in the first
World Trade Center attack in 1993 and in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.
We know both cases are far from proven in the courtroom sense. But the facts
are suspicious enough that we thought readers deserved to see them laid out
in one place.
The two cases also bear on the genuine threat that Saddam represents as long
as he remains in power. Opponents of deposing the dictator say he'd be crazy
to use any weapons against the U.S. because he'd be destroyed in retaliation.
But his motive to avenge his Gulf War humiliation is clear enough.
And in the twilight world of modern terrorism, Saddam can always find others
to deliver that revenge. All he needs is a single cell from al Qaeda or its
successor to smuggle a dirty bomb. His own role could be masked with numerous
cutouts, so that the terrorists themselves don't even know where the weapons
originated. Keep in mind that it took years of investigation to show that
the attempted murder of Pope John Paul II had a Communist provenance.
This lesson, or warning, ought to be obvious from the continuing puzzle of
last year's anthrax attacks. The FBI persists in pursuing the yellow brick
road theory of a lone madman laid out by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the
Federation of American Scientists. But the target of that theory, Steven
Hatfill, has vigorously denied any role and is threatening legal action in
response to the accusations. We'd note that the FAS has since issued a
statement on its Web site distancing itself from Ms. Rosenberg and that
the journalist who broadcast her theories, Nicholas Kristof of the New York
Times, seems to have dropped the subject.
Meanwhile, the FBI has been dilatory in trying to discover if the September
11 hijackers were also behind the anthrax letters. Only recently have G-men
returned to the American Media office in Florida that was the site of the
first attack, close to where the hijackers also lived for a time. We know
that Mohamed Atta asked about renting crop dusters and that one of the
hijackers was treated for lesions on his leg that his doctor says were
consistent with anthrax infection. None of this is proof beyond a reasonable
doubt, but it does deserve more serious investigation.
Larry Eagleburger, once the last defender of a unified Yugoslavia, now
publicly puzzles over the fact that if we think the Iraqi "danger" is so
obvious, "why can't we convince our NATO allies?" Well, apparently Mr. Blair
is now convinced. But the answer for other Europeans is that, unlike during
the Cold War when Europe was on the front-lines, now the U.S. is uniquely
threatened. Only America can project power around the globe in a way that
threatens regional hegemons like Saddam, and September 11 showed that
terrorists now place a special value on striking the U.S. homeland in
catastrophic fashion.
Facing such a threat, it is virtually impossible to conceive that any plan
to reinstate arms inspectors to Iraq will be enough. Nor does one leaked
White House proposal--for "coercive inspections," meaning inspectors backed
by foreign troops--sound adequate. On this point, we'd disagree with Mr.
Bush's argument yesterday that the "issue is not inspectors, the issue
is disarmament." The real issue is the nature of Saddam's regime. We hope
the leaking of this option doesn't mean that Mr. Bush will settle for
something less than the "regime change" he and Vice President Dick Cheney
have so clearly called for.
As Mr. Bush said yesterday, "today the process starts." It shouldn't stop
until Iraq's people and the world are liberated from Saddam's terror
threat.
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