Iraq trip bolsters Miller's stance
By ERNIE SUGGS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Zell Miller's support of President Bush and the Iraq war effort was confirmed last week after a trip to the beleaguered country.
He met L. Paul Bremer, chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, visited some of Iraq's 22 universities and some of the 240 operating hospitals, and marveled at the newfound religious and political freedoms that the Iraqi people now enjoy since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
In fact, Miller said, he visited the spot where Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed by American soldiers, as well as the warehouses that now hold their gold-plated AK-47s and $8,000 bottles of wine which "they enjoyed while their people starved and suffered."
"And yet, we have the anti-military crowd -- not just anti-war but anti-military crowd -- wringing their hands and fretting, 'What good can come of this?' " said Miller, a former U.S. Marine. "What good can come of this? We've given 26 million people the greatest gift of all: their freedom. That is the good that has come from this."
Miller spoke Monday night at the annual meeting and dinner of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, which kicked off the 2004 session of the General Assembly.
The Democratic senator, who has angered some in his party with his conservative and pro-war views, has become one of the most visible and outspoken leaders in Washington because he has resisted party politics.
He has been a staunch supporter of Bush and the use of military force, once declaring on the Senate floor, "Bomb the hell out of them," after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Miller even likened Bush's strong stance on the war and against terrorism to the voice of Winston Churchill during and after World War II.
He said he was disgusted when America did virtually nothing after terrorist attacks in 1993 (World Trade Center), 1996 (the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia), and 1998 (when 263 people were killed in attacks in Kenya and Tanzania).
"I had come to believe that unless America found its own version of Winston Churchill, that the same spirit of appeasement, that same kind of softness and self-indulgence was turning my country into a land cowering before the world's mad bullies," Miller said.
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