BY JAMES TARANTO
URL opinionjournal.com
Tuesday, October 8, 2002 3:28 p.m. EDT
Outside the Box
For months we've been subjected to the tiresome cliché that President Bush "hasn't made the case" for overthrowing Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. No doubt many of those who say this will never be convinced. We have a vision of these folks, several decades hence, when Iraq is a thriving democracy, sitting, old and decrepit, and muttering sadly: "But he never made the case!"
Be that as it may, anyone who says President Bush hasn't made the case should be banned from appearing on ABC, CBS or NBC. As the New York Post's John Podhoretz notes, all these networks opted not to carry the president's speech last night in which he did make the case (The Fox broadcast network carried it, as did the all-news cable networks.) The New York Times says this is because "the White House did not formally ask the networks to broadcast the speech, as is the usual practice." But since when do news organizations wait for a formal invitation before covering the news?
Anyway, in case you were watching one of the nets last night, here are some highlights from the speech:
Best rhetoric. On the dangers of allowing Saddam to remain in power: "Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events. The United Nations would betray the purpose of its founding, and prove irrelevant to the problems of our time. And through its inaction, the United States would resign itself to a future of fear. That is not the America I know. That is not the America I serve. We refuse to live in fear."
Why inspectors can't do the job. "The Iraqi regime bugged hotel rooms and offices of inspectors to find where they were going next; they forged documents, destroyed evidence, and developed mobile weapons facilities to keep a step ahead of inspectors. Eight so-called presidential palaces were declared off-limits to unfettered inspections. These sites actually encompass twelve square miles, with hundreds of structures, both above and below the ground, where sensitive materials could be hidden."
Why this isn't a "distraction." "Terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both."
Why now. "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."
On liberating Iraq. "America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children." |
