Slander!
Antiwar arguments are unfair to the president.
By Representative J. D. Hayworth
Of all the arguments the so-called "antiwar" groups trot out, the two most slanderous are that we should not confront Saddam Hussein because Iraqi civilians, especially children, will die and that the coming war with Iraq will be fought to control its oil.
Both these have in common an assumption of depravity on the part of the president — the first that he is callous to the suffering of civilians and the second that he is out to enrich his friends in the oil industry. If anyone is depraved on both these counts, however, it is Saddam Hussein and those who oppose his ouster.
Tom Andrews, head of the group Win Without War, is a case in point. He recently argued against military action to disarm Saddam, saying, "I believe we will be responsible for the death of Iraqi children if we go in with a preemptive strike when it's not necessary."
The fact is: innocent Iraqi children and other civilians are right now dying every day at the hands of Saddam Hussein, who uses murder, torture, and rape as instruments of internal security.
Since the end of the Gulf War, it is estimated that 200,000 to 225,000 Iraqis (135,000-150,000 of them children) have died as a result of the internal uprising to overthrow Saddam after the Gulf War and Saddam's manipulation of U.N.-imposed economic sanctions.
Furthermore, over the last 20 years, it is estimated that more than 200,000 people have permanently disappeared into Iraq's prisons, while hundreds of thousands of others have been left physically and mentally broken, the victims of torture.
Note that most of this slaughter occurred while Iraq was under an intense inspection regime. So tightening the current inspections, as Andrews and other appeasers advocate, will do nothing to stop the reign of terror.
Since the Gulf War itself resulted in 1,000-5,000 civilian casualties — a fraction of the number Saddam has killed since then — a war to disarm and oust Saddam would surely save more innocent Iraqi lives, including children, than anything the antiwar crowd proposes.
Indeed, in Thursday's Daily Telegraph of London, dove-turned-hawk Julius Strauss quotes one Assos Hardi, the editor of a liberal newspaper in northern Iraq, saying, "How many people do you think will die if America attacks Saddam? It will probably be less than the number of people he kills in a single month."
An equally squalid accusation, favored especially by Democratic presidential candidates Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich, is that President Bush wants war in order to control Iraq's oil as a reward to his friends in the oil industry, summed up in the bumper sticker slogan "No blood for oil."
When Kucinich made this claim on a recent Meet the Press, Richard Perle immediately called it what it is — a lie. If we wanted Iraq's oil, the easiest and cheapest way to get it would be to lift the economic sanctions and buy it.
In reality, the "No blood for oil" placards carried by anti-American street protestors should be directed at Saddam, who has spilled rivers of blood in his quest to control as much oil as he can.
Have Dean, Kucinich, and the rest forgotten that Saddam invaded Iran to gain access to the oil in its southwest province of Khuzestan? If successful, he would have controlled 20 percent of the world's oil consumption, and with it maybe more wealth and power than Saudi Arabia.
Saddam also invaded Kuwait partly to gain access to its oil. Adding Kuwait would have almost doubled the size of Iraq's oil reserves, again giving Saddam economic power to rival Saudi Arabia. Can anyone doubt that given the chance Saddam would invade Kuwait again?
If anyone is in it for the oil it is Saddam, who has spilled the blood of millions in the process. Why? Because more oil means more money and more money means more political and military power, with which Saddam can blackmail the region and the world and realize his megalomaniac dream of becoming the supreme leader of all Arabs.
It is pathetic that so many members of the antiwar movement have transferred to President Bush attitudes and actions for which Saddam is already guilty. It exposes the nature of the movement for what it is — partisan and intellectually dishonest.
— The Honorable J. D. Hayworth is a congressman from Arizona.
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