NEWS: Did Iraq war made us safer? New report says NO.
Last updated: January 14. 2004 12:00AM
wilmingtonstar.com
The most important question about the war in Iraq isn't whether President Bush came into office looking for an excuse to attack. It's whether that attack made us more secure.
So while it's interesting what an ousted treasury secretary says about the administration's eagerness for war (and the president's alleged inattention to serious debate), a much more relevant critique is getting less attention.
The Army's top academic institute has published one respected expert's opinion:
- Invading Iraq not only wasn't necessary; it diverted us from the more crucial task of fighting Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
- The war and occupation have stretched the Army "near the breaking point."
- The vague and limitless "war on terror" is "unrealistic" and could result in more wars against countries that pose no real threat to the United States. "A cardinal rule of strategy," he writes, "is to keep your enemies to a manageable number."
The administration's theory that unseating Saddam would foster a democratic and prosperous Middle East has never been explained, and "the potential policy payoff … if there is one, almost certainly lies in the very distant future."
Others have made these and similar points. But they carry considerable weight coming, as they do, from a visiting professor at the Army War College and a former aide to former Sen. Sam Nunn, the conservative Georgia Democrat generally acknowledged by members of both political parties to have been Congress's leading expert on defense.
Jeffrey Record also has written six books on military matters, and in the past he criticized the Clinton administration. In short, his opinions don't seem motivated by politics or pique.
The retired colonel who directs the War College's Strategic Studies Institute said of Mr. Record's 56-page essay, "I think that the substance that Jeff brings out in the article really, really needs to be considered."
A lot of other patriotic Americans think so, too. They worry that their country might be stuck in one mess and in danger of blundering into others – while apostles of the shadowy al-Qaeda plot to kill American civilians without discrimination, without warning and without mercy. |
