With all due respect for Mr. Woolsey, And in the fall of 2002, Mr. Tenet wrote to Congress outlining a decade of connections between Iraq and al Qaeda, including training in poisons, gases and explosives. There was no need to show that Iraq participated in 9/11 or even that it directed al Qaeda in any operations -- describing occasional cooperation of the sort that is well chronicled was quite sufficient. The Baathists and al Qaeda were like two Mafia families -- they hated, insulted and killed one another, but readily cooperated from time to time against a common enemy. Why not say so?
Because the documentation wasn't all that good. Sure, there was a lot of it, as leaked to the Weekly Standard back at the end of Oct. And quoted ad nauseum by many pro-war journalists and others (some even on this thread, I believe) as "proving" the connection, when the WMD story was looking increasingly suspect. But the fact is that all those points and counterpoints still didn't add up to a lot, because they weren't substantiated. They were based on rumors or stories or what one said to another to another. Just because there was a lot of that stuff flowing out of a lot of mouths for one reason or another doesn't mean it was true--it was what someone believed someone else wanted to hear or what someone wanted someone else to believe.
Yes, Saddam had contacts with Abu Nidal. Yes, I'll even grant as fact that he was supporting the Palestineans with money. But that still doesn't add up to the necessity of invading him in the way we did it when we did it. That part of the equation was determined by domestic political considerations. As is their timetable for Iraqi elections elections. And their just announced hunt for Osama.
That is the real issue that provokes my anger: the guy used a war in the service of winning an election. There is nothing more shameful, more disgraceful, more repulsive than that. Not only that, while of course the war itself was successful against a totally outgunned, outsupplied army--they had no plan for the Aftermath when everyone who was serious was saying it's not the war itself that will be the problem, the Aftermath will be the real problem. They were snowed, IMHO, by Chalabi et al into thinking it would be easy, the Iraqi's would be grateful, the transition would be smooth, and all would live happily ever after and thank them again and again. It was a ridiculous fantasy, considering both the ethnic and historical realities within Iraq and considering the historical relationship over the past 20 some years between the US and Iraq.
And one more thing--for Woosly to say, If one counts the Iranians who died in his war of aggression in the 1980s, he has killed two million people is just shameful. If the US hadn't supported Saddam with both arms and intelligence (and I think some training as well), that war would have likely ended in Iran's favor far earlier than it did. We egged Saddam on while we supported him, and while we were even egging on Iran. I recall the pride in some Reagan admin's voice when he said something like, we'll try to keep this war going as long as we can so they can kill each other off. |
