There is nothing to come clean about, Kay is premature. Even he knows that there is both testimonial and circumstantial evidence that stockpiles crossed the Syrian border, although we are not in a position to verify it.
That's right, we cannot verify that. Because if we could we would have already started the invasion of Syria. One of the problems we face now is an intelligence crisis. Our intelligence has come up so empty in Iraq, do you think that the world community would stand for another round of "The WMD are now in that country."?
I posted a piece on the linkage to Al Qaida. It is true that the Administration has officially distanced itself from the Freith memo, but it has not repudiated it, nor specified its reservations.
That memo was groomed from the "body of intelligence". Much of the intelligence says that Saddam did not trust bin Laden...and visa versa. Who in their right mind would stand behind it?
You are merely assuming the worst, you have no way of knowing that the Iraqis cannot handle security, for example, or that civil war is inevitable.
I'm a student of history. That region had been at war for thousands of years. What makes you think that we can change the currents of the river of time?
What is clear enough to me, in any case, that almost anything would be better for Iraq than being subject to the brutality of the fallen regime.
That regime stood because we proped it up. We could have pulled the plug on his baath party long time ago. And by working closely with our allies we could have choked him off, allowing a new goverment to organically arrise. The plan now is to turn over power to the Iraqi people this summer. What have we accomplished in the last year in Iraq? We captured Saddam, but at the same time we have made Iraq a magnet for terrorists of every ilk. The people of Iraq have to be grateful for that, eh? And the bombing that goes on every day, the unsafe streets.
Add to that the power vacuum that was created by sweeping out the ruling element. The anger and frustration of the Kurds and the Shiites. The anger of the Sunnis for being swept out of power. The only thing keeping the country form becoming a holy inferno is the presence of American troops. We don't have enough troops to secure that country, only to keep a simmering pot from boiling over. And we're doing it at a heavy cost in lives and treasure.
I hope that I am wrong, but I'm not too optimistic that such an abrupt change in such a volitile region is a sane policy to follow. For the mission accomplished banner to be brought out, for real, it's going to take a doubling of troops and five years of fighting to secure that country. That would piss off a lot of Iraqis if we did that. so what we will probably have to do is turn over the game to them, and try to keep a military presence in the country while they hash it out. Even that policy is frought with pitfalls.
Orca |
