Democrats’ latest twist on the truth (Clinton, Gore & Iraq)
The Kansas City Star | Nov. 10, 2005 | Jonah Goldberg
Just how big a threat was Saddam Hussein? Let’s reprise what our leaders had to say on the subject. First, here’s the president:
“If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences. ... Now, let’s imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction...?
“Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who’s really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.”
Here is the vice president:
“If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He’s already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons.”
Here’s the hitch: That was Clinton and Gore in 1998, not Bush and Cheney in 2002.
President Clinton offered his assessment in February 1998. Al Gore made his observations the following December, defending the military strikes Clinton had ordered against Iraq. These were not off-the-cuff remarks but vetted statements by the two highest officials of the United States.
Robert Einhorn, Clinton’s deputy assistant secretary of state, told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in March 2002 that Hussein could have nukes and the missiles capable of striking Europe “within four to five years” and would be able to deliver nukes in America via “nonconventional means.”
“If Iraq managed to get its hands on sufficient quantities of already produced fissile material,” he said, “these threats could arrive much earlier.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller — the ranking Democratic on the Senate Intelligence Committee and now a full member of the “Bush lied” chorus — echoed Einhorn’s assessment, adding, “I do believe that Iraq is an immediate threat” and “we can no longer afford to wait for a smoking gun.”
Most of these Democrats had access to the same intelligence as President Bush. But now, in one of the most repugnant and craven partisan ploys in modern American history, Democrats have decided that they cannot accept their own responsibility in what they clearly consider to be a mistake.
The Democrats cannot even admit they made a mistake supporting the war — except in that they believed Bush’s “lies.” But how could Bush have lied? How was he to know the intelligence was wrong? Without knowing that, he could not have lied.
“Never again” was the new rule after 9/11, and — after ousting the Taliban — Hussein was the next obvious target. Remember: “Regime change” became the official policy of the United States in 1998, not 2002.
But the Democrats don’t care. They don’t care about all the previous investigations or that the planet is watching this spectacle. Or that their shabby accusations feed the very worst theories about America’s role in the world. Heck, Howard Dean is recycling the charges in fund-raising letters. They don’t care that Iraq is poised to become either one of America’s greatest achievements or its worst debacles. They want timetables, apologies and scalps.
But does anyone doubt that if there were no insurgency, with Iraq as far along in the democratic process as it is now, the Democrats would be boasting about their bipartisan support for the war and cackling about how Democrats were right about “nation-building” all along?
But they don’t care. In their America, partisanship begins at the water’s edge.
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