Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said to a Senate committee yesterday: “The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on September 11.”
As the WSJ’s Best of the Web explains:
Rumsfeld is exactly right, and the Democrats will self-destruct unless they grasp the political ramifications of the national epiphany that was Sept. 11. The response that “Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11,” though possibly accurate, is beside the point–the equivalent of arguing in 1942 that Germany had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. FDR and Truman knew who America’s enemies were, but many of their heirs seem not to.
I’m still deeply troubled by the intelligence failures showing WMD in Iraq, but I do not believe the war will be a successful political issue for the Democrats, and I think we should all agree on the paramount importance of not losing the peace in Iraq.
Gerald T | 13-Jul-03 at 9:59 am | Permalink
It’s all about the OIL fool! OIL OIL OIL! Money talks, things only get done on this planet for the Benji’s baby! Did you just fall off the turnip wagon? A goverment that did not put our need for oil first, now that is an irresponsable goverment! Grow up.
Michael | 21-Jul-03 at 2:19 pm | Permalink
The statement, “Rumsfeld is exactly right, and the Democrats will self-destruct unless they grasp the political ramifications of the national epiphany that was Sept. 11.” is most interesting. It is interesting because intellegence information available to the administration never made a link to Saddam Hussein. In fact, the most recent information out of U.S. intellegence suggests that Hussaein was perhaps a greater threat alive, but deposed.
To relate this to Pearl Harbor and the Germany situation is a real streatch. First of all, there was a war underway against our allies in Eurpoe at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Where exactly is the the example of that in relation to 9-11.
Where this is so very wrong is that the larger threat to American Security and indeed world security is Korea. Meanwhile, the administration is in fact dumbfounded by what to do there and pleanty pre-occupied with a situation in Iraq that they were evedently ill-prepaired for.