Monday, June 21, 2004

Song and Dance: Bush lied again, liberals cry, because he claimed that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were best friends and planned the 9/11 attacks together.

I do have a day job, but I believe I've kept pretty close track of everything the Bush administration has been saying to justify the invasion of Iraq. And I have yet to hear him say that Iraq and Al Qaeda were best buddies and that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Clarence Page attempts to bring us the best examples of Bush's supposed lies, and they are incredibly weak:

Last year, for example, Bush called Hussein "an ally of Al Qaeda" and declared "the battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001."

Suddenly, liberals have gone from accusing Bush of exaggerating the truth to lying through innuendo. Truth is, if Bush ever wanted to convince us that Iraq planned the 9/11 attacks, he would have said so repeatedly. It doesn't count if he merely mentions Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in the same speech.

The fact remains that Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda officials did have extensive contacts. We don't have any evidence yet that Saddam helped plan any of the Al Qaeda attacks, but the two weren't complete strangers. The real question is whether the amount of contact between the two entities justifies the association. That's still up for debate.

And I'd love to have that debate. But the left again seems more rabid to paint Bush as a liar than to look at the facts. Even 9/11 Commission members admit that they are finding extensive contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Many governments in the Middle East worked with Al Qaeda. Are we to believe that Saddam Hussein was the lone voice of reason who shunned the radical group, even though he was working with other terrorist groups?

Some people say the connections aren't enough. But I'm wondering what the standard should be for us to hold anybody accountable for the support Al Qaeda is receiving. No government sponsors Al Qaeda the way the Taliban in Afghanistan did -- mostly because they fear U.S. retribution. Saddam Hussein deserved to go for so many other reasons besides just occasional ties to Al Qaeda (read the archives).

President Clinton thought it was right to remove Saddam Hussein, particularly because of the unanswered WMD issue. Russia, an opponent of the war in Iraq, saw Saddam Hussein's regime as a terrorist threat and warned the United States that the dictator was planning attacks on the U.S. homeland and abroad.

Saddam Hussein deserved to go, and the people of the Middle East deserve democracy. We're in the process of accomplishing great things. Yet, liberals keep trying to undermine the entire mission simply for a political vendetta.