Thursday, June 16, 2005

Stop Digging: This issue of the Downing Street Memo has gone on for too long. Some critics wave this around like it's the smoking gun that proves that Bush is a lying war monger.

We have to remember that this is just one interpretation of the administration's plan of attack. But let's just assume the worst of it is true: The Bush Administration had determined as far back as 2002 that America would need to take military action to oust Saddam Hussein.

Good for them. I guess they realized that after 10 years, Hussein wasn't going to change his ways. A decade's worth of disobeying the United Nations wasn't going to change overnight. Does this mean that they were going to invade Iraq even if Saddam Hussein suddenly complied? No. It just means the administration was smart enough to know this would never happen.

Iraq has been a sore spot for a decade. Clinton didn't know what to do. He believed that country was harboring WMD, but there was no real excuse to invade. Instead he launched missile attacks. Then after 9/11, the threshold for military action was lowered, because our national security was at risk. And Bush spent years planning for an invasion that seemed inevitable. What is wrong with this exactly?

We can't ignore that the Middle East is the main breeding ground for the international terrorism that is a threat to our national security. And we couldn't successfully wage a War on Terrorism with Saddam Hussein continually breaking the provisions of the 1991 cease-fire, supporting international terrorism himself, and apparently developing weapons of mass destruction.

It turns out, of course, that we were gravely misinformed as to the extent of his WMD capabilities. That's a serious issue -- in fact, I'd say the incompetence of our intelligence agencies is more serious than any problems Bush has. So it's time to stop trying to find something, anything, to pin on Bush to detract from his progress in Iraq. We're there, we're doing some good, now we should make sure the mission in Iraq is a success.