Sure He Had Them! (Hint: WMD) By Donnel Jones, May 6, 2003

Duane D. Freese, writing for Tech Central Station, argues that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He asks pointed questions not raised publicly by members of the Bush Administration, who should be voicing them to deflect criticism in the media that the administration either lied or was misled.

Why did he[Saddam Hussein] play games - bury trucks in the desert that had all the appearance of being mobile weapons labs, have his military officers move material out the back door of facilities as United Nations inspectors came in the front, have his scientists demand meetings with inspectors tape recorded, rebuild facilities that previously had been used for building chemical weapons, import banned piping material that might be converted to making bombs, have missiles that exceeded their legal range, have drones capable of delivering chemical weapons, have shell casings and missiles capable of doing the same, have manuals and equipment for his troops to fight in a chemical or biological hazard environment, have vaccines for troops to counter a chemical weapon attack, have his scientists take their papers on even legal research home so inspectors might not question it?

Freese disabuses us of our need to be certain about WMD in the first place: . . . even if weapons are found. It's as if intelligence has never been surprised - not by Pakistan's blowing up a nuclear bomb or North Korea developing one; not by the Soviet Union's fall nor Iraq's invasion of Kuwait; nor Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. They were all surprises.

For Freese, with or without weapons of mass destruction, such an enemy, because of its previous bellicose actions, its avowed antagonism toward the United States especially in the aftermath of September 11th, its chicanery and mendacity, and its complete disregard for the norms of international law, such a regime must be removed. Why, indeed, didn't Saddam cooperate with the U.N.? Why didn't he observe his part of the bargain in the treaty of the first Gulf War?

In trying to build their "case" against Bush, his administration, and its war plan, the critics are overlooking what is so obvious: Saddam Hussein's Iraq was an ever present danger and was not going to go away through diplomatic means. How long to wait?

Blame can certainly go around about how much the world, including the U.S., appeased Saddam (although it has been shown that France, Germany, and Russia had the most to lose with the unfortunate cancellation of contracts and perhaps, even, debt), but in the end there was only one workable solution. Regime change.

Interestingly, Freese doesn't echo the neo-con theme of forcing democracy into the Middle East. That's probably just as well because no one knows how that master scheme will play out. We can be certain it will not turn out as planned. Maybe close, at the very best. But not on target. Something as big as a major political shift in a large region of the world will not go exactly as planned. Freese keeps those variables out of his discussion. He is interested in America's ability to secure itself. He's not talking about realizing liberal aspirations for other peoples, of shaping a region that desperately needs attention, and aligning these goals with the overall goal of national security.

By claiming it as a sound rebuttal of Bush's critics, Freese indirectly states what he thinks is the right goal for military action: The success of the Bush administration thus far in frustrating terrorism by cleaning out training grounds, planning centers and strongholds . . . .

Iraqi gains are very welcome, but they come as a happy byproduct of the coalition pursuing its own interests, not as the primary goal. It is proper to put coalition forces' lives at risk only to the extent that liberating and rehabilitating Iraq benefits the United States, the United Kingdom and the other partners.

If one doesn't want to believe this because of a resistence to seeming selfish or isolationist, neither charge, of course, being true of Mr. Pipes' point of view, then consider his counter:

Should democratic leaders forget this iron law and decide to launch purely philanthropic efforts, the results will be unpleasant. Take the American case: When the population does not see the benefits to themselves of warfare, U.S. soldiers are pulled from the battlefield, as in Lebanon in 1984 and Somalia in 1993. There simply is no readiness to take casualties for the purposes of social work.

However, I have a feeling this will take a long time to sink into the minds of a solid part of the American electorate, which rejects the Bush Administration's sincere desire to have the Iraqi people become free and to help provide what is needed for them to adopt democracy. The "vision thing" is definitely not welcome by most Liberals and the Left, which is a little sad in a sentimental kind of way: they used to have it.

Pipes provides the answer to their oft-asked question: If we fought to liberate the Iraqis from a terrible regime, why not, then, invade Uzbekistan because of Karimov's human rights violations, to take one of many examples?

Answer: because Uzbekistan is not currently a security risk to the United States.

If they could be so convinced of the truth of foreign policy as Pipes states it, Bush wouldn't have to overstate the "freedom" idea of this last war. No one wants to take the wind from the sails of that idea, but it only meets with cynical disdain by Bush's enemies because they rightly know there is another and deeper rationale for war, which Daniel Pipes has laid out for us. Is America ready for this strong medicine? It is a possible antidote to the pitiless resentment and cynical naysaying that the "freedom-for-Iraqis" argument is not enough.

Then again, who am I kidding? If Bush were to state Pipes' argument as much as he has the neo-con's, then his enemies would resort to oil, oil, oil . . . .