The Dishonesty of the Left: Bush Mustn’t Win

If Al Qaeda is reduced to a few backrooms of bumbling plotters, and if Iraq becomes a free, democratic and peaceful nation – no longer a threat to us or to its neighbors, and if Islamic terrorism is reduced to isolated, small incidents around the world, the left will say, “see, there never was a meaningful threat from Islamic fundamentalists at all. It was all about oil and power.”

On the other hand, if the terrorists take over Iraq and make it their home base, and then take over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and, as they always hoped to do, and have been trying unsuccessfully for years to do in Saudi Arabia, shut down the economies of the west by shutting off the oil, the left will say, “see, it is all Bush’s fault. There was no terrorism until Bush went into Afghanistan and Iraq”.

The problem here is that our response to 9/11 was the first meaningful response the U.S. has ever made to all the major acts of terrorism carried out against us since 1979, and, when taking our non-action into account, including the pullouts from the Lebanese airport and from Somalia – Osama Bin Laden was encouraged to declare us a “paper tiger”. It was certainly this non-action that encouraged him to attempt 9/11. If we have to go back into Iraq, having pulled out before completing the mission, it will be impossible for us to mount another attack, coordinated with a coalition of allies. This is it.

As far as Saddam and Iraq is concerned, let me repeat what former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey had to say recently, “Let me restate the case for this Iraq war from the U.S. point of view. The U.S. led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Iraq was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001. For two decades we had suffered attacks by radical Islamic groups but were lulled into a false sense of complacency because all previous attacks were "over there." It was our nation and our people who had been identified by Osama bin Laden as the "head of the snake." But suddenly Middle Eastern radicals had demonstrated extraordinary capacity to reach our shores.

As for Saddam, he had refused to comply with numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions outlining specific requirements related to disclosure of his weapons programs. He could have complied with the Security Council resolutions with the greatest of ease. He chose not to because he was stealing and extorting billions of dollars from the U.N. Oil for Food program….

The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically "yes."" Bob Kerrey