Wednesday, November 23, 2005
By E. THOMAS McCLANAHAN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
President Bush's counterattack last week against war critics was long overdue and effective, assuming the White House doesn't let the matter drop.
Since his arrival on the national stage, Bush has shown an odd tendency to lapse into states of political dormancy, during which he seems out of touch. Hurricane Katrina caught him napping. He all but ignored Cindy Sheehan's anti-war carnival growing outside his ranch in August.
But the timing of last week's speech makes you wonder if it was yet another Rovian plot: Lead the "Bush lied" crowd out on a limb, then saw it off by reminding the public that the same people now braying about misuse of intelligence once were part of the get-tough-with-Saddam chorus.
Bush's push-back coincides with the Web publication of a devastating article by Norman Podhoretz, written for next month's Commentary magazine.
Podhoretz makes the obvious point that "it defies all reason to think that Bush was lying when he asserted that weapons of mass destruction did exist in Iraq," given that the entire U.S. intelligence community shared that conclusion -- as well as the Clinton administration and intelligence agencies in France, Germany, Britain, Russia, China and Israel.
Still, after the poisoned debate of the last few months, it's illuminating to reread the earlier remarks of those who now say they were duped. Well, as Podhoretz asks, were they duped as well by President Clinton?
In the late 1990s, several senators, including Carl Levin, Tom Daschle and John Kerry, wrote to Clinton, urging him "to take necessary actions [including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites] to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs."
The Democratic tune did not change after Bush's election. Levin remarked that "Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region."
Sen. Hillary Clinton noted that, "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al-Qaida members."
Iraq's threat
In an October 2002 speech, Sen. Jay Rockefeller noted that Hussein had many contacts with terrorist organizations -- something Democrats now attempt to deny. Rockefeller also connected the post-Sept. 11 security situation with the threat posed by Iraq, another point now forbidden by the Democrats' revised catechism.
"As the attacks of September 11 demonstrated," Rockefeller said, "the immense destructiveness of modern technology means we can no longer afford to wait around for a smoking gun. September 11 demonstrated that the fact that an attack on our homeland has not yet occurred cannot give us any false sense of security that one will not occur in the future. We no longer have that luxury."
But here was Rockefeller on Sunday, on a weekend chat show with Chris Wallace of Fox News:
Rockefeller: "Chris, there's always the same conversation. You know it was not the Congress that sent 135,000 or 150,000 troops."
Wallace: "But you voted, sir [to authorize the use of force], and aren't you responsible for your vote?"
Rockefeller: "No."
Wallace: "You're not?"
Hillary Clinton's stance is the most interesting, since she stands out as one who has not joined this irresponsible attempt to "rewrite the history of how the war began," as Bush put it.
Consider the political calculations in all of this. The "Bush lied" Democrats are positioning themselves to benefit from disaster in Iraq. But whose political stock would rise if things turn out reasonably well?
By 2008, the situation in Iraq may be quite different. The U.S. military footprint in the country could well be much smaller. By then, the decision to bring down Saddam Hussein may well be recognized as one that changed the course of the Middle East and helped discredit the fantasies of radical Islam.
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton would be fairly well positioned to offer credible national-security credentials. I'm sure she's watching all this with great interest.
X E. Thomas McClanahan is a member of the Kansas City Star editorial board. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.