Monday, December 13, 2010

Victor Davis Hanson: Still very, very wrong about Iraq

So there were plenty of reasons, not counting fear of WMD, for Congress to have wanted to remove Saddam — and indeed a majority of Democratic senators, including Harry Reid, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton, and sizable numbers of House Democrats voted for the resolutions. The administration erred in hyping one or two writs concerning WMD, and today the result is that we have completely forgotten the congressional authorizations in late 2002 and their rather long litany of Saddam’s transgressions — which had earlier led Bill Clinton to push through a regime-change authorization of his own (the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998).

For those interested in re-fighting the debate leading to the invasion of Iraq, it must be remembered that the Bush Administration hyped WMD as a reason for going to war because, really, it was *the* necessary and sufficent condition to get the American people's backing for the invasion. Even after 9/11, were Americans ready to start a land war in the Middle East over the no-fly zone? Over violations of UN sanctions? I'll wager not. The Bush Administration was able to go to war because it persuaded the American people *that their safety was endangered* by not acting before Saddam surely would. The Bush Administration was wrong. The war was, and continues to be, an unjustifiable disaster.

No comments: