The Iraqi Invasion Equation

Convicted chemical weapons murderer, Dr. Hannibal Lector, is out on parole. He is suspected of making chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. As sheriff, you obtain a search warrant. After delaying you at the door for several years, Lector finally lets you in but refuses to let you search his garage. What are your options?

A. Ignore Hannibal’s history of deception and hope this time he is telling the truth.

B. Spend several more months negotiating, hoping that the good doctor sees the light and capitulates.

C. Use necessary force to search the entire property and arrest Lector for violating his probation.

Those that think the U.S. invasion and search of Iraq was unjustified would have to answer “B” if applying their same rules of logic, which aren’t logical at all. With the consent of Congress, President Bush legally chose “C” and employed necessary force to ensure that Saddam wasn’t stockpiling anthrax and developing other weapons of mass destruction, specifically nuclear weapons.

“Don’t exaggerate,” you say? “Saddam didn’t have nuclear capability and he’s definitely no Hannibal.” How does approving torture by forced self-cannibalism, acid baths and amputations strike you? This is just a partial list of the Hussein regime’s sixteen confirmed violations of The Hague and Geneva conventions.

“Prove it,” you say? Well take that up with former President Clinton whose administration released documentation of these crimes in March of ’93.

Being guilty of war crimes before and during Gulf War I, Saddam was basically put on probation via U.S. and U.N. imposed sanctions. If Saddam behaved himself and allowed regular U.N. weapons inspections, he could avoid being dethroned through force.

When weapons inspectors came knocking, Saddam used delaying tactics and limited the scope of their search, thus violating his parole. For almost two decades, the global community let Saddam get away with a deadly game of hide-and-seek as he thumbed his nose at the world…then came George W. Bush.

In his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush claimed Saddam had attempted to acquire African yellowcake uranium in violation of U.N. sanctions. Bush cited an intelligence report from the British to drive home his point that Iraq was a clear and present danger. This key piece of intelligence was later shown to be false.

Smelling blood, in came the pack of bloodthirsty Bush detractors, seizing the opportunity to paint the President as a trigger-happy cowboy willing to lie to stake his claim for Iraqi oil. Even John Kerry, in his Democratic convention speech, implied that our commander in chief misled us into war.

Media darlings like Michael Moore gave Democrats a pass for coming to the same conclusion as the Bush Administration, namely that Saddam had a WMD program. Bush is now accused of deceiving John Kerry and gang to get them to support the war. That’s the real lie. Democratic leaders accused Saddam of harboring weapons of mass destruction long before George W. Bush came into office.

Consider the following:

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, 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." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.

It is nothing less than hypocritical for John Kerry to imply that our President misled us into war.” Did Kerry conveniently forget that Iraq had previously produced anthrax, botulinum toxin and ricin and couldn’t account for where some of it disappeared to?

Kerry also knew that in 1982 Iraqi scientists already had a nuclear weapon design small enough to fit on one of their Skud type missiles. During the 80’s, Saddam purchased 270 tons of uranium oxide from Niger to make his design functional. Missing were certain components that were needed to detonate the uranium, which Saddam was enriching to become weapons grade. According to U.N. weapons inspectors, we know that the Iraqis once possessed 1300 grams of weapons grade uranium and that their design only needed 15 to 18 kilograms to become functional.

Saddam had been well on his way to approaching nuclear capability. Israel’s response to Saddam’s nuclear program was a bombing raid that destroyed the Osiraq nuclear plant near Baghdad. The plant had been built with the help of the French, who by the way own both companies that mine the uranium in Niger. For those that don’t know, Niger is the third largest exporter of uranium in the world. Although they are a brother Muslim country to Iraq, their official language is French. Maybe you can see now why the French were against us invading Iraq. They knew it would put a strain on their pocket book.

As a matter of fact, the French, as well as the Russians, were doing billions of dollars in business with Iraq prior to the second Gulf War. Hell would have frozen over before America was going to get their permission to invade Iraq. The liberal’s call for Bush to wait for an international consortium was unrealistic and dangerous. Besides, I don’t see anywhere in the U.S. Constitution where it says we need to get permission from other countries before engaging in military action, do you?

After sifting through a variety of intelligence, the Bush Administration concluded there was enough actionable intelligence to move forward. The bad piece of intelligence from the Brits wasn’t the only factor. As a matter of fact, it was later confirmed in January of this year that Iraq’s information minister, alias Baghdad Bob, was in Niger in 1999 to discuss trade, the details of which have not been confirmed. History tells us what Saddam was interested in.

What do you do, George Bush, wait until we have another September 11th type attack? Do you wait until we have a nuclear or chemical Pearl Harbor? No. You go in and get the job done. You take out Saddam Hussein, the same Saddam that publicly admitted to paying out thousands of dollars in ransom money to suicide bombers that have killed many of our allies and even some Americans.

President Bush is repeatedly criticized for taking preemptive action against Saddam Hussein and impugned for not preempting al-Qaida’s attacks. He’s the President, folks, not a telepath. You can’t have it both ways.

We should be proud of our President for making the right call against Saddam and for the courage to see it through even when it’s become unpopular with so many. This war has been a just war. George W. Bush would have been unwise to gamble that Saddam was not spending his billions pursuing nuclear and other WMD programs.

May it cost George Bush the election? Yes it may. That’s a price our President may have to pay unless America wakes up. We can not afford to again become what the Japanese called us at Pearl Harbor, a “sleeping giant.”

By Lance Hunter Voorhees

Copyright © 2004-2008 by Lance Hunter Voorhees – All Rights Reserved