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"Saddam Hussein, and the weapons he didn’t have, did not attack the United States and no amount of obfuscation, distortion or baiting and switching can change that. The Sept. 11 attack was the work of al-Qaida, and those terrorists responsible were from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, our supposed allies, but included not a single Iraqi.
There were many reasons George W. Bush wanted the war in Iraq, but responding to an actual threat to our security was least among them, as we now know even from David Kay. By substituting Iraq as the threat, Bush gave himself a “winnable” war against terrorism. However, as a result of this war, hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis have died and Bush has diverted scores of billions of dollars away from fighting the real threat of terrorism. For example, our first responders are still not properly equipped, we don’t have the resources to search shipping containers coming into this country, and we still have no cohesive strategy to deal with terrorism other than goofy color alerts.
Knorn’s other contention that Reagan was justified for supporting Saddam in the ’80s because of the brutality of the Iranian ayatollahs is just as absurd. The United States was secretly selling weapons to Iran and supplied Iraq with the chemical weapons Saddam notoriously used against thousands Iranians and Kurds.
This was done then out of a misguided sense of what was in this country’s best interest, and it is being done now for the same reason — not out of humanitarian concern or a wish to bring democracy to Iraq.
It was bad policy then, and it is bad policy now. This is just one more reason Bush needs to be voted out in November."
Colin Schwensohn
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