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LET'S GET A FEW THINGS STRAIGHT
By Edward L. Daley
September 25, 2003
John Kerry, during the last Democratic presidential debate, said that President Bush "clearly didn't plan for the peace, and it's extraordinary. It's an act of negligence of remarkable proportions." In that same debate, Joe Lieberman said that "the president, obviously, when he took us to war, which I supported, did not have a plan for what to do the day Saddam Hussein fell." Dick Gephardt said that the president's foreign policy was a "miserable failure" going on to say that Bush "is failing the people in Iraq" He also stated that Bush "never had the plan and, incredibly, four, five months after the war has ended, he does not have the help that we need." At a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa, Howard Dean stated that "we need to know why your (Bush) administration had no plan to build the peace in post-war Iraq."
Aside from the fact that every major Democratic candidate currently running for president can't seem to answer even the simplest of questions these days without an ad hominem snipe at the president, these nattering ninnies are clearly determined to go to any lengths necessary to convince their constituents that the Bush Administration took this country to war in Iraq without having any idea as to what might be done after the major fighting was over. You'll forgive me if I take a moment now to quote my favorite Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."
None of these people are foolish enough to believe their own rhetoric in this regard, they are simply hoping that the average liberal will once they have repeated the lie a few hundred times. They realize that there are millions of bright and informed people out there who will never buy their fatuous shpeel, but they also know that those aren't the sort of people who would ever vote for them in the first place, so continuing down this road to fantasyland is completely acceptable to them. After all, you CAN fool some of the people all of the time, as is evidenced by the manner in which millions of Americans still think about the 2000 presidential election aftermath. A large minority of voters believe to this day that Bush "stole" that election, a myth which none of these candidates are willing to dispel, even though they understand that argument to be ridiculous.
Of course, this most recent charge of incompetence being leveled against the president by the leftist establishment is even easier for lazy-minded, ill-informed individuals to accept, because the popular media, with rare exception, has reported relatively little in the way of affirmative stories from Iraq in the past four months. The nasty nine, as I like to call them, are perfectly aware of this situation, in fact, they're counting on continued silence from the New York Times, CNN and the BBC concerning the incredibly successful reconstruction efforts currently underway in that long neglected and impoverished country. Judging by the way such media organizations have chosen to deal with the post-war narrative to date, I'd say their bet has been well placed.
Still, I shall attempt to enlighten whoever might read this article to the truth behind our recent renewal endeavors. if only for the sake of my own piece of mind. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, stated that roughly 15 incidents of violent confrontation occur in iraq every day, the majority of which last only a few minutes and result in no loss of life. Considering that we're talking about a country inhabited by 23 million people, I would hardly call that number worrisome. As a matter of fact, I'd call it downright infinitesimal.
Many people are not aware of the fact that only days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein released over 110,000 violent criminals from prisons all over the country. Add that number to the tens of thousands of Iraqi army regulars who disappeared into the general population soon after the war began, and the hundreds, if not thousands of terrorists, mercenaries and foreign insurgents flooding into that country every month from every bordering nation, and you've got one formidable force of crazies to deal with. Still, a relatively small number of our troops and Iraqi citizens are dying there, something about which we should all be thanking our lucky stars.
But enough about the downside of our efforts. I'll leave that to the squawking dingalings who run our nation's most prestigious television and print news establishments. The Defense Secretary made some interesting comparisons the other day in a speech before the National Press Club , while referencing information he'd received from Presidential Envoy to Iraq, Ambassador Paul Bremer. Rumsfeld stated, after pointing out that the U.S. intelligence community had indeed underestimated the degree of damage to Iraq's infrastructure caused by decades of neglect by the former regime, that the reconstruction was moving along at an historically unprecedented pace.
He talked about the fact that after only 2 months, the central bank of Iraq had been established, explaining that it had taken 3 years to establish an independent central bank in Germany after World War II. He said that in the same 2 months, the Iraqi police had also been established, something which took 14 months to achieve in Germany. After 2 1/2 months, Iraqis had a new currency in use in their country. That is particularly remarkable when one considers that it took three years to accomplish that same goal in Germany. The new German cabinet took 14 months to create, yet in Iraq it has taken only four months. Rumsfeld went on to explain that reconstruction efforts in Iraq are outpacing by a startling degree not only that of Germany, but those of Japan, Bosnia and Kosovo as well.
Secretary of State, Colin Powell stated that he was very impressed with our post-war accomplishments following his trip to Iraq in early September. "Thanks to the hard work of Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq is being transformed." he said in an opinion article published in The Asian Wall Street Journal.
I suppose I could go on and on delineating the tremendous strides our forces have taking in Iraq since the end of major hostilities in May, but I won't bother. Anyone interested in learning more about that situation can find a wellspring of information at any of the following web-sites.
U.S. State Department -
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c3212.htm
USAID -
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq
Development Gateway -
http://www.developmentgateway.org
Coalition Provisional Authority -
http://www.cpa-iraq.org
At this point I think I should get back to the myriad of false accusations being leveled against Mr. Bush by the various left-leaning presidential hopefuls parading about the country. John Kerry has been quoted as saying that "this president rushed to war against the advice of many in this country." Of course, he's not the only one to have made such a claim. Representative Richard Gephardt, as well as a host of other prominent Democrats, many of whom are not seeking the highest office in the land, have been advancing this supposition since the day the war began. Senators Byrd and Kennedy have been relentless in their criticism of the president's "rush to war", and I think it's about time that someone set the record straight.
Even if we are to assume the most conservative (not the political kind) view of the matter, no reasonable person can deny that the build-up to war in Iraq began at the very latest on the day that President Bush addressed the the United Nations General Assembly, challenging the U.N. to confront the "grave and gathering danger" in Iraq. That occurred on September 12, 2002. The following month, the U.S. Congress adopted the joint resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. By November 8th the U.N. had unanimously adopted Resolution 1441. In December Iraq provided inspectors with a 12,000 page declaration of it's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. No member of the Security Council considered that declaration to be in any way complete or convincing.
The following month, U.N. inspectors found 12 undisclosed warheads designed to carry chemical agents. Once it became clear that the United States was no longer going to abide such a blatant disregard for the U.N.'s 17 resolutions by Saddam Hussein, France, Germany, and Russia released a joint declaration stating they would "not allow" a resolution authorizing military action to pass the UN Security Council. That happened on March 5th, 2003. The U.S., supported faithfully by Great Britain, decided less than two weeks later to withdraw their draft of yet another resolution. Two days later, on March 19, 2003, the war began.
Not only did President Bush seek Congressional approval for his administration's campaign to rid the world of a vicious, terrorist supporting tyrant, but he and his representatives attempted to convince the U.N. to support them as well. Only after expending all reasonable options in that regard over the course of at least 6 months did he finally decide to build a coalition within the international community outside the confines of the United Nations and do what was necessary to ensure the safety and integrity of all freedom loving people everywhere.
Continued
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