David Kay’s resignation puts the issue of pre-war intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq front and center. Tony Blair, to his credit, puts it baldly enough: “I am simply accepting there is a fact, and the fact is that WMD have not yet been found in Iraq. That is simply accepting the facts.” Vice president Dick Cheney still refuses to accept those facts. The president has not seriously acknowledged this important discrepancy between pre-war claims and post-war discovery. David Kay’s comments on public radio put the matter even more starkly: “I don’t think [the WMDs] exist. The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist – we’ve got to deal with that difference and understand why.” I for one certainly believed the British and American governments when they insisted that such WMDs did exist before the war. It was one factor among many that persuaded me that the war was worthwhile. But it turns out I was wrong to believe what the intelligence services were telling me, just as Colin Powell was wrong to rest America’s international credibility on what turns out to be a mistake. Notice I said: mistake. I do not believe and there is no reason to believe that there were any deliberate deceptions. But it seems to me incumbent on president Bush to be candid in what he said before the war that now turns out not to be true. That’s called keeping faith with the American people.
A JUST WAR: And it is in the context of such an argument that the president should clearly restate that this was nevertheless a just war. It was never incumbent on the world community to prove that Iraq had dismantled its WMD program before the war. It was incumbent on Saddam to show otherwise. He refused – either because he was being lied to and wanted to conceal weapons that did not exist, or because such an admission of impotence would have been terribly damaging to the dictator’s reputation, both internally and with regard to Iran, or because he was slowly going nuts and his regime was collapsing from within. But what matters is that he refused. The responsibility for the war therefore lies squarely with the dictator. Moreover, we know that if Saddam had been left in power and sanctions lifted, he would have attempted to restart such programs – and indeed Kay has found a vast apparatus of components, scientists and plans to achieve exactly such a result. Kay has now told us that Saddam was working on a ricin-based biological weapon right up to the eve of the invasion. We know now something else: his tyranny was worse, more depraved and more brutal than we believed to be the case before. The moral and strategic case for his removal appears stronger now than ever. We also have a chance to move one part of the Arab world toward some kind of open, pluralist society. Since the appeal of Islamo-fascism is deeply connected to the backwardness and tyranny of so much of the Arab world, this is a fundamental and critical part of the response to 9/11. Iraq was and is a critical component of the war on terror. It’s an attempt to deal with the issue at its very roots. I believe the victims of 9/11 deserve nothing less.
THE WAR AS DEMONSTRATION: I also believe that the war itself – and the Herculean task afterward – was and is a critical symbol of the West’s resolve to fight back against Islamist terror. It showed we were willing to fight broadly, rather than narrowly, against regimes that sponsor terror and violate WMD restrictions. The critics that harp on the notion that Saddam was not integral to the murderers of 9/11 don’t understand that that that was always part of the point. We have given the world notice that we are not returning to pre-9/11 notions of fighting terror as a narrow crime enforcement enterprise. Iraq was proof we were serious. If we had caved, we would have suffered a terrible loss of clout and credibility. and we have removed a potential source for WMD programs in the hands of terrorists. If we end with Iraq, of course, this will be meaningless. But if the administration succeeds in disarming Libya (a direct Saddam-war consequence); if it can successfully prevent the Saudi government from subsidizing and exporting Wahhabist fanatics; if it can deal with the real source of terror in the Middle East – the mullahs in Tehran; if it can bring democracy to a united Iraq; then the administration will have proven itself up to the most important task we currently face. Certainly, none of the Democratic candidates seem to me right now to come even close to grasping what we are up against and how we can keep on the offensive. But this doesn’t and shouldn’t let the administration off the hook. Part of leadership is also integrity. The administration has to grapple with the fact that it was wrong about the actual existence of stockpiles of WMDs in Saddam’s Iraq. Not with dismissals; not with further calls for more study; not with quibbles – but with honesty, candor and determination to keep the flaw in this battle from undermining the vital case for the war as a whole.
The Dish 