🚀 go-pugleaf

Now we know who Kerry gets his flip flopping  habits from


townhall.com

Clinton defends Bush on war in Iraq
Larry Elder (back to web version)

July 31, 2003

President George W. Bush, under siege for "misleading" the country into war
against Iraq, received some help from an unusual source -- former President
Bill Clinton.

"When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and
chemical material unaccounted for . . . it is incontestable that on the day
I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks . . . " said Clinton
recently on "Larry King Live." Also, Clinton said he never found out whether
a U.S.-British bombing campaign he ordered in 1998 ended Saddam's stockpiles
of or his capability of producing chemical and biological weapons. "We might
have gotten it all, we might have gotten half of it, we might have gotten
none of it. But we didn't know," said Clinton.

Presidential contender Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., actually suggested
impeachment of the president over Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech
reference about an Iraqi-Africa uranium connection. But Clinton said, " . .
. The White House said . . . that on balance they probably shouldn't have
put that comment in the speech. What happened, often happens. There was a
disagreement between British intelligence and American intelligence. The
president said it was British intelligence that said it. . . . British
intelligence still maintain that they think the nuclear story was true. I
don't know what was true, what was false. . . . Here's what happens: every
day the president gets a daily brief from the CIA. And then, if it's some
important issue -- and believe me, you know, anything having to do with
chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons became much more important to
everybody in the White House after September the 11th -- then they probably
told the president, certainly Condoleezza Rice, that this is what the
British intelligence thought."

About the gravity of the president's "error" -- never mind that the British
still stand by the Africa/uranium assertion -- Clinton said, "You know,
everybody makes mistakes when they are president. I mean, you can't make as
many calls as you have to without messing up once in a while. The thing we
ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do right now."

Why does Clinton, a consistent and persistent critic of this administration,
suddenly leap to Bush's defense? After all, polls show Bush's popularity
coming down from the post-major-Iraqi-war-operations peak. And the White
House appears off-balance in their defense of Bush's speech reference to
Iraqi attempts at purchasing uranium in Africa. Furthermore, Americans quite
understandably show concern over the almost daily headlines of anti-American
Iraqis ambushing soldiers.

Clinton's motives? Check out the just-released Joint Congressional Committee
report on 9-11. Under Clinton's watch, the Committee reports how
intelligence apparatus failed to connect the dots. Yes, lapses occurred
under the current president, but Clinton missed numerous opportunities to
focus on the growing terror threat, including opportunities to get Osama bin
Laden. Clinton knows that constant browbeating over the alleged lack of
Iraqi "imminence" and of Bush's "security failures" serves only to make
Clinton's presidency look bad. If anything, the "imminent threat" loomed
during Clinton's administration, and he knows he took insufficient action to
quell it.

Meanwhile, the Bush anti-war critics either support or sit silently as Bush
ponders the use of our military to stop civil war bloodshed in Liberia -- a
humanitarian mission. But does the existence of Iraqi shallow graves,
torture chambers, and executions translate into support, if belated, for the
war against Iraq?

Human Rights Watch says, "The Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party has been in power
in Iraq since 1968. Under the leadership of President Saddam Hussein, who
seized power in 1979, the Iraqi government has committed a vast number of
crimes against the Iraqi people and others, using terror through various
levels of police, military, and intelligence agencies to control and
intimidate large segments of the Iraqi population. Two Iraqi groups in
particular have suffered horrific abuses -- the Kurds in the north, and
Shi'a populations in the south. Two decades of oppression against Iraq's
Kurds and Kurdish resistance culminated in 1988 with a genocidal campaign,
and the use of chemical weapons, against Kurdish civilians, resulting in
over 100,000 deaths. . . . Saddam Hussein and others . . . are responsible
for a vast number of crimes that constitute genocide, war crimes, and crimes
against humanity. The victims of such crimes include up to 290,000 persons
who have been 'disappeared' since the late 1970s, many of whom are believed
to have been killed."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan opposed the war in Iraq, despite the
U.S.'s national security concerns. Back then, Annan said, "My position has
always been very clear, that I think it would be unwise to attack Iraq,
given the current circumstances of what's happening in the Middle East." Yet
Annan now demands that the U.S. send troops to Liberia, "I think we can
really salvage the situation if troops were to be deployed urgently and
promptly."

Maybe Annan might benefit from a chat with former President Clinton.

�2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le20030731.shtml