Washington — There is something obscene about the rising clamor
for evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The cynical
omniscient tone of career peaceniks such as Susan Sontag and of
prehensile presidential candidates such as Dr. Howard Dean is
repellent. It is not only that for a dozen years there has been
international agreement that Saddam Hussein’s regime had these
weapons and, in some instances, used them. It is what we have
already found in abundance throughout Iraq that makes the sniping
contemptible, namely: mass graves, torture chambers, hidden
prisons.
The hubbub over the missing weapons of mass destruction,
attendant as it is with suggestions that Prime Minister Tony Blair
and President George W. Bush are liars, has gotten more attention
than the existence of these grisly killing fields and of
instruments of torture. In modern times the aftermath of war is
always very untidy — more so than the aftermath of premodern wars
when normal life was not very tidy to begin with. Thus it should
not surprise us that we cannot find Saddam’s henchmen, his weapons,
his loot, or for that matter him. Yet the omniscient second
guessing is, in its impertinence, a bit hard to take. Hearing Dr.
Howard Dean’s smug complaints is like hearing an isolationist’s
smug complaint in 1946 that Hitler had not been found or really all
that many concentration camps, or any other evidence of Nazi
atrocity.
Of course in 1946 no isolationist after opposing American entry
into World War II would be so insolent as to rebuke our victorious
government. Today the insolence of Dr. Howard Dean and his fellow
self-regarding war critics is considered the mark of statecraft, at
least by them. The fact is, the weapons of mass destruction and the
whereabouts of Saddam are going to be discovered eventually. Just
as the concentration camps, the Nazi experiments on humans, and
Hitler’s teeth were eventually discovered and publicized. In fact,
I would not be surprised if evidence of the weapons has already
been found. Iraq is a vast country. The materials taken by our
troops constitute a huge mélange, much of it still most
likely uncatalogued and possibly even unidentified. I know of
instances in which our soldiers came across equipment so old and
useless they were bewildered by the discovery.
Yet there are other discoveries the military and a few
journalists have made that ought to give the critics of this war
reason for pause. From the Iraqi countryside the New York
Sun’s Adam Daifallah writes, “Mass graves of Iraqis were
discovered at Mahaweel just outside the town of Hilla. Distraught
Iraqis searched through piles of bones in a chaotic, impromptu
scrum. The raw emotion of those who were there searching for their
lost loved ones was overwhelming and their thirst for revenge
unquenchable.… Every day one hears of a new horror story.
There are few Iraqi families who have not seen at least one loved
one die in one of Saddam’s wars.”
It is about time that American journalists fasten on this story.
Right up to the arrival of American troops in Baghdad Saddam’s
agents were butchering those that roused their wrath. In a splendid
Associated Press piece, Mark Fritz tells us that Saddam during his
last dozen years of butchery had “enemies of state” executed who
were as young as eleven years old. Sixty mass graves have been
discovered. Owing to Saddam’s episodic waves of war and rebellion,
“beneath one layer of bodies is sometimes another.”
It is frankly astounding to me that so little has been made of
these discoveries. The New York Sun, the New York
Times, and the Associated Press have filed stories, but those
should only whet the press’s appetite for more. Instead we are
regaled with stories about what has not been found, that is to say
weapons of mass destruction. Why not more stories about the Iraqi
killing fields? Is it because film coverage of the skeletons and
the torture chambers are too upsetting for the evening news?
Possibly it is, but the mass graves and torture chambers that we
have now discovered should be publicized. Saddam was that evil, and
if civilized government arises in Baghdad, the grisly evidence of
his evil will be discovered for years to come.
