It’s ironic that at about the same time the peace movement —
which apparently still hasn’t heard that the coalition was
victorious in Iraq — launched a new round of protests in the
United States over the war the Bush administration released a
25-page report, largely ignored by the media, documenting its
successes over the past few months. The peaceniks’ renewed claims
about the illegitimacy of the war were answered before the paint
was dry on their new “No Blood for Oil” signs.
Entitled “100 Days of Progress in Iraq,” the administration’s
report lays out a hundred positive developments in Iraq since the
fall of the Hussein régime. Among the achievements are signs
of cultural rebirth, improvements in the lives of women (although
the administration surprisingly doesn’t mention the end of the
Hussein rape gangs), democratic reforms, internal security and
economic renewal, among others.
The section labeled “10 Ways the Liberation of Iraq Supports the
War on Terror” may be the most important, at least from the
perspective of Western security, especially since terrorism was one
of the primary reasons why the U.S. led coalition went to war.
Contrary to what critics of the war claimed, Iraq earned its
reputation as one of the U.S. State Department’s seven state
sponsors of terrorism. Its links with terrorist movements,
suspected before the war, have been fully exposed.
As the report shows, the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq was more
than just mere speculation. A senior member of the terrorist group
admitted that al-Qaeda was intent on obtaining weapons of mass
destruction from Iraq. Osama bin Laden, said one high-level
al-Qaeda source, “did not believe that al-Qaeda labs in Afghanistan
were capable of manufacturing chemical and biological weapons, so
they turned to Iraq for assistance.” In a gesture of anti-American
solidarity, Iraq agreed to train two al-Qaeda members in biological
and chemical weapons.
Along with the training, Iraq also played host to two dozen
al-Qaeda members, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in May 2002, who
plotted terrorist attacks aimed at targets around the world. Not
content with just providing safe haven for al-Qaeda, Hussein’s
regime also gave Ansar al-Islam — a terrorist group closely
associated with Zarqawi and al-Qaeda — a place to stay and create
a poisons and toxins laboratory. That camp was destroyed during the
war by American soldiers and turned up documents, computer discs
and passports belonging to fighters from across the Middle
East.
The report also confirms reports that Hussein was a supporter of
several Palestinian terrorist groups including the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, HAMAS, and the
Palestine Islamic Jihad, and provided protection for the Iranian
Mujahedin-e-Khalq and the Abu Nidal organizations. Hussein’s
activities included paying the families of Palestinian suicide
bombers, as canceled checks and testimonials from the families have
shown.
We can expect more good news out of Iraq in the coming weeks.
Former international weapons inspector David Kay has reportedly
found substantial evidence of biological weapons and a thriving
missile development program and is currently ramping up his search
for chemical and nuclear weapons. Those developments, according to
rumors coming out of the White House, will be reported to the
public sometime in September. Those weapons won’t fall into the
hands of al-Qaeda.
Whether those opposed to the war will admit it, even with the
evidence staring them in the face, the end of the Hussein regime
has made the world a far safer place. The Bush administration’s
progress report effectively demolishes several key arguments of the
anti-war movement. For all the finger pointing and accusations over
those “16 words” it is clear that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent
danger to global security. It remains to be seen if the doves will
ever have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
