John Kerry’s estimate of Saddam Hussein’s character is that he
was not the sort of person to associate with anti-American
terrorists. “Iraq is now what it was not before the war, a haven
for terrorists,” says Kerry.
Kerry’s position, while baffling to ordinary Americans, has a
certain perverse logic to it. That is, in order for Kerry to argue
that the war in Iraq “diverted” attention from the war on
terrorism, he has no choice but to say that Iraq under Saddam
Hussein was terrorist-free and that Saddam Hussein wasn’t a
terrorist himself. Under the guidance of new advisers demanding
clarity from him, Kerry has reconciled himself to a Michael
Moore-style whitewash of pre-war Iraq so as to free up his
reasoning that America would have won the war on terrorism while
ignoring one of its chieftains.
In Thursday’s debate, George Bush should ask John Kerry to
answer a few questions about his confidence in Saddam Hussein’s
character and his belief in the dictator’s steadfast abstinence
from terrorist ties. Such as: If Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was not a
haven for terrorists before the war, why is it that American
soldiers keep capturing terrorists who resided in Iraq before the
war?
Does Kerry, who praised inspector David Kay, disagree with Kay’s
conclusion that “We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq.
And now we know that there was little control over Iraq’s weapons
capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous
place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and
there were terrorist groups passing through the country — and no
central control”?
Does Kerry deny that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the beheader of Nick
Berg and two Americans last week, was in Iraq before the war and
harbored by Saddam Hussein? Or does Kerry think that Zarqawi just
happened to be vacationing there?
Kerry will no doubt try to nail Bush for taking America to war
on “false intelligence.” But what about the true pre-war
intelligence about Zarqawi’s presence in Baghdad? Bush ought to
remind Kerry that the very terrorist the Bush administration held
up before the war as exhibit A of Saddam Hussein’s ties to
terrorism is the terrorist who is now beheading Americans. Kerry
says that he would have focused his “energies” on capturing the
Zarqawis and bin Ladens instead of dissipating them in the “wrong
place.” But since Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and Kerry says
he wouldn’t have entered Iraq, we know that he doesn’t mean it.
John Kerry can’t imagine Saddam Hussein as a godfather to
terrorists before the war. But Zarqawi had no problem envisioning
Saddam Hussein in that role. Colin Powell’s pre-war presentation
before the United Nations established that Zarqawi received safe
haven in Iraq, traveling “to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical
treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he
recuperated to fight another day.…During this stay, nearly
two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of
operations there. These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now
coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and
throughout Iraq for his network, and they’ve now been operating
freely in the capital for more than eight months.”
In other words, the insurgents after the war are terrorists
Saddam Hussein harbored before it.
Powell said that an “al Qaeda associate bragged that the
situation in Iraq was, quote, ‘good,’ that Baghdad could be
transited quickly,” and that “We know these affiliates are
connected to Zarqawi because they remain even today in regular
contact with his direct subordinates, including the poison cell
plotters, and they are involved in moving more than money and
materials.”
Kerry says that Americans are getting their heads cut off
because George Bush invaded Iraq. But Bush should inform him in the
debate that Zarqawi was killing Americans long before the war
began. Powell, again in his 2003 address to the U.N., noted that
Zarqawi had American diplomat Lawrence Foley gunned down in Jordan:
“We, in the United States, all of us at the State Department, and
the Agency for International Development — we all lost a dear
friend with the cold-blooded murder of Mr. Lawrence Foley in Amman,
Jordan last October, a despicable act was committed that day. The
assassination of an individual whose sole mission was to assist the
people of Jordan. The captured assassin says his cell received
money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder.”
Before the war, American officials called on Saddam Hussein to
extradite Zarqawi for the killing of Foley. Instead, Hussein let
Zarqawi set up terrorist operations in Baghdad.
Before the war, Iraq was a haven for terrorists. Now it is more
like a hell for them as American soldiers systematically pick them
off.
