The American Spectator

p> COURSE CHECK br> Re: William Tucker’s Time to Change Course : /p>

If William Tucker (and others) understood that ousting Saddam Hussein was absolutely necessary and not an act of American altruism would their attitude towards the proposed surge in Iraq be any different? One thinks so.

p>We are now discovering that not enough resources and effort went into fighting the Iraq war and that includes public diplomacy. The original reason for ousting Saddam was the belief that he was dangerous — because of the proscribed weapons he appeared to retain and his involvement in terrorism. Indeed, this threat was already recognized by President Bill Clinton, who stated in 1998: br> /p>

Think how many can be killed by just a tiny bit of anthrax, and think about how it’s not just that Saddam Hussein might put it on a Scud missile, an anthrax head, and send it on to some city he wants to destroy. Think about all the other terrorists and other bad actors who could just parade through Baghdad and pick up their stores if we don’t take action.

br> In the run-up to the Iraq war, however, there was enormous bureaucratic opposition to talking about Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, because according to U.S. intelligence, there had been none. So the decision was made to emphasize Iraq’s weapons programs.

That now appears to have been a mistake. Those familiar with the Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces say they show extensive Iraqi involvement in terrorism going back many years. Indeed, the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz reported already in November 1992, “Iraq is training international terrorists again at a secret base near Baghdad for the first time since the Persian Gulf war….The renewed training activity is viewed by some officials as an ominous sign that Iraq may be stepping up its support for global terrorism after a hiatus of nearly two years since the Gulf war.”

p>Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Sen. Rick Santorum fought for the public release of the Iraqi documents, but met with only limited and temporary success. Yet as we surge in Baghdad, perhaps we need to surge at home as well, and do what it takes to explain why it was necessary to fight this war and why it is necessary to win it. br> —