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Volume CXXXII, Number 14 |
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So where's the smoking gun?
BRYANT ANTHONY RICH
CONTRIBUTOR
In the wake of the tragedy of 9/11, Americans' sense of place in this world is increasing in complexity. Homeland defense has become a top priority for the nation, and rightfully so. No longer can Americans ignore that fact that there are capable terrorist organizations in existence with a penchant for taking innocent lives.
During the height of this domestic anxiety, President Bush identified Iraq as a mounting threat to national security. His thirst for aggression drove him as far as claiming that anyone in Congress who did not support military action was unpatriotic and uninterested in the defense of the homeland. Yet even after gaining permission to use force against Iraq, a proverbial smoking gun has yet to emerge for the American people or the international community.
The President claims that inspections have failed and that military force is therefore justified. There are two glaring errors in this logic. If Saddam Hussein possesses such extensive weaponry, both nuclear and biological, why hasn't any substantial evidence been located by the U.N.-sanctioned investigators that would suggest that these weapons exist? A recent New York Times article calls attention to the fact that the President has rested much of his case for preemption on the assertion that Iraq was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon in 1991, yet the United Nations inspectors have not found any evidence of radioactivity.
The second flaw in this logic is this: if constant scrutiny and inspections have curtailed Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons and use them, why must we mount a preemptive attack? Preemption implies that war is imminent and that we are seeking to simply make the first strike, yet an Iraqi-led attack on the United States seems unlikely any time in the near future.
For all of the President's reactionary behavior to threats to homeland to security, his administration was taken by surprise when the Dictator of North Korea came out and overtly threatened the United States with its nuclear capabilities. The President's behavior lacks a logical foundation. Despite all of his promises to present compelling evidence of Iraq's threat to the United States public, not much has changed since his wild accusations against Iraq in early 2002.
The New York Times' recently conducted polls suggest that domestic support for the war is eroding with every day that the public is denied evidence of a legitimate Iraqi threat. One possible answer for this is the Bush administration's methods for courting public support for the war.
The Bush administration has gone through great pains to link Iraq and
Al Qaeda in an attempt to transfer American fear of terrorism to support
of the Bush administration's war effort. As the President continues to
withhold evidence of this link, more and more Americans are losing their
faith in his word, and are beginning to realize that a clear indication
of the need for a preemptive attack is lacking.
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