Iraq: What If?

The always insightful Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting look at an alternative view of history. We must remember that the alternative to removing Saddam, was not a better and peaceful world.

Senators exasperated with Bush inaction

On the domestic scene both conservative and liberal spokesmen voiced disappointment with President Bush’s apparent vacillation and willingness to let Saddam violate the sanctions and U.N. inspections. A group of three Democratic senators — Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry — reminded the president that the Senate had voted overwhelmingly over three years ago to authorize the military removal of Saddam Hussein, and suggested that the old “Jim Baker/Frank Carlucci realpolitik” was at work again, or as Sen. Clinton put it, “Just pump that oil and it’s O.K. with us that he does pretty much what he wants to his people.”

Sen. Clinton went on to hammer the president, “We need leadership, not more of the same old, same old that we see with North Korea and Iran. Could I remind the president that three years ago we cited 23 reasons to remove Saddam Hussein and approved them all by a 77 vote, and that the House got nearly 300 votes in their similar resolution? And all this follows the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act passed by the Senate and signed by my husband.”

Sen. John Kerry recalled for President Bush that over three years ago he had been on record to remove Saddam, and recited his earlier statement in the Senate issued in 2002: "I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."