The Ming Report

CATCH AS CATCH CAN

April 22, 2004 - "When you say, 'Disarm or face serious consequences,' you'd better mean what you say when you say it,"

"Saddam Hussein chose not to disarm. We viewed him as a threat; the intelligence said he was a threat; we all thought he had weapons. The truth will be known over time."

Yes. Mr. President, the truth will be known over time. The truth is that you can’t disarm unless you are armed in the first place. That was Saddam Hussein’s Catch 22, and it is yours. As of this morning more than 700 American soldiers are dead because you all thought that he had weapons, because you viewed him as a threat. As of this morning more than 3,600 American soldiers have come home scarred and maimed because you meant what you said when you said it.

But, Mr. President, there were no weapons of mass destruction. UNSCOM told you; IAEA told you; but you would not listen. Your own inspectors told you that they were not there and still you will not listen. Repeating the same claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction over and over again won’t make them magically appear. Neither will the yellowcake or the mobile biological weapons labs emerge from the desert sands. That is your catch 22 and 23 and 24.

Yes, Mr. President, Saddam Hussein is a bad man. The world is a better place and the Iraqi people are better off because he is behind the walls of a prison rather than those of a palace. Does that justify the deaths of more than 805 allied soldiers and uncounted hundreds of Iraqi collaterally damaged dead? Does that justify the expenditure of uncounted billions borrowed from our grandchildren?

You say that democracy is taking root in Iraq, that you will hand Iraqi sovereignty back to the Iraqi people on June 30th; that your arbitrary deadline is inviolable. To whom will you hand Iraq and its people? That is, as you have said, a good question and one you must answer in just 67 days. What kind of democracy is it that you have given the Iraqi people when you shut down newspapers; shoot at television camera crews; and throw TV stations off the air? What kind of democracy is it when you refuse Iraqis the right to vote in selecting their own new government? What kind of sovereignty will it be with cities besieged by US Marines engaged in the bitterest fighting that your Second Iraqi War has seen? Those too are good questions and ones to which we deserve answers but not clichés.

Mr. President you have brought us the faces of war and it is a war that most resembles a Texas Saturday Night Tough Man competition at the local park and fight where the rule of law does not reach to the barroom floor. Your policy in the Mid-East, whether it is Iraq or Saudi Arabia or the Palestinian state you promise, seems to be one of Catch as Catch Can – a fight without rules and a battle without an end. Mr. President, there are just too many catches.