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Yet, his
credibility, the president’s and the entire nation’s are at risk because
no weapons were used or found. Beyond that, some statements have been
proven false.
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NOW SECRETARY of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice must explain America’s war against Iraq, a war based on
so far unproven reports that the Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction.
The Bush administration sent
the two to the Sunday morning talk shows this week, in an effort to
squelch the growing weapons controversy. They gave a spirited, if not
convincing, defense of what many in the world and a growing number at home
believe was a weak and still unsubstantiated rational for sending U.S.
troops to kill and be killed.
“I believe
that we will find them,” Rice told NBC. “I think that we have already
found important clues like the biological weapons
laboratories....”
INTENSIVE SEARCH
AHEAD
Powell told Fox News that
finding the weapons will come from “the intensive search that is ahead of
us... I’m sure more evidence and more proof will come forward as we go
down this road.”
Neither Rice nor Powell was
asked why Saddam Hussein didn’t use the weapons, if he had them, when
America attacked. Certainly he had enough advance warning. And he had
nothing to lose. President Bush made it clear that Hussein’s overthrow was
the objective of the invasion. |
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For months, administration officials said with certainty that
Hussein’s regime was a threat to the U.S. that had to be eliminated
because he possessed biological and chemical weapons. In a Sept. 26 Rose
Garden statement, as the administration was building its case for war,
Bush said: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.
The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more
biological and chemical weapons. And according to the British government,
the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little
as 45 minutes after the order were given.”
STOCKPILE OF
WEAPONS
Powell was even more
specific when he told the United Nations that “our conservative estimate
is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of
chemical-weapons agent.”
The statements
flowed non-stop. On March 17, Bush delivered an ultimatum to Hussein two
days before the war began, saying: “Intelligence gathered by this and
other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to
possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever
devised.”
Rice insists the intelligence
about the weapons was solid. “This was a very clear picture,” she told
CBS. On the basis of that intelligence, the president decided to go to
war. “And it’s quite clear to me,” she added, “that he was right to do
what he did.”
Unfortunately, there’s little
evidence that’s correct.
© 2003 BET.com. All rights reserved.
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