Where Did Saddam Hussein Get His Weapons?
Q: Why is George W. Bush so sure that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?
A: His dad still has the receipts.
Okay, I didn't write that one. I heard a version of that joke on Nightline the other night. I use the word "joke" with some disgust here. I laughed when I heard it, but then my sense of outrage, previously thought to be completely worn out by this administration, once again reared its ugly head.
Here's Republican Rule of Thumb #94: "The smeller is the feller." Or, if you will, "He who smelt it, dealt it." In other words, when republicans start telling us that we have to take military action to fix a problem, you can bet that the republicans had a hand in creating that problem in the first place. Case-in-point: George W. Bush has been screaming at the top of his lungs for some time that the world must disarm Iraq. He has to scream, of course, to be heard over the shouts of anti-war protesters, the moaning of the unemployed, the sputtering of the stock market, and the laughter of everyone with an IQ over 100 as Bush tries to pronounce "nuclear." Be that as it may, when did this become the world's problem? If republican presidents don't want Saddam to have weapons of mass destruction, perhaps they shouldn't sell them to him.
According to the Guardian Unlimited and the Washington Post, in late 1983, Reagan's Secretary of State, George Shultz, was shown a memo stating that Iraq was using chemical weapons "almost daily" on Iranian soldiers in the war. Despite this, the Reagan administration sent a messenger to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein and pass along the news that Ronnie was willing to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to help Iraq win its war with Iran. Who was this messenger who offered to restore full diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein even as Iraq was using chemical weapons on Iran? Why, it was none other than Baby Bush's secretary of defense and fellow chicken-hawk, Donald Rumsfeld.
During the next few years, Reagan's and Daddy Bush's administrations approved the sale to Iraq of all kinds of chemical and biological nightmares, including anthrax and bubonic plague. This news sort of takes all the drama of Colin Powell's little speech to the United Nations using the vial of white powder as a prop, doesn't it? (Rumor has it, by the way, that the vial Powell displayed at the U.N. was actually the fourth such prop given to him. The first three, it was rumored, were mistakenly snorted by Bush.) It must be hard for the secretary of state to feign outrage over Hussein's possession of anthrax when his co-worker and former boss helped facilitate that possession.
So now many of the same republicans who helped Saddam Hussein obtain his chemical and biological weapons in the Reagan '80s now want the world to take them away again. They want the U.S. taxpayers to pony up a down payment of $100 billion to fix their own mistake. They want to risk thousands of American lives and kill tens of thousands of Iraqis to cover up their own despicable acts. Who the hell votes for these people?
If there is a lesson to be learned from this, it is this: Instead of charging forward with some moronic foreign policy that might benefit America for the next ten minutes, perhaps we should consider the consequences of our policies for future generations of Americans. And if cleaning up the Iraqi mess left by Reagan and Bush looks expensive, wait until you see what Dubya's unilateral war on everyone on the planet who might someday want to threaten us costs the next generation.
(Oops! I keep forgetting. That next generation will be picking up the tab for this mess as well, since Bush and the republican congress refuse to raise the necessary cash. When it comes to war, Bush's two favorite phrases are "Charge!" and "Charge it!")
3/08/03
