The War on Terror in Iraq

Andrew McCarthy explains why the war in Iraq was so a necessary war.

Three major problems:

(1) As Steve Sailer points out, if the connections are so clear, why hasn't Bush made more of them? We should be able to sweat the information out of the people we have in custody. Also, why should we trust the stories about, e.g. Salman Pak, when we were told stories about Saddam's doubles; stories that were equally plausible and that it was claimed there were evidence for, and that appear to be untrue.

The only explanation I have heard is the one given by Richard Poe - that the real people behind 9/11 are the Soviets, the Chinese, or even France and Germany (those paragons of evil), and we are trying to preserve relations with them by not asking questions that could lead us to them. And let's face it, Mr. Poe is delusional. Michael Ledeen also had a similar theory, by the way - which also implied the belief that the populations of France and Germany supported us but their governments suppressed it - or at least he felt that we could encourage their populations to rise up and "free themselves" from their governments.

(2) As Noah Millman points out,

"The question is not whether Saddam was willing to work with al-Qaeda, because a whole host of regimes in the region have had one or another degree of involvement with al-Qaeda. The question is: how important was Saddam to al-Qaeda, and, to the extent that Saddam was a threat, what was the best way of neutralizing it?"

Have we really hurt Al Qaeda, or Islamic terrorism in general, by invading Iraq? Or are we breeding the next generation of Al Qaeda?

(3) At this point, it doesn't entirely matter whether or not we were justified in going into Iraq. We are there. What matters is what our strategy is now we are there. Are we defeating terrorists in Iraq? Not just are we killing terrorists, but are we reducing their number by killing more than we are generating? How are we going to do this? Do we have a working strategy to win?

Two more thoughts on Mr. McCarthy's piece:

"The president needs to be talking about Saddam and terror because that’s what will get their attention in Damascus and Teheran."

Wait a second - is he saying that such talk will get them to stop their support of terrorists? (And how much anti-American terror have they actually been responsible for, if you think about it?) Doubtful. Unless his point is that Bush needs to stress the anti-terror rationale for toppling Saddam so that the people can be rallied behind attacks on Syria and Iran. Which, to be honest, is probably what McCarthy is trying to do.

"Just tell us one thing: Do you have any good answer to what Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was doing with the 9/11 hijackers in Kuala Lampur? Can you explain it?

"If not, why aren't you moving heaven and earth to find out the answer?"

Hmmm... was he there with Saddam's doubles? And why isn't the Bush administration moving heaven and earth to find out what the connections were?

That is all.