Bush is a fuckwit....

[broke]

By Henry J. Hyde. U.S. Rep.

Over the years, I have found myself in ever-greater agreement with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who have incessantly warned us of the real danger of weapons of mass destruction finding their way into the hands of our enemies.

Since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has transformed our entire approach to this staggering challenge by crafting and implementing an unprecedented, multifaceted, global, action-oriented effort, of which Iraq is an integral part. I need not rehearse the arguments regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, other than to point out that every intelligence agency--along with the United Nations, Saddam Hussein's own generals and even many of today's critics--believed that the Iraqi regime possessed weapons of mass destruction prior to last year's invasion by coalition forces.




In our vulnerable world, to wait until compelling evidence of a threat is imminent is to wait for our destruction--to err on the side of annihilation. It is specious and naive to talk of intelligence failures as shocking surprises, as though these estimates and extrapolated predictions could ever be more than imperfect. We had valuable but incomplete intelligence preceding Sept. 11 and largely ignored it. Is that the model to which critics of President Bush's actions in Iraq would have us adhere? When is it wise to risk the safety of the American people? Because that is the outcome that a demand for certainty will guarantee.

Now making the rounds is the view that the United States has lost credibility around the world due to its failure to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I suggest that is too narrow an understanding of credibility. We have, in fact, gained enormous, immensely valuable, even decisive credibility from our actions. For the next time the United States, or at least this president, warns some foreign despot to cease actions we believe are threatening to our security, my hunch is that he will listen, and listen carefully.

This is not theory. Already, the administration has won another victory in Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's decision to surrender his weapons of mass destruction programs as a direct consequence of our actions in Iraq. He himself has said that the example of Iraq was the determining factor in his decision. And it is a powerful precedent, for it is the first time that a state has surrendered these weapons without a regime change.

The benefits of this new mode of interaction are evident in the current standoff with Iran. The recent and unexpected exposure of Iran's massive nuclear weapons program has startled that regime into a hastily constructed policy of stalling and superficial cooperation. Only a fool would believe that the Iranians will voluntarily abandon their nuclear ambitions, but their coerced cooperation has been helpfully motivated by their fear of U.S. action against them.

Iran's adherence to the deal it cut last October with Britain, France, and Germany for a "suspension" of its programs has been made more likely by the existence of the U.S. threat, a bad cop routine that even the Europeans privately acknowledge to be useful. That situation is far from resolved, but does anyone actually believe that the possibility of halting Iran's march would even exist without Hussein's sobering example?

None of this has been lost on the North Korean regime. Our demonstrated willingness to use force to remove a threat, paired with the possibility of reward for cooperation, provides the decision-makers in Pyongyang with useful instruction in the rules of this new world. Once again, this bracketing of the regime's options was made possible by our actions in Iraq.

To this administration must go the credit for many other long-delayed but indispensable actions to reverse our slide toward the chasm. The Proliferation Security Initiative, the cooperative arrangement among countries concerned about weapons of mass destruction and determined to do something concrete about them, is a muscular enhancement of our ability to halt trafficking in the components of these weapons. Despite the program's infancy, there have already been notable successes. It was the interception of a vessel loaded with nuclear components for Libya that helped convince Gadhafi that the days of his undisturbed accumulation of the instruments of destruction were over.

Praiseworthy as well is the surprisingly successful effort to persuade the leaders of Pakistan to interrupt the proliferation of nuclear materials and assistance that has metastasized unchecked from within that country for many years. The revelations in Pakistan, combined with those emerging from Libya, are beginning to expose the international black market in nuclear technology and know-how, which, prior to this inside information, had been only sketchily understood. We are now in the process of unraveling that network and eliminating the horrors its commerce would otherwise help bring into being.

The work is not done. We must make up for decades of stillborn plans, of whining excuses, of wishful thinking, of irresponsible passivity. This president has begun to lay the foundation for a comprehensive, multilayered, root-and-branch approach to the mortal danger of the proliferating instruments of our destruction. A global system of overlapping levels of international, multilateral and unilateral measures is being erected, each using different tools and methods, but all sharing a common purpose. Each and all are needed. For even a single gap might well prove fatal, the hole through which our future is bled away.

That is the true context in which our actions in Iraq should be judged.