The search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ongoing<br>

Responding to critics of an attack on Iraq, the U.S. Secretary of State insisted: “We are concerned, as the president said, about [Saddam’s] ability in the long run to threaten his neighbors, and frankly, to threaten all of us with weapons of mass destruction.”

The President himself noted that United Nations weapons inspections had failed. ‘‘Instead of the weapons inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors,” he said. “This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere.” He later added, “The best way to end this threat is with a new Iraqi government.”

The year was 1998. The Secretary of State was Madeleine Albright. And the President was Bill Clinton.

Today, five years later, some Democratic presidential candidates and war opponents have stirred up another one of those “controversies” that periodically consumes the media.

This “scandal” concerns whether the Bush administration was candid with the public about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Since large caches have not yet been found, some opponents even accuse President Bush of a Watergate-style “cover-up” of the truth about Iraqi weapons capabilities.

The critics neglect to note that Bush was far from the first person to warn about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton administration, the George H.W. Bush administration, the British Labour government, and the UN Security Council all have made nearly identical assertions since 1990.

Last November, the Security Council—including France, China and Syria— unanimously demanded that Saddam permit unfettered U.N. weapons inspections.

The resolution recognized “the threat Iraq’s noncompliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security.”

A 2003 report by weapons inspector Hans Blix stated that “[b]ased on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 liters of anthrax ... may still exist” in addition to mustard gas and other toxic weapons.

In short, everyone contended that Iraq had these instruments of destruction and that this was unacceptable.

Now critics ask why huge stockpiles of these weapons have not been found. The first obvious response is that, the fact that they have not been found does not mean all the experts were wrong—that they never existed. All it means is that they have not yet been found.

Iraq has only been liberated for a few months. In that time, allied forces have been simultaneously working to restore order, provide running water and electricity to towns Saddam long neglected, exhume mass graves of thousands of murdered political dissidents, and create the foundations of a self-governing democracy.

Incidentally, they also have to protect themselves from violence by Saddam holdovers. So it’s a bit early to suggest that they’ll never be found.

Even so, we’ve already found some illegal weapons—ballistic missiles in violation of agreements, warheads that could be armed with chemical agents and two mobile biological weapons labs.

The search will continue, but it will take time. I believe the current controversy— stoked by people who never wanted the war to succeed in the first place—will ultimately dissipate.

Remember the recent firestorm of criticism of U.S. troops who, in the words of the New York Times, “stood by while Iraq’s museums were looted in the days after the Hussein government fell?”

Well, the actual number of priceless pieces “looted” has been recently reappraised, from “as many as 170,000 pieces” (what the Times described as “an orgy of theft”) to just 33. “All along, Iraqi relics were safe and sound,” a Washington Post story later conceded.

One final point: While it is important to find these weapons lest they fall into other dangerous hands, justification for the war in Iraq was never based solely on those weapons.

President Bush and other war supporters also cited chronic human-rights violations and Iraq’s refusal to comply with other U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Additionally, they expressed great concern about Iraq’s intent to amass more dangerous weapons in the future.

On that last point, the Vice President once stated, “We need national resolve and unity, not weakness and division, when we’re involved . . . in an action against someone like Saddam Hussein. . . If you allow [him] to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons?”

That Vice President made a very compelling case for U.S. action. His name, by the way, was Al Gore.

(Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is a United States Senator.)

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