How much is it worth?

Was it Something I Said?

The next time someone asks how many American lives is this Iraq war worth ask them how many the good opinion of the international community is. For to believe that we should have waited to go into Iraq, you have to believe that looking good at the UN is worth at least some solders’ lives.

If you believe the report just out now that there were no stockpiles of WMD then you have to also believe the rest of the report: that 1) Hussein intentionally deceived the world and his own generals that he did still have them and that 2) he had every intention of getting them again as soon as he could get out from under the sanctions. How does one argue against the war if those two things are true?

If we had walked away in spite of everyone—and this includes the two democratic challengers from their own statements on the Senate floor—thinking that he still had them then what do we do with the next dictator that tries to acquire them? Having in effect said to Sadaam that “I got rid of them but I can’t tell you there because I forgot where,” what is to stop any dictator from building such an arsenal? Imagine how our negotiations with the North Koreans would go. “Oh, we got rid of them somewhere, don’t worry.” These rules, to have any meaning, must require the burden of proof to be on the rogue state to prove that it doesn’t have them in a publicly observable way. It is no good to say that that isn’t fair. There is no way to be sure they don’t have them but by full compliance with obtrusive measures. Indeed, even after he was the nominee Kerry was still keeping his options open when on Meet the Press he felt it necessary to add that we may still find WMD, and this over a year after the war is over. To say that going two months and ‘a dog ate my homework’ excuse is enough to give a dictator a clean slate on WMD is to say that there will never be any meaningful sanctions ever.

But the really important thing is the second thing the report has proven. That Hussein fully intended to go back into the WMD business as soon as he was out from under the sanctions. If that is true—and have you heard anyone deny it?—then what really would have been gained by waiting? Would it be preferable to have waited till he actually had some to use on us or his own people? Why isn’t it good news that we finally acted before he could really do us harm?

The real strength of the anti-war party is that they don’t have to say what they would have done otherwise. The ‘last resort’ argument covers everything. Maybe he would have became a nicer person, maybe he would have had them but have been deterred, maybe he would have been deposed. The ‘war as a last resort’ seems to give license to avoid thinking about what the world would have looked like had we not gone to war.

But if those who want to use the report to damn Bush are honest they owe us an answer to the question of what would you have done two years down the road? Presumably Kerry would say that if Hussein really did have WMD he would lead the US to go to war, so all the report really tells us is that with Kerry we could have put the war off two years—till he actually had weapons. Of course under that scenario we would have been a lot better off in world public opinion, who knows, maybe a few Americans dead of Mustard gas would have rekindled that precious international pity that Kerry feels we squandered after 9/11. Personally, the good opinion of Sadaam’s arms dealers and creditors is not worth a single American service man.