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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 9 • Friday, February 13, 2004
Where are the WMDs?
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CM’s Kay Report and statements by director George Tenet loom large over Bush
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NICHOLAS
DAVIS
ta tew THE BATTALION
T he race for the presidency is
on. That means throughout the
next 10 months, presidential
candidates will be out in full force,
kissing babies and relentlessly pound
ing the public with political rhetoric.
While President George W. Bush has
been favored to win by many political
analysts, one issue has resurfaced that
may change that: the elusive weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq.
Over the past few weeks, Bush suffered two tremen
dous blows. The first came from the infamous Kay
Report, issued by former CIA Chief Weapons Inspector
David Kay, which illuminated the glaring inaccuracies
contained within the weapons of mass destruction intel
ligence that the Iraqi War was predicated on. CIA
Director George Tenet delivered the second blow when
he attempted to defend the CIA’s pre-war intelligence,
but nonetheless admitted, “analysts had never conclud
ed that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat."
In light of these new events, the White House has
begun backpedaling in a feeble attempt to sidestep
admitting the president made a mistake. The Dallas
Morning News reported that National Security Council
spokesman Sean McCormick said. “While several high-
level presidential aides used the phrase ‘imminent
threat,’ the president had avoided the words.”
McCormick later set the record straight, saying, “The
president often called Mr. Hussein a grave and gather
ing threat.”
This is a cowardly attempt to address the Bush
administration’s mistake. While it may be true that
Bush never specifically referred to Saddam as being an
“imminent threat,” it is undeniable that his administra
tion framed the matter to appear so to create a sense of
urgency.
Consider these examples. On Feb. 5, 2003, Secretary
of State Colin Powell evoked the CIA’s credibility
when he testified to the United Nations regarding
weapons of mass destruction.
“My colleagues, every statement I make today is
backed up by sources, solid sources,” he said.
“These are not assertions.”
k On March 17, 2003, Bush, in an address, said,
“Intelligence gathered by this and other govern
ments leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to
possess and conceal some of the most lethal
weapons ever devised.” On March 30, 2003,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
“We know where they (weapons of mass
destruction) are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and
Baghdad.”
Remarkably, no weapons have been found despite
all of the “solid evidence.” As a result, our country's
intelligence credibility has been severally undermined
and Bush’s integrity has come under attack.
Did legitimate reasons exist for going to war?
Absolutely. Saddam massacred his own people for
decades and his regime, and for 12 years, breached the
obligations of 16 previous resolutions. One such resolu
tion violated established the cease-fire agreement under
the conditions that all weapons of mass destruction be
destroyed and that weapons inspectors be allowed com
plete and unfettered access to weapons facilities.
However, in 1998, Iraq officially broke the agreement
by throwing out the inspectors, firing on U.S. aircrafts
numerous times over the course of several years and
breaching U.N resolution 1441.
The problem is that Bush chose to focus his war call
too narrowly around the weapons of mass destruction
evidence to raise concerns. The other salient reasons
were lobed in as mere caveats. And now, since the key
piece of evidence lacks confirmation. Bush’s choice to
operate outside the United Nations and immediately go
to war appears to have been a hasty decision.
Surprisingly, Bush's current demeanor does not con
vey outrage over the intelligence mishap. After all, it
took weeks of congressional pressure before Bush,
begrudgingly, submitted to creating a panel to investi
gate the intelligence failures. Conveniently, though, the
findings from this panel will not be disclosed until after
the election. In the meantime. Bush and other partisans
are justifying the war by saying, “Saddam Hussein was
a weapon of mass destruction.”
This rationalization won't cut it. The Bush adminis
tration is trying to change the rules of the game while it
is still being played.
If Bush wants a chance come November, he better
wise up. formally admit his mistake and take aggres
sive reformative action with the CIA. If that means fir
ing Tenet, a mere figurehead, so be it. Something must
signal to the international community that the United
States is detennined to have the best intelligence agen
cies in the world. Such actions will help mend the
United States’ shattered credibility. The public may
even forgive Bush.
Nicholas Davis is a senior
political science major.
Bush is isolating party
with new liberal agenda
MAIL CALL
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MATTHEW
MADDOX
tfi Rond;
Ire;- Bush '
! Price of
goods in the
United States.
Bush also supported the
restrictions Congress
placed on free speech,
deceivingly called “cam
paign finance reform.”
More recently, Bush
signed into law a half-tril
lion dollar socialized medi
cine program and has
called on Congress to cre
ate legislation granting
amnesty and Social Security bene
fits to illegal immigrants. Adding to
the atypically bloated Republican
program proposals are worthless
manned spaceflights to Mars.
If Bush does not
regain the trust of
conservatives, the
November elections
could spell an end to
his presidency and
trouble for America.
To top it all off, Bush has
requested increasing the budget for
the National Endowment for the
Arts, the federal art subsidizing
program made famous by funding
“ait” depicting Jesus on the cross
submerged in urine.
These shifts away from the con
servative ideology and even the
more moderate Republican plat
form could not be anything less
than politically calculated moves.
Without a third-party candidate in
the race, there is literally nowhere
for Bush’s conservative base to go,
except home. Since it is difficult
for conservatives to get excited
about a candidate who appears to
have sold them out, home is exactly
where many of them may stay,
meaning far fewer votes for Bush.
In 2000, conservatives were
energized. They had dealt with
eight years of Clinton in the White
House, an individual who they con
sidered a disgrace to the position.
Also, though not viable. Green
Party representative Ralph Nader
was a contestant in the race and
drew a number of crucial votes
away from Al Gore. Bush was also
facing a candidate widely consid
ered as exciting as a piece of furni
ture. Despite all of that, it was still
a close election. This time around,
Bush has none of those advantages
working in his favor. The left has
built up a residual disdain for Bush,
a president who many have claimed
is “illegitimate” in the first place.
There is no doubt that they will
turnout in November. What is
doubtful is that Bush’s gamble to
move center has won a single
Democrat over to his side.
There are only two ways in
which the conservative base that
Bush needs to win the election is
going to come to the polls: either a
genuine excitement for voting Bush
in another term, or a genuine fear of
the Democrat opponent Bush will
face. With Howard Dean and Al
Sharpton only performing marginal
ly in the primaries, it appears as if
the most fear-invoking Democrats
will not be in the running. This
means Bush is going to have to
motivate his base on his own.
Perhaps larger than Bush’s costly
domestic policies would be the dam
age done to national security if one
of the Democratic candidates were
to win the presidency. This is all the
more reason that Bush needs to do
all he can to win. This means danc
ing with those who brought him to
the presidency: conservatives.
Endangered species are
protected for a reason
In response to Mike Walters’ Feb. 12
column:
Thank you Mike Walters for finally point
ing out that we’re spending far too many
resources protecting silly old nature, as if
it were important.
I mean, the orca whales, who cares,
right? And that’s just the beginning.
After all, isn’t the entire endangered
species list just a way to waste tax dollars
protecting species that are simply too
weak to survive on their own (the bald
eagle, for instance).
Or hunting limits, if we’d stop wasting
resources on protecting the rights of
game and just set the hunters loose, we
could get rid of those bothersome deer,
moose, birds, etc. almost as fast as we
wiped out those pesky bison.
And then there are all these regula
tions about clean air and water that
industries have to meet. Don’t the politi
cians understand that if we just let man
ufacturers pollute as much as they want,
they could provide air filtration masks
and water purifiers at a fraction of cur
rent costs, making clean air and water
completely unnecessary.
Recycling is another issue that just con
tinues to frustrate me. Sorting through
garbage is for bums and crack-heads, not
for decent Americans like you and me,
who can easily just dig more up or chop
more down, at least until it runs out (not in
my lifetime, so who cares).
This country just spends way to much
time worrying about the environment, I
mean, just because it sustains us and all
doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to
exploit it. And these orcas are just the
icing on the cake, interrupting our fishing
over some stupid whales.
I mean, I guess if you really thought
about it, you might decide that if the
orcas went extinct, the species that
make up their food source would multi
ply uncontrollably. Then, I guess that
would choke out other species and real
ly screw up the ecosystem in that whole
part of the ocean.
So if you really look ahead, I guess that
would probably do far more damage to
the fishing industry in the Puget Sound
Wea than some new regulations to pro
tect the orcas, but that’s just too much
thinking for me. Let’s kill the whales now
and we can worry about all that ecology
mumbo-jumbo later.
Robert Deegan
Class of 2003
Correction
A Feb. 11 column and headline mis
takenly referred to the “morning after
pill” as the RU486 pill. These are two
separate forms of birth control.
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£J «C C«*-
Matthew Maddox is a senior
management major.