Believe it or not, President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry actually have something in common. No, this is not a joke, and this commonality goes beyond their widely known association with the secret “Skulls” society at Yale University. You can call it a concocted “Skull” conspiracy, or just a rare glimmer of sensibility on the part of Kerry, but when it comes to Saddam Hussein threatening the United States with weapons of mass destruction, Bush and Kerry are in undeniable agreement. In fact, as early as 1997, while Bush was still governor of Texas, Kerry was on the Senate floor, adamantly warning Americans about the grave threat Saddam Hussein and his WMD capabilities posed to the United States. Don’t believe me? I’ll let Kerry’s congressional record do the talking.
Let’s begin with Kerry’s following statements on Nov. 9, 1997, from the Senate floor: “Saddam Hussein cannot be permitted to go unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a matter about whether there should be any debate whatsoever in the Security Council or, certainly, in this nation.”
On Oct. 9, 2002, he said, “I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his (Saddam Hussein’s) hands is a real and grave threat to our security.” And on Jan. 23, 2003, he said, “Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein … so the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.”
It gets even better. Not only was Kerry utterly convinced that the Iraqi regime had WMD capabilities and was actively pursuing such weapons; he also stressed the importance of utilizing unilateral force, if necessary, to remove Hussein. This coming from the man who claims Bush has run “the most arrogant, reckless … foreign policy in our modern history” and tirelessly attacks the president for working in supposed defiance of international law. Here are John Kerry’s apparently “reckless” and “arrogant” beliefs from a speech on Nov. 9, 1997, regarding the use of American military force in Iraq: “While we should always seek to take actions on a multilateral basis … whenever that is possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a grave threat to the well-being of our nation and it cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise.”
All of these statements from the “old” Clinton-cuddling John Kerry stand in stark contrast to those of the “new” politically expedient John Kerry – and I’m not referring to the alleged Botox job. The John Kerry of 2004 subscribes to the outrageously absurd Ted Kennedy “Texas” rationale for the Iraqi war. Like Kennedy, Kerry incessantly claims that Bush “misled” the country into war, based on “questionable” intelligence, all with the Machiavellian intention of securing political power. Yet you would never recognize John Kerry’s “new,” contemptuous opposition to the war and severe criticism of Bush’s interpretation of intelligence, for he vigorously supported this same intelligence and this same war as recently as January 2003. Given Mr. Kerry’s blatant “flip-flop” on one of the most important issues of our time, voters must ask themselves if a man who cares more about polls then good policy is ready to “stay the course” against fanatical Islamic terrorists intent on America’s destruction.
If the Democrats really want to know “what went wrong” with pre-Iraqi war intelligence, they can start by asking John Kerry. In Mr. Kerry’s defense, I believe that – for once – his assessment was correct: Saddam Hussein was a grave and gathering threat, and American security depended on his removal.
-The writer, a freshman majoring in political science, is a Hatchet columnist.
