Saddam---Not So Soft and Cuddly

A much-needed corrective to the liberal Big Lie that Saddam was up to nothing except international philanthropy and kite-flying on the eve of the Iraq War:

"I WOULD ALSO ARGUE that if Saddam Hussein were left in power, weapons of mass destruction or no, he would be now, if he were in power, trying to acquire those weapons and use them. Eventually the sanctions were eroding," said Sen. John McCain on Fox News following the president's speech Tuesday at Fort Bragg. The senator was responding to critics, such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Ted Kennedy, who opposed the decision to remove Hussein from power in 2003, and those like vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who is now apparently not sure if we should have toppled him. But the president and Sen. McCain believe otherwise. Furthermore, beyond the consequences of a Saddam still in power, the Arizona senator maintains that it's also important to "recall the facts as we knew them in March 2003."

On March 18, 2003, the day before ground forces entered Iraq, the president confronted a broad range of concerns regarding Saddam's weapons programs, his connections to terrorist organizations, his history of aggressive behavior, his use of poison gas, and his failure to comply with the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire agreement and subsequent U.N. resolutions.

American intelligence and other foreign governments concluded at the time that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Senior Clinton administration officials stated that the regime possessed stockpiles. Saddam has "stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country," declared former Vice President Al Gore on September 23, 2002. And even a month after the invasion Defense Secretary William

Cohen believed we would find weapons: "I am convinced that he has them. I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out. I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. We will find them."