"The United
Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities,
so we will rise to ours."
President George Bush's persuasive March 17
speech has set the stage for the disarming and liberation of Iraq.
Bush soberly warned that this course is not without risks,
including an increased risk of terrorism against Americans, but
noted: "We are acting now because the risks of inaction would be
far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to
inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times
over."
The president repeated a theme he first
introduced in his historic West Point speech last June: the need to
preempt hostile regimes that possess weapons of mass destruction
and a history of inflicting terrorism. Last night Bush reiterated:
"...responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is
not self-defense, it is suicide." Therefore, "Instead of drifting
along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety."
Few doubt that the world will be a safer place
without Saddam Hussein, who aggressively has menaced the Middle
East region, invading three countries (Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi
Arabia); launched missiles at four others (Iran, Israel, Bahrain,
and Saudi Arabia); and supported terrorism against an unknown
number of innocent civilians, both inside Iraq and elsewhere.
But although there is considerable agreement
that Saddam's dictatorship is a threat that should be disarmed,
there recently has been considerable disagreement on how best to
accomplish that goal. Bush was frank about the dismal prospects for
disarmament through inspections: "Peaceful efforts to disarm the
Iraqi regime have failed again and again - because we are not
dealing with peaceful men." The simple fact is that U.N.
inspectors can not disarm what they can not find. Given the fact
that the Iraqis successfully have hidden huge amounts of nerve gas,
anthrax, and other assorted weapons from the inspectors for the
last twelve years, no American leader could complacently assume
that the inspectors could suddenly carry out their mission now
despite continued Iraqi defiance and deception.
Bush's speech appears to have had a
galvanizing effect on the American people. According to a
Washington Post-ABC poll taken immediately after the speech,
Americans have rallied strongly around President Bush and accepted
his call for war with Iraq as the only realistic means of disarming
and removing Saddam Hussein from power. Bush's call for war is
supported by 71 percent of Americans according to the poll. Nearly
two in three (64 percent) approve of the way that Bush is handling
the confrontation with Iraq, up from 55 percent last week.
Bush's speech also was aimed at Iraqis. Bush
told the Iraqi people: "If we must begin a military campaign, it
will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and
not against you." Moreover, he forcefully urged members of the
Iraqi military and intelligence services "do not fight for a dying
regime that is not worth your own life." And to deter
the use of chemical or biological weapons, he warned Saddam's
subordinates that: "War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals
will be punished." If Bush's speech is as persuasive for Iraqis as
it was for Americans, then many casualties can be avoided, on both
sides, in the coming war.