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FLASHBACK: Who Started That Story About Iraq, WMDs, And Al Qaeda? That’s Right, Bill Clinton.
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| Frmr. President Bill Clinton |
Ok, let’s stipulate up front: the Bush administration owns the invasion of Iraq and everything that happened because of it up through 2009. (I do not believe new presidents inherit all responsibility on Inauguration Day; there is a grace period. President Obama’s expired about three years ago, but leave that argument for another day.) When Megyn Kelley is pantsing former Vice President Dick Cheney on this, you know that even the conservatives have accepted at least that much.
On one thing, however, it’s important to set the record straight, and that’s the issue of “lies” about WMD, especially chemical weapons. It has now become pretty much the status of urban legend that no one was crazy enough to link Saddam Hussein to WMD and Al Qaeda terrorists until the Bush administration did it as a rationale — one of several — for the 2003 invasion. It makes for a great story, except for one problem.
It’s wrong.
What follows is adapted from my 2008 book on preventive war, Eve of Destruction. Let’s be clear: if I knew this in 2006 and 2007 when the book was undergoing edits at a top university press, then it wasn’t a secret. The fact of the matter is that Bill Clinton laid out the connection between Iraq, VX weapons, and Al Qaeda in 1998, and Clinton himself provided such a strong rationale for going to war against Hussein that the far left wasapeshit distressed at his turn toward warmongering.
If you really want to know why we didn’t have a major (or major enough) debate on going to war in 2003, you might consider the degree to which senior members of the Democratic Party over 15 years ago had already sold their souls to support Clinton’s bellicose rhetoric, and thus were going to have a hard time explaining why they were then retreating on their own death-to-Saddam stuff only five years later without looking nakedly partisan.
I think this is one of many places that Bill Clinton eviscerated the heart and soul of the Democratic Party through his “triangulations” and other compromises, actions that I as a conservative welcomed, but whose damage to our public life is only now really evident. Again, a debate for another day.
In the meantime, if you’re one of the people who burps up that line about Bush’s “lies” in 2003, I suggest you revisit 1998 for a moment. The except below can be found on pages 49-51 of the book.
Read the full story: www.tomnichols.net
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