Okay, so you already knew that. But if you needed more evidence, there’s this gem in the Des Moines Register:
The relatively quick fall of Baghdad shows that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a “paper tiger” rather than a major threat to world peace, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said Thursday.
“What we were told and what you saw in the press last fall and earlier this year is that he had a massive war machine,” said Harkin, the most outspoken critic of the war in Iraq among members of the Iowa congressional delegation.
“It looks now like this was just a Third World country – there were people fighting with tennis shoes on, on the Iraqi side,” Harkin told reporters. “I don’t know what else we’re going to find, but they didn’t fly even one airplane in the air. They had almost nothing.
“So if they were that weak, where we could just roll over them like that, tell me again how he was such a big threat in the past?” the senator added.
Nobody ever said Saddam had a great conventional force and was going to come invade us. The problem was the possession of WMD, the intent to use same, and the intent coupled with demonstrated ability to acquire more of same to include nucs. The whole point of preemption was to take him on at a time and place of our choosing rather than wait for him to attack us at a time and place of his choosing. Or did I miss something?
(Hat tip: Stephen Green)
