President Bush addressed the nation Tuesday night in an attempt to explain to the country why the United States should stay the course in Iraq. In his speech from Fort Bragg, Bush offered nothing new. He basically rehashed the same reasons that he has cited for the past year ever since he was forced to admit there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, he continued to make an improper link between the September 11 attacks and the American invasion of Iraq.
The attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were not linked to the regime of Saddam Hussein in any way. Mr. Bush did not claim there was any link until after no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Osama bin Laden remains on the loose and the United States seems no closer to capturing the man most responsible for the September 11 attacks. Once the president realized that he could not justify the invasion of Iraq on WMD, he began to claim the presence of 'terrorists' was the reason for the invasion. The president then began to improperly link Iraq and the Al-Qaeda attacks of September 11 as his 'justification' for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Unfortunately for the United States, Bush's views are oversimplified in many ways. The president called Iraq a breeding ground for jihadists and terrorists, both foreign and native Iraqi. However, there is no evidence that Iraq was such a place before the poorly executed American invasion of Iraq and the rise of the insurgency to oppose it.
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a horrible dictatorship, but there was no evidence that international terror organizations were based there or training operatives there. They had Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories among the many places they could and did recruit and train terrorists.
While there is some evidence that Saddam had been funding terrorist groups there were other regimes that spend more money funding terrorists than Saddam ever did. Saddam did give money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, for example, but there has never been any evidence that he or his government supported Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda. In fact, there were plenty of regimes in the Middle East and throughout the world that gave more support to terrorist groups than Iraq did and many of them were or are considered American allies.
Unfortunately, the link between al-Qaeda and terrorists in Iraq was not forged until after the American invasion. Due to tribal and familial disagreements, the Arab world is often divided and fights internally. The terrorist world, even just the terrorists in the Muslim world are far from a monolith. Various groups have different ideologies and do not agree with each other. In fact, they often hate and oppose each other almost as vehemently as they claim to hate the United States and the West. The invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies gave the jihadists something they desperately needed to strengthen themselves and overlook their differences: a common enemy in their own backyard.
Mr. Bush also highlighted some of the many atrocities committed by the insurgents in Iraq. Such as suicide bombings and other actions that resulted in the death of innocent civilians, women and children. While all of these stories are horrible and true they still do not justify the invasion of Iraq. If they did, the United States would have invaded Sudan, Chechnya, Liberia, the Philippines and countless other nations where deadly attacks regularly take place and innocent lives are lost.
The president told the American people, 'This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy.' He then added, 'Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.'
That may be true, but it is only true now, after the president committed American troops without proper justification or reason. Furthermore, such rhetoric can be used to justify an attack on any nation anywhere in the world at any time and sets a dangerous precedent for our future.
The president left the door open to more American troops being sent to Iraq. He said if the commanders in the field requested more troops, he would send them. Unfortunately, the additional troops were needed at the beginning of the war, when America first invaded Iraq. Had more troops been available then, the insurgency which continues to fight and kill Americans would never have been so strong or emboldened.
President Bush indicated that withdrawing troops from Iraq now or even setting an exit date now would be a big mistake and would only aid our enemies. On this, Mr. Bush is correct. Unfortunately, he is only right about that now because of the numerous mistakes he and his administration made in getting the country into this unnecessary war in the first place and his poor planning and execution of the invasion and its aftermath.
If we cannot win the hearts and minds of the majority of Iraqis, the war is likely futile as the Iraqis are certainly not planning on leaving Iraq this year, next year or ever. International terrorists have joined in the fight against the United States and its allies in Iraq. The stakes are higher. They should not have been, but they are.
Now, the United States is faced with a difficult situation. We have committed ourselves to a conflict in Iraq which will inevitably be lengthy and will continue to cost American lives and American taxpayers' money. There is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. And rest assured, once the war in Iraq is over, the terrorists will just move on to Syria, or Lebanon or some other country that is either sympathetic to their cause or too weak to kick them out. Now, we have to stay the course. It will be grim, bloody and lengthy as war usually is. One can only hope that in future generations, we can look back at the sacrifices made by the young men and women who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and say it was worth their blood, sweat and tears.
