"The greatest position of strength is by exercising the best judgment in pursuit of diplomacy, not in some trumped-up so-called Coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted, but in a genuine coalition."
Mr. Diplomacy aka John Kerry, Des Moines Register, 03/09/03
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/20687439.html
The screaming headlines said it all:
“Report on Iraq arms undercuts president; no evidence of WMD, terror link” (Chicago Tribune, 10/7/04)
“Final Report: Iraq had no WMD’s; Findings show Saddam destroyed weapons stockpiles in ’91-‘92” (USA Today, 10/7/04)
“Inspector:Iraq made no WMD after 1991” (Chicago Sun-Times, 10/7/04)
Or did they?
Missing from the first several paragraphs of nearly every story, which were spared for the critical news that “contrary to President Bush,” and “contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1000 American lives,” and similar objective statements, was the information that Charles Duelfer’s report also alleges that the Iraqi government used the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food program to sock away billions of dollars to use to import illicit items and await the day when these funds could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction. He also used the proceeds of the ostensibly humanitarian program to bribe officials in various governments, including France and Russia. The New York Post reported (10/7/04), that approximately 30 percent of the bribe vouchers went to Russian companies and entities, approximately 15 percent to French entities, and 10 percent to Chinese concerns. The former head of the program, the U.N.’s Benon Sevan, stands accused of accepting over $1 million in bribes. This is the biggest scandal the world has ever seen.
I also noted with some interest that in their enthusiasm to bash the president, the mainstream media neglected to mention Mr. Duelfer’s conclusion that the sanctions against Saddam Hussein were in “free fall,” and that but for 9/11, they would not exist today. Of course not. The French, the Russians and Chinese were on the take, and they were specifically being paid for two things: to vote the right way in the Security Council and to weaken the sanctions.
During last Thursday night’s debate, Sen. Kerry said of President Bush “He also said Saddam Hussein would have been stronger. That is just factually incorrect. …We would have had sanctions. We would have had U.N. inspectors. Saddam Hussein would have been continually weakening.” As late as today, he persists in claiming that the sanctions would have worked.
Let’s connect some dots. Can Sen. Kerry seriously believe what he is saying? Now that Sen. Kerry’s universal savior the U.N. has been outed as what many of us have known for years it to be, a platform for anti-American dictators and a haven for terrorist-harboring hatemongers, a corrupt, worthless, self-important waste of time and energy, why does he persist in pretending that the Duelfer report has not exposed it once and for all? Now that we know that Saddam Hussein and Jacques Chirac were the ones who would grade the global test, how can anyone take this guy seriously?
Far from being proof of President Bush’s failures, the Duelfer report is a complete repudiation of Sen. Kerry’s foreign policy, and I hope that’s what the president will make clear tonight.