-Caveat Lector- http://www.townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/sc20021219.shtml
QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEW townhall.com Steve Chapman (back to story) December 19, 2002 Bush's exercise in missing the point George W. Bush is the first president with a master's in business administration, and somewhere along the line he mastered the art of marketing. Judging from his handling of national security issues, he could sell MTV to the Amish. For the last year, the administration has used Sept. 11 as an excuse for going to war against Iraq, which makes about as much sense as using a fire extinguisher to battle a flood. But sensible or not, his pitch has worked. An October poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 66 percent of Americans think Saddam Hussein played a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They believe this in spite of the fact that our intelligence agencies say there was no connection. Reports of a meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence officer and lead hijacker Mohammed Atta turned out to be groundless. Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst whose book, "The Threatening Storm," makes the case for invading Iraq, is honest enough to state plainly that Saddam Hussein "was not involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." But last week, after months of fruitless efforts to tie the terrorism can to Hussein's tail, someone in the administration managed to sell The Washington Post a story that Iraq recently shipped nerve gas to al Qaeda. This is hard to believe on its face -- since it assumes that Hussein would shun cooperation with al Qaeda until the moment when the world's attention is fixed on him and he is most likely to be caught. Even the Post's sources admitted that the information was "open to interpretation" and "not backed by definitive evidence." Once the Post story broke, an unidentified U.S. intelligence official interviewed by The Financial Times dismissed it: "I can't give you any morsel of information that supports this." For this puff of vapor, we're going to war? Well, no. We're going to war regardless. But the administration figures if it offers enough reasons to go after Saddam Hussein, people won't notice that none of them is convincing. A hundred times zero is zero in math, but in politics, nothing piled on nothing can eventually add up to something. The president has shown a consistent knack for turning chicken feathers into chicken salad. This week, he announced the deployment of a ballistic missile defense that is supposed to protect the American people from attack. "September 11, 2001, underscored that our nation faces unprecedented threats," he said by way of justifying this venture. He's right, of course. And he'd be right if he pointed out that the tornadoes that killed 36 people from Louisiana to Pennsylvania last month illustrated our vulnerability to extreme weather. This system of interceptors is as relevant to tornadoes as it is to al Qaeda. Sept. 11 illustrated terrible dangers -- which missile defense does nothing to address. The attacks proved how much damage terrorists (or enemy governments) can inflict without intercontinental ballistic missiles. If they want to detonate a bomb on American soil, they'd find it much easier to transport it by airplane, boat, truck or suitcase than to build an expensive and highly visible long-distance delivery system. They'd also find it safer, since a missile, unlike a suicide bomber, can easily be traced back to its source. The real danger we face is that these violent fanatics, who have done so much damage with low- tech methods, may acquire far more destructive weapons -- biological, chemical or nuclear. But missile defense, which does not promise to be cheap, will only drain resources from that fight. A war with Iraq won't help either. In fact, it could be the best thing that ever happened to al Qaeda. In the first place, it will divert American troops and attention away from the main threat to a peripheral one. In the second place, it will create chaos on the ground in Iraq. As Saddam Hussein's regime loses control of the country, a lot of military officers who have custody of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons will have the chance to get rich selling them to the highest bidder -- who just might be named Osama bin Laden. Bush claims his approach to Iraq and missile defense will make us safer against the "unprecedented threats" we so painfully discovered 15 months ago. But suppose we had toppled Saddam Hussein in 1991 and built a foolproof missile defense years ago. How many lives would have been saved on Sept. 11? None. What good will these efforts do to avert the next attack? You can guess. ©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Contact Steve Chapman | Read his biography townhall.com QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEW <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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