As most of you now know, a number of days ago, Democrats in the Senate used a rare procedure to shut down the Senate for a closed session regarding pre-war intel on Iraq.
Apparently, Democrats finally decided to put their memo on using Iraq war intelligence for political gain later into play. Well, I have three words: Bring it on. We will go all the way back and make our case to war.
To help out all you CAARs out there, I have decided to offer you a well-researched, sourced fact sheet that gives you responses to those against the war. I hope it reminds you of why we support this war and why we must continue the fight for Iraq. Some of these arguments are rarely, if ever, used anymore, but it helps even to expose these arguments, as it proves that liberals will find any excuse they can to avoid war. The arguments are in no specific order. If you don't like that.... I don't care.
Argument 1: We have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as proven by the CIA Duelfer Report.
Response: Funny how liberals love to mention this, but seemingly manage to always brush off this little gem from the report:
ISG judges, based on available chemicals, infrastructure, and scientist debriefings, that Iraq at OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] probably had a capability to produce large quantities of sulfur mustard [a.k.a. mustard gas] within three to six months.
And elsewhere:
ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.
[...]
The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN.
Even if we have not found stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, it is without question that they were a. going to have them very soon and b. they were several suspicious activities taking place that were not reported to the U.N.
Argument 2 (builds off of the first a bit, and is not used as often anymore): North Korea, with its nuclear weapons, are a more significant threat than Iraq.
Response: Indeed, shortly before war on Iraq began, with our startling revelation that North Korea had betrayed the U.S. by secretly developing its nuclear capability, all of America was shocked. But liberals, in their abundant wisdom, used this as a way to deter war in Iraq:
You don't have to have a Ph.D. in foreign relations to understand that North Korea poses a greater danger to the United States than Iraq.
...[North Korea] may very well have two nuclear weapons. We don't have to get into that. But there is no question that they're going to be producing weapons-grade plutonium, which can be made into nuclear weapons within the next few weeks... We don't need another review. We don't need another study. We know that they've done that. Why isn't that a crisis? [George Tenet] refuse[s] to call it a crisis. Why isn't that a crisis?
[O]ur principal focus and attention today ought to be what is happening in North Korea. North Korea has produced nuclear weapons. It has a missile that can reach the United States. We ought to be talking to a North Korea that has nuclear weapons rather than going to war with Iraq that does not.
What these morons and the rest of the loony-tune-left fails to comprehend is a basic, logical approach ( though to their benefit, that's never been liberals' biggest area of expertise.) Here, America had been hoodwinked by North Korea (due mostly to an almost laughably idiotic "peace agreement" proposed by Bill Clinton in 1994), and, instead of learning a lesson, liberals insisted that we make the same mistake again. America dealt with the crazies in North Korea. In turn, North Korea constructed a terrifying WMD program behind our backs. Iraq was working to construct a WMD program. But instead of taking note and preventing Iraq from becoming the same mess that North Korea was, liberals said that North Korea was the real threat. That's the only way liberals will feign support for a war: When we have weapons aimed right at us. Liberals don't believe in preventing America from having to endure a face-to-face showdown.
Unsurprisingly, Ted Kennedy already knew the outcome of only attacking the immediate threat and never keeping in mind the future threat. In 2001, Ted Kennedy would be found criticizing Bush's nominee for Asst. Sec. of Defense because the Secretary was not particularly fond of Clinton's 1994 peace deal. Kennedy said (requires registration) that we could not take a harsher action, for it would be "dangerously provocative to a nation that already fears aggression from the United States and South Korea."
...I think he may regret that statement now.
....or even worse, maybe not....
We cannot wait until threats grow to the point of face-to-face. We must eliminate them prematurely.
Argument 3: The number of civilian casualties, at 100,000, has made this war far too bloody to ever be justified.
Response: Actually, that number is not credible at all. The number, from the publication Lancet, has an enormous margin of error and is based on sloppy facts.
First off, the MOE is a pathetic "could be as low as 8,000, or as high as 194,000." Second, it was based on faulty methods. Richard Miniter claims: "When I investigated the 100,000 dead-civilians claim, I was surprised at how quickly it fell apart. The 100,000 figure is based on a single study in a British medical journal published just days before the 2004 elections. The authors were open about their anti-Bush bias. They got the 100,000 by knocking on doors in 33 neighborhoods across Iraq. They simply asked Iraqis how many civilian deaths they knew about. They did not take any steps to avoid double counting. They didn't demand any proof, such as a funeral notice or a newspaper clipping. Instead they decided to just trust Iraqis to give them straight dope. So if you interview Baghdad Bob you know what kind of answers you're going to get. In that chapter, I also uncovered four other major technical flaws with that study."
There have been more official studies, but ultimately even those cannot be entirely trusted. Civilian death counts in a place like Iraq are severely difficult to accurately represent.
Argument 4: The war in Iraq has created terrorists.
Response: Money created thieves.