I’d like to begin with some words from our President:

“The Government of Iraq crossed a new threshold of noncompliance… when it repeatedly blocked attempts by U.N. weapons inspectors to enter certain Iraqi government facilities. The investigators from the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM)… believe Iraq may be hiding information on its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.”

This statement was not made by President Bush, but by President Clinton in a 1996 letter to Congress. This shows that Bush did not create Iraq as a threat. It has been one for some time. Furthermore, this quote negates the idea that further negotiations would have helped. People complain that we should have “given peace a chance” but peace was given a chance for 12 years. Since 1991, the UN had been making resolutions trying to force Saddam Hussein to destroy weapons of mass destruction. In July of 1991, UN weapons inspectors report that Iraq has concealed much of its nuclear and chemical weapons programs. In 1997, The UN disarmament commission concluded that Iraq has continued to conceal information on biological and chemical weapons and missiles. In 1998, Iraq suspended all cooperation with the UN inspectors and continued to impede the UN inspection team, demanding that sanctions be lifted. Iraq finally agreed to unconditional cooperation with the UN inspectors but by a month later in December of 1998, chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler reports that Iraq has not lived up to its promise.

So as you can see, the negotiations were not exactly making much progress. Our choices were to continue with this useless rhetoric against Iraq, or actually do something about the regime. Personally, I would choose to do something about the danger of Saddam Hussein’s regime. That’s what the War in Iraq was supposed to do. I know you all are probably saying, “But there were no WMDs, Bush was lying!” However, a lie is a purposeful falsehood. If you are saying what you believe to be true, and it turns out to be wrong, that is not a lie. So at the very most, President Bush could be mistaken, but could not have been lying.

It’s certainly debatable whether there were WMD or not. Although we have not found viable WMD’s, we have found evidence that Iraq was not following disarmament policies. For instance, 500 weapons munitions containing degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent were found in Iraq since 2003. So although these may not be completely effective, they prove that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said he had destroyed all weapons. Moreover, it shows how easily the inspections could miss weapons, if they missed 500 of them. Remember, weapons of mass destruction don’t have to be of mass proportion and Iraq is about the size of California, so it is not difficult to hide weapons. Thus, to say that there are no WMD in Iraq at all is an incredible assumption.

Furthermore, even if it could be proven that there are no weapons of mass destruction at all in Iraq now, that does not prove they never existed. Iraq had a long time period to get rid of its weapon systems before the United States entered. In fact, one of Hussein’s former military leaders, General Georges Sada, states that he knows for sure that Hussein transferred his WMD to Syria. Furthermore, if Iraq never had WMD, then why did Saddam’s regime refuse to go along with the UN resolutions?

Another issue to be addressed is the connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorist organizations. People have greatly misinterpreted the fact that Hussein had no OFFICIAL ties with Al Qaeda to mean that he had no relations with Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. However, this could not be more untrue. Saddam had supported terrorism to such an extent that he had terrorism training camps. The former regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion. Furthermore, there have been non-official relations between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Evan Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana who sits on the Intelligence Committee, told the Weekly Standard, “the relationship seemed to have its roots in mutual exploitation. Saddam Hussein used terrorism for his own ends, and Osama bin Laden used a nation-state for the things that only a nation-state can provide.”

Lastly, I’d like to talk about the situation in Iraq now. People have called Iraq a quagmire and some say that it will never improve. This is untrue. According to the report to Congress by General Petraeus, civilian deaths have also declined considerably, by over 45% Iraq-wide since the height of the sectarian violence in December. In Baghdad, the decline was by 70%. The number of ethno-sectarian deaths has also declined significantly since the height of the sectarian violence in December. Iraq-wide, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths has come down by over 55%, In Baghdad, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths has come down by some 80% since December.

Obviously, progress is being made. I find it ironic that the very people who can wait for 12 years for Iraq to submit to disarmament cannot wait 5 years to create a new government. If we pull out now, according to the findings of a 16 August Defense Intelligence Agency report, it would produce a number of dangerous results, including a high risk of disintegration of the Iraqi Security Forces; Al Qaeda-Iraq regaining lost ground; and a marked increase in violence.