The president of the United States insisted that ‘we have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein. Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.’

If you believe that these are the words of President George W. Bush – you’d be wrong. These words were spoken by President Bill Clinton on February 18, 1998.

In light of statements being made by David Kay, former chief US weapons investigator, it seems that President Bush was just as ‘almost all wrong’ as President Clinton in assessing the intelligence given to him.

The howling ‘Bush-is-a-liar’ crowd is having a political orgasm over the thought this could lead to political capital in an election year.

How can Democrats do this? Even after Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, former Vice President Al Gore, and Democratic presidential-nominee front-runner John Kerry all stated publicly that Saddam was a threat to national and global security? What has changed since then?

Simply put: politics.

But as Democrats begin to drool, all Bush needs to do is recycle the statements of his Democratic predecessors. The ones made and embraced by the very Democrats that now accuse Bush of misleading the country.

This war was right and proper. The supposed fact that weapons of mass destruction may not be found changes very little. Many never believed that the case for toppling Saddam depended primarily on finding them.

Saddam was a homicidal dictator who ruled with unrestrained brutality, killing hundreds of thousands with biological and chemical weapons. Saddam was a threat to his neighbors and provided safe haven to international terrorists.

But above all else – September 11. The significance of that day made clear that we will not have peace until the radical theocracy and fascism that plagues much of the Middle East is confronted and crushed. The Middle East needs to be nurtured to a stable state of democracy.

Bush understands what his predecessors did not: The U.S. must stay on the offensive and fight the evil of terror until it is defeated.

Christopher N. Malagisi a graduate in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Email him at cnmalagi@maxwell.syr.edu.

Published on February 9, 2004 at 12:00 pm