The Case for a Pre-Emptive Strike on Iraq

Did Vice President Dick Cheney make the case for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq?

That depends on how seriously you take the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th.

I spoke to a friend of mine last night who said Mohammad Atta's plot of 9/11 was a fluke that could not be repeated, and that we shouldn't attack Iraq — a country, in his words, which has never done anything to us.

My friend is a very smart man, but he just doesn't take seriously the possibility that the events of Sept. 11 could repeat themselves. He thinks it was a one-time event and that now, it's over.

I don't. I think Usama bin Laden is or was a part of an axis of hate — an axis made up of Middle Eastern Muslim leaders who hate America for the power it has. A group that hates the fact that it doesn't have a competing superpower to play against us, or give them shelter from us.

They hate us because we are — in the odd description of Tom Delay a week ago — not just a super power, but a super-duper power. (I did say it was an odd phrase.)

So did Saddam Hussein team up with bin Laden to pull off Sept. 11?

I think so, because Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent before the attacks.

Do you have to believe in that link to justify an attack on Iraq?

You have to believe Saddam is trying to build a nuke, and you have to believe he would use it here.

That's My Word.

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