Gary Hart - So, we weren’t told the costs and the reasons for the war have disappeared.

Hart's Blog -- A few weeks back, when were marching to war in Iraq, I said we should not go to war until President Bush answered four questions: what other nations will contribute sizeable military forces?; what are the casualty estimates?; how long will our military remain in Iraq?; and how much will the entire operation cost? These questions were never answered. And war supporters seemed not to care.

Saddam Hussein represented a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. He was trying to get uranium from Niger to complete his advanced nuclear weapons development program. He possessed “tons and tons” of biological and chemical weapons. He was nearing the time when he could deliver this elaborate arsenal in less than an hour. Saddam had close ties with al Qaida and an Iraq invasion was a major step in the war on terrorism. Except....

...except, none of this, at least six months later, is true. There was no uranium purchase program. There were no delivery systems. And we cannot find the “tons and tons” of weapons of mass destruction. No evidence connecting Saddam Hussein with al Qaida has been produced. So, we weren’t told the costs and the reasons for the war have disappeared. Instead, what we have is: “He was a bad guy, and we got rid of him” (except we didn’t). I find no precedent in American history to justify war on this basis.

Surely there was more to it than this. We are told that oil had nothing to do with it. That may–or may not–be true. We are told that we have no long term ambitions to restructure the Middle East and the wider Arab world to our liking. This may–or may not–be true. Sooner or later, we will find out what this is all about. One thing is certain: the White House hopes we don’t find out before November, 2004.

Meanwhile, what happened to the vaunted “war on terrorism”? No Osama bin Laden, “dead or alive”. Almost two years after 9.11 our States and cities are not prepared for the next attack. The suddenly silent John Ashcroft is managing to make more and more Americans nervous. The CIA has, once again, been made the fall guy for an administration’s excesses. George Tenet accepts responsibility for not taking key words out of a presidential speech? That’s not the question. The question is: Who put those words in?

The American people have given the Bush administration great leeway to combat terrorism. So far they have given the President the benefit of the doubt. But our tolerance is being strained and our credulity sorely tested. I sense we’re reaching the “tipping point” where it all starts going south.