It happened again. A Republican Presidential candidate was
not prepared to answer this simple question: Knowing what we know now, would
you still Invade Iraq? This time it was Marco Rubio on a Sunday talk show who
stumbled over his own tongue trying to dance around the question that every
Republican candidate should have known they were going to be asked. Are they
really that stupid? Really?
What’s interesting about the critiques of both Rubio and
Bush’s inept handling of the question is the fact that writer’s keep focusing
on the weapons of mass destruction issue, but fail to mention that the original
argument for invading Iraq was its supposed ties to al Qaeda and terrorism in
the Middle East. When that argument began to weaken (although it was still being
peddled by Colin Powell when he addressed the UN) the emphasis was switched to
the supposed WMDs that, of course, never materialized.
Even the bumbling Bush administration knew there had to be
some kind of tie to terrorism to get support for attacking Iraq, and Bush and
Cheney (and Judith miller) enthusiastically championed a number of stories they
claimed connected Saddam Hussein to terrorists, all of which turned out to be
false. It’s an important part of the “what we know now” question that is getting
little attention.
The whole Iraq war question should raise huge red flags for
anyone thinking they might vote for a Republican, but it will have little impact
on wealthy Republican supporters. They could care less what the candidates say
or do, as long as they believe the winner will do their bidding.
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