Joe's Right About Iraq War

To his credit, Joe the Plumber actually cares about Iraq and understands its role in the larger War on Terror, "I'm not sorry that we're in Iraq ... what we've done over there is an incredible, incredible thing. Has it kept us safe? Absolutely."  Fantastic!  You Go Joe!

Joe's right to be proud of America's liberation of Iraq.

Unlike Joe, Obama and the Democrats continue to bad mouth America and our liberation of Iraq.  If I hear Obama complain, one more time, we're worse off because of the Iraq War, I'll go ballistic.  Last night, at the last Presidential debate, McCain should have said looked Obama in the eye and asked,

Would you prefer that Saddam still rule Iraq?

Obama has said many times that the strategy of "containing" Saddam was working and had Bush not invaded Iraq, Saddam would have eventually been forced out (he doesn't say how) or more likely, contained and prevented from threatening the U.S.  Strategically, this is flawed thinking.  In addition, it is bad judgement about what was really happening. 

According to many reports, it is much more likely that the opposite is true - that Saddam would have convinced the U.N. to drop sanctions and the Oil for Food program entirely.   It is well documented that Saddam had promised many in the French, German and Russian governments financial incentives to support lifting sanctions and prevent a U.S. invasion.  That's why it was so hard to get Security Council cooperation for Operation Iraqi Freedom - most of the Security Council was bought and paid for.  In fact, I thought there was even allegations that British politicians may have been bribed.

So removing Saddam and his sons through sanctions and "tough diplomacy" is and was pure fantasy.  Bush, who was elected U.S. President responsible for the decisions he makes, could not engage in such fantasy but Obama could because he was just state senator at the time with absolutely no responsibility for decision making, running essentially unopposed.  But lets examine Obama's fantasy for a moment.

What if Saddam had been in charge since 2003?

A public health specialist at Columbia University, Richard Garfield, estimated there to be as many as 350,000 "excess deaths" or deaths in excess of normal infant mortality, in Saddam's Iraq from August 1991 and March 2002 or about 3,000 per month.  

Let me repeat, about 3,000 children per month died from malnutrition, and other preventable causes, while Saddam built several Presidential Palaces and monuments to himself and his sons.  These aren't just any palaces, they're 7 to 10 times the size of the White House or Buckingham Palace:

Again, 3,000 children per month, while Saddam was "contained" by the U.N.  That means...

Under Obama's plan, hundreds of thousands more Iraqi children would be dead.

Yes, Obama's plan would have saved over 4,000 U.S. soldiers their lives, and billions of dollars, but about 200,000 Iraqi children would be dead, thousands of young girls would have been raped by Saddam's sons and thousands of dissenters would have been tortured or disappeared in the night.

In addition:

• 23 million Iraqis would still be oppressed by a murderous dictator instead of free, voting and helping us with terrorism.
• Iraq and Iran would now be in an arms race.  If Saddam did not have WMDs, you can bet that, by now, he would have acquired them to counter Mahmoud's and Iran's aggression.
• Saddam would still be rewarding the families of suicide bombers ($25,000 each) for each successful mass-murder of Jewish Israelis.
• Saddam may have wiped out another Kurdish town with chemical weapons like he's done before.
• Instead of a free and democratic Iraq providing a model for how warring tribes can resolve their differences peacefully through the courts and the ballot box, Saddam's Iraq would reinforce the long-standing Middle East tradition that aggression is rewarded with power.
• If left in power, Saddam may have invaded Kuwait again or Saudi Arabia or Jordan.  If Obama thinks Saddam and his sons would have behaved over the last 5 years or the next eight, his judgement is even worse than I thought.

Contrary to Obama's constant lies about Bush creating a mess in the Middle East that the next President will have to clean up, Bush has actually made things much easier for the next President.  Does anyone believe al-Maliki will be a greater problem for U.S. than Saddam?  Does anyone believe Iran would have been less of a threat with Saddam next door for the last five and the next eight years?  Is it harder or easier to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without Saddam's payments to the families of suicide bombers?

The odds of a much wider Middle East war have gone down dramatically.  The "Arab street" has seen, for the first time in hundreds of years, Kurds, Sunni and Shia work together to solve their problems peacefully.  Of course, there is still violence and danger in Iraq but it is clearly on track to provide an inspiring example of democracy in the heart of the Middle East.  This will make it harder for Al Qaeda to recruit and retain members who will see for themselves that America removed a murderous dictator, helped Arabs stand up their own democracy and will leave in 2011 as friends and liberators - not imperialists, not Arab haters, not evil. 

Bush and McCain were right to liberate Iraq and win a key battle in the War on Terror.  

Obama was wrong to advocate that the U.S. allow Saddam to keep raping, torturing and murdering.