President Bush blitzed a nationwide audience tonight that was prepared to watch Family Guy with a speech on the success of this week's Iraq election. He forced his critics to pay attention, including those who only get their news from the Mainstream Media.
As a war critic I didn't expect to be impressed or get anything more than the "we must win" mantra, but this was an impressive speech and I was caught off guard by the following part (the entire speech here):
From this office, nearly three years ago, I announced the start of military operations in Iraq. Our Coalition confronted a regime that defied United Nations Security Council Resolutions ... violated a cease-fire agreement ... sponsored terrorism ... and possessed, we believed, weapons of mass destruction. After the swift fall of Baghdad, we found mass graves filled by a dictator ... we found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction ... but we did not find those weapons.Two things: First, it was good of the president to outline the importance of the war beyond the weapons of mass destruction claim. Too many people are calling the war a "failure" simply because we didn’t find any weapons.
It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of UN weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. And as your President, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.
Second, Bush took responsibility for going to war and understands the sacrifices that were made, and is prepared to see more until the war on terror is complete.
The only question that still remains is when. When, Mr. President, will the war be won?
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