"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa."
Does anyone really believe anything would be different if President Bush had never uttered those 16 words in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28?
By then, Bush had all he needed to lead the nation into a war with Iraq. The United Nations Security Council had voted in December to hold Iraq in violation of its disarmament orders. Both houses of the U.S. Congress had folded and approved war resolutions in October with little serious debate. There was a consensus among U.S. and allied intelligence agencies that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. The debate at the time centered on Bush's "rush to war" - whether U.N. weapons inspectors should be given more time to search for weapons of mass destruction, not on whether Saddam Hussein had them. Even opponents of the war assumed he did.
So why have Washington and, especially, the prowar Democratic presidential candidates, gone bonkers over Bush's 16 words? Democrats are calling for congressional hearings on whether Bush led the nation to war under false pretenses. Who can blame them? For the first time President Bush is on the defensive, and on national security, of all things. Until recently, the president had seemed untouchable on that issue. But now Democrats have found a gap in his armor - his credibility at home and abroad, coupled with the postwar mess in Iraq where U.S. soldiers suddenly find themselves in a guerrilla war. If nothing else, it provides the prowar Democratic presidential candidates - Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts, John Edwards of North Carolina and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri - an opportunity to try to make amends with antiwar Democratic activists.
Bush brought it all on himself, and his passing reference to that disputed British intelligence nugget was the least of his mistakes. The White House now says that line should never have made it into the president's State of the Union address. The CIA has been unable to verify the British report, which was in part based on forged documents, and persuaded the White House to drop any reference to it in a speech the president made in October. The mystery now is how it found its way into the State of the Union address three months later. The White House has some explaining to do if it is to repair its credibility.
The Niger-uranium story is not the only questionable part of the administration's case for war. Administration officials didn't have to politicize and hype the intelligence information on the Iraqi threat, but they did. They didn't have to try to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida terrorists without credible evidence, but they did. They didn't have to try to make it appear that Iraq was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, but they did. They didn't have to portray Iraq as an imminent threat when, as it now appears, it wasn't, but they did.
The Democrats who supported the war also have some explaining to do. They want to have it both ways - complaining that they were given faulty or misleading information from the administration but insisting that they stand by their votes. According to a Washington Post story, John Kerry has escalated his criticisms of Bush's prewar claims about the threat Iraq posed and his handling of the U.S. occupation. But Kerry does not regret his vote for regime change: "I have no question about the decision I made." Dick Gephardt said the nuclear arguments had nothing to do with his vote for the pre-emptive war, but now he's calling for a congressional investigation of Bush's prewar claim that Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons. Joe Lieberman also wants an investigation but insists he had all the information he needed to support the war when he cast his vote.
They seem to be saying all the things they're hammering Bush on would have been irrelevant to their votes for war. They may have a point.
After all, most of the questionable arguments for going to war - Iraq's alleged link to al-Qaida, its efforts to procure African uranium, among others - had been widely disputed before the war. So what's new? What was not widely disputed at the time was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them - a conclusion shared by former President Bill Clinton.
The Democrats, meanwhile, found themselves in an awkward situation last week. Tony Blair, one of their favorite liberals, was in Washington to address Congress, where he received a rousing welcome, and provide the president with political cover on Iraq. The British prime minister, who is taking a political pounding back home where he is accused of being Bush's partner in deception, stood by his man - and by the British intelligence information Bush probably wishes he had never heard of.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Bush at a White House news conference, Blair said in response to a question: "The British intelligence that we have we believe is genuine. We stand by that intelligence."
So how do Democrats get off bashing George W. Bush and cheering Tony Blair, both of whom stand accused - Bush in Congress and Blair in the House of Commons - of misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq?
Blair must envy Bush. The prime minister's life would be a lot easier these days if his own critics were as incoherent as the Democratic contortionists in Washington.
