There has been a good deal of complaining from some quarters, most notably the news media, about the U.S.-led coalition’s policy in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Some are even arguing that the U.S. and its allies had no reason for acting as they did. So it is worth remembering that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed chemical and biological weapons. The United Nations Security Council passed more than a dozen resolutions demanding that the dictator reveal and destroy these prohibited weapons.
A final U-N Security Council resolution promised serious consequences if Saddam Hussein refused, which he did. And that, said President George W. Bush, is why Saddam Hussein was removed from power in Iraq:
“Acting together, the United States, Great Britain, and our coalition partners enforced the demands of the world. We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. We rid the Middle East of an aggressive destabilizing regime. We liberated nearly twenty-five million people from decades of oppression.”
Now the coalition is facing remnants of the fallen regime and other extremists. They target progress and success. They strike at local Iraqi leaders and at police officers who have been trained to enforce order. They sabotage Iraqi power grids. “These killers,” said President Bush, “are the enemies of Iraq’s people”:
“They operate mainly in a few areas of the country. And wherever they operate, they are being hunted, and they will be defeated.”
On July 22nd, the evil careers of Uday and Qusay Hussein came to an end in a shootout with coalition forces in Mosul. They were two of the old regime’s “chief henchmen,” said Mr. Bush:
“Saddam Hussein’s sons were responsible for torture, maiming, and murder of countless Iraqis. Now, more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back.”
“The creation of a strong and stable Iraqi democracy is not easy,” said President Bush. “But it’s an essential part of the war against terror. A free Iraq will be an example to the entire Middle East, and the advance of liberty in the Middle East will undermine the ideologies of terror and hatred.”
