JOHN EDWARDS believes that words matter. Especially for those who would lead the nation during a time of war. He’s right.
So it was entirely appropriate that Edwards last week resurrected cautionary remarks Vice President Dick Cheney made about the dangers of governing a post-Saddam Iraq. In a Seattle speech, Cheney had worried aloud about a long-term troop presence in Iraq. He worried about American casualties. He even worried about getting “bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.”
When did these seemingly prescient words escape Cheney’s lips? More than 12 years ago, in August 1992.
Cheney, through a spokesman, acknowledged that his position has changed since he was secretary of defense discussing the aftermath of the first Gulf War. The vice president’s explanation for the change is not complicated: September 11, 2001.
“Senator Edwards is acting as if September 11 never happened. Americans and the entire world know that everything changed after September 11,” says Anne Womack, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign. “Senator Edwards seems not to have recognized that.”
But there was a time when Edwards did seem to recognize that September 11 changed everything. It came on September 12, 2002. And if Cheney’s words from 1992 are relevant, then so are the ones Edwards spoke on the Senate floor less than two years ago. Edwards, to his credit, warned of the “consequences of success” in Iraq and counseled the Bush administration to prepare for a postwar occupation. But as was typical then of Edwards’s public arguments in favor of removing Saddam Hussein, his rhetoric was perhaps even more hawkish than the words coming from the Bush administration.
“The time has come for decisive action,” he said, calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein a month before Congress voted to authorize the war and before the CIA produced its October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.
I believe that Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime represents a clear threat to the United States, to our allies, to our interests around the world, and to the values of freedom and democracy we hold dear. Saddam has proven his willingness to act irrationally and brutally against his neighbors and against his own people. Iraq’s destructive capacity has the potential to throw the entire Middle East into chaos, and poses a mortal threat to our vital ally, Israel.
What’s more, the terrorist threat against America is all too clear. Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam’s arsenal, and there is every possibility that he could turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of September 11th had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them. On September 12, 2002, we can hardly ignore the terrorist threat, and the serious danger that Saddam would allow his arsenal to be used in aid of terror [emphasis added].
Edwards was every bit as hawkish a month later, in an October 10, 2002, floor speech: “Almost no one disagrees with these basic facts: that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a menace; that he has weapons of mass destruction and that he is doing everything in his power to get nuclear weapons; that he has supported terrorists; that he is a grave threat to the region, to vital allies like Israel, and to the United States; and that he is thwarting the will of the international community and undermining the United Nations’ credibility.”
Edwards today calls the war a diversion and adventure that has undermined U.S. efforts to get Osama bin Laden. Back then, he explicitly rejected such suggestions: “I believe this is not an either-or choice. Our national security requires us to do both, and we can.” Edwards today calls the Iraq war “needless.” Back then, he argued that “the national security of our country requires action.”
Dick Cheney changed his mind about the necessity of ousting Saddam Hussein because the circumstances changed. Has John Edwards done the same?
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
