Concern over Pelosi

Open Letter has a very interesting piece up on the leader of the House Democrats support for Bush's War on Iraq.

Back in December of 2002, as independent strategic analysts were arguing that the evidence strongly suggested that Iraq had rid itself of its chemical and biological weapons some years earlier, Pelosi categorically declared on NBC's Meet the Press that “Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that.”


Had she simply said that the Iraqi dictator had, at that time, “may” or even “probably” possessed such weapons, it could be assumed that she was simply being naïve or foolish for failing to recognize the transparently false and inflated intelligence then being put forward by the Bush administration regarding Iraq's weapons capability. However, in expressing such certitude, she not only seriously compromised her integrity, but she seriously undercut the then-growing anti-war movement

Much has been said about similiar statements by various members of the Bush administration by critics of the War on Iraq. But, largely unchallenged are virtually identical statements by Liberals like Pelosi. Which underscores the political nature inherent in the debate.

Where I think the entire issue gets muddied by some on the Left is in lumping all critics of the War on Iraq as "anti-war" when in fact polls consistently show a huge disparity between popular support for the War on Terror (Afghanistan) and the War on Iraq. So, in fact there is a huge swath of Iraq War critics who are not "anti-war" by any stretch of the imagination.

That said... I do think that to remain credible, critics of the Iraq War must hold everyone who propped up bogus intelligence about WMD accountable. Otherwise the whole thing degrades into a partisan witch hunt.