We have been among the many conservatives critical of the White House and its inexplicable aversion to making a fact-based case on Saddam Hussein's support for jihadist terror. But for years now, instead of arguments to that effect, George W. Bush simply repeats his assertion that Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror. That hasn't worked, of course, in part because other aspects of the Bush Administration's case for war in Iraq were deeply flawed, even if most Democrats made the same arguments.
Now things are different. We know what Saddam Hussein was up to in the decade before the war and we know it from the best source available -- the Iraqi regime itself. The debate is no longer whether the Iraqi regime would support jihadist terror. It did. It's a fact. That support included backing for members of the al Qaeda leadership and several affiliate groups. Again, that's a fact. And yet the White House still refused even to acknowledge any of this.
Until now. Mark Eichenlaub, who runs the excellent website, Regime of Terror, has an excellent article at National Review online. It's a very straightforward piece that explains in clear language what we have learned from the recently released Pentagon study on Iraq and terrorism. And remarkably, he has managed to coax a quote out of NSC spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe commented to me that the report confirms that Saddam "had ties to regional terrorism" and that in a region where there was "no lack of terrorist groups willing to attack the U.S.," it was not surprising to see who Saddam had been supporting.
His claims are indisputable, of course, but it's still notable that someone from the Bush Administration other than Dick Cheney is willing to talk on the record about terrorism. (The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the new study when I contacted them two weeks ago for this piece.)
It's a good start. Next, someone should make sure that George W. Bush sees the IDA report on Iraq and terrorism. National Security Adviser Steve Hadley was supposed to have shown Bush the report before it was released publicly. But Hadley is cautious to a fault and believes that there is nothing to gain from revisiting the case for war in Iraq. And there are no indications that he shared the report with President Bush.
Bush would want to see it. Months ago, when we fought to have the Iraqi documents translated and released, Bush's White House staff kept him in the dark. Even after Bush told then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte that he wanted the documents out, the DNI slow-rolled the process and the White House staff argued against sharing the secrets of the Iraqi regime.
Those were mistakes and they have cost the president. But now we have enough of the regime's documents to know that Saddam Hussein support jihadist terror for years. And, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out Monday, it's clear that the CIA underestimated Iraqi support for terrorism. The White House should talk about it.
