Blair's Interrogation & The Lessons Of 9/11 Not Learned

Long time readers of these messages know it seems like ages since the Iraq front in the war against Islamic Fascists has been the subject of these messages. The WSJ's report of last week's interrogation of Tony Blair by the John Chilcot Commission brings the issue back into focus. Below is my letter responding to the Journal's great editorial entitled "Tony Blair's Iraq Statesmanship."

Suffice it to say that the majority of Americans have learned nothing about preserving our security since 9/11 & BO continues to exploit this ignorance as he refers to the would be (not alleged) Christmas bomber over Detroit as the "Nigerian student," holding KSM's civilian trial in NYC (although even this is becoming a too obvious destructive ploy against America), & of course vowing to close the Guantanamo prison for no good reason.

The danger to America & the world could not be more front & center as Iran fails to acknowledge BO's December 31 deadline to take up his invitation to negotiate their nuclear program. I refer to my posting immediately below, dated July 14, 2007 - nothing has changed except adding our troops in Afghanistan to the immediate jeopardy.

"Middle East oil dependence is one thing but the nuclear ambitions of our Muslim enemies is another. Iran has had nuclear ambitions for quite some time & there are many intelligence estimates that conclude that Iran is very close to obtaining nuclear capability - a capability that the Iranian President has said he will share with every Muslim nation on earth & I think he would also include al Qaeda in Iraq. Since Iran constantly sends IEDs & car bombs into Iraq to kill our troops by the dozens, just think what would happen if Iran gets a nuclear bomb & its first unannounced target is the nearby Baghdad, where the Iranians couldn't care less about civilian casualties as they target 150,000 American troops in one fell swoop that would be like shooting fish in a barrel."

Dear Editor,

You write in "Tony Blair's Iraq Statesmanship" that it is "worth remembering" Mr. Blair's words "...given over one million people whose deaths he (Saddam) had caused, given 10 years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons program?"

Well not only do I remember but I will never forget the words of WSJ Editorial Board Member Susan Lee in the fall of 2002 answering Stuart Varney's question on the Journal Editorial Report - "can we afford to spend $87 million on a war in Iraq?" Ms. Lee responded "we cannot afford not to."

The Congressional Joint Resolution authorizing the use of U.S. Armed Forces against Iraq was dated October 11, 2002. There were seventeen enumerations in the Resolution & I invite every one to read them to see how little mention there was of WMDs despite what the hostile anti-American media would otherwise have us believe.

The grilling of Mr. Blair by the Chilcot Commission highlights to me that the lesson of 9/11 still has not been learned by many Americans. In 2008 then Senator Obama thought he had an iron clad position saying that he never was for the Iraq invasion. Mr. Obama was counting on people looking @ Iraq then & not remembering either the time or circumstances that resulted in our attack on Baghdad.

Put yourself back to September 2002 - just one year after the murderous attacks on our soil by seemingly primitive people living in the mountains of Afghanistan. With all of the intelligence, literally in the world, pointing to Iraq as a terrorist haven & past user of weapons of mass murder - ask yourself if the majority of the electorate had learned anything by electing a commander-in-chief who thought we could afford to find out the hard way just how much of a threat to our survival Saddam Hussein was.