Updated: 1-26-2006 So then where are those weapons President Bush and why haven't we found them? Iraq's #2 Airforce General releases a book that makes the claim the weapons were moved to Syria. Here is an interview with him at the NY Sun. Let's see if the leftists can switch gears fast enough to embarrass President Bush with this new information. I doubt it.

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Do you count yourself as a republican or patriot first? Naturally most will say patriot since that is by far the more flattering label. Do you automatically assume that anyone giving criticism of the President is on the other side? Do you believe that you must not offer any criticism of the President lest you strengthen the opposition? Is it possible that while he may be doing a lot of good in the war on terror that we have slipped up in a few areas? If so would you rather offer the criticism or would you prefer that the other-side distorts it to suit their own ends? Finally, is a patriot a person who worries about the fate of any single Political figure at the expense of his countrymen?

Negotiating the waters of supplying needed criticism while not wounding a President already beset with incredible hardship bothers me. It bothers me because I understand that the Press and opposition party are not serious entities capable of providing constructive criticism towards policies that may be flawed. Neither of them seem to believe that the threat from massive terrorist attacks still exist. Somehow they have both gone back into the 9/10 mindset of politics as usual, like a child who believes that hiding his head under a blanket will solve the fact that a murderer is rampaging through the house. Or worse he hides under the blanket and believes that Mom and Dad are worse than the madman because to conceive of the madman would crush his concept of the world.

And yet without seriously questioning our policies and goals we risk becoming flaccid in our war on terror. How else to explain our governments quiet response to the release of Navy sailor Robert Stethem's murderer a known Hezbollah terrorist Mohammed Ali Hammadi. who is roaming free with not so much as one outraged speech by President Bush demanding justice from Germany.

By now you probably realize that I believe patriots are in short supply. This is a dangerous situation from my point of view since the natural political opposition has leaped off the national stage into a comedy of conspiracy theories that do the National Enquirer credit. You cannot go to many of the mainstream Democratic websites without reading nonsense like 9/11 was a Mossad/CIA conspiracy or President Bush is trying to rule the world. This is not serious thought. It should be no surprise that we are weaker because of the lack of serious thought in the oppositions elite. Yet we must have the sort of hard-nosed take no prisoners look at our policies if we are to win the war. Who is to provide this?

Unfortunately for many who know me I have a knack of being able to set aside friendships and political alliances to call a spade a spade and bad policy that which it is. It endears me in ways you cannot imagine to surprise a friend with unexpected criticism of his stance when he goes astray. Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong. Not many have tolerated that sort of behavior well. Captain Ed being the best I have ever met on tolerating dissent has my respect as patriot. Having lost count of the times, I have been accused of being a leftist or worse (there is worse?) I know that this talent is something of the exception in the blogsphere and not very appreciated hehe. And yet for any movement to stay fresh and strong, and I count my alliance with my countrymen against Islamic Terrorism as a movement, it must be subjected to the harshest light not merely from its enemies who only wish to destroy it but from its friends who wish to make it stronger. This is the perspective I decided to present in this article since the war on terror affects me personally on many different levels. I will level some harsh criticism towards President Bush's administration not because I wish to destroy it but because I want to win the war.

With all of that in mind let me ask a simple question. If you were President of the United States and had used the possibility that Saddam might pass WMD's to Al Qaeda as part of a pretext to invading and liberating Iraq which of the following errors would you prefer to claim after the invasion failed to reveal large stockpiles of weapons?

Would you prefer to claim as President Bush has in a recent press conference, that the intelligence was faulty and that the weapons did not exist? Or on the other hand, would you prefer to claim that the WMD had been moved to some country perhaps Syria or worse Iran? Which is the more grievous error with the most terrifying consequences for this country?

In the first case, the excuse could be made that you simply did not have the HUMINT assets in place to understand what programs were under way. Certainly you would be able lay some significant part of the blame at the door of the Democrats because of the damage done to our intelligence services under a succession of undeniably bad Democratic Presidents. This would have the salutary of affect of showing the need for more funding for the CIA which if you as President could affect some serious reform to weed out incompetents and malcontents, would be the lead agency in the WOT. It would also demonstrate the need to loosen the suicidally tight restrictions on the actions of our Intelligence services enacted by those very same incompetent Democratic Presidents. You could also point to the fact that many other intelligence services around the world while disagreeing about the solution agreed that Saddam did indeed have WMD's.

The second case is fraught with perils. One of your primary reasons for invading Iraq was to prevent Saddam's weapons from being handed out to Terrorists. Terrorists, including Al Qaeda, with which we know he associated with from a variety of sources that are open source. Prior to actually entering Iraq it is logical that you would direct the CIA and other various alphabet Intelligence Agencies to keep track of the weapon systems of Saddam so that he doesn't do with them what he did with his air-force in 1991, ship them to our other enemies in the region. Its logical to assume that as President you are impressed with the apparently vast technical skills of the NSA and CIA so it is reasonable for you to assume that if the weapons move you will know. At some point, hopefully prior to the various reports from clueless Weapons Inspectors, you find out as President, that Saddam did in fact move the weapons. Moreover, part of the blame or perhaps all of the blame can be laid directly at your feet since it was you who decided to go the route of going hat in hand to the "diplomats" of the United Nations begging to be allowed to defend your country. Those same thugs who were in fact helping Saddam arm himself in the 90's. Those same thugs who were in fact helping Saddam move and hide the weapons and the evidence of their existence. Those same thugs that could have been prevented from helping Saddam with simple exposure of the fact by our intelligence services.

As I am sure that you can tell I don't believe the President is being completely forthright with us about the WMD's programs of Saddam Hussein. Certainly the reluctance is understandable since should he declare that the Russians helped move the WMD's to Syria all sorts of implications for which only terrible solutions arise will be raised by those of us interested in winning this war. Perhaps by going along with the helpless Democrats, and declaring the Intelligence about WMD's faulty, he hopes to buy time to find a solution that doesn't involve implicating the Russians in providing arms to those who would use them to murder us in the United States. Perhaps a solution is already in the works to recover the weapons most likely hidden in Syria. Maybe.

Naturally, if you were the President of the United States it would be a lot easier to claim as President Bush has done, that our intelligence services failed and were merely incorrect about Saddam having weapons. Especially when the Democrats desperate to prove that their irrelevancy in the war against Islamic fundamentalists run around declaring, Bush Lied People Died when talking about the WMD's. Instead of running around like miniature Cindy Sheehan's they could be actually be doing some good by asking questions regarding where the weapons are. When a former Democratic President has bombed multiple countries to damage Iraq's weapons capability your party is not allowed to switch gears 3 years later and declare that the weapons don't exist if you want to be taken seriously as responsible adults who can guide us through this war.

Now some of you are probably incensed by my belief that President Bush might have lied to us in the Press conference, when he took the easy road and blamed it on the Intelligence services. To that I simply declare we are at war. Certainly it is possible that there were no weapons. But it may be more likely that there were weapons and they were moved. It is very likely President Bush does not want to be distracted by having a debate on where the weapons might have gone since that might tip the country to war with either Syria or Iran prior to our being ready. As well we must consider what sort of damage might be done to age old alliances if it becomes known that say France was neck deep in hiding the weapons. Our newly emerging alliance with Russia might be dealt a death blow if the stories of their technicians helping erase all traces of the weapons are borne out in the debate. All of those reasons are understandable for his reluctance discuss that the weapons were moved but no reason why we should not wonder what his position really is.

We are in serious days where the fate of the West hangs in the balance, we can lose this war. Do you believe that I am being dramatic? Consider for a moment the consequences of not ounces of Anthrax being distributed by letter in our cities but pounds being dumped from crop dusters! If you think that this is fanciful and far fetched the government has gamed this scenario already. They gamed it probably because they realized that Atta was looking at crop dusters not withstanding reports by various sources including Edward Epstein, that the timeline doesn't fit the witnesses recollection. Consider that one of the hijackers reportedly had the type of lesions found on people exposed to anthrax and almost nothing else. Iraq was one of the leaders in weaponizing anthrax. Where did the anthrax used in the attack come from and where did it go, isn't that quite important?

The Democrats spend alot of time saying that there were no WMD's. Thats actually the less damning indictment don't you think? It is also the least helpful if we are truly interested in defending ourselves.

Where did those chemical weapons of Saddam go? Was that a portion of it that was found prior to an attack in Jordan where it was estimated that upwards of 80,000 could have died?

Finding those WMD's was important, we failed. That is big news. Not to pound President Bush over the head with but to realize that we simply may not have the time to dither when confronted with a state sponsor of terrorism attempting to gain WMD's. We dithered with Iraq our policy was incorrect in dealing with a terrorist sponsor.

We are now involved with another, perhaps even more dangerous, state sponsor of terror who is near to gaining nuclear weapons. One who daily proclaims their desire to be martyred for the cause. One who daily proclaims that Israel does not deserve to exist and should be wiped from the face of the earth. And if we believe that it is Israel alone that Iran hates they have no problem reminding us that we are the Great Satan to Israel's the little Satan. They control the Hezbollah a terrorist organization perhaps even more fearsome and bloodthirsty than Al Qaeda. How long will we dither Mr. President?

Mohammed Ali Hammadi Hezbollah Terrorism Politics Iran Middle East