Determined to “play nice,” Kerry has largely ducked the issue, but he should meet it forcefully and head-on. After all, the GOP campaign is operating in full gloves-off mode, so why should the Democrats handicap themselves?
Kerry should say something like this:
My fellow Americans,Now that would be a good response.
When I voted to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, like my colleagues in the Senate and the House I depended on information from the White House and our intelligence services, particularly the CIA. We were told over and over again that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that he had a lot of them, and that he was an imminent threat to the security of our nation.
We now know that information was false. We now know that months before 9/11, the Bush Administration had already decided in secret to invade Iraq. In pursuit of that goal they pressured CIA analysts, professionals who have dedicated their careers to keeping us safe, to tell them only what they wanted to hear. Whenever the analysts told the truth – that Iraq was not armed to the teeth, that Saddam was not a threat, and Iraq was not in league with al Qaeda – they were ignored.
And the ideologues in the Administration took everything else – every unsubstantiated rumor, every outdated tidbit, every damaging morsel – and passed it on to the American people as if it were verified fact.
You see, it is standard practice in this Administration that if the facts don’t fit the ideology, it’s the facts that have to go.
So when the CIA released its National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002 telling the American people that Iraq without a doubt had all these terrible weapons, they actually had two versions: a public version and a classified version, which reserved for senior Administration officials only. And it just so happened that the classified version was far more doubtful, far more equivocal, than the version given to the rest of us. The Administration knew the truth. The rest of us were told nothing but lies.
But we didn’t know that what we were getting from the CIA was what the White House told them to say. We didn’t know about the professional analysts who were outraged over this blatantly political interference with their work.
And when that information proved to be false, when more than a year of searching Iraq, interviewing weapons scientists, and interrogating the Iraqi leadership, failed to find any of the mass arsenals or al Qaeda connections we were told existed – well, the President just blamed it all on the CIA.
Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee backed up the President, reporting that there were no demands to deliver only the “right” kind of analysis and that all the responsibility for the inaccurate intelligence rests with the CIA. But the committee’s dissenting report said there was plenty of evidence of political pressure and that it was pushed aside to whitewash the President and the Republican Party in this election year.
Some people say, “Well, we got rid of Saddam, and that’s a good thing.” Yes, that is a good thing. But since when do the ends justify the means? Doing so many wrong things to accomplish an otherwise worthy goal does not magically transform them into right things.
Did I vote for this war? Yes, and it is a vote I deeply regret, because we now know this war was based on false pretenses. And the Bush Administration knew it was false, because they had accurate information which they did not share with the rest of us. They preferred to let us believe the other version, the scarier version. If I knew then what I know now, I never would have voted for war.
And afterwards, when the White House presented Congress with a bill for $87 billion for an occupation we had been told over and over again would pay for itself, and when they finally said there was no end in sight for our occupation of Iraq, I saw many things in such a shameless request.
I saw utter arrogance from people secure in the knowledge that having put our armed forces in harm’s way, they could make Congress do whatever they wanted in the guise of “supporting the troops.” I saw complete fiscal irresponsibility from people who squandered a record budget surplus and turned it into a record deficit, and then adding even more to it. And I saw sheer desperation from people who thought that the reality of post-invasion Iraq could easily be brought into line with their pre-invasion propaganda.
I voted against the appropriation, and I am proud of having done so. Having gone to war under such disgraceful circumstances, we should not have prolonged it into an endless occupation, draining our nation in terms of money and blood. We have too many needs at home to throw so much money into this foolhardy adventure, and I will continue to vote against wasting any more of our tax dollars on it.
And as your President, at the first opportunity I will turn Iraq over to a truly multinational force, and bring our men and women home.
So who do you hold accountable in such a situation? Do you blame the person who was manipulated into doing what you want, or do you blame the person who did the manipulating in the first place?
One of my opponent’s bumper stickers features the slogan, “Leadership, Integrity, Morality.” Considering the choices this Administration has made in the War on Terror, it’s an ironic slogan at best.
When you all but abandon the fight against the enemy which attacked us on 9/11 to pursue a vendetta against someone who did not pose a threat to us, and when you pressure people into telling you only want you want to hear and then use them as scapegoats, that’s poor leadership.
When you use phony data and exploit people’s fears to scare them into supporting your already-made decision to go to war, and when you unleash your political hatchet men to smear as unpatriotic anyone who expresses any doubts, that’s the very opposite of integrity.
And when that war, which did not have to happen, kills hundreds of American men and women, and untold thousands of Iraqi civilians – well, there is no word for it other than “immoral.”
I stand before you here today to tell you that I will never send your sons and daughters into harm’s way unless it is absolutely necessary and all other options have been exhausted. I will never send our troops into danger for the sake of a grudge. I will never discard facts and viewpoints provided by our dedicated public servants because they do not fit a politically mandated ideology. And I will never deliberately frighten you into supporting my policies.
To do anything else is unethical, dishonorable, and unworthy of a President of the United States.
America deserves better. You deserve better. And on November 2nd, you can do something about it.
Thank you all, and God bless America.
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