Saturday, October 09, 2004
David Brooks on the Media Reporting of the Duelfer Report
From David Brooks in today's NYT:
"One thousand years from now, [Iraqi] schoolchildren would look back and marvel at the life of The Struggler, the great leader [Saddam Hussein] whose life was one of incessant strife, but who restored the greatness of the Arab nation.
"They would look back and see the man who lived by his saying: 'We will never lower our heads as long as we live, even if we have to destroy everybody.' [Thus,] Charles Duelfer opened his report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction with those words....
"The fact that Saddam had no W.M.D. in 2001 has been amply reported, but it's been isolated from the more important and complicated fact of Saddam's nature and intent.
"But we know where things were headed. Sanctions would have been lifted. Saddam, rich, triumphant and unbalanced, would have reconstituted his W.M.D. Perhaps he would have joined a nuclear arms race with Iran. Perhaps he would have left it all to his pathological heir Qusay.
"We can argue about what would have been the best way to depose Saddam, but this report makes it crystal clear that this insatiable tyrant needed to be deposed. He was the menace, and, as the world dithered, he was winning his struggle. He was on the verge of greatness. We would all now be living in his nightmare."
Read all of it here.
"One thousand years from now, [Iraqi] schoolchildren would look back and marvel at the life of The Struggler, the great leader [Saddam Hussein] whose life was one of incessant strife, but who restored the greatness of the Arab nation.
"They would look back and see the man who lived by his saying: 'We will never lower our heads as long as we live, even if we have to destroy everybody.' [Thus,] Charles Duelfer opened his report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction with those words....
"The fact that Saddam had no W.M.D. in 2001 has been amply reported, but it's been isolated from the more important and complicated fact of Saddam's nature and intent.
"But we know where things were headed. Sanctions would have been lifted. Saddam, rich, triumphant and unbalanced, would have reconstituted his W.M.D. Perhaps he would have joined a nuclear arms race with Iran. Perhaps he would have left it all to his pathological heir Qusay.
"We can argue about what would have been the best way to depose Saddam, but this report makes it crystal clear that this insatiable tyrant needed to be deposed. He was the menace, and, as the world dithered, he was winning his struggle. He was on the verge of greatness. We would all now be living in his nightmare."
Read all of it here.
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