Disarming when there are no arms

The latest report, finding that Iraq had no WMDs, calls for a better response than what we hear from the current Administration: "Saddam wanted WMDs." That's no reason to attack another sovereign nation. I'm frustrated that the discussion of WMDs and Iraq doesn't focus on the natural and logical consequences of attacking a disarmed nation.

Let's imagine for a moment that a police officer confronts a known criminal and suspects that the criminal has a gun. But the criminal denies having a gun, and the police officer can't see a gun or evidence of a concealed gun. If the police officer shoots anyway and then finds that the criminal, in truth, had no gun, will Internal Affairs accept an argument from the police officer that the criminal wanted a gun and would have used it, if he had one?

Too bad the Administration isn't facing an Internal Affairs investigation. Surely the Administration wouldn't get away with STILL making the assertion that "Saddam refused to disarm." Saddam assured us that he was disarmed--and he was--but we didn't believe him--and we were wrong. So we attacked a disarmed country that had not attacked us. And the Administration couldn't get away with STILL making the assertion that Saddam posed a threat because he would have passed WMDs to terrorists, when Saddam had no WMDs to pass to terrorists and no connections to terrorists.

But this isn't about a hypothetical police officer and a hypothetical Internal Affairs investigation. Instead we have George W. Bush, who answers only to his own laws, and refuses to admit that his rationale for war was wrong. He lead us into war because he made a mistake. Instead he changes his rationale for war: he "flip-flops." He faces no investigation of his actions; instead he attacks those who question him.

I'm angry about the way the Bush Administration has reconfigured what it means to be an American in the contemporary world. America is the strongest and richest nation, and the good will of other countries depends on our ability to convince them we are trustworthy. But the Bush Administration has sullied our image worldwide and destroyed our credibility as a nation with the ability to restrain our capacity for violence. The capacity for violence is heroic only when it is restrained.

And we pay the price in American pride, Americans' trust of government, and American credibility abroad.