Mr. President, Show Your Teeth
William Kristol:
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Last week, news from the prosecution of Scooter Libby put the debate over the justification for the Iraq war back on the front pages. The president, through Vice President Dick Cheney, apparently authorized Libby to share with reporters key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq--evidence that disproved accusations from Joseph Wilson and others that Bush had manipulated or distorted the judgments of the intelligence community.
There was nothing unlawful or improper about what Libby claims the president did. News reports, however, darkly implied that Bush had been caught doing something disreputable; Democrats accused the president of duplicity, hypocrisy, and possible illegality; and the White House went into its characteristic defensive crouch: "We're not commenting on an ongoing legal proceeding," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Nor, apparently, is the White House commenting on ongoing public proceedings--i.e., the new evidence gathered in Iraq of Saddam's terror connections. The Joint Forces Command in Norfolk has published a report called the "Iraqi Perspectives Project." In congressional testimony April 6, General Anthony Cucolo said the study drew upon "dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi military and regime leaders and thousands of official Iraqi documents."
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The Bush administration has argued that Iraq was and is a central front in the war on terror. Here is evidence that they were right. And yet no one from the administration has noted these findings--to say nothing of commenting on other documents from Saddam's regime that are being made public. Apparently, the administration believes there is little to be gained from "re-litigating" the case for war. But unless Bush's critics stand down, it is foolish to try to stand aloof from this debate. We are engaged in a difficult war. It matters a great deal to the country how the Iraq war relates to the broader war on terror--just as it matters whether President Bush was honest in making the case for the war. The administration's timidity in taking on its critics, openly and publicly, is self-defeating. It's awfully hard to win a political struggle without fighting.
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