Obama on Hussein

Scott at Flopping Aces makes an excellent point. While parsing Obama’s foreign policy last night, he points out Obama’s mischaracterization of the cost of the war;

2) The cost of the war in Iraq literally changes every week according to Obama. Tonight he claimed it was $700+bn. No. That’s the cost of the war on terror as a whole. Iraq (per the Congressional Research Service) cost $444.6bn as of July. For reference, the cost of all the Clinton Wars was about $450bn most of which was spent “containing” Saddam, and that “containment”….caused UBL to decide to start killing Americans; caused the war on terror

So, either the money was going to be spent on containing Hussein, or on removing him. Which would Obama prefer? He kept making the point last night that John McCain was wrong on the Iraq war, but he leaves out the part where Clinton was wrong on Iraq, too. And, ultimately, the Democrats and Obama were wrong on Iraq. Obama made it sound as if he preferred a world in which Saddam Hussein  still presided over the terrorist state of Iraq.

And suppose Hussein were still the head of Iraq. All of those terrorists and thugs who pored across the borders of Iraq would have found their way to Afghanistan to face the infidels there. And, obviously, it’s much harder to fight them in Afghanistan than it was in Iraq. Especially with the added support they might have enjoyed from Hussein.

The Democrats can whine and moan about the war in Iraq, but it was inevitable. Every time Hussein farted, Clinton was restaffing our tanks and Bradleys warehoused in Kuwait to blunt an Iraqi attack. Did the Democrats think we were going to be able to do that in perpetuity?

He made a point of promising to exhaust all options when dealing with Iran before he would resort to force. Couldn’t he agree that three presidents before him exhausted all of their options with Hussein? This country was patient with Hussein for 12 years before the invasion in 2003. In fact, those years gave Hussein time to train his troops in resisting the US invasion. He had time to pass out copies of Blackhawk Down to his commanders. And they had time to digest it’s lessons.

Who ever the next president will be, they will be thankful that they won’t have to deal with Hussein while dealing with the myriad other problems the world presents us. The poodles of Europe are already grateful, though they won’t say it aloud.

Crossposted on Talon

Category: Politics