Questions on Iraq

Follow up to my essay "The Growing Iraqi Success Story".

by Rod D. Martin
December 23, 2003

Since my column "The Growing Iraqi Success Story" ran two weeks ago, we have received a great many letters both pro and con, asking all manner of questions. Herein, I endeavor to answer a few of them.

Q. "My question is, Why are we there?"

A. Although I was not a big fan of going to war in Iraq, it's hard to reasonably deny that there are a lot of good reasons to have done so. First (although least significant from an American Constitutional or security perspective) is simply that Saddam Hussein was one of the more evil leaders on the planet, as has become increasingly clear as his former people have begun to feel more secure and have thus told their stories.

Second, as everyone is now forced to admit -- and as the Weekly Standard recently published in some detail -- Iraq was actually pretty deeply involved with al-Qaeda. Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey put it to me this way about a year ago: "The Wahabbis (whether Saudi or al-Qaeda), the Mullahs in Iran …