A clear, comprehensive, concise, and combative defense of the decision to go to war in Iraq? Backed by ample evidence and examples? Penned by an administration official no less? Sounds too good to be true, right?
Well it is true. Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives, demolishes four of the most oft-repeated accusations against the adminstration's actions, in an opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal (available to all):
Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them.
Read the whole thing and then keep a copy handy for future reference. As past experience has well-proven, no matter how many times allegations of this nature are soundly refuted, they have a curious habit of popping up again and again.
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