To Reveal or not to Reveal

“To him that you tell your secret you resign your liberty.”
Anonymous, Proverb

Today the Bush administration revealed that it is not apparently going to make a cursory glance at Saddam’s very lengthy document and then declare war. The Washington Post reported that Air Fleischer (President Bush’s press secretary) stated, “We want to be very deliberate as we move through and look at this document to determine, with the international community, what this indicates about Saddam Hussein and his disarmament.”

However, should the United States determine the document lacking in several key points, then we face a decision. I saw we, meaning our country. In truth the decision will be made with little, if any, public input. That decision is whether or not to tell Iraq and the world what we know and how we know it.

Two writers grappled with this question at Townhall.com. Mona Charen wrote a fiction piece, purporting to be an internal White House Memo. She stated, “Our advice is that you present the truth, as we have discovered it, to the American people and to the world in a televised speech (with maps and graphics) on the day our forces commence the attack on Iraq. . . . But we should do so only after the bombers are in the air. Christmas Eve would be ideal.” Touching that Ms. Charen clings to the antiquated notion that air power will be sufficient to win. One would think that Vietnam would have put that theory to rest.

Cal Thomas takes a different tack. He states, “The United States should lay out the latest evidence against Saddam Hussein. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said, “Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.”” Of course he goes on to assure his readers that war with Iraq is inevitable, necessary and a positive good.

The bottom line is this, any invasion of Iraq is going to entail the deaths of American Soldiers, Iraqi Soldiers and Iraqi Civilians. Those casualties could run into the thousands (and possibly more), and perhaps that is a price we will have to pay. But before we come to that conclusion, maybe we should follow our President’s lead and look at the information before deciding that this cost is inevitable.