Imminent Threat

A lot of you might have picked up on this debate over what the word "imminent" means. Apparently Senator Ted Kennedy used it recently in talking about the Administrations case for war back in the winter. So naturally the right has responded, particularly Andrew Sullivan.

Let's trace this problem back to the roots. Democrats have consistently said that the United States should have rounded up more support for our invasion of Iraq before invading. We have had very limited support, primarily from Poland, the UK, and Australia. It also might have been a good idea to wait until our mission in Afghanistan were further along, so that our troops were not stretched quite so thin.

But we couldn't afford to wait, could we? According to the Bush Administration, we had to invade immediately because of the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons programs and weapons of mass distruction. We were under such danger from Hussein's weapons of mass distruction that to wait was tanamount to suicide, and President Bush was not going to allow us to go down that route. So we invaded.

Now it appears as if maybe we could have waited. Maybe Hussein was largely contained and, in fact, the sanctions were working. And that's where we are now. Liberals, including some of our presidential candidates, are saying that the President deceived the American people as to the immediacy of the danger Saddam presented.

So here is the question for Conservatives. Could we have waited and invaded Iraq later when we had more support and had moved Afghanistan ahead? If we could have, why didn't we?

Here's an answer to a popular pinheaded conservative question. Of course we're glad Saddam is gone. I'm not sure what that has to do with this issue, though.