Joe Scarborough
Are you safer off today?
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean declared this week that Americans are no safer off because Saddam Hussein is under arrest. Now, I think this is absolutely fascinating political fare from a candidate who also told Tim Russert this summer that he wasn't sure that the Iraqi people would be better off with Saddam Hussein out of power. The two statements are so bizarre that it is hard to imagine that the Democratic nominating process would allow any candidate uttering such thoughts out loud to have a legitimate shot at the nomination.
But not only does the former Vermont governor have a legitimate shot, he's currently the odds-on favorite to win it all. So what does that say about the Democratic Party in 2003? A lot. First, it tells you that Howard Dean and his angry supporters would rather hate George Bush than pay attention to these facts.
First, there is no debate about Saddam. He had weapons of mass destruction. You don't believe it? Well, France, Syria, and the entire U.N. Security Council voted 15-0 on the eve of the war that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he had the burden of destroying them. Even Saddam Hussein admitted having weapons of mass destruction in 1998. Howard Dean forgets that.
And as part of that 1998 deal with the U.N., Saddam listed his most current stock pile of chemical and biological weapons. For Howard Dean and Democrats to suggest that since we haven't found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction means he never had them, well, that's just foolish. Second, remember Saddam Hussein killed more Arabs than any man in world history. And third, Saddam Hussein was constantly destabilizing his region.
Remember the invasion of Iran, killed over a million Arabs. The invasion of Kuwait, he threatened to take over Saudi Arabia. And he not only destabilized that region, he destabilized the entire world through his entire reign. So are you safer today than you were before Saddam was pulled out of a hole in Iraq? You bet your life you are and no matter how mad Howard Dean gets this election year on the campaign trail, there's nothing he can do to change that fact.
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Former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) hosts “Scarborough Country,” 10 p.m. ET, weeknights on MSNBC. Comment by clicking here.