Bob Tippee
Given the challenge of rebuilding Iraq and helping the fractured country establish self-governance, who needs controversy over a presidential remark about uranium from Niger?
The US didn't lead the invasion of Iraq because former President Saddam Hussein approached Niger about a repeat purchase of fissionable material for bombs.
If it could be proven that Saddam didn't do that, which it can't, so what? Would he then have been less menacing? No.
In his January state-of-the-union address, US President George W. Bush cited Iraqi hope to buy African uranium as a reason—one among many—to depose Saddam.
While the source of that intelligence, the UK government stands by it, doubters in the US administration say it wasn't solid enough to use in a presidential speech.
Maybe so. But Bush's detractors have turned questions about intelligence of inevitable murkiness into allegations of deliberate deception.
That stretches logic. It also misses the point of the war and diverts attention from larger concerns.
The war was and remains about preventing a demonstrated aggressor and supporter of terrorists from aligning with a terrorist movement murderously opposed to freedom.
In a July 17 speech to Congress, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair eloquently defined the need to confront oppression in the fight against terrorism, declaring, "The spread of freedom is the best security for the free."
Yet in a joint press conference afterward, the first interrogator wanted—with superhuman pointlessness—to know whether Bush would take "personal responsibility" for his Niger allusion in January.
Also on July 17, a study team commissioned by the US government to study Iraqi reconstruction issued its report.
Calling the next 12 months "decisive" and the next 3 months "crucial to turning around the security situation," the team said: "The Iraqi population has exceedingly high expectations, and the window for cooperation may close rapidly if they do not see progress on delivering security, basic services, opportunities for broad political involvement, and economic opportunity."
With warfare still under way, the challenge is immense.
Against it, obsession over who knew what and when they knew it about Iraqi deal-making with Niger looks trivial.
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