A senior Democrat’s call for ‘decisive’ military action on Iraq

A senior congressional Democrat called for the Bush administration to take “decisive” military action against Iraq, rapping the White House for “sending mixed signals” to Saddam Hussein and other rogue regimes.

He accused President Bush of having a “threat and forget” strategy.

“Saddam Hussein’s continued blatant defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the destruction and long-term monitoring of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and his ongoing persecution of Iraqi citizens require clear and decisive action now,” said the lawmaker in a Washington speech.

But the congressman made the speech a decade ago, accusing the previous President Bush. And he’s been dead for eight years. That senior Democrat was then-House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), who became Defense Secretary for President Clinton.

Aspin didn’t call for regime change in Iraq – only for military destruction of Saddam’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons facilities and delivery systems – but he warned, “We have too much unfinished business to let this opportunity slide by.”

Well, the opportunity did slide by, even on his watch at the Pentagon. Aspin warned, “How we deal with Saddam and his effort to possess weapons of mass destruction sends an important signal for anyone out there with similar aspirations.” The situation has worsened over the past decade, making regime change more necessary than ever.

Aspin’s warning, which we reprint here, ably explains why President George W. Bush’s Democratic opposition, as well as some of the senior Republicans who were responsible for the “threat and forget” strategy that the late congressman so correctly derided, must support a presidential decision to move against Saddam Hussein – or wait perhaps another decade for things to become worse.