 "Photo: MCT")
For years, the question has remained the same: When are American forces going to be withdrawn from Iraq? The Democrats say it should be sooner rather than later, while the Republicans say a full withdrawal cannot take place until Iraq has a stable, democratic government. It seems that every time President Bush appears on television, the message remains the same: the troops are seeing progress on the ground. The Democrats respond with, "Well, then why can't we leave?" This government is in the midst of one of the biggest congressional stalemates in our history.
With the Democrats taking up the majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the legislative process has come to a screeching halt. Never has that been more evident than with the recent veto President Bush placed on the Democrat-led bill that set an Oct. 1 withdrawal date for troops in Iraq. According to the legislation, all troops would have been withdrawn six months later. The House then failed in creating the two-thirds majority votes that is needed to override a presidential veto. So, essentially, they are back where they started. The Democrats want a full troop withdrawal and the Republicans will not give it to them.
Normally, I would be furious about this, and writing this column to denounce everything related with the President. However, Tuesday night, I started to see this war from both sides. I attended Georges Sada's lecture on the war in Iraq and the War on Terror. Before that, the belief that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction seemed farcical. But Sada, a retired Iraqi Air Force general, told otherwise. He told stories of how he had seen the weapons with his own eyes and how Saddam Hussein had them transported from Iraq to Syria in early 2003 because he anticipated an American invasion. According to Sada, the weapons were transported mostly by 18-wheelers because they only had two planes to work with.
Before this lecture I would have seriously doubted his accusations, but they were just too detailed to not believe. Who else would know when, how, and where the weapons were moved? It is amazing how one man can make a person question their views on a war.
Much to my dismay, some of Sada's lecture did come across as fabrication. For example, he spoke of an encounter he had with Hussein during the Gulf War. Apparently, Sada was responsible for 45 captured pilots during that war. When Saddam ordered the execution of said pilots, Sada spoke up against Hussein. Did Saddam seem like a man who would listen to reason? Who really knows for sure?
The Sada lecture shed light on the idea that there may be two sides to this story. For years, there has been a universal belief that Iraq did not harbor weapons of mass destruction, but Sada proclaimed otherwise. Because American soldiers did not discover them, Bush has become arguably one of the most despised men in America. He proceeded to take down a dictator, completely dismantle the government, and attempt to rebuild it. He has said that the war will not end as long as he is in office. In turn, he now faces intense public backlash until at least 2008. Is it justified? I doubt we will ever find out. Until then, the American people will turn on the nightly news and hear about the latest casualties resulting from a war they are not sure they should be in.
As hard as this is to confess, maybe Bush knew something we didn't. Maybe if he had gone in to Iraq earlier, taken down Hussein, and found weapons of mass destruction, we wouldn't be discussing if this war is right or wrong. However, that's not the case. Because of the timing of the invasion, the question remains: should it have happened at all? If the American intelligence is, as Sada calls it, "very, very good!" how did they not know that Saddam moved the weapons? Because this question will never get answered, the death tolls will continue to rise and the congressional stalemates will rage on.
The question will remain the same: who do you believe? Do you believe the Democrats who say they were fed misinformation by the administration? Do you believe the Republicans and Sada, who believe the cause is worth fighting for? It doesn't matter.
As long as the Democrats have the majority in Congress and the President is a Republican, we will not withdraw from Iraq. We will continue to fight and wonder who exactly is telling us the truth.
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