George W. Bush had a vision of the future when he saw the World Trade Center collapse.  It was a terrifying vision of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction to cause mass casualties in the U.S.  Bush realized that if terrorists gained access to WMD the world could face unthinkable horror.  Terrorists cannot just purchase WMD off the shelf.  These types of weapons require enormous amounts of cash and they require very expensive scientific expertise.  The most dangerous situation would be if a country, with significant assets, was a willing sponsor of terrorists.

The problems with Iraq were well documents.  Saddam Hussein even sent a squad to try and assassinate a President George H.W. Bush under Clinton’s watch.  The nine Iraqis jailed for this failed attempt were released in August of 2011.

http://www.newsweek.com/saddams-files-84273

The connections between Iraq and terrorism were also well documented.  Incredibly many in the liberal life still believe there was no relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.  A curious conclusion when Clinton indicted Osama bin Laden for conspiring with Iraq to conduct terrorist attacks against the U.S:

http://fas.org/irp/news/1998/11/98110602_nlt.html

Additionally, the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons development.

The problem with the arrogance and naivety of the main stream media is that the threat from terrorist with WMD is a very serious matter.  Bush understood that.  Obama does not.  Now we learn that ISIS may already have the material for a dirty bomb and thanks to the failure of our policy, they have billions of dollars available to buy even more exciting toys.  In addition, ISIS over ran areas where Saddam Hussein had WMDs in facilities so dangerous that 10 years later no sane person dared even inspect them.  ISIS, of course, has no problem finding people willing to take on such an assignment.  They are most likely to kill themselves in the process but that will be small comfort if they managed to get their hands on this stuff.

Condoleezza Rice once said that the Bush administration was afraid that if they waited for a smoking gun it might turn out to be in the form of a mushroom cloud.  I still doubt that we will see a nuclear explosion set off by terrorists any time soon, but we definitely may a devastating terrorist attack with catastrophic consequences.  I wonder how the liberal left will figure out it was Bush’s fault.

TDM