We have forgotten

In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons:

Together we must also confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire gulf war. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You cannot defy the will of the world", and when I say to him, "You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.^{[93] (source: wikipedia)}

I am happy I stumbled onto this quote, it effectively does for me what my weak research skills probably could not do.

I have heard too much criticism of President George H. W. Bush over the Iraq War. I have heard far too often that we had no reason for being there.

Does everyone forget that Saddam Hussein was killing his own people? I know that people do forget that it was the U.N Inspectors who found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. I know that people have forgotten there were several U.N. Security resolutions against Iraq and Hussein ignored every one of them. In my opinion President Bush did what he should have done. In fact, I wish he had done more.

I honestly have no clue as to why public sentiment went against President Bush. But I suspect that its related to the growing strength of liberalism. And it is in that growing strength that something very important has been forgotten:


Where are the Weapons of Mass destruction?  They did not just vanish in thin air.


But the even more important question  for me is: Why have people just forgotten that they exist? Those are two questions that scare me.

I accept that for whatever reason we did not find WMD's in Iraq. My guess is that Saddam Hussein shipped them off to Afghanistan or Saudia Arabia or some country that was friendly to him.


But I am not OK with the fact that we have not aggressively tried to find out what happened to the chemical weapons. And I am not OK that this country has forgotten that the existed.


I just hope that people remember the WMD and look for them before more America pay the ultimate for our collective memory lapse.