Now it is told that not only did Iraq put a down-payment on a missile system from North Korea but that the government of Syria, the government that maintains it had nothing to do with the regime of Saddam Hussein, was integrally involved. There is so much wrong with this revelation while at the same time so much that vindicates the actions of the Bush Doctrine. In the end, if Hussein had been left to his devices the United States and her allies, especially Israel, would have seen horrors far surpassing those of September 11th, 2001.

First we should address the fact that the CIA was delinquent in knowing any of this. It is appalling that such a deal could be taking place directly under their noses and nothing was detected. While representatives of the North Korean government were flying into and out of Syria having meetings with representatives of the al Bashair Trading Company, which has been recognized by investigators as having negotiated past arms deals for Iraq conducted with Yugoslavia, the inability of the CIA, NSA and the rest of the US Intelligence community to detect such blatant violations of the UN sanctions in place is quite disturbing. This stands as testimony to what kind of damage eight years of neglect, eight years of diminished funding and lowered priority, can do. The blame for this has to lie at the feet of Bill Clinton and his administration and to a lesser extent George Tenet.

Now that it has been established without a doubt that the US Intelligence community was about as productive as the fifth man on a Teamster road crew and about as accurate as a shot from a blunderbuss it is easy to see why any person mired in common sense and charged with the stewardship of maintaining the best interests of the United States and its citizens would be driven to believe that the time for action was well at hand. Looking back at it, and we all know that hindsight is twenty-twenty, it is a good thing that President Bush didn’t let things go any further than it already had. Try to imagine for a moment what the situation in the Middle East would be if Saddam Hussein were to have been allowed to establish a long-range missile assembly line. The possibilities drip with the blood of the innocent.

Another point that should be made now that we have knowledge of this weapons deal is that the rhetoric about weapons of mass destruction is just that, rhetoric. It begs to be asked, would the UN, or the US Legislature for that matter, have approved the use of force had the words "weapons of mass destruction” not been used? I highly doubt it. The clandestine procurement of long-ranged Rodong missile technology, not just the missiles themselves, would have been permitted to proceed through the apathy of both bodies with the eventual deployment of those weapons into the hands of Saddam Hussein. Now I ask you, if he had those missiles at his disposal prior to any action being taken to keep those contraband weapons from his arsenal do you believe he would have used them to "threaten the use of force” or do you believe he would have actually used them? His past actions point to the fact he would have used them. At that point we would have had no choice but to go in after him, albeit with the blessing of that amazingly vigilant organization the United Nations. In this scenario, however, the death tolls for US and coalition forces would have been about 100 times what they are now.

Taking all of this into consideration we should be thanking President Bush for taking the action that he did. In fact, we should apologize for making it so hard to have done the right thing. But that’s another rant all together.

Take for a moment now the part of Syria in all of this. They have continually stated that the relationship between Saddam Hussein and their government was so troubled they had no contact whatsoever. Yet, reports have been confirmed, not only from documentation obtained from the captured hard drives of Iraqi military and governmental computers but by corroborating testimony from detained members of Hussein’s inner circle, that meetings indeed took place between representatives of the North Korean Government and the regime of Saddam Hussein. Further, the Syrian government knew full well that each of these meetings took place. If this doesn’t prove once and for all that the Syrians are not to be trusted at all I don’t know what proof can be offered. Each and every word, deed and promise that comes from that government should be met with the utmost scrutiny and they should be considered a threat to the region’s stability and less a member/ally in the War on Terror. It would seem that they consistently do just enough to keep off the list of countries that are opposing freedom in Iraq and the Middle East while allowing their borders to be porous and facilitating meetings between countries that promote terror and threaten the use of nuclear weapons.

Add to all of this the fact that it was the feeble treaty that the Clinton Administration had with North Korea that allowed the missile system to be shopped in the first place and you have a Three Stooges episode with Iraq, Syria and North Korea playing the parts of Moe, Larry & Curly, only this time it isn’t a comedy but a comedy of errors that could have had extremely serious consequences, quite different from the definition that the UN chooses to use. This time three ignorant and empowered nations would have celebrated as a military full of fanatics unleashed the power of long-ranged missiles with undetermined payloads to locations both military and civilian. And don’t think for a moment that Syria and North Korea wouldn’t have applauded; they would have been standing, calling for encores.

So, two things can be surmised with the revelation of the arms deal between Iraq and North Korea, deals that were facilitated by Syria. One, Syria is not an ally but a volatile and reluctant witness to the War on Terror and the efforts to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. That revelation should be embraced at the highest levels and at all levels. We should trust them about as much as a used car sales person or a cell phone sales person can be trusted (sorry used car and cell phone sales people – your industry’s ethical standards have a lot to be desired). Second, conventional weapons in the hands of those who are affected by narcissism and bloodlust are weapons of mass destruction. Should you not believe the latter, the idea that weapons of mass destruction don’t have to be nuclear, biological or chemical, perhaps you should ask someone who survived the al Qaida attacks of September 11th. Or perhaps you should ask the families of those killed on that dreadful day whether or not the weapons used, two civilian airliners, were weapons of mass destruction. The airliners may not have met the criteria for the definition used by the UN, in their eyes no weapons of mass destruction were used that day. But I bet the survivors and families affected by the attacks have a definition that differs from the one used by the UN and the political creatures of the left in this country.

No, the Bush Doctrine is right on. Whether the intelligence used was absolute in its accuracy changes little about the threat that existed. After all, it had existed in the 1980’s, was ignored for the most part in the 1990’s and came to a head in downtown Manhattan on September 11th, 2001. It is time to cease with the rhetoric and do what is right. President Bush was right to go after Moe. Now he needs to deal with Larry and Curly.

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.