Add the tireless Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters to Steve Hayes, Tom Joscelyn and a few intrepid others making the case the Bush administration remains mind-bogglingly silent on: namely, that the Bush administration was absolutely right that Saddam was a terror monger and that his removal was a logical and proper extension of the War on Terror.

Once again, the Iraq intelligence files are proving invaluable.

As Ed explains in a must-read post from April 10, he initially posted a memo, dated March 17, 2001, from a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force who requested a list of volunteers from all units under his command for suicide attackers. A principal purpose of the initiative was to attack American targets. Here is exactly what the Iraqi memo said (italics are mine):

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

As Morrissey further explains in the new post, because some questioned the accuracy of the translation, he has caused it to be translated by two other language experts, working independently. They have confirmed the first translation: the plan was suicide terrorist attacks to liberate “Palestine” and attack American interests.

Here’s Ed’s summation:

All three explicitly [translations] show that the Iraqi military had ordered a call for volunteers to carry out suicide attacks on American interests, six months before 9/11 and two years almost to the day prior to our invasion.
This confirms that Saddam Hussein and his regime had every intention of attacking the US, either here or abroad or both, using members of their own military for terrorist attacks. That puts an end to all of the arguments about whether we should have attacked Iraq, we now know that Saddam and his military planned to attack us. This one document demonstrates that had we not acted to topple Saddam Hussein, he would have acted to kill Americans around the world.
… Why [do I say] “case closed”? Because this shows that Saddam had recruited suicide bombers to attack American interests — showing that destroying Saddam’s regime is an integral part of the war on terror, not a distraction.