When I was a kid, I loved Sunday mornings. I could hardly wait for the paper to come so I could get to the comics... especially The Phantom, the "Ghost Who Walks." Unlike most of the other comics in my Sunday paper, The Phantom (written by creator Lee Falk until his death in 1999, but inked at that time by Sy Barry) was well-drawn and had ongoing, interesting story arcs. Every once in a while, Falk would go back and explain the family background of his hero, the 21st Phantom. It gave the comic a sense of history and continuity that no other strip had. Each of those retrospectives was a copy of the very first Sunday strip, which showed the first-Phantom-to-be washing up on a 16th century Bengal beach and swearing on the skull of his father's murderer to fight piracy. Each started with a banner saying, For Those Who Came In Late. It was a great way to bring new readers into the ongoing story.

Most people don't pay attention to politics until they have to. For the last year, Democrats and Liberals have been tossing out lies about why we're in Iraq, hoping they stick, and those lies have been debunked over and over. At this point, many who hear John Kerry and his minions repeating the same lies are tempted to laugh it off, since we've "been there, done that." But those lies are not old news to those who have only just begun to pay attention to the campaign speeches. The lies Democrats tell about Iraq need to be exposed again... For Those Who Came In Late.

Lie #1: The Rush To War. There was no rush to war. There were twelve years and seventeen resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein comply with the 1991 cease-fire agreement that he signed, which specified that he must completely disclose all his weapons programs and materials to the UN. He never did so. The UN Security Council unanimously issued resolution #1441 in November 2002, which gave Iraq one month as a "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations", or face "serious consequences." Saddam still did not do so. Rather than "rush to war," President Bush waited three more months for him to acquiesce, giving him further "last chances." At that point, walking away and not forcing Saddam to disarm by force would have destroyed the credibility of both the US and the UN, and Saddam would have won a major victory over both without a shot being fired. No statement or warning by the UN or the US would have ever had weight again.

Lie #2: Going It Alone. The only major countries that did not send troops or support the liberation of Iraq in other ways were France, Germany, Russia and China. It's no coincidence that three of those are the same countries that were trading illegal arms and other banned materials (like Roland missiles and Mirage helicopter parts from France) to Saddam Hussein in return for lucrative exploitation rights in the West Qurna (Russia), al-Ahdab (China), and Majnoon (France) oil fields, as well as other deals all four had made. Iraq was one of German industry's biggest customers, and Iraq owed Germany billions of dollars, which would probably never be collected if Saddam was forced from power. Their opposition to Saddam's removal was far less based on principle than capital. If we had to "go it alone" in Iraq with our paltry coalition of 46 nations, it was because our "traditional allies" failed us, not the other way around. I'm curious about whether Kerry has any plans to apologise to all the nations he's insulted by calling them "a trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted," just because France didn't join.

Lie #3: No Ties to al-Qaeda. There are two parts to this one. Iraq did have ties to al-Qaeda, but specific links to al-Qaeda alone was never one of the reasons Congress voted to remove Saddam from power, as laid out in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. One of those reasons was his long-time sponsorship of international terrorism, not just the one group. The fact that he openly awarded $25,000 (later reduced to $10,000) to the families of Hamas suicide bombers was proof of this. In fact, Russian President Vladmir Putin warned President Bush that Saddam was planning new terrorist attacks against the US after 9/11. As for al-Qaeda, the Washington Times noted, "The fall of Baghdad has produced new evidence to buttress the Bush administration's prewar contention that Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda had a long history of contacts," while NBC's Tom Brokaw had the audacity to "correct" Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi when he mentioned Saddam's ties to al-Qaeda. Kerry supporters often state that the 9/11 Commission said that Iraq had no links to al-Qaeda, but that's a misquote, if not a lie. The 9/11 Commission stated that Saddam might not have had direct, specific cooperation on 9/11, but that he did have ties to al-Qaeda. Commission Chairman Thomas Kean stated: "There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there." More links to terror, including al-Qaeda, can be found in a publication by the Hudson Institute called Saddam's Philanthropy of Terror.

Lie #4: No WMDs in Iraq. Every intelligence service on the planet agreed that Saddam had not fully disclosed his illegal weapons programs, or else UN resolution #1441 would not have been adopted unanimously. All Saddam had to do at any time, even after the UN's deadline had passed, was turn over all the requested materials and documents. David Kay's interim report to the CIA showed that Saddam had clandestine laboratories (including prison testing facilities), long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, hidden and dual-use manufacturing capabilities, and advanced work on anthrax, ricin, aflatoxin, and other biological weapons. None of this had been disclosed to the UN weapons inspectors. Saddam was poised to replenish his WMD stockpiles the minute UN sanctions were dropped, according to Charles Duelfer's final report. To put it more simply: Saddam had lemons, sugar, and a pitcher of cold water at a lemonade stand. Can anyone seriously doubt his intent to make lemonade? We know he still had unaccounted-for WMDs as late as October, 1998. So where are they now? Israel told us, CIA satellite photos confirmed, and David Kay's research revealed that much of Saddam's WMD materials were moved across the Syrian border right before the war in Iraq began. Perhaps being so patient was an error; perhaps we should have used force the day after the UN's final deadline lapsed.

Lie #5: Diversion from the War on Terror. Iraq is, in fact, an essential part of the War on Terror. At one point, even John Kerry agreed; on 7 September 2004 he stated that American soldiers who died in Iraq gave their lives "on behalf of their country, on behalf of freedom, the war on terror." Afghanistan and Iraq were essential components of a larger strategy than shooting a few killers and calling the war a success. Democrats base this attack on a false assertion that troops were pulled out of Afghanistan to fight in Iraq but not replaced. In reality, troop levels in Afghanistan were never affected by the fighting in Iraq; only the composition of the troops has changed. If anything, overall troop levels have increased. The only groups that switched focus from one country to the other were the Democrats and their enthusiasts in the "mainstream" media.

The War on Terror is not about one country, one group, or one person. Democrats don't want to admit that Pakistan has given up its terrorist support, becoming an ally in the war. They don't want to acknowledge that Libya has also given up terror support as well as its WMD programs, as a direct result of Saddam's removal. (Ghaddafi phoned Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi to say, "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.") Syria has begun to buckle under pressure to withdraw troops from occupied Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia is moving towards democratic reforms. If the mullahs that rule Iran stop working on a nuclear weapon, the Iranian people may get their chance to institute a democracy on their own. That's how the war will be won, not by pulling out of Iraq and leaving a lone fledgling democracy to be swallowed by its surrounding enemies.

If John Kerry and his cronies can again force the US to abandon its responsibilities by turning public opinion against the war, if we're forced to watch helplessly as innocents who trusted our promises are butchered again, then the Democrats will at last be justified in calling Iraq a second Vietnam.