Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/21/2003 | Trudy Rubin | Are we safe? We can’t know

Has the capture of Saddam Hussein made Americans safer?

Howard Dean’s claim to the contrary set off a political firestorm last week as other Democrats flayed him and Republicans watched with satisfaction.

But Dean’s question is more complex than either party admits. …

“If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you,” he told Diane Sawyer, as she kept asking whether the weapons of mass destruction threat had been imminent or hypothetical.

“What’s the difference?” the President asked.

The difference, of course, is that the administration based the war on the claim that Hussein had the weapons already. In reality, the White House rallied Americans to fight an unknown unknown.

Ironically, however, the invasion of Iraq and Hussein’s fall have unleashed their own future dangers – more unknown unknowns.

Iraq is unstable, its political direction unclear. … Democracy? Iraqis have no civil society, no democratic institutions – and it will take decades to build them. …

Things may get better. … Or it may prove a lost opportunity, and terrorism may worsen. We just don’t know yet. That’s why Dean’s question is relevant – and hard to answer. There are too many unknown unknowns.