InstaPundit has some interesting links on Paul Krugman’s latest screed about Iraq and WMDs. It’s interesting watching the liberals spin like dervishes on this issue – they want to call Bush a liar, but none of them seem to have the cojones to do so. So instead, they just insinuate and spin that there was no evidence of Iraqi WMDs.
The problem is that even if Iraq didn’t have WMDs (which is unlikely as hell), there’s no evidence that the Bush Administration acted inappropriately. They were basing their information on the best intelligence they had at the time. They acted on a reasonable and prudent basis, and the Administration had the support of the American people. Furthermore, WMDs were only one causus belli for this war – Iraq did have connections to terrorist groups, including documentary evidence that the Iraqi government attempted to aid al-Qaeda, as well as the terrorist training facility at Salmon Pak south of Baghdad. The terrible human rights violations that were stopped by US military action also show that what was done was right.
In the end, it seems likely that Iraq’s WMDs will be found sooner or later. Perhaps much of it was hastily detroyed, perhaps some of it was smuggled to Syria or Lebanon. However, right now the war is over, and Saddam Hussein is out of power. The partisan acrimony over the causes of the war are of little importance compared to the needs of rebuilding Iraq and continuing forward with the war on terror.
I guess you’ll hear it from this liberal first. George Bush is a liar. Not only is he a liar, he’s a pathological liar. And actually I consider that a war that was started based upon lies is of the utmost relevance even after it’s “won,” much as you’d like to forget about that pesky fact now and “just focus on rebuilding”.
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of Sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent … upward of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents … materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin … 29,984 of these prohibited munitions … an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.”
– GW Bush, January 28, 2003 State of the Union
All I can say is that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. While it seems likely that Iraq did not have as significant a nuclear capacity as estimated, that does not mean that they had no WMDs at all. The discovery of the two mobile lab facilities proves that Iraq did have some kind of bioweapons program.
Furthermore, those estimates came from the UN itself, which made those estimates in 1998. At that time there was widespread consensus from Bill Clinton to Richard Butler that Iraq had a significant offensive capability – enough that the Pentagon initiated Operation Desert Fox. I’ve yet to hear any explanation as to where those weapons went in the last 5 years, nor have I heard any explanation as to why that information justified military action in 1998 under Clinton but somehow has become lacking since then.