Monday, October 06, 2003
A nice piece by a former UNSCOM inspector in today's Post: No Weapons Doesn't Mean No Threat:
The apparent absence of existing weapons stocks, therefore, does not mean Hussein did not pose a WMD threat. In fact, fragments of evidence in Kay's report about ongoing biological weapons research suggest that Hussein may have had a quick 'break-out' capacity to threaten his neighbors and, indeed, the United States with biological agents (possibly including infectious agents).
Everyone has good cause to wonder why Bush and team proclaimed that there were weapons onhand, whether because of their misreading intelligence, being deceitful, or being taken in by Saddam's attempt to establish a deterrent by claiming weapons he didn't have. But all this celebratory hooting by the anti-war left seems premised on the notion that Saddam never had weapons. Given his own history of using them, and the discoveries made during the inspections regime, that is a bizarre position to take. If one honestly takes the question to heart, it is not "where are they?" but "why aren't they there?" Few would be so bold as to posit that Saddam had a change of heart.
A close reading of the evidence that has emerged would indicate that his strategy for obtaining these weapons changed, but his basic intent did not. This puts one in the position of defending the infamous sanctions regime against Iraq, which was a poor second place to deposing him altogether. But that requires taking more interest in the topic than the hard Left (not the Left as a whole) is generally capable of expressing. By all means, let's find out what the roots of pre-war misintelligence were; but let's recall that we were far from alone in perceiving a threat from Iraq. This is a sober-minded task, not a witch-hunt.
The apparent absence of existing weapons stocks, therefore, does not mean Hussein did not pose a WMD threat. In fact, fragments of evidence in Kay's report about ongoing biological weapons research suggest that Hussein may have had a quick 'break-out' capacity to threaten his neighbors and, indeed, the United States with biological agents (possibly including infectious agents).
Everyone has good cause to wonder why Bush and team proclaimed that there were weapons onhand, whether because of their misreading intelligence, being deceitful, or being taken in by Saddam's attempt to establish a deterrent by claiming weapons he didn't have. But all this celebratory hooting by the anti-war left seems premised on the notion that Saddam never had weapons. Given his own history of using them, and the discoveries made during the inspections regime, that is a bizarre position to take. If one honestly takes the question to heart, it is not "where are they?" but "why aren't they there?" Few would be so bold as to posit that Saddam had a change of heart.
A close reading of the evidence that has emerged would indicate that his strategy for obtaining these weapons changed, but his basic intent did not. This puts one in the position of defending the infamous sanctions regime against Iraq, which was a poor second place to deposing him altogether. But that requires taking more interest in the topic than the hard Left (not the Left as a whole) is generally capable of expressing. By all means, let's find out what the roots of pre-war misintelligence were; but let's recall that we were far from alone in perceiving a threat from Iraq. This is a sober-minded task, not a witch-hunt.
