Look gang, there are 4 possibilities:
1. Iraq had WMD. If that's the case, it's either been hidden, destroyed, exported, or all of the above. We KNOW that they formerly had WMD & the ability to produce it (war against Iran, Kurdish villages); the question is where the capability went, and what was produced & available to use.
2. Hussein had been misled by his scientists into believing that Iraq had WMD. They took money to make it, instead made convincing Potemkin Village weapons labs/bunkers/etc, deceived him & as many others as they needed to, and pocketed the rest. Along the way, our intel picked up their chatter to Hussein, and his to them, all based on the deception or the belief of extant WMD. Intel being what it is, it can be misled by such things... especially when liberal democrats raped the CIA's humint programs for decades.
3. Iraq no longer had any WMD, but wished to deceive the world into believing that they did. Why? Deterrence. Almost worked, especially when bleeding hearts argued prior to the war that "we can't attack them, they'd slime us!" The Dems were willing to be deterred, and all the troops entering Iraq were in MOPP 4, which slows things down quite a bit.
4. Iraq no longer had any WMD, and wished to prove that fact to the world. Not protestations of innocence (which would accompany every scenario -- Iraq wouldn't
proclaim they were violating UN resolutions, even when they want enemies to fear that they had secret WMD), but an actual desire to do whatever was necessary to convince the world that their universal belief (that Iraq had WMD -- EVERYONE in the western intel community figured they did!) was wrong.
If #4 was the case, then the war had problems. If Iraq was truly doing all it could, whatever it took, to prove their innocence, and got invaded anyway, that would be messsed up. But that clearly was not the case, as the inspectors noted how they were still being misled, deceived, denied access, etc etc etc.
Any of the other 3 cases, I would argue, all carry exactly the SAME necessity of going to war against Iraq WITH THE WMD CLAIM. Here's why I say that:
If you allow a pariah nation to defy the entire civilized world and hold them at bay with the THREAT of WMD, then you legitimize that threat as the ultimate "get out of jail free" card, and you make WMD into an ultimately desirable thing for rogue states to acquire. If your actions make the statement that "we think you have WMD, and we will NOT attack you on that account," then there is no downside to gaining them or attempting to gain them, or appearing to have them. WMD becomes legitimized as the tool to have, because few will dare to mess with you, and none will punish you (in a meaningful way) on that account.
On the other hand, US actions in Iraq were a perfectly clear signal that not only do WMD NOT protect you from American wrath, they are a severe LIABILITY in that department. Whether you have them in fact or as a deterring pretense, you're subject to great calamity on that account, and it would be far better for you to rid yourself of them, post-haste.
As Libya did, as soon as they saw how deadly serious the USA is about WMD in the hands of rogue states.
To make WMD a liability rather than an asset, the US
had to go after Iraq for appearing to possess them.
Side note:
When you understand the process of gathering intelligence, the sources & methods (as much as gets into the public domain, which is quite a bit, though not everything), and the limitations on each of them, you can see how no intelligence product can ever be perfect. When a nation is doing its very best to keep some of its cards very very close to the vest, investing great resources to protect the truth & deceive all attempts to see in, it's at best a terribly complicated task to piece together fragmentary evidence into a cohesive picture. Nevertheless, EVERY intelligence service in the western world reached the SAME conclusion: that Iraq had WMD!
Was this influenced by "worst-case analysis" and the post-9/11 shame of having missed a potential threat and the preconceived ideas about Iraq based on their past history? Probably so. But by the time one has PERFECT information, it's too late. The US acted on the basis of strong intelligence, and did the right thing, even if scenario #2 or #3 was more the case than #1. No deception on the part of President Bush or his team, and no regrets even if the WMD turns out not to have been there. See this article if you doubt that:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004883
(this being letters to the editor, from an ARRAY of experts on the question of WMD in Iraq)
A couple of other things:
From 'an imminent threat' to 'we can't find any evidence', the evolution of the administration's position is frightening.
What's frightening is that you quote the liberal lie yet again. In the State of the Union address, President Bush said very clearly that while Iraq was (at the time) a very dangerous nation, it was not yet an IMMINENT threat, but that to wait until we have certain proof that it IS imminent, would be to wait too long. You have to act against real threats BEFORE they are sufficiently imminent to impose mass casualties on the USA! The New York Times ran an article "discovering" that the threat was not, in fact, imminent, and using it as proof that BUSH LIED when, in fact, that was never his claim. But they had to put words in his mouth that he never spoke first. Bush didn't lie nor claim that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S.
US intelligence, unfortunately, has proven time and time again to be an unreliable source of information for military operations.
Only if you want to point to the notable failures and ignore the vast legacy of accurate information. All the hundreds of cruise missiles and GPS-guided bombs used in Iraq needed intel support to get the target coordinates. Were they all perfect? Doubtful, but they were plenty good enough to accomplish devastating results against the Iraqi military with colateral damage that was by historical standards, nonexistant.
Capturing Hussein, most of the rest of the "deck of cards," Kalid Sheik Mohammad, etc -- that's all intel driven. Stopping attacks against the US before you ever hear about them... intel driven.
Having seen the intel process much closer than most, I can tell you that while it isn't perfect, it's extremely good, and gives US policymakers & warfighters an awareness of what's going on out there lightyears ahead of what they'd have without it. Perfect, no. Excellent, absolutely.
Anyway, it was NOT the U.S. intel community out by itself claiming that Iraq had WMD. Everyone figured that they did. The difference with France & Germany was in the "so what do we do about it" step.
the general population at large knew information coming from Iraq was iffy, at best.
Outright false. The general population may have been divided over the "... but does it merit war" question, but few serious mainstream public figures doubted that Iraq had WMD. Kerry didn't. Clinton didn't. France didn't.
However, I will never support the outright invasion of a sovereign country without UN approval. I'm sorry if this offends, but my philosophy is that we are part of a global community and unilateralism has no place.
So if the UN had existed in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, Russia would have vetoed any resolution of condemnation against them in the UN, so you wouldn't support the Allies launching D-Day (but for Russia withdrawing her veto when she herself got invaded), right? Or if the USSR had opposed the coalition to free Kuwait in 1991, that would have been out for you too, right?
"Unilateralism has no place" means that soverignty has no meaning unless the U.N. concurs. That's a dangerous, dangerous thing!
