“Saddam had WMDs, and he supported terrorists. The jury is in.”

My counterpoint: we knew Saddam was likely to have WMDs in 2003, and he supported terrorists. The jury is in.

These were NOT the weapons they were looking for, is what the official said

I suppose if Saddam had secretly manufactured nuclear warheads in 1998, and we found them in 2004, then it still would be irrelevant because those wouldn’t be the weapons we were looking for either, since nobody thought his nuclear program was completed.

Mustard gas has a very long half life, unexploded ordinance from WWI still kills people from time to time throughout the old battlefields of Europe. Saddam was supposed to have delivered ALL his WMD to the UN inspectors, this proves he didn’t. I don’t care if weapons were made in 1989 or 1992; pre-Gulf war or post. WMD in the hands of terrorists is unacceptable. Period.

Saddam had WMDs, and he supported terrorists. The jury is in.

The fact that this was classified also suggests that the gov’t isn’t holding back on anything bigger.

June 19, WaPo publishes Khaliljad’s memo to the boss.

June 22 the report is released.

Damage control? Youbetcha!!

Knave, I mistakenly deleted your comment as I was culling spam. I believe this was it. My apologies if I didn’t get it all.

“’There were no weapons of mass destruction’ ‘There were no links to Al-Queda’ Both of these ant-war talking points have now been completely de-bunked, and can never be used to villify the decision to go to war ever again. I believe that is significant.”

Oh please. Completely de-bunked? These were NOT the weapons they were looking for, is what the official said. They were old, pre-1991, and unusable, probably left over from the stuff we already knew he was up to. This “debate” is so tiresome.

I wonder if one of those “who knows� types could tell me if the road to Kos Diarist is bumpy and painful?

Most likely. However, I think that this news is most likely very thin. A cumulative survey of the WMD problem in Iraq has certainly core much fruit, especially the kind that can put us, as a nation, in danger. I understand the Cheney 1% doctrine, but we can’t allow that to govern our foreign policy decisions, no matter how scary a world we’re presented.

One can still be glad that these weapons found their way into our hands, rather than AQ’s or insurgents’, and still point out that Sen. Santorum is trying to blur the line between prior stocks and the covert labs and programs that we did not find. One could still point out that maybe, just maybe, if it took this much effort to find what we have, maybe there’s some “there” there that we haven’t found yet.

Or, one could go completely f-ing bonkers and convince themselves that, well, Saddam didn’t even KNOW he had these. He just lost them, you know, with all the humanitarian services he was providing, who has time to keep up with all this stuff?

And I’m sure that f-ing bonkers type would be more than happy to ask for this stuff under some sort of FOIA act, and go clean their kitchen with it, right? Cuz’ it’s inert now, ya’ know. No more powerful than stuff you find under your kitchen sink, ya’ know.

I wonder if one of those “who knows” types could tell me if the road to Kos Diarist is bumpy and painful?

However, I still hold firm to my position that getting rid of Saddam was something that had to be done. The naysayers who cling to the asinine position of “Saddam only killed his own people. It’s none of our business” have now had to come face to face with their own immoral positions for all thier Bush hating and slandering.

Paul, you and share the same attitude toward the whole ordeal as I mentioned on my blog how Rebs should act with this new information no matter how it gets spinned.

“There were no links to Al-Queda”

Both of these ant-war talking points have now been completely de-bunked, and can never be used to villify the decision to go to war ever again. I believe that is significant.

Of course, personally, it wouldn’t change my view of the war, as I wasn’t nearly as concerned over Saddam’s actualy WMD capacity as I was about Saddam’s flagrant promotion of international terrorism as a foreign policy tool.

If the hypothetical evidence mentioned above caused the nation to suddenly approve of the Iraq war, part of me would be annoyed at the inconsistent metric. If people disapproved of the war because they felt it was based on faulty intelligence, then they should approve of it only if they decide the intelligence was being misrepresented as faulty, and not just because there was faulty intelligence that just happened to be right. (Hope that makes sense.) I suspect many war-opposers would make this point, and it would be a good one.

As far as this goes, the only Republican chest-beating I’ve heard about so far is Rick Santorum. That lowers my impression of him a few notches. He sounds like he’s using this to misrepresent the validity of his war position. He shouldn’t need to. His position’s validity should be independent of this particular news.

It doesn’t change the substance of the situation in Iraq at all or alter what we need to do or what we’re likely to do there. It won’t save a single American or Iraqi life, it won’t strengthen the new Iraqi government, it won’t have any impact on the insurgency in Iraq, it won’t change public opinion there. It won’t build a school or hospital or keep the electricity turned on or the oil pipelines pumping.It won’t persuade anyone of anything.It doesn’t change the fact that Americans and Iraqis are dying. It doesn’t change the fact that the Iraqi people are completely exhausted by the ongoing violence.It doesn’t change the fact that President Bush has repeatedly and unqualifiedly stated that he will keep American troops in Iraq until the Iraqi government is able to defend itself against the insurgency.

Yup, the WMD debate has long since attained “water under the bridge” status.