To: AV Press
Date: 10/2004
Re: WMD (aka: Sure glad YOU knew there were none!)
Comment: I was not happy with the way the Saddam war was sold. It was obvious from the start that the administration was merely grabbing onto the WMD thing because it was a convenient and understandable handle to use in manipulating a complex situation. I also felt they were taking a hell of a chance in doing so, as it was always understood by everyone involved that our intelligence was not super-solid on this. Nevertheless, I was highly irritated when the anti-administration crowd elected to transform a not-entirely-unreasonable-but-wrong evaluation of available data into a "lie".
The infamous "weapons of mass destruction" issue has been beaten to death during the current campaign, but it would still be instructive to read the following lead paragraph quoted from an article in the Oct. 18 issue of TIME magazine (which is not exactly a conservative bastion). The article actually concerns the thinking of Saddam Hussein and draws upon the recent report authored by U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer.
“For years, Saddam Hussein showed himself to be a master practitioner of the big bluff. Everyone outside Iraq and just about everyone inside believed that he harbored a secret stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. So imagine the shock his generals received in late 2002 when U.S. forces were massing on the country's borders for an imminent invasion, and Saddam suddenly informed them that Iraq had no biological or chemical or nuclear weapons at all. Longtime aide Tariq Aziz told U.S. interrogators that military morale plummeted the moment senior officers learned Iraq would have to fight the U.S. without those weapons. The dictator's cunning policy of deception had deceived the wrong side.”
If we all had a nickel for every time it has been said or written that Bush and/or the current administration “lied” about WMD we could all join Bill Gates at his next dinner with Warren Buffet. Isn’t it odd how pronouncements based on best knowledge but later found to be incorrect are "lies" only when the person mistaken is a Republican?