Once upon a time, the discovery in Iraq of 500 munitions containing mustard gas or sarin nerve gas might have been big news. It would have demonstrated that the Ba’athist regime had not complied with its obligation under the Gulf War cease-fire pact (to account for and destroy its entire stock of chemical weapons). It would also have highlighted the dangers of leaving Saddam Hussein in a position to furnish weapons of mass destruction to terrorists operating in the Middle East, Europe or America itself.
So what is different today, when we learn, through newly declassified information, that “Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent” and that, in the judgment of U.S. intelligence agencies, “Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist”?
Nothing is different, of course, but I predict, with absolute confidence, that the bien-pensant media will not see in this news justification for any action taken by the Bush Administration. The conviction that Saddam had no WMD’s has become an entrenched “fact”, independent of its truth value. Thus we can expect, when the revelation is noticed at all (and don’t look for banner headlines), to hear a litany of reasons why it doesn’t matter:
“They’re leftovers from before the Gulf War.” The “leftovers” from his previous chemical munitions buildup are exactly what Saddam was obligated to dismantle. He didn’t.
“The chemicals have degraded.” As the same report says, “The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.” How many lives should we have risked on the hope that any weapons that Iraq or Iraqi-supplied terrorists might have used would have deteriorated to the point of being harmless?
“Five hundred isn’t all that many.” Not enough to defeat the Coalition in a stand-up conflict; many more than needed to kill thousands of innocents in Jerusalem or London or Madrid or Bali or New York.
“This doesn’t prove that Saddam built more after the Gulf War ended.” So he had only 500 (plus those yet to be discovered), not 5,000, and they weren’t quite state-of-the-art. Is that comforting?
“If this is all true, why haven’t we been told before?” One might blame the Bush Administration’s strange diffidence about defending itself or the machinations of anti-Administration intelligence bureaucrats, but the more straightforward and innocent explanation is that the evidence came in a few shells at a time, so that its cumulative significance wasn’t quickly recognized. Moreover, as Captain’s Quarters speculates in its excellent roundup, we didn’t want to alert al-Qa’eda and the Ba’athist holdouts to the existence of a potential arsenal or were worried about exposing intelligence sources. Whatever the reason for reticence, it doesn’t detract from the facts.
No one can now rationally contend that Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was a contrived excuse for war. But the “Bush lied” meme, like the fabled “plastic turkey” will never die.
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