Weapons of Mass Destruction Revisited

One of the problems with the 24/7 news cycle we are all subjected to is that it rarely allows for a story to develop before the pundits start giving us their analysis in real-time. The result is that we are often forced to reach premature conclusions. The fact that we've been conditioned to think in 30 second sound bytes and seek instant gratification (if we don't insist on having things "yesterday") makes it difficult to recognize this cycle.
It has been almost three years since we invaded Iraq and rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Although there were many other legitimate reasons for our actions, ostensibly the easiest one to sell to the public was that Saddam had WMD's, had used them in the past and as a result he needed to be removed from power before he acted again. When we failed to find any WMD's, the left took the opportunity to use this as evidence that President Bush lied to us in order to further his neoconservative agenda. (I'd wager that the majority of those who use this argument have never taken the time to actually learn what the definition of a "neocon" is, but I digress).

On March 12, The New York Times published the first of two articles on "Saddam's Secret Strategy." The Times reported that "the Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them [in December of 2002] three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense."
This information was provided to a CIA task force called the Iraq Survey Group by Tariq Aziz, who had been deputy prime minister of Iraq. The survey group was established "by the CIA after the second gulf War ended to investigate what happened to Iraq's weapon's programs." The Times article continues, "to ensure that Iraq would pass scrutiny by United Nations arms inspectors, Mr. Hussein ordered that they be given the access that they wanted. And he ordered a crash effort to scrub the country so the inspectors would not discover any vestiges of old unconventional weapons, no small concern in a nation that had once amassed an arsenal of chemical weapons, biological agents and Scud missiles, the Iraq Survey Group said." (link)

His own generals did not know that they had no WMD's, yet it was Bush who lied. But wait, maybe Saddam did, in fact, have WMD's; or at the very least, the capability to resurrect the program once he got France and Russia to persuade the U.N. to lift the sanctions and call off the weapons inspectors.
We are now in the process of interpreting 3,000 hours of audio tape and 48,000 boxes of records which document his military activities; records we surely would never have seen had we not invaded.

In one 1992 tape, Saddam discusses the diversion of electric power from a massive plant in Basra for a uranium-enrichment process like one the U.S. used to create the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In another tape, a top Iraqi scientist explains to Saddam how uranium is being enriched through the advanced process of plasma separation.
The tapes support the account of Mahdi Obeidi, who'd been in charge of the centrifuge program, that parts and blueprints were hidden from U.N. inspectors but not destroyed. Components of a gas centrifuge used to enrich weapons-grade uranium and documents relating to WMD were discovered in a barrel buried in Obeidi's backyard in a rose garden.

Too many people have too much of their credibility invested in the meme "Bush Lied, People Died" and in discrediting "Bush's War on Terror" to ever take an honest look at the entire issue. Anything that does not support this meme must be discredited at all costs. They will continue to pass as gospel reports by Western reporters safely in the Green Zone--who purchase gloomy stories from their Iraqi counterparts because they know that's what sells--as long as it supports the meme. Never for a moment will they consider that things may not be as bad as they seem.
Iraq continues to be story unfolding despite a 24/7 newscycle that forces us to react to every twist and turn of the drama. Stay tuned, and try not to lose your focus after 30 seconds.