With respect to Saddam's WMD or lack thereof, it's such an "eye of the beholder" thing, turning in large part on how you stand on the 2004 presidential election, and/or on the concept of the US as sole superpower, and a multitude of other factors.
If the shells are left over from the Iran-Iraq war, and are degraded, to me, that's not terribly important, because we knew he had Sarin then, and he was supposed to have destroyed it, but could not prove that.
I'd be interested in learning about existing programs that could make new Sarin shells.
I admit I haven't been scouring the reports looking for evidence that Saddam retained an interest in making new WMD once the sanctions were removed (if ever) because I assume that he must have been, otherwise he would have let inspectors in.
The only semi-intelligent argument against this is one of Mq's raps, that Saddam wanted to retain sovereignty and thus of course would not let inspectors in because they were spies. Yeah, well, we see how that turned out.
The recent Senate report confirms that Saddam was at least interested in buying yellowcake, which isn't for birthday parties.
Maybe he wasn't a danger in the near future, but I agree with Bush and Blair, it was stupid to wait.
The only semi-intelligent argument against THAT is why Saddam, why now, why not Iran, North Korean, et al? And the answer to that should be, their time will come.
If Kerry is elected, it would be interesting to see what he does about Iran and North Korea. He'll have to do something, whether it's proactive or reactive. |
