Hans Blix had this to say on WMDs, which reflects something I always thought at the time:
Do you like the phrase ''weapons of mass destruction''?
It is a very poor phrase, because it lumps together chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, which are very different. About 35 to 40 countries have chemical weapons. If you just take nuclear, you have 8 -- plus 2.
But lumping together those very different weapons ( of which, of course, it turns out Saddam was 0/3 on) makes perfect sense when you really, really want to start a war. Then there's the "evidence" issue:
You yourself initially believed there were weapons! Only later did you change your mind.
Yes, I, too, believed there were weapons. I began to be skeptical when we went to sites that were given to us by U.S. intelligence and we found nothing. They said this is the best intelligence we have, and I said, if this is the best, what is the rest?
( both quotes from nytimes.com via techstocks.com )
It's true enough that not a lot of people was willing to say flat out say there were no WMDs, but nobody had any real evidence that there was, either. The true believer line that it was somebody else's problem to produce evidence is, well, consistent with the usual looking glass "facts and logic". Under conventional reality, it would sort of seem that the people wanting to start a war ought to be the ones with the evidence, but since that particular line doesn't seem to be compatible with W's campaign needs, it must be considered inoperative. |
